Sunday Rewind - Teacher Appreciation Week and Parent Volunteers

This past month we had Teacher Appreciation Week at our school and my parents outdid themselves. Let's see --- Starbucks deliveries, Chipotle lunch, a banner decorating the front of the outside of my classroom, flowers, and a huge stash of gift cards to my favorite places. I have the most creative crew of parents this year.  The gift cards were tucked into a grapevine wreath.  What teacher doesn't love a few gift cards. The kids also brought in cute things that teachers love - Ticonderoga pencils and flowers. My favorites were the hand drawn cards where the kids assured me that I am the BEST.TEACHER.EVER.  At least until they get their awesome 2nd grade teachers.

Now it's my turn to show my appreciation to my parents for all of their hard work volunteering in my classroom this year.  I am blessed with a huge group of volunteers - 14!!! Yep 14!  They work with small groups of kids and prep mounds of materials for me - making copies, cutting out laminating, collating and stapling little decodable books.  You get the idea. Last year I made homemade salt scrub for my volunteers.  This year I think I will bake some yummy Peanut Butter Blossom cookies with Hershey's kisses on top. I found a cute parent volunteer tag here Parent Volunteer Gift Tag from The Teacher Wife.

Just about perfect to add to the cookie bags. 

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies - You can find the recipe on the back of a large bag of Hershey's Kisses.

How do you honor your parent volunteers?  I would love to hear your ideas.


~ Clara at Teaching 365

Sunflowers and Ladybugs in First Grade

Sunday Rewind

We have 13 days left in this school year.  Can you say holy light speed?  The next 3 weeks are sure to be a whirlwind of end of year activities.  Let's see... Open House, Spring Sing, Field Day, and the End of the Year Party.  

Our Open House was this past Thursday.  I don't  know about your school, but where I work Open House is a time to show off your students' best work and is attended by almost all of our families.  It is also a time when potential students come to visit and see what is in store for the next year.  While it is very rewarding to hear the comments and compliments from the students' parents, it is also exhausting.  So a little down time this weekend is in order.

Here are some pictures of my favorite Open House projects.

Opinion Writing - What would be the best superpower to have?  I was proud of my firsties as this was one of their first assignments that they typed in the computer lab.  And yes they had help - some more than others - but the words are all theirs.

Spring Acrostic Poems with Tissue paper tulip art - The poems are underneath the tulips.

Parts of a Flower interactive science project 

Poetry in a Jar - My teaching partner came up with this awesome poetry project.  The kiddos choose a poem and then put items into the jar to illustrate the poem.  Very creative ideas!

How many days are left in your school year?  Are your remaining days filled with special events?  I would love to here about any fun things you do to keep the kids (and the teacher) interested the last few days of the year.

~Clara @ Sunflowers and Ladybugs in First Grade 

Teaching 365

Christmas Fun

The last few weeks have been filled with first grade fun.  We made several  holiday crafts including a rudolph, a wreath, and a dancing Santa.  The kids had so much fun.  And... we still had lots of time for practicing our reading skills and math facts.

We made Santa ornaments for our parent Christmas gifts.  I had seen the project floating around Pinterest and decided to take the plunge.  The kids loved them and they turned out so cute.  The only downside was using glass ornaments.  We had a few breaks.  Next year I will try to find some plastic ones that won't be so fragile.

Here are some pictures of a few of our other holiday activities:

We decorated Christmas trees.  The kids made them 24 different ways and they were all adorable.Go Niners.

 We wrote letters to Santa and the first graders did a great job with their letter writing.  I made copies to share with their parents before sending them off to Santa.  Later in the month Elves visited our classroom and hand delivered Santa's replies to their requests.  Gotta love those middle school language arts teachers that are willing to help with a little holiday magic.

When the new year begins, it is back to Common Core, a new science unit on Weather, lots of phonics and reading practice, and telling time and graphing in Math.  We are working with  new pacing guides for both language arts and math.

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year full of learning and first grade fun.

~ Clara

First Grade Sunflowers and Ladybugs

Desk or no desk? - that is the question.

After many weeks of trying to make a final decision, I did it.  I got rid of my teacher's desk!!!  

It was a huge old school desk, metal, with 13 years of use.  I wanted to gain space for the

munchkins and boy did it.  This year in first grade, each class has 24 students.  

I need all the room I can manage for students to use, and move, and create, and learn, and grow. I will replace the desk with a reading table that was already in the room and voila, 

at least 30 square feet more useable space.  I converted two of the drawers in an existing cabinet to "desk drawers" to store my school supplies such a paper clips, etc. 

 I added a small book case behind my new work area to organize my daily bins, 

teacher's manuals, read alouds, and things I normally would keep on my desktop.  

I am so excited to try out the new arrangement on Monday.  

How do you arrange your work area in your classroom?  Do you have a table or desk you use?  I will post before and after pics soon.

Daily Five - How is it going?

Read to Self - 20 minutes - whew we made it.

Work on Writing - nearing 15 minutes.  The kids love their journals and have made amazing improvement in their writing already.  I am amazed.

Word Work - Surprise, surprise - going well!

 After rereading the sections in the Daily Five book multiple times, long discussions with my teaching partner and gathering materials, we dived in. My awesome partner made cards with the spelling lists for the kids to use for Word Work.

Some of the materials at the word work center are:

Rainbow Write with Mr. Sketch markers

Magnet Letters 

Scrabble Tiles 

Alphabet Stamps 

Wikki Sticks
Alphabet beads

After trying two other systems that were not effective, efficient, or kid friendly, I bought a set of bins with clip on lids that can both house the materials for storage and 

can be moved easily by kids to their work spots in the room.  Can you say happy teacher?

Listen to Reading - After many challenges to get this going, I can finally get the listening station going using the IPads in my classroom. I will download audio books onto my Mac and then sync it to the IPads using Dropbox.  By using a Belkin Rockstar headphone splitter, two students can listen at the same time. Whew... Magic! You can attach up to 5 sets of headphones to one IPAD.  Woohoo:)

Read to Someone is the last part of Daily Five that needs modeling, practice, and stamina building. Who knew that choosing partners could be so challenging for six year olds? We have a long ways to go on this one for developing independence.

How does Read to Someone work in your classroom? I could definitely use some insight.

By the end of this week, I will have all five parts of Daily Five going and it is only October 13.  Definitely cause of a mini celebration for this milestone in first grade.