Happy Birthday, George Washington! President's Day Activities

Happy Birthday, George Washington! So many fun activities! Ms. Piatt (from iluvrecess.blogspot.com) and I mixed classes to do an activity that requires the children to listen to verbal directions. Cutting the paper requires lots of time, (thank you Mr. Piatt!) but the kids really enjoy it and the projects turn out so cute!

Spelling Patterns Cups

I totally got this idea from the Mailbox, so I can't take ANY credit! Basically, you will write the spelling patterns on cups with letters that will create words. The students will twist the cups to make real words or nonsense words. I have a little white board that the students will write the words on. They LOVE it! Just make sure to explain how to treat the cups...because holes were poked in mine!

Brain Bags!

So, this is my first year ever working with the little ones. At the beginning of the year, I tried several different ways to do "center time." I felt that nothing would work for me, and I didn't have the classroom management skills yet to handle it either (I had never seen a first grade room function). I didn't like having to stop my small group to tell the kids to switch, or keep up with who was in what center (I got lots of arguing and whining from the kids, argh!) However, I came up with a solution! Brain Bags! Basically Brain Bags are made up of activities that the students can do BY THEMSELVES! Hooray!

I use a tic-tac-toe organizer to fill out and let the kids know what they are allowed to do.

This way I can DIFFERENTIATE for each child, depending on where they are at in each subject. They mark off the number when they are finished with the activity. I explain new activities during our morning meeting, so that when they finish their work, they can walk over quietly to the brain bags, choose one, and work quietly without asking me, "What do I do now?" They have plenty to do! I found these books at Dollar tree, which are for my low, low kiddos and they love it!

And this is a cute felt barn I found in the dollar section at Target! I haven't decided if I should make it, "The Word Farm" where the kids will create words based on the patterns we're learning in LA. Or, if I should leave it for Bossy-R Practice. I'll figure it out by tomorrow!

Place Value Fishing!

One of the kindergarden teachers gave me the idea, so all the credit goes to Ms. Cone! She showed me the pattern of fish she was cutting out and explained that she was making a fishing game. I loved the idea, so I decided to make one of my own! They are di-cut fish with magnets on the back. I found little place value flash cards and used sticky-tac to attach the flash cards to the fish. Then, I tied some yarn to a dowel with some paper clips at the end for the fishing pole. I had just purchased an aquarium for my classroom and used the big box from it as the "fish tank" for our place value fishing game! You can put any sort of flash card on the fish which makes it a great center game. The kids love playing with it, and get lots of practice with math!

Go Away, Big Green Monster!

At the beginning of the school year, we read Go Away, Big Green Monster! The kids LOVED it, so we made little brown paper bag puppets of the Green Monster! At the time, we were just starting to read, se we used our puppets to help us read. We also read in "monster" voices, which the kids loved! As a reminder, I made a monster face bulletin board, taped all of their puppets to it, and hung it on the ceiling. At first the kids were a little scared of it, especially when it fell down on one of the students! She wasn't too happy, but we all ended up laughing. Now, I can't figure out how to keep it up on the ceiling. I'm guessing there is a bit of moisture in my room which makes things fall off my cinder block walls all the time!

Petroleum Engineering Explanations!

Well, my dad was in town for a few days, and I invited him to come watch me teach! Of course he said yes and he came on a Friday morning. He volunteered himself to explain to the kids what he does, petroleum engineering! The kids were mesmorized by his drawings and explanations, and he did a great job explaining things in non-technical terms! It was great to see my dad interacting with the kids :)

Graphic Organizers

Well, our TAP program goal for the week is to implement graphic organizers into our classes to help expose the kids to different kinds of ways to organize their information. When I taught 4th and 5th grade, I used them ALL the time. But I did not realize how important it was to start teaching the kids how to use them so young! So my goal this week is to implement them. And I've thought of a cute theme for my organizers. I saw a honeycomb organizer and it gave me the idea to "Bee Organized." I'm so excited! I'll post pictures of them when I finish! It'll have to be a weekend project!