Five for Friday

I'm back for Five For Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Here are five bits of randomness from my week...

ONE: We learned about veterans. 

The Veterans are... can... have...is a FREEBIE from Cara Carrol.  The acrostic poem is from Rebecca Johnson at First Grade Fascination. I can't recall if this comes from her blog or her TpT store because I've had it for a couple of years. I just free handed some tracers to make the Marine. The yellow buttons are actually the dot on the lower case i dye cut. And the star is the top part of a book mark dye cut from the work room.

Have you read a book called, H is for Honor? If you haven't you should get it for next Veteran's Day.

We read the book and added the words to our anchor chart about veterans which made completing the acrostic poem waaaaaaay easier. I saw the book at our school's Scholastic Book Fair for $4.99. 

TWO: Turkey Takeover. The second graders at my school read Turkey Trouble and then disguised their own turkeys. They went all out! Can you believe how great these turkeys turned out????

tree

ninja turtle

Mulan

Mario

wrestler John Cena

Batman

Ariel

I think the tree and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are my favorites, but they were all sooooo good!

THREE: Pilgrim Pete. We just started a unit on shapes. So I figured out how to make Pete wearing a pilgrim's hat out of plane shapes. You can find the template here. 

FOUR: This happened. The kiddos were creating new shapes using pattern blocks and writing a description of their designs. Read this description.

I asked the little guy to read me his description. He read, "It's a sun with blue stripes." Guess we need some more work on those S-blends! He he. 

FIVE: Neighborhood patrol. Ok, so this didn't happen at school, but it did happen during the school week. That counts, right???

My neighbor is a Houston police officer. He bought his daughter a squad car for her birthday and customized it by adding real police lights. He snapped this pic of his daughter and my daughter, Evangelina, pulling over my daughter, Isabella, in her Barbie Jeep. Priceless...too stinkin' funny.

Have a great weekend!

Let's Talk Turkey

Hiya friends,

I'm FINALLY updating my blog. November has been a very busy month! First grade went on a field trip to the zoo. Best.day.ever. We went on a Friday, so the Houston Zoo was virtually empty. The weather was cool and breezy. Fall field trips are definately the way to go. The zoo recommends Wednesdays for field trips, but it is so packed you can hardly find a place to eat lunch. Trust me - plan your field trip on a Friday.

Somewhere between using picture clues and prior knowledge to make inferences and identifying attributes of 3D shapes we found time for turkeys! We made these table decorations for the Thanksgiving Luncheon using brown paper lunch bags and cut-outs of our hand prints.

The kiddos had a blast choosing Native American names and making these headbands. The kids traced pattern blocks to make a design on the headband. We used pattern blocks because we are currently working on 2D and 3D shapes. I gave my firsties their first feather for "free". Additional feathers could be earned for good behavior. Some of the kids had a band full of feathers for the feast.

We also made dyed noodle necklaces. One of the brillant teachers on my team taught me how to dye noodles! The necklaces turned out super cute, but I don't have a pic. Here are what the noodles looked like prior to being strung on yarn:

If you don't know how to dye noodles, it's super EASY and super FAST. They dry in about 10 minutes! I bought elbow and penne noodles. I don't recommend elbow noodles. Elbows are difficult for firsties to thread yarn through. Get any large noodle that resembles a tunnel. Penne worked great, but I know there are others. Dump some noodles into a gallon size baggie. Add about 2 tablespoons of alcohol and lots of food coloring. Shake the bag, roll the bag, pat the bag until all of the noodles are the desired color. Dump onto newspaper or paper towels to air dry. Done. So simple. Genius. I wish I had thought of it! If you use yarn you will need to wrap a piece of tape around one end so it will push through the noodle easily. Balloon ribbon or fishing line works great and is inexpensive. Making the necklaces was a favorite activity last week!

We also read some turkey poetry and made these paper plate turkeys to decorate the hallways.

We get this entire week off! Do you? Happy Thanksgiving!