School's out for summer!

School in our area is finally out for the summer holiday break! YAY! I have so many things to do this summer. First, I am off to Las Vegas for the "I teach 1st!" conference! My best friend (who also teaches grade one) and I, plan on shopping and hitting a show while we are there! Plus we are both super excited to attend a Blogger meet up, so we can meet and greet with some of our very favourite First grade bloggers! Some of these ladies are ROCK STARS in our eyes and we can't wait to meet them! Plus we will meet Todd Parr! He is a wonderful children's book author and artist. I really want him to autograph one of my books and hopefully I can get a picture too!
Before I go and enjoy my holiday, I wanted to share something simple that "saved" my end of the year! Most teachers know that June is crazy for kids attention and behaviour. Well, I brought in a "friend" to help me out! Her name is "Clucky" and she is one FUNKY Chicken!
As soon as I introduced her to the children, they were in love with her and listened to her whenever she had something to say. She's quite sassy, but very fun! She always started her day by having the children do "The Funky Chicken Boogie" (her very favourite song!) Then she would say rather loudly, "Guess what?!" and the children would respond, "Chicken Butt!" And she would dance around! Then we would all laugh and then Clucky would "teach" the lesson and she kept those kids attention!! The kids even invited her to come to our school sports day. Kids would hold her little wing and run the various races. "Clucky" would cheer for them at other events. "Clucky" is by far the most fun way I have kept the kids attention right to the end of the school year! The children loved her and would ask to sit and read to her or ask to play at centre time with her. "Clucky"is probably the best puppet I have purchased! The kids know she is a puppet, but that's the beauty of teaching grade one, that line between fantasy and reality is still a bit blurry and they love to play along!

3 Pigs and stuff!

We have been learning about the different versions of The Three Little Pigs. My students LOVE this story! I also made some story props so they can act out the story. Let me tell you when they acted it out, it was HILARIOUS!!

We made piggy pies from a follow the directions picture recipe by Deanna Jump. So fun! The kids loved it and ate it up!

Long abscence...sorry!!

Hello, Friends!
I have not been posting in a really long time! Basically due to the fact that my life suddenly got SUPER busy and I felt I didn't have 2 seconds to breathe! I had a bit of a health scare and had to take some time off from my work in the classroom. I am so happy to be back in the classroom again to finish off the school year with my kids! I do have a lot of photos to post and I hope to get to that as soon as report cards are all finished! the end of the school year is fast approaching and there is a mountain of things to do! Plus I am already thinking about how I want to change things up a bit for next year! I have furniture rearranging plans in my head and ideas swirling around about how I want to change things up for next year! It is hard to keep myself focused and almost impossible to keep the kids focused! Everyone has play outside in the sunshine on the brain! I have a brand new deck in my backyard and I really want to be laying on my deck with a cold drink in my hand and blank paper to write down all the ideas!
So check back and you will se more pictures of our fabulous and VERY busy year!