It's Been a While...

Hi,

I had a lovely vacation in San Diego followed by parent-teacher conferences.  February has been crazy busy as it usually is.  We had Groundhog Day, the 100th Day, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, President's Day and parent teacher conferences.  No wonder I'm so tired!

We are currently working on maps and I got the biggest kick out of a few of the maps my students chose to draw.  I just had to share.

She got the Utah "Yoming" and "Callorado" placements fairly right.  Love that she has an East and West pole, placed on the appropriate sides of the map.  "Areazona" is just to the northwest of China.  Texas is just above the South Pole.  Florida is above Texas, then there's Pennsylvania, Washington, and Logen?   California is just east of the North Pole and Mexico is west of the North Pole with Canada just below Mexico.  :)  

This one is a map of her bedroom.  I love the microphone, guitar and drums in the middle.  

And we have a nice little neighborhood map here.

This week will be a fairly calm week compared to the rest of February.  Hopefully, I'll get around to posting about the awesome ipad app I used.  Yes, that's shameless teasing and self-promotion there.

Joell

Stuff We've Been Doing

Hi all,

I took some pictures the other day, so I'm going to share some of the things we've done this last week or so.

First, in preparation for President's Day, we used A Cupcake for the Teacher's President's Day Craftivity.  We read Abe Lincoln's Hat and brainstormed what items we might put in the hat.  I took pictures of some of the work before they added the cover over their writing.

I would put my candy and one of my barbies in and letters.  (I love her attempt at commas--at least she's trying.)

I would put frogs in it because when they ribbit it will be funny.  (I love the bloodshot eyes!)

I will put my Batman Toy and donuts and my wallet and a candy.  (He's certainly prepared.)

We did a quick Valentine's Day bug project:  Lots of hearts and they assemble them into bugs.  I was too lazy to change the yellow background paper, but they still look cute.

As a bit of a follow up of an earlier post, we have been working on number sense.  We're now working on greater than/less than. I have to say this group is catching on to it very well.  We played this game.  Each player rolls a double dice.  The large die tells the tens, the smaller tells the ones.  In a previous game they drew and wrote the number.  Now they just write their numbers.  Then they both have to agree whether the first number is > < or =.  After 10 rounds, they circle who had the greater number and count to see who won.  We played it another day with the smaller number winning.  Finally, I'll add a greater than/less than spinner to determine the winner next week.  Here's how a couple of the pages turned out.

And finally, my co-worker made the greatest bulletin board.  I had to take a picture of it.  I won't have time to do it this year, but hopefully next.

The other day we borrowed some iPads from the library and used socrative for the first time.  I loved it!  It deserves a whole 'nother post, so be watching for it soon.

Thanks for stopping by!
Joell

Recess Duty Woes

Hi all,

I had recess duty yesterday.  We have snow and ice on the ground here.  I was standing on the snow which was fairly packed.  I yelled at  told a group of kids who were deliberately sliding on the slush to stop it or they were going to fall.  The next thing I knew I was on the ground.  I twisted my left ankle.  But the snow broke the fall, so I didn't hurt anything else.  I iced it last night and took ibuprofen.  Today as I taught it got more and more swollen.  So, I ended up at the clinic.  They took x-rays and determined it's only a sprain and not broken.  Be careful out there on your recess duty, especially on snow and ice!

The lovely ankle brace I get to wear for a week.

Place Value Fun

Hi all,

I needed to meet with my title 1 aide for a few minutes today during the time we normally have small groups for math.  We are nearing the test on general place value, so I wanted a little review.  So, at the last minute yesterday I created a form--a very simple form made on a table in word.  It had lots and lots of spaces for work. It was my hope it would keep the kids busy enough so we could talk for a few minutes and the kids would be engaged in something besides our discussion.  It worked!

So, the assignment worked out like this:  Each child was given a double die with numbers 0-9.  If you don't have these, run, don't walk to the nearest teacher supply store!  The big die's number told them how many tens to build, the small die inside told them how many ones to build.  They'd shake the dice, draw the number, then write the number.  I was surprised at how much they liked this.  And some even finished all of it!

In the future, I will use this as the first step in another game.  They'll work in pairs, roll the dice.  Each person will build their number.  Then the one with the greatest number wins that round.  Then we'll play the one with the least number wins.  Finally, I put in a spinner to determine the winner, so after they determine their numbers, they'll spin to see if the winner is the number which is greater or less.

Here's some pictures of some of the kids' work.

This little guy just finished and I asked him to leave the dice there so you could see what it looks like. 8 on the big die, 1 on the little die inside.  So he drew 8 tens and 1 one.  :)

I love it when they understand that 0 tens and 3 ones = 3 not 03.  :)

So, that's the preliminary game.  I'll try and get back with more pictures once we expand upon it.

The last picture here is of the popcorn adjective bulletin board from the popcorn activity from Babbling Abby we did.  I just  never got around to posting it.  It's hard to see, but each popcorn kernel has an adjective written on it.

That's it for now!  I hope things are going well out there in internet world!
Joell

Ahhhh, well rested at last!

Hi all,

It seems that lately I've just been going full tilt.  I was also stressing out.  So, this three day weekend came at a very good time!  I decided on Friday that I needed a break.  So, I left all my school work at school!  I have spent time sleeping and reading and watching TV.  I watched my cat go crazy over her new catnip toy.  I even *gasp* got bored!  No worries, it didn't last long.

So now I find myself well-rested and ready to go back to work.  I'm excited to see my kids and start moving forward again.  The big goal is to hang onto this refreshed energy and enthusiasm.

We'll see if I manage to get some pictures this week.

Joell

Why didn't I think of that sooner?

Hi all,

We are working on our weather unit and I needed a word wall.  I've been scrambling lately, and haven't had much time.  So, out of desperation (and lack of time) I came up with the brilliant idea (that many of you probably already figured out) of having the students create the cards for the word wall.

We brainstormed for weather words.  I helped them with spelling.  Then each child got a word and an index card.  They needed to write the word and illustrate it.  These were placed up on the science word wall.  We also have a word list that we'll continue to add words to.  So here's my completely student-made beginning of my science wall.

The kids are already using it more than our other word walls, probably because they made the cards.

Popcorn Fun!

Tomorrow (if we don't have a snow day) we'll be doing the fabulous Poppin' Out Adjectives activity by Babbling Abby.  I did this last year and it was a great success!  I can't wait to watch the kids have such a fun time describing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings evoked by popcorn.  

End of Term

Our term ends on next Thursday.  Our teacher work day has become a day of training, so I have to somehow get all that stuff done before and after school.  That said, I might not be posting much until I recover from all that.

Melting snowmen

Hi all,

This week I did have us try out the melting snowman picture I found on pinterest.  Here's how they turned out.  The only thing I did for them was give them a blackline of the glasses, the rest is all first grade work.

I was very happy with how well the kids did with not a lot of direction from me.

Weather

We are having an inversion here.  That means cold and polluted air is trapped in the valley.  This is causing us to have inside recess every day.  Ugh.  I'm also suffering from sinus problems, as I usually do when it gets like this.  I'm starting my weather unit this week, and it would be nice if we had something besides an inversion to learn about.