Lovin' the Weekend and Dr. Seuss!

Wow! What a fun morning we had yesterday. Originally, we weren't supposed to have school on Friday but it was a snow day make-up day. One of many that we will have this year... agh Wisconsin winter is getting to me this year (I love winter until about the end of January, but this year has been rough)! Since we were in school, I decided to make it our BIG DR. SEUSS READ IN EXTRAVAGANZA! The past few weeks leading up to yesterday, we have been reading TONS of Dr. Seuss books, which are my favorite, especially The Sneetches.... I think we've read that one three times already this year. :)

Here's a look at our Lorax craft that we did a few weeks ago. Students wrote about what they would do if they were the Lorax. I'm wishing right now that my bulletin background wasn't yellow but I didn't have the time or energy to change it before I hung up our artwork. On the plus side, my Truffula tree actually somewhat turned out this year... last year it looked so sad that I couldn't bring myself to hang it up.

Yesterday, the kiddos came to school in their pajamas. They were allowed to bring a small stuffed animal, a small blanket, and their favorite Dr. Seuss book from home.

Firsties look so cute and innocent in their PJs! Too cute!

The kids spread out around the room, read Dr. Seuss books, and did some Dr. Seuss writing/puzzles/mazes. For a FREE COPY of my Dr. Seuss printables, click the link!

I also made GREEN EGGS AND HAM... which I told the kids about a few days ago. I was soon met with many silly "ewww, gross!" comments so I did not have high expectations for the kids actually eating the green eggs. However, the most miraculous thing happened... every single kid ate their green eggs and ham... AND THEY WANTED SECONDS! I almost fell over. One little girl even smelled hers and said to me, "Mrs. O'Connor, they smell so good!" I don't know about you, but deviled eggs never SMELL GOOD to me... I love them, but the smell is stinky! I guess you truly never know what is going to happen when you teach first grade! That is one of the things I love most!

I was starving yesterday after school and I convinced my husband to go to Olive Garden for dinner (my guilty pleasure)! Comfort food! We stopped by Half Priced Books, where I love to look for books for my kiddos book bins and I found a few that I think they will love for Read to Self!

I also found a new book for myself. I can be kind of picky about books so I was excited to see that there is a sequel to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It look creepy, but it is intended for young adults, so it's really not! I always love reading books in a series, but I just get so attached to the characters (something that my kiddos are feeling about Cam Jansen...). Excited to dig into this one soon! I am a big fan of series like the Hunger Games and Harry Potter and I would put Miss Peregrine into that "type" of book.

Hmmm, this is one of those weekends, where my husband and I really don't have any plans, which I LOVE! I am totally looking forward to relaxing this morning, drinking my coffee (loaded with Hershey's Chocolate Caramel creamer, of course! Oops!), listening to my favorite Pandora Radio Station (Ella Fitzgerald), and finishing some of my lesson plans for next week.

My First "Five for Friday"

I cannot tell you how much I LOVE looking at teaching blogs. So many great ideas out there!! Here's my first Five for Friday Post... linking up to DoodleBugs Linky Party!

 

Take a peek at my 5 favorite things from this week!!!

 

 

NEW WORD WORK:

 

Since we have returned from winter break in January, I have been OBSESSED with finding new, fun word work activities. I try to have at least one new center every week for my kiddos to do. This week, we had two new centers:

 

Foam Letters:

I picked up these foam letters at Michael's Craft Store (I got three boxes on CLEARANCE!) and  sorted them into little tubs. Students use our weekly word list cards and the foam letters to practice their words!

Sight Word Sticks:

I posted about this new center on Monday, but here's another look at our sight word sticks Click the link to see my previous post and pick up my free printable! :)









COIN COUNTING PRACTICE:

One of the things that we have been working on in math is counting coins... so far we are using pennies, nickels, and dimes. We are soon going to add quarters as well so we did a little extra practice with using coins to make different values. Grab your free printables for the Count it Two Ways sheet and the Coin Cards.

 

 BUILD A SENTENCE:

We had parent-teacher conferences this afternoon which allowed me a little extra prep time between conferences. Put together these "Build a Sentence" books. Students flip through the cards to put words together to form a sentence... a little bit tedious to make so I only made 5 to use as one of my centers or with a small group during Work on Writing. If you are interested in making these for your classroom, here is the link for creating the flip books and the recording sheet.

 

 

 

Due to snow and freezing rain, we had two days off of school this week. I never thought I would say this but I am totally getting sick of snow days this year. Teachers had to report to school on Thursday afternoon because we had parent-teacher conferences. Between conferences, I got a little extra prep time in, which was GREAT! However, it means that my desk was a complete disaster when parents were in for conferences... I guess that is the reality of my teaching... I hope that a messy desk reflects that I'm being productive (not that I'm disorganized!), right?? Although, sometimes I'm not so sure.

Working on two computers at once... I was a busy bee!

 

 DR. SEUSS PAJAMA DAY READ IN!

I am so excited (maybe even more excited than my students?) for our Dr. Seuss inspired Read In today. Students are coming in their pajamas (me in my Cat in the Hat shirt) with blankets and stuffed animals and we are going to spend our morning reading and writing about Dr. Seuss. I even brought in a special treat... GREEN EGGS AND HAM. I'll post more about our day this weekend. Love fun Fridays!!

Ready to go... they are stinking up the fridge at school as we speak... Oops!

Well, that's all for my first Five for Friday. Time to get going on my lesson plans for next week before my kiddos arrive in an hour.

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Things I'm Loving Right Now!

Mystery Words: New Word Work Center

I recently stumbled upon a post from Cara Carroll of the First Grade Parade from 2010 for a great word work center! Click the link to view her blog and get a copy of her free printable!! I love her ideas!! I re-created the labels so that I would be able to create more bags.

I put seven consonant and two vowel magnets into each mystery bag! Students dump out the letters and make as many words at they can with the mystery letters. If students got to a point where they could not find any more words, I had them write sentences with their words on the back of their paper.

 

They LOVED it!! This little sweetheart spent the whole 20 minutes of our Daily 5 round finding words and didn't want to clean up when the round was over! Thank you to one of my favorite bloggers for this great idea!

Our Martin Luther King Jr. inspired bulletin board:

With Martin Luther King Jr Day a few weeks ago, my students and I had some great conversations about equality and racism. For a lot of my little firsties, this was their first experience discussing the civil rights movement and there were many questions and thoughtful comments! We read a few books that I would highly recommend. The illustrations are vibrant and the text is rhythmic and inspiring (even for a young reader). There were many words that I had to explain, but that opened up great conversations. Here are my favs...

After reading these texts and discussing civil rights, students wrote about a dream that they have for our world. Here's a copy of our writing paper. I thought that I would have to really help kids this about THE WORLD AROUND THEM as opposed to THEMSELVES. I expected many kids to say things like "I have a dream that I will get to play my wii," etc, but my students' dreams and visions for the world inspired me!

Students traced their hand in two different colors to add to their writing.

Amen to that!

Happily Awaiting our DR. SEUSS PAJAMA DAY!

Each student has a 20 time slot each week to use our classroom computers for our "Listen to Reading" center. For the next few weeks, students will get to play Dr. Seuss themed games on Seussville.com! They love it!

In preparation for our Dr. Seuss Pajama Day Extravaganza, I put together this packet of Dr. Seuss activities for students to do as they lounge around the classroom in their pajamas, enjoying their favorite Dr. Seuss books! Click the link for a free copy! Can't wait for our Dr. Seuss Day!