BEWARE....of a really L.O.N.G. post!

Has it really been over 10 days since I have posted?  WOW!  All I can say is we have been VERY busy and with Parent Teacher Conferences over and done with, I hope things SLOW down a bit.  I am happy to say that I had 100% participation and was able to visit with each and every one of my fabulous first grade parents!  To get caught up, I hope you don't mind that this may be a VERY long post... so read on if you DARE!

First, I would like to share our Zoo Animal Research projects we did after returning from our field trip from the St. Louis Zoo.  If you missed that post, read about it here.  We read a bunch of non-fiction books about animals we would like to research.  We were able to see many of these during our field trip.  After reading the books, we would make anchor charts (tree maps) about the facts we learned about these animals.  They are NOTHING fancy, but here are a few of our anchor charts.

After learning about all these animals, students picked their favorite and wrote down facts about their zoo animal on a graphic organizer that looks like this:

Click on the picture to download.

We were going to take this information and write it in a report format.  I wanted them to have that copy practice and forming complete sentences using our "tree map" style.  However, we just were too pressed on time and we wanted to display our projects during Parent Teacher conferences.  So we decided to keep our information on this piece of paper and create our animals out of construction paper.  The SKY was the limit and I was SO impressed with how these turned out.  I love that they are not cookie cutter and they are each unique and designed by first graders.  Here are a few closeups of their animals.

Here is how we displayed these in the hallway.  I also placed some pictures of our zoo trip around our reports for the parents to view while waiting.

In addition to writing our Zoo Reports, the students wrote some spooky stories last week that we were able to hang up on our OWL display wall in the classroom. 

And here is a close up of one of the stories.  I love how she incorporated "spooky owls" in her story at the end.  Do you think her teacher likes owls?

We also learned about compound words and created compound word bats to "fly" around our classroom.  Students learned to recognize two seperate words in a compound word.  We wrote compound words on the bellies of our bats and wrote the two words that make up the compound word on each wing.  Here is a picture:

Then we hung them from the ceiling on our name clips.  I posted about this on Frogs, Bees, and Under the Seas as a guest blogger during their Spooktober celebration. I also posted about a fun Halloween treat also...(edible eyeballs)!  The kids LOVED them.  So if you have time to swing by there, check it out! :)

Next week is Red Ribbon Week for us.  We had a door decorating contest, so we had to come up with an idea for our door.  I HONESTLY tried to stay away from owls, but when I came up with this saying, "OWL" pledge to be drug free... I just HAD to do owls.  They turned out super cute (I think).  Here is a picture of our door.

And here is a closeup of the bottom of the door.  I took a picture of the kids "pledging" to be drug free.  The winner gets a pizza party so we have our fingers crossed.  Although, there are so many great door creations, it will be tough.  I may just have to make that a separate post and share with you all of the red ribbon week door decorations. 

How do you celebrate Red Ribbon Week?  We have dress up days every day next week - starting with wearing RED on Monday.  Thanks for hanging in there if you made it to the end of this post!  Have a great weekend ~

Zoo-riffic Fun!

Friday was a perfect day for a field trip.  The weather here in the midwest was sunny and 70ish.  The zoo was decorated with straw bales and pumpkins.  The kids were so well behaved and I had 15 parents who attended the trip with us.  It was just fabulous!  I thought I would share a little of our day.



I am loving our T-shirt Design.  We decided to go with our field trip theme and use a monkey on our shirt with the saying "Wild About School!"  I thought it turned out adorable.

We were so lucky to see a lot of the animals up close and get some really cool pictures.  Here are just a few of the animals we saw.

Zebras

Leopard

Elephant and Baby

There were also volunteers roaming the park with cool things like leopard skin and hippo tusks that the kids could touch and feel.  They loved it!

I also found a couple little monkeys in the trees that I was able to bring back on the bus with me!

Before we left, we had to take a class picture with the big, GIANT pumpkin!

It was a super fabulous day but we all felt like this little guy when we made it back to the bus.

I'm glad I could share a little of the fun we had.  We are finishing up our zoo animal reports this week in time to hang them up for Parent Teacher Conferences.  I will share those with you when they are finished.  Have a great week!

How do you line up? ~ Freebie

At times it can be noisy and chaotic as we are transitioning and lining up.  I found a couple of line up chants and found that my students loved them.  They became bored with the same ones and some were just a little too long, so I sat down and wrote some of my own that are short and sweet, get them moving and quiet before we enter the hall.  I got tickled today how my kiddos just started one of these little chants as they were lining up and were quiet by the time I walked over to the door.  Too cute!!  So tonight I typed up my a few of the chants I wrote and thought I would share them with you here.

 I had to take out my iphone today and take a quick video of my students in line, saying one of their favorite chants.  Hope this gives you an idea of how quick they are and how they all really get into it!  Enjoy ~

Take a look at these cuties!

What a FULL week!  Not only was it spirit week and Johnny Appleseed Day, but we had picture day thrown in there as well.  I have to say it was pretty fun AND we did do lots of learning.  Here is a picture of my darling kiddos on J.A. Day.  Aren't those pot hats the cutest? 

We had a ton of fun using Mrs. Magee's Johnny Appleseed Unit.  We especially liked the Johnny Appleseed Glyphs.  Take a look at how some of them turned out. 

This Johnny Appleseed might have eaten too many sour apples. :)

In addition to dissecting apples and counting seeds, tasting red, yellow and green apples, we also learned about the parts of an apple.  Ever have that spur of the moment idea where you decide - (instead of just drawing and coloring the apple parts) let's break out the watercolor paints??  Well we did and it turned out fantastic!  Here are some pictures of their awesome paintings.

Most of my students painted in red, yellow or green, but don't you just love it when you have your creative ones in the mix?  Here are a couple of my cuties with their rainbow apples.  I wonder what they would taste like?

I have to share a few photos of our week.  Here is my class on Pajama Day:

I enjoyed being able to wear my slippers all day!

Friday was our homecoming parade.  Our school colors are black and orange so this little guy really showed off his school spirit!   

Here we are sitting on the curb waiting for the parade, bags ready to be filled with C A N D Y!

And here comes the band...

All I can say is it was a FABULOUS week!  Hope you had as much fun.  Next week is our FIELD TRIP!  Where are we going?  To the St. Louis Zoo!  Next week is also a review week and DRA testing.  I know this was a SUPER long post, but if you took time to read this, I plan on having my kiddos explore the newspaper next week and search for short a, e, o, and u words.  This is the recording sheet I'm going to use.  Grab it if you like.  Have a great first week of October!  (Wow, can't even believe it is October already!)

And I would LOVE for you to become a FB fan!  Just started my page and would really like to get some "likes".  Thanks!

Apple Activity Freebies

As I planned out the week, I decided to make a few apple activities to go along with what we will be learning.  I purchased Mrs. Magee's Johnny Appleseed Unit and can't wait to  do all the activities with my first graders.  If you haven't checked it out you should.   This week we will be making applesauce, taste testing a variety of apples, try apple juice, make our own little apple pies, and try apple cider.  We will then graph our results about which apple item is our favorite (which is included in her unit).  I will be taking lots of pictures this week since it is Spirit Week. We have lots of dress up days to add to the excitement!

Here are the apple activities I created. They are nothing fabulous, but thought I would share.  Just click on the picture to download.

I decided to create a rhyming word coloring page to go along with our -ump word family this week.  I also made a word activity page based on our last few word families.  Students have to read the word and figure out if the word is a real or non-sense word.  I made two versions to differentiate for students who are ready to read blends and digraphs.  I also whipped up another word activity to see how many words students can make using the letters in the word apples.  I love the book by Dr. Seuss - Ten Apples on Top.  So I thought why not Ten Worms on Top?  I thought my students could show different ways to make ten by drawing and recording their problems.  I found a great resource at mathwire.com that allows students to use ten frames to help organize ways to make ten. I will have them use this first before they make their worms.

I absolutely love the fall weather and hope it stays this way for a while.  I'm looking forward to all the apple activities and I hope you all have a fabulous and fun week!  

Are you Versatile?

As I have again gone a whole week without posting... excuses, excuses - I was thrilled to see I was awarded a Versatile Blogger Award from Kristin over at A Teeny Tiny Teacher.  THANK YOU Kristin! 

I have all these ideas running around in my head and have all these great intentions and then somehow I get sidetracked with family, college homework or just being plain T-I-R-E-D!  So I decided it's time to sit down tonight and thank everyone who reads my blog and takes away something useful.  The rules that go along with receiving this award is (of course) thanking the person who awarded you with it and link back to them; Share 7 things about yourself; and award 15 blogs you think deserve this award.  So - here goes:

1.  I LOVE to sing, play the piano, was a band nerd and destress just by sitting down at the piano and losing myself in song.  I think I passed this on to my first child who started out playing the trumpet and has since self taught himself to play the guitar, drums, and keyboard.

2. Let's just say we play some SERIOUS rock band on the XBOX at our house!

3. My new found LOVE is Zumba.  I can't get ENOUGH of it!

4. I have 2 dogs, one that is Gigantic (120 lbs.) and a tiny black toy poodle.  They are the funniest things and the kids in my classroom can't wait to hear the newest story about Jack and Buster. They are best of buds and I have seriously thought about writing a kid's book about them.

5.  I have one sister (who is younger) and just had her first baby.  I love being an Aunt but hate that she lives so FAR away.

6.  I hate to admit it ~ but I am a Twilight Fan.  I have read the books at least 3 times each and can't wait until the next movie hits the box office. 

7.  Before I became a teacher, I worked for the telephone company.  I was one of those technicians who drove a truck, climbed the pole to fix the phone lines and showed up at your door to install your new phone jack. This is where I met my husband and after we got married I decided to quit my job, follow my dream and become a teacher.  I haven't regretted it for a second and am now working on my Master's Degree.

So now for the bloggers I'd like to pass this award onto:

Precious Perks
Ashleigh's Education Journey
Ebhart's Explorers
Kreative in Kinder
Clutter Free Classroom
Frogs, Bees and Under the Seas
Castles and Crayons
Mrs. Bumgardner's Class Blog
Lory's Page
The Creative Apple
How About Them Apples
Apple Basket Teacher
Camp Kindergarten
Curls and a Smile
Oh Boy 4th Grade

Wow ~ and the list could go on and on!  Thanks again Kristin...Happy Fall Ya'll!

Short Vowel Review - Freebie

I feel like I've been out of the loop for days.  What a whirlwind of a week!  I wanted to share these freebies last week so I am a little behind.  Hope you can find these useful.  We have been studying short vowels for the last 4 weeks of school so I made this word work activity as a review.  It can also be made into a book which I'm having my kids keep in their writing folders to use during Writer's Workshop.  And of course I left my camera at school, so no pics today - but hopefully I can post some this week.  Here is the short vowel activity:

 

We also read and illustrated these short vowel poems.  I did not write these, but found them online and re-typed them to put into our poetry journals.  Here are the poems:

Next week is our Book Fair, Family Reading Night and Grandparent's Day celebration.  I should have lots to post about.  Hope your week is fabulous!