Summer's Over :(

Oh no my summer vacation is over.  Tomorrow I will be sitting in teacher in-service meetings learning all about what this next year will be like.  I am so not ready yet.  I have lots left to do in my classroom.  It will be hard just listening all day.  I know I'll bring my new ipad and surf the web.  Yes, I have a plan.

      I asked our staff to take a picture of themselves reading in unusual places for a bulletin board display to promote reading.  Here is my little photo. 

   Yes, I'm planking while reading the book "I'll Save You Bobo"

I can't wait to see what other staff members at my school come up with.  I just thought this would be a fun way to start the year.  Where would you take a picture?

So my little photo project is a no go.  I had only one response to the project.  I am putting this project on hold for now.  I will be doing a similar project with my Skyping partner from Iowa Laurie Hilton and the one and only chance taker, Beth Hilsabeck from Texas.  Our plan is to have our kids draw a picture a month, scan it, then send it.  I am so excited!  3 parts of the country with lots to compare.  I'm wondering if there is a way to do a 3 way Skype.

Have a terrific year!

Remember to be kind!

Claire

  7 Days until school starts :)

The Kids in a Year Project

I created a project for teachers.

The project:

    To create 12 pages with pictures about kids from around the country and what activities they like to do by the month.  This project can help build connections with other classrooms around the country.   It is totally done on the Internet.  No snail mail.  Only cost to the participants would be the printing of PDFs if you want.  Project can be used totally on the Internet to share with our classes.  

Details of the project:

     Find 11 different  teachers who are each willing to create one page (month) about what kids like to do at that location in that month. 
     Each of the 11 teachers can send in a picture for the July page to show what kids do during this month across the country. 

    Teachers will be assigned a month.

    My goal is to have 11 different locations.

    It must have real photographs of kids doing an activity.  It can have one or more photographs but no more than 5.

   Pictures can be creative and have captions.  Old pictures from your own archives can be used like I did with the snow pictures.  It was 94 degrees in Vermont today.

   You may add a class picture to your page.

   The text should follow the pattern set up on the January Page.

   All pages must be 8x11 and have the portrait orientation.

   Extra information can be written on a second page.

   The page must be made into a PDF and stay in color for printing.

   All pages will be posted on a Google page for easy access for our group. 

   All PDFs and July pictures should be sent to cdietsche@fnwsu.org   by September 30, 2012.

   Links can be created to post to our blogs and web pages so the world can view our work.

   All pages must be created by September 30, 2012.

Please leave me a comment with your name, your location, your email, and blog addy if you have one.

Project Leaders:

        Claire Dietsche, Highgate Elementary, Highgate Center, Vermont    www.firstgradesmarties.blogspot.com

          Laurie Hilton, Morning Sun Elementary, Morning Sun, Iowa      www.morningsunfirstgrade.blogspot.com   

Check out the January Page here.

This should be fun!

Claire

22 Days until school starts :)

Reading in Unusual Ways

Reading Reading Everywhere

in a tree or on a chair!

I love to have kids choose a pose with a book that is a little bit different.  I create a bulletin board of the pictures as well as a classroom book.  My class tries hard to think up new and different ways to read a book.   Check out a few of the crazier ones.

This year I have asked the staff at my school to have a picture taken themselves reading in unusual places.  I plan on making a wall display to promote reading in our school.  I'm hoping to get some fun photos for our first day of school.  I also thought that maybe the kids could come up with some great captions to our pictures.  When our display is complete I'll post a picture of it.

Be Kind!

Claire

24 Days until school starts :)

It's About Time!

Well it's about time I blogged about my fabulous meeting with Laurie Hilton my terrific skyping buddy from Iowa!  It was more than a week ago that I got together with Laurie in a great little Iowan town on the Mississippi River called LeClaire.  This is the birth place of Buffalo Bill, (he has his own museum!) and home of the American Pickers TV show.....Way Cool!  A big thank you goes out to my father-in-law Bob Dietsche for chauffeuring me all around  Illinois and Iowa!  It was fun!

We had lunch at a great little place called Happy Joe's.  I just loved the name!  Has anyone been to one?  Great Food!  It was an amazingly hot day of 104 degrees and full of humidity.  I thought I had melted a bit.  We chatted for quite a while, discussing some fun projects for the coming year.  It was the neatest thing to be sitting across the table from Laurie and collaborating together.  I will be posting a project idea for others to join shortly that I'm calling The Firstie's Month Project!  I'm not sold on the name yet but look for project details in the next week.

Happy Claire at Happy Joe's with Happy Laurie:)

One project idea I had was: I thought it would be cool to have our classes create a short video at the beginning of the year, kind of like a commercial as a way to introduce our school to our skype friends from Iowa.  I'm hoping that it will generate questions for one of our first skyping sessions.  It will be interesting to see what first graders will think is interesting enough to video tape.  I'll share the video after we produce it this fall.  I will be having the kiddos use our ipod touches to take pictures and videos with.  We'll see how it all turns out.

Our summer has been very sunny and our pool has been used quite regularly.  The current temperature of our pool is 92 degrees...ahh it's hot!  My latest challenge will be to blog at least 7 more times before my first day of school (teacher inservice) on August 21st.  I have lots of ideas to share.

Claire