AARRR and Other stuff

YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!   Both of my projects were funded through Donor's Choose.  I received my Ipods today.  I had to do report cards, so I couldn't set up the Ipods, but I can't wait to get them into the kids hands.  So much can be done with them.  The shipment of picture books (my other funded grant) won't be here until Friday or next week.  So excited to get those too.

Other happenings...

Yesterday the kids went to see a musical called "A Diary of a Worm, Spider, and Fly."  I heard it was pretty good.  I was home with a sick little boy so no play for me.  However, I did let the kids make dirt.  Pudding, oreos, and gummy worms!  No pictures - I wasn't there!

We are working on the "ar" sound this week.  So many fun things to do with this sound since it is all that pirates say!  I, of course, stole a great idea from the internet!  I hid AR words all over the classroom and the hallway (even one in the ARt room).  The students had to find them, read them, and put them on our treasure map.  When we found them all and the kids got to grab some treasure of their own.   They loved it!  What's that?  You are missing the pictures?  True, I slacked on taking them.  I'll add some in later.

We also played a game that practiced subtracting doubles.  I modeled my thinking (example:  "Hmmm, 12-6.  Well, I know 6+6 is 12 so 12-6 must be 6!)  The kids laughed because I was being a little silly, but I'll be darned if they weren't saying those exact things when playing the game!  We are working on strategies for subtracting from 20 and the kids keep asking for more "tricks" to solving problems.  They aren't tricks, they are just understanding numbers - but hey, if tricks are more motivating, well then I will keep teaching them tricks.

Tomorrow we are making "synonym" rolls.  I promise pictures.  I totally stole this idea off the internet too.  I love teacher blogs.  So many great ideas.  I'm babbling.  I feel inspired to write yet have no actual topic.  Maybe tomorrow.

Versatile Technology

My project is up on Donor's Choose - its to get some Ipods for my classroom.  Do you realize how much differentiated can be done with technology?  Amazing!  If you follow my blog, take a minute to check it out and donate!  Even $5 helps.  AND if you donate before March 19 and use the code BLOOM in the match code box (you will see it at check out) your donation will double!  Click on the picture below to check out my project and donate.  You are awesome!

Science City Field Trip

What a day!  I applied for, and received, a grant to take our grade level to Science City.  It was GREAT.  The kids had so much fun.  We learned how gears turned by playing with movable gears on a magnetic wall.

We walked through a "Mystery" Hotel full of optical illusions (this was a favorite.)  

Here, you can "lose" your legs.

There was a giant chalk wall to write whatever you wanted.

A bike on a rope.

A maze, a treehouse full of birds, a place to dig for dinosaur bones, a minature train city (that was actually HUGE and awesome), a sewer slide, crime lab, science sphere, life size artery, space shuttle, helicopter, waterfall and so much more!

 (if you look closely, I am in the middle of all of those kids with a pony tail!)

It really is such a neat place.  Some of my coworkers were a bit more worn out than me - but I am a high energy person so I can forgive them :-)  I have one little friend who is, quite literally, obsessed with trains.  He found a little piece of Heaven when he hit the train exhibit.  You could start the sounds of a real train engine, play in a caboose, see real trains from a lookout, and - of course - the super cool model train city that lit up and moved at the touch of a button.  I mean, this thing even had tiny little people on moving seesaws and merri-go-rounds that actually moved.  It was so neat.

When I asked the kids what their favorite part was the Mystery Hotel won, hands down.  They got such a kick out of all the optical illusions.  I took some pictures inside the hotel, but it was too dark so they did not turn out so well.  Can't wait to go again!

Projects, Projects, Projects!

Wow, been a few days since I blogged last.  I need to do better at this, but we have been busy!  We learned all about the water cycle (of course, the song as well!)

In honor of President's Day we did research on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  The students compared and contrasted all the facts to write a great report.  (I was really impressed by their work and effort.)

We celebrated Leap Day by making frogs.  On their tongues we wrote our doubles facts to 20 and on the back of the tongue we skip counted by 4.

And of course - we can't forget to honor the one and only Dr. Suess.  I completely stole all of this off of Fun-in-First-Grade (an awesome blog that you should totally check out.)  We read The Lorax and identified the story elements.  After that, we made environmental posters.

On top of all this we did a massive writing project about our favorite teacher and finished up a unit in Treasures (our reading series.)  I finished up having my observations by my principal and my evaluation (which went very well!)  Whew!  Goodbye February, Hello March.  It went so fast.

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Donors Choose

Ever wanted to donate to a charity or a cause and didn't because you were not exactly sure who your money would help or what it would be spent on?  If those causes were education related, Donors Choose is the answer!  Thousands of teachers have projects listed from every state.  Everything is for their classroom.  The teachers never see money and are only given the supplies that are listed in their project, so there is no fear of your hard earned money being used for anything but these amazing projects.

I, of course, have projects up and ready to be funded.  One is for picture books to use in the classroom.  Not just for my students to read, but for me to teach with.  Starting any unit with a good book is sure to capture the attention of my 6 and 7 year olds.  The other is for iPods in the classroom.  I have a link at upper right hand side of this blog... it goes to my giving page.  You just donate to it and the money goes to my projects.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!  Donors Choose is hosting a matching campaign from March 12-19.  If you donate between these dates they will match whatever you donate!  All you need is the matching code... which they haven't released yet.  But as soon as they do, I will let everyone know so you can get double your impact for your donation.

If helping out a classroom and students wasn't enough, you also get a tax break.  Every donation is tax deductible.  Everyone wins!  So, give $5, $10, $500...ha.  It would be amazing to have both of my projects funded in the double matching week.  I think we can do it!!!!

Tattle Box

This post was here, and now it is gone.  The only thing left was the comments, title, and labels.  How strange is that?  I was writing about my tattle box.  I have one in the classroom so the kids can write down all their tattles.   Basically in all my ramblings, I said that this is the best way to keep the kids from interrupting the class for tattling and have them practice writing all while feeling like they are still being heard.  Here's a picture of my tattle box.

The kids each have a pad of paper in their desks so they can write down what they need to tattle about.  They are only allowed to put tattles in the box when we line up.  The box is conveniently located on a shelf just by the door.

If anyone has the original post in an email, please let me know!  I will repost.  I can not remember all of my witty remarks from the first time around.  

Valentine's Day!

For the Halloween party I served the food too soon.  For the Winter party we had too many tasks to accomplish them all.  I think now I have it figured out.  One project, one Valentine's work book, and food served the last 15 minutes of the party.  I only let 5 kids pass out cards at a time, so it worked well.  I actually came through with my maze idea!  I love when I think of something and I actually do it.

The kids LOVED them - a lot more then I thought they would.

Their project was to make a book for their parents (or grandparents, or aunts, or uncles, whomever they preferred)  The front title was "I Love You"  by: Student Name.

The book had between 2 and 6 pages.  Each page said "I love you because..." and then they finished the sentence.

Normally I would have had them do more on their own, but I just did a sentence starter so we could get it done in the amount of time allotted and it would still be cute.

One of my little girls made this adorable valentine box for me to collect all my valentine's in.

Oh, and on a Teacher of the Year note... our amazing custodian put up my pole for me so I have a designated parking spot.  So excited :-)

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Tornadoes and Teacher of the Year!

This morning we had a gathering and I was awarded Teacher of the Year!  I'm so amazed and humbled!  I have awesome colleagues, so to know that they think I am great is just the best feeling.

We also had a short day for the kiddos and the teachers were off to Professional Development.  We have been learning about storms all week so today we focused on tornadoes and made some tornadoes with our big buddies (a third grade class down the hall).  The students thought this was the best!  It's so easy too.  I bought a case of the cheap bottled water (since you have to fill the bottles with water anyway...).  I tore the labels off and gave one bottle to each student.  We put in a few squirts of dish soap and some glitter.  I found the best idea for adding the glitter - just wet a pencil in water, stick it in the glitter, then put it in the bottle of water.  The glitter washes off into the bottle.  Simple, clean, no mess - and the perfect amount.  The buddies had a great time shaking the bottle and finding the best way to make a tornado.  We found that it is easiest to see if you turn the bottle cap side down and shake it very fast like a maraca as opposed to swirling or spinning the bottle.  I failed to bring my iPad to school today so no pictures of all the fun.  Maybe next time.

Still, here is a link to a great video with some visuals on how to make the tornado (including the pencil in glitter trick) Click on the picture below.

Classroom Songs

Corporations sell billions of dollars worth of junk just because they have a catchy song or phrase attached to it.  I'm a teacher, I don't sell junk, but I DO sell education - to my students, every single day.  I am a firm believer in marketing.  If they remember it, they will buy it.  Because of this, I make up hand actions for all kinds of things (QAR, Rules, vowel sounds, etc.), I try to think up acronyms or mnemonic sentences, and - my favorite technique of all - I sing.  Now, my repertoire of songs is minimal and my vocal chords are generally off key, but oh, give me a good sort of mono tone song about academics, I'm sold!  Anyone remember Animaniacs?  They had some great songs that I always loved and still use today: Presidents, states, capitals, and more.  Too bad most of them are for subjects a bit higher then first grade.  Still, I have some good ones for our firsties.  I have no idea who wrote these, but please know NONE of these are my personal creation.  I only dream of being that creative!

Handwriting (to the tune of "If You Are Happy and You Know It")

Always start your letters at the top

Always start your letters at the top

When you write a letter

you'll get better and better and better

If you always start your letters at the top!

Doubles Rap

It's the doubles baby, 

let's go, let's go

It's the doubles baby,

and it starts with zero!

0+0=0 oh!

1+1=2 ewww!

2+2=4 more!

3+3=6 kicks!

4+4=8 great!

5+5=10 again!

Place Value (this one I got from teachertipster.com)

It's an army marching song, the kids repeat each line after you say it.

I don't know but I've been told

(I don't know but I've been told)

10's are tall and 1's are small

(10's are tall and 1's are small)

First you count up all the 10's

(First you count up all the 10's)

Then add the little babies on to the end

(Then add the little babies on to the end)

Water Cycle (to the tune of "Oh My Darling, Clementine")

Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation on my mind

Their all part of the water cycle

And they happen all the time

Those are the best ones I have but I am ALWAYS looking for more.  If you have some great ones, let me know.  If you have friends that have great ones tell them to log on here and let me know.  Lets get all the great academic songs in one site!  That would be awesome.

Educational Websites

Happy 100th day!  (well, to those of you who started August 10th or 11th or so).  I will have to post some of the activities later.  Tonight, let's focus on the world wide web.  The treasure trove of, everything.  I find it hard to invent my own things because, well, most of it has been invented!  I'm sure with my exploration of technology I will tweak lessons in new ways, but the days of creating lessons that work without knowing of someone who has done it before are quickly diminishing.  Blogs and community sights like ProTeacher or A to Z Teacher pop up everywhere with amazing teaching ideas.  So many that they can sometimes be overwhelming when you just need something specific.  I surf the web a lot, but I like to have islands I can land on when I'm too tired to sift through the waves.

For reading comprehension I have found amazing lessons on Readworks.org.  Not only do they lay out 2 or 3 great lesson for each reading skill at every elementary grade level, but they also align each of those lessons to every states standards AND the Common Core State Standards.  Don't have the book that they suggest to use in the lesson?  No problem!  The site also lists alternate books for each of their lesson plans.  So far each lesson I have used has been wonderful.  The best part about it?  Every part of this website is absolutely free.  It's run by a not for profit that just wants to make sure everyone figures out how to read.

Another great site is themathworksheetsite.com.  If you want access to the entire site you have to pay, but the fee is minimal.  Still, what you can get for free is awesome.  You can create math worksheets for any subject and they are good!  Simply choose the number of problems, the parameters, etc and hit publish.  Voila, yours for the taking.  Need multiple versions of the same quiz?  Done!  Not just facts either - they have geometry, time, money, measurement, early education, place value, fact families, function tables, graphing, algebra, logarithms, games, tangrams, checks and registers, and more!

A great site to have an actor read some great stories to your kiddos is storyonline.net.  The Screen Actors Guild members got together and volunteered to read stories of some really great children's books.  They do the voices, show the pictures, all of that.  It's fun for the kids.  Great for you if you don't have a book and they have it on there, or if you just want a picture book told to your students by someone who can tell a story better then you.

For my fun, crazy, classroom songs I turn to teachertipster.com.  This guy teaches 1st grade and has loads of fun with his kids.  I'm a rockstar at heart, so I have no problem belting out these tunes in an off key voice and my kids love it!

Of course there is teacherspayteachers.com.  This site has so many activities created by teachers for teachers that it can be too much.  However, they just reworked their site so you can now narrow by subject, type of document, grade, and price.  I spend a lot of time in the "free" zone.  Every seller is required to have at least one item offered for free so there are a TON of things in all subjects that are available for download without paying a penny.

What are your "go to" websites?  I am always looking for more islands!  Surfing is hard work!

Frustratingly Funny

Smaller... a seemingly simple word.   Apparently with only one meaning for one of my students.  This boy has a really rough time with subtraction and addition.  He always wants to add regardless of the sign or story problem, but he can't add or subtract anyway so the answer is never right.  I am really beating my head against a wall with this kid.  So today, I send him to study hall to try to finish more subtraction practice.  The other first grade teacher looks over his paper when he is done and says "No, we are subtracting, not adding."  "Subtracting?" My student says.  "Yes, see the minus sign."  "Minus sign?" my student says.  "Yes, when you subtract the numbers get smaller."  "Smaller?" my student says.  "Yes, smaller."  "Smaller." my student says.  The teacher smiles and off my student goes to try again.  He returns moments later and (I wish I had taken a picture of the paper) the answers are erased and rewritten in the tiniest handwriting he can manage.  He wrote the exact same answer just SMALLER.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

A Piece of Classroom Management

I realize classroom management is more then just the consequences (good and bad) but that is my focus today. Last year my kids were jumping off the walls.  Literally.  I had an observation by my principal and during the lesson one student got up, ran across the room, jumped off the wall and ran back to his desk.  I was mortified! I needed a better system.

Our school all goes by a color system for the most part.  "Green" is good, "Yellow" is a warning, and "Red" is a call home, or note, or whatever the teacher decides.  Nothing wrong with this system, but over the summer I found one I liked even better.  I actually saw it in several different places so I don't know where the idea originated exactly.  It is the same basic idea as the green, yellow, red - it just has more levels.

My kids had a great day today!  Anyway, every one starts on Green "Ready to Learn".  If they make good choices they go up to Blue "Good Choice".  If they do a great job they go up to Purple "Great Choice."  Should students decide to make poor choices they go down to Yellow "Warning", Orange "Loss of Privilege", then Red "Call Home."  I like this system because the students can go up as well as down.  It makes it easier to make an example of the good kids.  

Some logistics... I had the banner printed at Vista Print (great site if you have used it... you can get loads of free stuff, though I did pay for the banner).  It was their small banner.  I just uploaded a PDF document that had the colors and definitions on it as my image. Click on the link below to access the PDF.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0niKLdbTCbGOTlhZjM3ZmUtYWRmYi00YzdjLTkxYmYtNGFkZTBiMjYxMjFk

If my kids end on Purple they get a Money Card

These are again from Vista Print... 250 free business cards!  I just used one of their already made templates and changed the wording so it worked for me.  They also get a sticker to wear home (again Vista Print free address labels)

If they are on Blue they get two tickets (like the carnival tickets at a fair) and a sticker to wear home...

If they are on Green they get one ticket.  5 Money cards or 10 tickets buys them a prize from my prize box. It seems like a lot, but really, it takes a few seconds at the end of the day to hand out the money cards and tickets.  The kids like it.  They are sooooo excited to get the stickers and end up on purple or blue.  

This is individual behavior.  The class as a whole has the challenge to fill up a hundreds chart.  Each time they get a compliment in the hall from another teacher, or I think they have done an exceptionally good job at something as a class, they get to pick a random number from a bag and put it in the hundreds chart.  If they get 10 in a row we have a Popsicle party.

We have had one so far this year... we are working on our second!  Anyone else have a great system they use?  I'd love to hear about it!  I'm always looking for ways to make mine better.

Valentine's

I was playing with my daughter today and we were looking at all the stuff she had in a gift bag from a recent birthday party.  One was a maze.  You know, the cheap little circular ones...

I thought I would buy a class set of these and attach a cute tag that says "You aMAZE me!" for Valentines for my kiddos.  

I am sure someone out there has thought of this before, but it is a great new idea for me!  I'll post the finished project when I get there.

Fact Families

I started my fact family unit by drawing a picture of a house.  I asked the students what it was... and who lives there.  I explained that people who live in the same house are related.  OOPS!  Half of these kids have one person, if not more people, living in their house who are not related!  So I backtracked a little and explained that who you live with is your family.  Ok, moving on.  I drew three numbers in the attic of the house.  The "daddy" number at the top point, the "mommy" number to one side and the "baby" number to the other side.  I asked them how they were all connected.  I explained that they each had something to do with the others.  The kids had a really tough time with this so I had to suggest that the two small numbers added up to the big number and if you subtract one small number from the big number you get the other small number.  Then I showed them the facts that belong in the house and sent them to their desk with their own piece of construction paper.  I told them to draw a house, I gave them three numbers and they were supposed to write all the facts.  I have 20 kids... .two got it.  A disaster! You think I moved a little to fast?  :-) - Back to the drawing board.

The next day I brought them all to the carpet and we looked at connecting cubes and squares.  I put 3 connecting cubes in one square and four in the other.  I moved both sets to a big square.  I showed them the addition problem.  I moved one small set back and modeled the subtraction problem.  I moved both sets forward and modeled the turn around fact.  I moved the other small set back and modeled the other subtraction problem.  I put them in partners with their own squares and connecting cubes.  About three more got it.  Ok, making progress!

I visited the house idea again.  Now that I had some kids getting it they were able to help me with the lesson.  I used a premade house this time (learned my lesson on that!).  I modeled using a domino to get the "mommy" and "baby" numbers and then adding those together to get the "daddy" numbers.  We filled out the house as a class.  Next, I paired those 5 with 5 who weren't getting it at all and put the others in partners as well.  I gave each pair a domino.  They had to find the three numbers in the fact family and then find the four facts.  If they were successful, they brought me the page and I gave them each their own domino and house to complete on their own.  Once they did that successfully they were able to color the house to add to our fact family neighborhood.

More kids were getting it, but we needed to catch the rest of them.  So I made up a wiggle dance.  They held 4 fingers up on one hand, and five on the other.  We wiggled our left hand and shouted four.  We wiggled our right hand and shouted 5.  We put them together and wiggled our whole body while shouting nine.  We did this over and over again adding the words "Four ::wiggle:: plus Five ::wiggle:: equals Nine ::body wiggle::"  We repeated this with the turn around and subtraction facts.  Super fun.  

The activity I did yesterday has been my favorite so far.  I made five sets of signs (just sharpie on white copy paper) Each set contained three related numbers, an equal sign, and a plus (one one side)/minus (on the other) sign.  I asked for five volunteers.  I gave each volunteer a sign.  First we looked at the numbers in our fact family.  We found the daddy number, mommy number, and baby number.  We reviewed that the mommy and baby add up to the daddy.  We made this number sentence with our signs.  Then we did the turn around fact.  I stressed that the daddy number stayed at the end of the number sentence!  Next, we did the two subtraction facts and realized that, again, the daddy number did not move and stayed at the beginning of the number sentence.  After this was modeled I split the class into 4 groups of five.  I gave each group a set of signs (each set used different numbers).  I assigned a scribe.  Their job was to find all the facts in the fact family, write them down and be ready to present to the class.  They LOVED this.  I walked around the room and heard lots of great explaining going on.  No one dominated the conversation or just directed people around (which is great, because that happens a lot)  When they all had their facts written down each group had a chance to go to the front of the room.  They had to state the numbers in their fact family and then arrange themselves to show us each fact.  This physical movement helped out a lot. 

Have all of my kids mastered fact families?  NO!  Tomorrow I am going to split them into groups again and give each group an addition number sentence.  They are going to work together to find the other three facts in the family.  After that, I'm out of ideas.  Anyone else have any???????

New Year's Resolution Writing

Alright, so the entire class isn't done, but half of them are!  The other half... most are almost done.  So I thought I would post about it!  We read the book (remember?  Squirrel's New Year's Resolution)  We talked about what resolutions were.  Then we brainstormed what we did well in 2011 and some things we would like to do better on in 2012.  They used this organizer to help them with each paragraph:

This is what I gave them to write on:

The next step with this organizer will be to have more yellow and red sentences in a paragraph, but starting with just one is OK with me!

After they were done with their final draft, we pasted it onto black construction paper and dazzled it up a bit.

We have sparkly New Year's resolutions!

I think they did great.  Don't you?

Just a Hello

I really wanted to show pictures of our New Year's Resolution writing... but it's STILL not done!  The kids are working so hard on them, and I expect a lot, so it might take awhile.  I saw a lot of people that posted pictures with cute art and then one sentence attached (or maybe two) about their New Year's resolution.  If I put something like that out I would be in trouble!  It would not be near the rigor expected (not saying that those aren't good activities that I wouldn't LOVE to do).  My kids are writing two paragraphs.  The first is about what they were good at in 2011 and the second is what they want to get better at in 2012.  We are using the stoplight writing organizer to help them.  (Green, main idea... yellow, detail about main idea... red, more about yellow... green, back to main idea.)  I have some kids on their final draft, so maybe by tomorrow i can post some pictures of their work and decorations.

We are also working on a fact family neighborhood (pictures to come... when we get it done).  Everything a work in progress, nothing finished yet.  That's good though, right?  Projects that make you think more take more time...right?

Snowman Fun

Students first day back and the kids were perfect!  I expected some time would be needed to review expectations - and we did, a little, but it was just small reminders.  Of course, I had 3 kids absent so maybe that helped the class seem so calm.

We worked today on estimation, skip counting, and adding with a very large snowman.   I started the lesson by introducing estimation.  I asked if anyone had ever heard the term (they hadn't.)  Then I explained what it was - a good guess.  We looked at a bucket full of bottles of glue.  I carried it around the classroom and let everyone take a glance in the bucket.  I asked them to talk to a partner and estimate how many bottles were in the bucket.  They decided 15 or 17.  I asked them why they didn't choose 500?  They said it wouldn't fit.  I asked them why they didn't say 3.  They said it was obviously more than three.  I helped them make the connection that they were making a good guess by using what they know about buckets this size and the size of bottles of glue to estimate how many might fit into the bucket.  The actual number was 11 - I think they did pretty good!  Next, I pointed to a 6 foot snowman that I had made in the front of the room.  I told them we were going to cover the lower half of the snowman with snowflakes, but before we did that we needed to estimate the number of snowflakes that would fit on the snow man.  I gave each one of them a snowflake and let them come up to the snowman for 30 seconds just so they could see the snowflake next to the snow man and get an idea.  Then I passed out paper to everyone and they wrote their name and their estimate on it.  We put them all into a bucket and then put them aside.  I will check them to see who was the closest and that student will win a little prize (we ran out of time to check today.)

Next, I laid the snowman on the ground and we all sat around it.  I asked them how we should go about putting on and counting all of these snowflakes.  Of course they said just glue them and count.  I suggested that perhaps that would take a long time to count all those snowflakes one by one.  I asked them to think of a faster way to count the snowflakes.  We've worked a lot on skip counting, so I wasn't surprised when someone said we could count by two or five.  Then another student said it would be hard to keep track of which snowflakes we had counted.  I was really enjoying this discussion!  I asked how many snowflakes we would glue on if each student glued on 10 snowflakes.  Many of them looked at me like I was crazy, but then one sharp kiddo started counting by ten and pointing to each student.  The other students counted on and started helping her.  We came up with 120 snowflakes (some kids were in pull out - I don't usually have that small of a class!).  They thought that was too many.  So I said, ok, how about one each.  12 - nope that was too few.  So we finally settled on 5 each.  We all glued on 5 snowflakes each, I had a student write 50 on the board - but we still had more room.  We discussed more and decided that everyone putting on 5 more each would be too many so we should try just 2 each.  We each glued on 2 and I had a student write 24 under the 50 (get where it's going...)  We continued skip counting and deciding how many each person should put on until we had the snow man filled.  It took a lot of discussion to come to a consensus each round.  When we were done we added up all the numbers - 108 snowflakes in the end!

The kids had so much fun doing this. It was a great way to help them see how to use skip counting for something useful and great practice on estimation.  Each time we glued on more snowflakes they had to estimate how many more would need to be added into a smaller space.  So many skills were being used at once!  One girl started counting by fives to guess how many would go in the space left and another student asked her why she was counting by fives, then proceeded to explain to her why she should count by one when estimating unless she is picturing 5 snowflakes (she had been using her hand to size out the empty space and her hand is about the size of one snowflake).  I don't know if they actually needed me in the room :-)

The other first grade teachers on my team did the snowman estimation too.  One did a "Snow Boy" and the other did a "Snow Woman."  We had a little snow person family.  So cute!  

Well that was my fun for the first day back.  Anyone else have amazing discussions in class when you were expecting chaos???

The Mess

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
--Albert Einstein

I am a stacker.  Given the chance I will stack piles of papers, books, folders - anything, anywhere and everywhere.  So today, during our work time in the classroom, I took out my desk.  It was a big step.  A desk is like, security.  Your place for your things.  I didn't need it though.  I never went near it when the kids were in the room and when they were out I always sat at a table to grade papers, or do other work, because my desk was always stacked a mile high with junk!  My cousin donated a bookshelf with sections and I used it to organize everything.  It actually worked out so that I had space to put everything in an organized manner with room to spare.  The best part, there is no way to stack anything.

I still have my space but I take up about 6 feet less of prime real estate in the classroom and I have to be organized.  Forced organization is the best way to keep it straight.  On an even more positive note, I was able to put up pictures of my babies on the side so I can see them every day.  Much better then knocking over a frame all the time.

I also found a great tip for organizing construction paper on a blog called "Two Things In Common."  I filed it all away in my hanging file folders so it is not falling all over the place sitting on top of the cabinets.  (This is her photo, not mine, but mine looks exactly the same!)



I love having the time to organize some of the classroom.  I may be a stacker, but all of those stacks stress me out!  Life is so much calmer when everything has its place.  Any other ideas on organizing the classroom?

"Out of clutter, find simplicity."
--Albert Einstein

New Year's Resolutions

My fabulous winter break is over - welcome to the new year!  I've been spending my time with family and haven't really done anything about school. I did search the internet for some great ideas to use in the new year. Today I sent my husband on a mission to the library to find "Squirrel's New Year's Resolution"

I have seen a lot of posts about using it in the classroom so I thought I would check it out.  I read it to my daughter - she seemed to enjoy it.  She's two, so the discussions of resolutions didn't really happen. However, with my first graders it will!  We will talk about resolutions that we can make and ways we want to improve ourselves.  I also want them to think of some things they did well in 2011 - it shouldn't be all about what we need to work on.  The perfect writing project for our short week back.

My resolutions for this year?  My personal one is to feed my family healthier food.  My professional one is to really look at my centers and small groups to see what I can do to make them more meaningful.  From a management perspective the classroom runs smoothly, but I often feel like the center activities are sometimes filler and the small groups are just choral reading.  Ok, so it's not that bad, but I just want to improve it.  Suggestions are welcome!  I have two more...I am making a resolution to blog about all of the amazing work we do in my classroom :::big smiles::: and maybe, just maybe, start a store in Teachers Pay Teachers.  I also resolve to keep all of my resolutions.  The last one's a loftier goal, but hey, go big or go home.