So busy!

I have a very busy little bunch this year and I love it! 

This year I made literacy kits for my kids. If their families wanted one they just let me know and I would send one home. 

This is what I include: a mini-white board and marker, a shaped magnetic white board, a hand-made game called Fry Frenzy, a sight words board game with little Lego dudes as the game markers and an alphabet paper with all the letters and sounds listed, oh yes and a levelled reader. I also include a letter to the families describing all the games and materials and what they can do with all the items in the bag. Here is a photo of the contents of the bags. 

We have been learning about the Fall season. We read a story called Leaf Man and we created Leaf pictures from the leaves we collected in the school yard. 

I had the children write a sentence about their leaf picture. This child wrote: "See the leaves." I see a leaf dancer." 

So cute!

"See the leaves." "I see a kid."

They were all so unique! 

This month we are learning about Bats! This is a personal favourite of mine! I love doing this theme unit of study. I use it for covering some science and language arts. 

So we made Vowel Bat pointers to go with the Vowel Bat song on You tube and our Vowel bat book! 

SO much more to share! I will need to take more pictures! 

What a busy week!

We are working on patterns! So we have 10 different centre activities to work through with our centre partner. 

Pattern blocks is a favorite! 

Pattern caterpillars

Milk lids! 

Unifix cubes

Foam shape pattern kits

Play dough and number stamps

Paper shape patterns

Look at the cool pattern I made!

We made leaf creations!

We printed a sentence about the leaf creation we made.

We experimented with colour mixing and created circles that we turned into little birds!

They are so adorable! 

We are in the midst of our colour unit, so we tye dyed t-shirts! It was super fun! We used squirt bottles to squirt the dye onto the shirts! That made it even more fun! 

We adopted a tree in our school yard. We are going to watch this tree over the school year to see it change. This will help us with our science unit on seasonal changes.

We noticed a little ladybug in the arm of the tree. We decided that means our tree is lucky! 

These are the leaves on our tree in September. 

This is the bark of our tree in September.

We studied the letter O and made octopus hats! They look so cute! 

Science is SUPER groovy!!

We really are enjoying Science! My little friends get very excited when they see me put on my Rainbow LAB coat. It is almost like a signal to them that something cool is going to happen!

This past week we created Mini Explosions of colour! 

You should have heard their "oohs and ahhs" and "this is so cool!" 

They also look super cute in their science goggles. 

It was so quiet while they were working! It was AMAZING how engaged they were! 

Eagle Eye!

Here is the little eagle eye that we made to remind us to use our Eagle EYES when we are reading. Look for clues in the pictures and Look at the words! 
I think he turned out so cute! 
The original idea came from The Moffatt Girls Eagle craft from teachers pay teachers. I bought their package about Eagles, took the craft and modified it! I shrunk it down on the copier and then had the kids glue it to a paper lunch bag. The kids LOVED it and so did I! They were CUTE! 

This is an adorable new book I found! It is so funny! Some of the humour only Adults will understand, but kids will still really like the story! 

These are the Elmer the Elephant Paintings we worked on. I plan on adding in a writing element too! 

It has been a very busy but fun week! Looking forward to the days and months ahead! 

This little class group has so many funny kids! They say the cutest things! 

They make me smile everyday! 

New Year and New Friends...and FUN!

                                 School is now in full swing! 
I am excited to be working with some wonderful people this year! I have two wonderful educational assistants and a teaching partner next door who is so fun. I love having a teaching buddy to share the workload with and to bounce ideas around. She's great! 

My class is a busy little bunch! They are excited about learning and we do ALOT everyday! I am usually worn out by days end. Can you say NAP? I come home and need one! Hopefully as the year moves on I will build up my stamina again and so will my little people. It's tough to go from going to school every second day when they were in Kindergarten to summer where there is no school, to going to school everyday! Big change and transition! 

We have been in ABC boot camp this week! We are reviewing one letter and sound per day! I am also doing beginning reading strategies with my kids. 

This week we worked on Eagle Eye! We made a very cute puppet. 
I am attempting to upload a photo but for some reason my computer is not in the mood! I will have to try again later. Perhaps it will adjust it's attitude! 

School starts tomorrow!!

Tomorrow is the first day of school! I am excited to meet my new class of little people! I am also excited to be working with an educational assistant this year! Yay! An extra set of hands (eyes, ears and other parts) is always welcome.
I have been working in my classroom since mid-August; setting up and copying and decorating. Now I am into shoving and hiding things away! The first day crept up way too fast!!
Oh well...Good-Bye summer, I will think of you fondly!
Hello fall and back to school! Hello new friends and old.
It's goning to be an AWESOME year!!

Dollar Tree and Michael's crafts!

I admit it...I am a Shop-a-holic! I love me some shopping! It's the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of the cool find! I could shop for hours! 
I also love to make things for my classroom. (I think I said that in my last post!) Well the creating continues! 

I went to Michael's craft store. Just inside the door, there was a clearance table. Clearance tables have a way of calling to me! I found some bottles of coloured sand! Yay!

I know you are thinking...What? why would anyone get excited about jars of coloured sand? 
Well let me tell you! 

I instantly thought, "Hey, this would be cool with SIGHT words inside!" So that's what I will be doing! I will place sight words inside the jars. Then the kids can turn the bottles and find the sight words and then write them on a sheet, and for a challenge they can write a sentence with the words! One centre- four kids, done!

Then I had some plastic bugs, from Dollar Tree. (Love Dollar Tree!!) I wrote sight words on the bugs. The bugs have between 1 and 4 words on them. I put the bugs in a plastic tub and covered them with the sand. Then to use the centre the kids can dig into the sand and find the bugs and pull them out and then write the words they find on the bugs. 
I think it will be fun!

It is funny because one of the blogs that I love to read had some of the same ideas as me! I even emailed her and told her that I think we share a brain or we are somehow on the same wave length! She emailed back and said that we should go "Dollar-treeing" together sometime! Her blog is fabulous and she has been doing it a bit longer than I have. She even has her own Teacher's Pay Teacher's store. Her blog is called     firstgradeandfabulous.blogspot.ca
I love her idea for pool noodles! Check it out! I am making that one too! 


Her pool noodle idea, sparked my own pool noodle ideas!

 I went to Dollar tree (again!) and bought some paper towel holders and pool noodles. I even found STAR shaped pool noodles! I bought them! Then I cut the pool noodles into little donuts or little flat stars with a hole in the middle! The kids can use them to build PATTERNS! Yay! Pattern centre activity! I can also add a worksheet to it where kids can show on paper the patterns they created. 

Making things for my classroom is so fun! I'm already thinking ...Hmmm...What's next?