Community Helpers Unit

These community helper puppets and pictures are included in our Community Helper Unit which also has a fun and upbeat MP3 song that my students love to sing using their puppets.  It is on sale 50% off today Dec.31.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Little Books on Each Coin

This is a picture of the little books that are included in our Money Unit that is 50% Today Dec.30:)

There is also a daily lesson plan that covers 4 weeks and games and activities.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Money-Activities-Ride-into-Common-Core-Music-Math-and-Economics-681638

Great and Fun Money Unit! Includes a daily plan and little books on each coin:)

This 4 week Money Unit is on sale for 50% off today DEC.30.  Get your students ready to count money in the NEW YEAR.

A Great Example of Encouragement!

Was just blogging about the importance of encouragement the other day and this was shared from YouTube.  What an incredible example of how a school encouraged Sophia!

Hope you will check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSdiyTw49QQ

What do you do to encourage someone?

Quick Parent Gifts

S0, when you need a quick parent gift, paste a picture on foam ornaments from Michaels and have your students use glitter pens to decorate.

Then just have them make a card and decorate a paper bag to put the ornament in.

What parent gift ideas do you have?

Sugar Cone Christmas Trees

Today we had so much fun decorating sugar cones to look like Christmas trees.  You just color white can frosting green and frost a sugar cone.   The students also created a snow village on the plate.  We used powdered sugar for snow.

These are just a couple examples of the finished products.  I wish I had thought about more specific items to use for the village, like grammy bears, better items for snowmen, sled items,etc.
This is so much easier than the gingerbread houses.  I will think it through next year.
Do any of you have some good ideas for snow villages?

Encouraging Children!

“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."
This is a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

I am a First Grade Teacher and I have some students that are having a difficult time learning. This quote by this great German writer reminds me how important it is to find encouraging words for our students every day. It would be interesting to see if those difficult students would do betterif we as teachers, made an effort to find something encouraging to say to those students. I am going to try to make that my goal as we approach a new year.

How many of you will make that goal with me? I would love to see the results for those sweet children.
What encouraging remarks do you make to your students daily?

I just posted this on FB and I had one teacher say she gave high fives.

Do any of you wonderful teachers, parents, or adults that work with children have anything you say or do to encourage your children?

Samples of our Christmas Word Order

The first part of our activity is to cut out the words and put them in the correct word order to make a sentence.

Then you glue the words in order and copy your sentence and illustrate it.

This was the front of the paper and I love how she decorated the tree shapes at the top!

This is a few samples of what my students did on the back of their papers

for the bonus:  Write a fact about Hanukkah.

Saint Lucia

Today is Saint Lucia and my students worked together to make Saint Lucia crowns and Star Boy hats and wands.  I was so proud of how well they worked together and helped each other with their projects.  We always try to do "T, Team working Together" This is from our Quality Student Song and my students have really embraced what the letters in Quality mean from the song.

This is a few more pictures of how well the boys worked together.

Our team work paid off.  We all had crowns or star hats.  Way to go team!
                                                                                  

SNOW DAY:)

Well it is a snowy day here in Virginia and we are enjoying our day off!  What did our dog Molly find?   Her own snow ball to play with.  What fun things do you do on a Snow Day?

November Writings

My students chose 5 of their calendar words for November and wrote a story.  These are just a couple of them.  I am so excited to see them learning so many words and using them in their writing!

Making a Menorah

This is a great way to make a menorah.  My students love glitter!

A Fun Activity!

I pointed out the fraction on the measuring cup as we made our slime.  It was a good activity to do to reinforce fractions as well as following a recipe.  The students loved making this with glue and borax. They just laughed as they felt the final product.   

This student thought "it was the best day ever!"  Let me know in the comments if you would like the recipe.

What fun recipes do you do with your students?

CYBER SALE!!

Everything in our store will be on sale, except our songs which are already just .99.
Come check out some fun holiday products for your students!

Great book for prediction!

I read Turk and Runt by Lisa Wheeler to my students and stopped reading before the last page and had them go back to their seats and write their predictions of what they thought was going to happen.  They also shared what they thought.  It was a great book for predicting what Runt's plan was going to be.

My class is having an election to decide if we will have our extra recess inside or outside.  They worked on these posters today and are going to campaign for their choices and then check a ballot when we vote on Friday.  They were so involved during writing workshop as they created their posters.
One of my students wanted to know how to spell vote and another student took out our November calendar with the vocabulary words on it and pointed to the word vote as they were working on the poster.  I was so happy to see them using it like this!

I have been able to apply all of our vocabulary words that we have been discussing.  Words like election,candidates,campaign,vote,ballot,government.
One of my students made a great comment today:  he said that his friend did such a great job at campaigning for outdoor recess that he was changing sides already.  He said that his friend told him that  playing outside on the equipment makes you strong and healthy.

Wow!  I may have some future politicians in my class:)

So who do you think will win our election on Friday?

Giveaway from What I Have Learned Blog

Hello all you great followers!

So you are doubly lucky today because there are two giveaways.  We have contributed our fabulous Community Helpers bundle, along with some other great products from various TpT stores for that one lucky winner.  Stop by What I Have Learned for more details.  Have a great day!

I'm So Thankful Blog Hop Giveaway!

We are celebrating all that we are thankful for and that includes teachers!  We want to show all of you how much we appreciate you.  Teachers do so much and this is our time to give back and say thank you!  Thank you for following!  Thank you for participating!  Thank you for collaborating!  Thank you for sharing!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Join us by hopping through each blog and gathering lots of Thanksgiving and autumn freebies.  In each freebie you will find a picture of a pie with a word on it. That word will tell you something that teacher is thankful for.  Record all of the words on your recording sheet and follow each blog along the way so that you can enter the amazing giveaway at the end!

You may start anywhere along the hop, but if you would like to start at the beginning you may go here.  This is also where you will go in the end, for the giveaway!!

You have made it to blog stop number 24.

Our freebie is a fun way to practice November vocabulary words with your kids.  The words correlate with our November ELA calendar that is for sale in our store.

Come and get your FREEBIE!https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtt3ciy4owcb1mg/blog%20hop%20product.pdf

Now hop over to the next stop on your journey:

123kteach Blog

What great Little Writers!!

This is just a few of my student's writings.  They used the words from our October Calendar Words.  I was so proud of how they were able to choose words and write a story all on their own.  We had fun reviewing all of our words for the month in a Scoot Game.

They illustrated a folder to keep their calendar sheet/words in.  Now they have a source of words to review all year or they can go back to those words to get ideas for stories and to spell the words correctly.  They also asked me if we could play the game again.  Awesome!

Remember to check out our November Calendar/Words and Scoot Game all in one:)

Great way to learn vocabulary!

My students shared their October calendar words with each other and then we played a game with our Vocabulary Scoot Game.  I let them use their calendars to help them find their answers.  They had fun reviewing their words.  Then they chose 5 words from their calendars to write a story.

We just posted our November Calendar Words and activities.  Check it out at our store.