Congratulations Carla from Comprehension Connection!

Carla from Comprehension Connection is hosting a giveaway to celebrate her 300th follower!  Wow!!  Head over and visit her blog and join the fun.  I'll be giving away my Apples! Apples! Apples! unit.  Who couldn't use more apple stuff??  Good luck!!

Gettin' Artsy in Summer School)

Just finished the 3rd week of summer school!  Two weeks (8 days) to go to my official summer break!  Here's a few of the projects my kiddos did this week.  I hope you like:-)

We read "A Kiss Goodbye" by Audrey Penn.  It's one of the cute Chester books.  I found a chalk drawing on Pinterest and simplified it a bit.  Here's a Kinder sample.

Check out Marymaking at:  http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2013/04/raccoon-portraits.html

We also read "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear" by Don and Audrey Wood.  Holy Cow that little mouse is cute!  For the art project we used primary colors to paint a strawberry.  Kids had to mix blue and yellow to make green for the strawberry top.  We used blue to shade one side of the berry and yellow to brighten the other side.  

Next, on to "Surfer Chick" by Kristy Dempsey.  I just discovered this book and it is adorable!  Loved explaining that  the term "chick" can refer to girls and baby chickens.  I also read "Pig Kahuna" by Jennifer Sattler. Both books talk about kids overcoming fears.  Here's a hibiscus flower we did after reading.

And finally, I read a book about a garden (I can't remember what it's called).  Then we did this hyacinth flower project I also found on Pinterest ( I love you Pinterest)!

Gotta love a project with fingerprints! This idea came from 

http://dalimoustache.blogspot.com/2012/04/hyacinths.html.  Again, I simplified it bunches:-).  

Have a fantastic weekend!  Stay cool!

Summer School is Cool!

I am in summer school mode!  I'm teaching a literature/art class.  I only have two periods so I am done by 10:30 every day!  Yahoo!  My first period is Kinders and my second period is 1-3 graders.  I'm pretty much able to do the same projects with each group but the second period is by far more independent and does a little more detail.  They all seem to like the projects no matter how old they are!  One of the projects we did last week went with the book "The View At the Zoo" by Kathleen Bostrom.  Super cute book that I just got at the end of the school year.  Here's the cutie giraffe we made after reading the book.

I think these were both done by Kinders.  We used a chalk stain to color them.  I loved to hear their squeals of delight when I showed them how to do that.  They were Amaaaaazed:-)

I got the giraffe idea from http://josettebrouwer.edublogs.org/2011/01/15/second-grade-giraffes/.  Thank you so much for sharing such a cute idea!

On Monday we'll be doing a strawberry draw/paint project using primary colors and reading the story "The Big Hungry Bear and the Red Ripe Strawberry".  Check back!

Catching Up to Do!

Holy Cow!  Where have I been???  Let's just say I've been livin' life!  My daughter got engaged about a month ago.  Whoopy!!!  The wedding is August 2nd.  Yes...August 2nd as in three months from now!  AAAAAAAaaa!  We are busy girls getting this blessed matrimony together.  It is a blast!  My family loves our future son-in-law to pieces so we are very lucky.  

So way back in April, I was doing some CGI from my spring CGI packet and I was rejoicing at the fabulous, awesome, amazing brilliance of my little guys.  Here's a pic of one of the problems and how my sweet guy figured out the answer.

I just introduced multiplication a few weeks before and obviously this guy has it down!  I think it is so cute that he drew little circles at the top of each column to represent each bag.  Sometimes when we do CGI I just want to dance down the aisles! 

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week!  I don't know who the brain was behind creating a week for teachers but I'm sure happy about it!  Our awesome PTA provided treats in the lounge every day.  Not just a bagel...it was a massive snackfest!  I'm a little scared to get on the scale at Weight Watchers tomorrow!  One of my parents decorated our classroom door.  It was a definite home run!  That's my kiddos little faces on the baseballs.  

On one of the days, our Principal and AP visited each classroom with a coffee cart and served us!  That was awesome!  I had hot chocolate and a donut hole thank you:-).  My kiddos were a little jealous so I told them after they go to college for 6+ years and become a teacher they can have hot chocolate in front of their class too!

Oops!  I'm out of order.  Oh well.  Here's a little Earth Day activity we did in addition to my Earth Day packet.  Each kiddo created an Earth Day poster as a part of their homework for the week.  I broke them up into small group using the Rick Morris cards, and they shared within their groups.  I loved seeing the pride they showed in their work and the thoughtful remarks they had for each other.  Here's a pic.

This little missy is totally pointing out everything on her poster and explaining what she did.  She is VERY  verbal (which comes in handy when sharing but not at other times).

I almost forgot to share this fab giveaway!  Wendy from First Grade Fireworks is having a celebration for her 50th bday!  Happy Birthday to Wendy!  Head over to her blog and enter the giveaway. I donated my Hawaiian Luau packet.

My hubby is vacuuming right now;-)  Life is good!

Lucky me!  I'm so excited to be the featured teacher/author spotlight on John Hughes' blog Educatorslife!  He is so dedicated to helping us all share our ideas and products.  Thanks so much, John!  Please stop by his blog and leave a comment:-).

One more week til Spring Break!!  Wahoo!!

Word Problems

The CC Math Standards state that first graders represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.  That's what's happening in my classroom with my themed word problem units and I LOVE it!  Here's a peek at a couple of the pages we worked on for February...

I was lucky enough to get CGI Math training from my district.  I am sooooo glad and so are my kiddos!  I am amazed every time we do it!  Here's why:

1.  Kids are totally engaged

2. Kids interact

3. Higher level thinking  (yes!)

4. My kids learn to explain their thinking and share their ideas in front of the class using the doc. cam and microphone.  Cute as can be!!

5. If someone is stuck, they get up and walk around to see what others are doing

6.  It's magical to watch them manipulate math tools

I had some math manipulatives but I wrote a grant to purchase more.  Each table gets to choose from a variety of tools to use to solve problems.

You can check out my February word problem packet at my tpt store.

Tell Me Something Good!

Happy three day weekend!  Whoot!  Whoot!  
I'm joining Jennifer's linky!  Head over to Rowdy in First Grade and join the fun:-)
Here's the scoop...you have to tell something good that's happening at school and at home.  So, at school I'm thrilled getting really excited about the Common Core Standards.  Is that weird??  We are a little behind but we're getting there:-).  Higher level thinking???  YES!!  Can't wait to check out the new testing that will be coming down the road.
What's good at home???  Gotta say...EVERYTHING!  I'm a happy camper these days.  I got to SKYP with my son tonight so that was the BIGGEST thrill of the day.  Also saw the movie "Silver Linings Playbook".  And I have the day off tomorrow!  I'm going to try one of those burlap painting crafty thingys.  I'll post a pic if it turns out presentable:-).