Early Earth Day and Plants

During April, we don't wait until Earth Day rolls around to learn about taking care of our Earth.  We learn all about natural resources, recycling, pollution, etc. all month long.  This year, we scheduled our plant unit to follow our natural resources unit, so... what better way to link the two than reading The Lorax!

So here is what we have been doing.  We started with natural resources and have been learning all about caring for our environment, protecting our resources, recycling, reusing, and reducing, and pollution.  We did lots of sorts: natural resources from man-made; trash from recyclables; recyclable materials (glass, plastic, paper, etc).  Then we did our own recycling project.  We saved our old milk cartons at lunch and made these cute little bird feeders!
 

We also made these cute flip books (a freebie I found on TPT)!

After we had a good grasp on what all of this means, we read The Lorax.  We made this cute tree to tell all about the story and we wrote stories about how we could speak for the tress and take care of our Earth.  The kids LOVED making their own Lorax mustaches.  I let them each make their own so that they could take them home!

And of course, we watched the movie!

Then, to lead into plants, we talked about how The Lorax teaches us that we can help our Earth by planting more seeds.  We put together this cute little book that talks about the different parts of a Truffula plant and ends with me giving each of them their own seed to plant (found on TPT).  We planted our seeds into "Lorax pots" and then discussed how to care for them.

We have been learning all about what plants need and the parts of a plant. This diagram is a yearly favorite!  My kids love doing it.

 

We have had so much fun!!

Sad News...

I know that I just posted this morning, as it was scheduled, but I have had a rough day and feel like I need to tell about it.  I woke up around midnight last night to find out that someone had set fire to the elementary school that I teach in.  The good news: no one was hurt and it only really effected 3 classrooms, our gym, some of the cafeteria, and the auditorium.  It could have been a lot worse!  The sprinklers went off and the fire department showed up very quickly.

The bad news: they think it may have been former students from our school.  This is SO frustrating!  I realize that I teach in a low income school with a lot of students of low socioeconomic status.  So many of our students are dealing with a lot of outside problems.  They come with all sorts of problems from home, that they are trying to cope with.  For most of our students, our school is a safe place.  It is a place that they can go to get away from all of the other problems that they have to deal with.  Now someone has taken that from them.  Someone has taken that from me.  The people that have done this to our school obviously have things they are also dealing with and I understand that.  I just feel so frustrated because as a teacher, I feel as though I, and my colleagues, give so much of ourselves to our students.  We love them, we care for them, we cry for them, we laugh with them.  How could this happen?  How could one of our own come back and do this to our school?  The vandalism throughout the school was awful to see.  It was heartbreaking.

I do hope that they catch the people that did this to our school, but I also hope that these kids realize what they have done.  I hope that they realize how much they have hurt our teachers, our students, and our community.  I worry about returning to school tomorrow and having to explain this to 20 six year olds.  How do you explain to a 6 year old that someone wanted to hurt their school?  My job can already be so heartbreaking and now even more so.

Is it Equal??

One of my newest math products is an equal/not equal sort.  I started with just addition.  I created a bunch of equal equations and not equal equations.  Then I decided it was time to introduce my firsties to the fact that sometimes the equation can be written with the sum first (before the equal sign).  So, I included some of these equations into my sorts.  Then, I branched out and created one for subtraction equations and one in which there was a mix of addition and subtraction.

You can get all three sorts in this pack here, or check out my store to get them each individually!

When my firsties tried this for the first time, I was amazed.  It really seemed to split my class into two groups: the kids that have a full grasp of addition and subtraction and those that still were just not getting it.  After quite a bit of practice, though, I am proud to say that this activity has really helped my kids to have a deeper understanding of these skills!  I am so proud!

Guided Reading Freebie

Are you required to have students track their own progress and learning?  Set goals for themselves?  This is a newer thing in our school that they are requiring of everyone.  Our upper level teachers have kinda always done it through learning portfolios and graphing and what not.  But my challenge this year has been to figure out how to get my firsties to track their own learning and to understand how to set reasonable goals.  Seems like a very difficult task!!  Firsties are still learning that they have control over their learning and that they need to be responsible for it.  To have them responsible for tracking it is yet another difficult skill to teach them!

So....here is what I came up with.  This guided reading student goal setting chart has all of the levels A-Z listed.  I simply have students color in the space that they are starting on (at the beginning of first grade, most of my kids start around level C or D).  Then in my reading conferences with my students, we discuss where that student should be within the next month or two (we do it each advisory).  This becomes the student's goal.  The next advisory, they color where they are and see if they have met their goal. Then we set a new goal!  I have been using this all year and it seems to be working.  My students have an easy visual of where they are and they can see if they have met their goal. If they meet their goal, they get an award during that advisory's assembly!

You can grab it for free here!

"Time" for a Giveaway!

It is time for my very first giveaway!! I am SO excited!! I have finally reached my 20 followers mark! I know that doesn't seem like much to most of you, but to me it is awesome!! Yay!

So, to embrace the moment, I am going to give two lucky people my newest product! I have just finished creating a telling time scoot game for the hour and half hour. There are two different games in this pack. One game requires the kids to look at the clock and write the digital time. The other one requires the kids to put the hands on the clock for the given digital time.

I am so excited about this product. I am just beginning my unit on time and have been on the lookout for some great ideas for teaching time to the hour and half hour. So, in order to be my freebie winner, all you have to do is leave one great idea for teaching time in the comments box. My first two people to share ideas will win the time scoot game for free!! Don't forget to also leave me your email so I can send it to you!  
For your own copy of my Time Scoot, click here!

Back to the Grindstone!

Well, my Spring Break is coming to a close...I am going to miss it!

I have really enjoyed spending so much time with my hubs and children.  I got to spend the whole day on Easter Sunday with my Grams.  I do not get to spend nearly enough time with her and enjoyed it so much!  And then today, I finished up errands and finally got some things checked off of my list. I feel so relaxed and grateful for my loved ones!  It was a much needed break.

I wanted to take a moment to give some shout-outs!  I am so excited about some new bloggy friends I have discovered over the past couple of days.

First, I get the pleasure of trying out one of Karen Rowland's products from Adventures with Firsties for the upcoming April product swap at Mrs. Stanford's Class!  I am so excited to try it out and cannot wait to share it with you!

Next, I have to brag that I won a free product from Practice Makes Perfect on her facebook page.  I am so excited to try it.  I never win anything!

Then, I just got so many great freebies from Whimsy Workshop.  She is doing some great things over there!

And lastly, and sadly, I have just learned that my blog design will soon be gone.  I just remade my whole design and I love it!  Now, it will be gone (so sad). I want to thank Dani at Blog Designs by Dani for her great backgrounds and templates and her wonderful tutorials.  She has been my rock while putting together this blog and learning how to do all of this.  I am sad to see her go, but I understand and wish her the best of luck!

(Now I am on the lookout for a new background, if anyone has any suggestions!)

Now it is back to the grindstone!  We are near the end!

Classroom Timeline

Every conference I go to, it seems that everyone wants us to do exit slips.  As a first grade teacher, it can be fairly difficult to have students do exit slips of any kind.  We are still learning to write simple sentences.  It is too difficult for them to write what they learned that day.  I have a different plan....I cannot actually take credit for this.  I found it on someone's blog and now cannot remember who it was.  I loved it and decided to make it my own (that is what we teachers do best right?)!

One of our standards in first grade is learning about past, present, and future and reading a timeline.  So throughout our school year we are creating our own timeline.  At the end of each month, we discuss all of the things that we have learned that month in each of our subjects.  We make a list on a piece of construction paper (as a shared writing).  We title it with the month that we are writing about and hang it on the wall.  At the end of the year, we will have created a timeline for the entire year of all the things that we have learned in first grade.  Quite an exit slip, don't ya think?  I can't wait to see the finished project, as this is the first year I have tried it, but we are just over halfway through and I think it looks great so far!  Perhaps at the end of the year, I can give each kid a picture of their first grade timeline so that they can see everything that they have learned!

(I apologize for the glare in the picture.  The timeline is located above the closets and I am short! lol)