Five for Friday....Gobble, Gobble!....ICE!

It's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

ONE

Today was a weird day, it began with freezing rain which turned into a major problem for bus drivers, it ended with cars encased in ice. However, we were toasty in our school building, we made 

turkeys!

Materials needed: feathers, liquid glue, paper plates, googly eyes, red, orange, yellow construction paper and a brown crayon.

Cut the paper plate in half......

Color the back of the plate with a brown crayon

TWO

Choose 12 feathers

Using liquid glue, run a thick line of glue from "x" to the next "x".

Place your feathers

THREE

Cut out the head/body piece 

Glue body onto plate and glue on Googly eyes.

FOUR

Cut out the wattle and glue it on the body.

Cut out the beak and glue it on top of the wattle.

Cut out the feet and glue onto the back of the body.

and...

Awesome turkey!

FIVE

Ice Cube Car.....

I thought this looked kind of neat...even while I struggled to get the door open....

I am home snug and warm now...and don't HAVE to leave it for two days, the roads should be covered with snow providing some traction by that time..

as Pete the Cat says...

It's all goooooood

Paula

Five for Friday (a day late)...November 15, 2013

How can a week seem so long, yet move so fast? That doesn't make sense! But time rarely does.
It is time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

ONE : The snow is here to stay! Here is outside transport for our little guy!

The other students love to help pull him around the playground at recess!

TWO: We are continuing using our counting by 5 pumpkins from Doodle Bugs!

THREE: It's that time of year for static.

FOUR: We had a visitor this week... The String Man...AKA Dave Titus, he told the kids a wonderful story using a string as the visuals, it flowed beautifully and the kids were sure he was magic! This is a photo of one of his books, ( I sadly did not have my phone with me during the story) but he also has DVDs. He  is very "kid friendly",  engaging when telling a story, patient and knows how to calm them down.

FIVE: I got out my snow book collection this week, the kids are very excited about the new sledding hill on our playground, but didn't get to use it this week. We talked about handling disappointment, and knowing that they WILL get to sled pretty soon!

I'm keeping this fast and short so I will only be one day late instead of three!  Later this week I'll share our turkey project!

Have a great week,

 Paula

FLASHBACK SUMMER! The Science Table and Sensory Cabin

This post has been hanging around unpublished and I decided it was too fun not to share! So here is one more tidbit from summer school.

The Cabin is where the sensory tub and other fun stuff resides. The first 2 weeks included various puzzles.  Last week we added a fishing "pond". The kids loved it! I observed them independently taking turns, counting, sorting fish, and talking about the colors of the fish they caught! (Fishing and graphing fish had been introduced the week before-see the previous blog here)

We are also matching our colors in the sensory box with the songs being taught at the campfire! (Thank you Miss Susan!) Using Frog Street Press' Color Songs Program, we sing songs that spell the color words. It is very engaging for most kids.



 The Science Table  is our table of randomness! Whatever we have around home that is related to our theme, we bring and share with the kids! If it is not too fragile, it is left on the table for the kids to explore. It is one of their favorite places to go.

Driftwood is so cool, each one is unique. AND you can never underestimate the interest in magnifying glasses!

These two stations were so fun! I decided to not have a toy area this year, I wanted them to be more engaged in these kind of stations and they were! They still played with the items that were available, but it required them to be more creative.

Paula

Professional Development on Veteran's Day...Linking with Doodle Bugs....and a Moose!

Doodle Bugs Teaching

ONE

I didn't get around to linking with Doodle Bugs this weekend, so I'm catching up on Veteran's Day or more accurately, night! Our school district cleverly gave the students the holiday off and set us up with a Professional Development Day. Sunday we finally had some serious snow fall and I had to get up extra early to prepare and get to the PD meeting on time.

It had rained before it started snowing...so the doors were frozen shut...

TWO

Our district has grown so large that when we all get together, parking can be a problem. Today we had to walk a little ways to get to the meeting place. It's a scenic path!

THREE

The speaker, Tricia McKale Skyles presented the STOIC framework. She is very entertaining, using humor to help get the point across. The three hours went quickly!

STOIC  stands for: 

Structure the environment for success

Teach expectations

Observe ( monitor, supervise)

Interact positively (build relationships and provide positive feedback)

Correct fluently (calmly, consistently, immediately, respectfully)

One of my favorite quotes from Ms. Skyles today:

Arguing with a kid is like mud wrestling with a pig, both of you get dirty, and the pig loves it.

She said she heard it in Kentucky.

FOUR

As I was driving into my driveway, I was met with a welcome sight...

FIVE

Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my dad for his service to this great country. 

 This is dad and my little sister a while back : )

love you Dad!

Paula

SUMMER FLASHBACK.....Classroom Camping Theme and writing

This didn't get posted this summer and I decided to do a little flashback session! I really loved this theme and found so many great ideas in the TpT store as well as teachers' blogs. This particular idea just needed a clipart fire, paper and staples!

We made some camp Notebooks to go along with our books and graphs activities. I really had some big plans for these guys, but we never had enough time for everything! Here are a few things we did with them...maybe next summer we can work them into the lessons more!

When we prepared them, I didn't know WHAT we were going to do yet! So they had blank pages.

Later, when I knew what our lessons were going to cover I made pages, copied, cut them apart and glued them into the notebooks. It worked okay, I only had 12 notebooks to glue.

 We brainstormed after our hike, while I wrote everything they said, I also drew simple pictures next to the words to prepare them for doing it on their own.

This was completed after our fishing graph.

We read the big book Under the Waves.

. 

Step by step drawing activities.

This notebook has a lot of potential and can be individualized for each student if needed. We met in our "Writing Tent" to complete the notebooks. I learned something....even the most reluctant writer will try his best if he can be in a tent!

If you are new to this blog and want to read more about our camping theme, check out the June-July posts here

Paula

November 2013 Currently!

Wow oh wow! I have been out of the loop for awhile, I am trying to get back into the blog world. My job has been overwhelming me since school started and I just haven't had the energy to write, take pictures and post. Blogging is an ongoing learning process for me, and I haven't been up for the challenge! But not anymore! I am catching up on all those teacher bloggers I love to follow and now to link up with Farley from Oh Boy 4th grade! 

Listening

 I cannot believe we have so many channels and there is STILL NOTHING TO WATCH!  So here we are watching a show about crazy people wanting to make a name for themselves by seeing if they can stay alive as they go over the falls. I learned a fun fact: the FIRST person to go over the falls in a barrel was a TEACHER! It's not really all that surprising...it's proof that this job will make you crazy!

Loving

My sweet grandchildren are coming to my house tomorrow! I'm going to just sit on the floor and play with them, I saw them last week briefly at our Fall Festival, but I didn't get my fill of hugs!

Thinking

The workshop time in the regular first grade classroom is a great opportunity for my kids and the "regular" kids to work together. I have a little group I'm working with, it's starting to come together, but it's not organized, I don't have a definite plan! It's driving me crazy! (there's that word again)

Wanting

A magic wand would make life so much easier, am I right?

Needing

enough said....

Yummy Pin!!

Click the title below to go to the recipe on Martha Stewart's Website

Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple

November blessing......

May your fridge and pantry be full on Thanksgiving

and your car be full of fuel

when you brave the crowds 

on black Friday!

May you win the race to your chosen items

and they be all you expected,

and best of all...

May your Christmas list be checked off by December 1st!

Talk later,

Paula

Five for Friday......November 1, 2013

Thank goodness it's Friday! It has been a very loooooonnng week! I am happy to be linking up with Doodle Bugs this week. 

1.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, it is always fun to wear a costume and give away candy, but when it falls on a school night.....yuck! We did do some fun activities while practicing skills.

Graphing activity....

with candy corn and pumpkin candy.

2.

counting by 5's and 10's using cards from.......Doodle Bugs of course! The Bats are in her "Happy Halloween" packet and the pumpkins are from her "Fall Math Centers". We made the other activities into folder tasks, I forgot to take pictures, but the kids love them!

3.

Patterns using pictures from Writing with Symbols 2000....

4.

Pete the Cat in the listening center, found some great activities 

on the website makinglearningfun.com.

Pete the Cat and his New White Shoes is also on youtube! Very cool on the Promethean board.

5.

This week was also Red Ribbon week and I personally feel there is a conspiracy to try to keep us Halloween fans from wearing our holiday apparel! So here are some of my highlights of the week....

Crazy Sock day

Crazy hair day ( my hair was purple and this shirt went great with it!)

Sports team day...so I wore my awesome ORANGE Thunder shirt complete with pumpkin pin, earrings and socks.

Have an  AMAZING weekend! 

Paula