Dollar Tree Finds and other Treasures

I love shopping!  My favorite shopping trips are the back to school adventures.  I've found a few treasures at the Dollar Tree.

Large glasses to practice "reading between the lines"

 Magnetic dry erase speech bubbles   These will be great paired with pictures of the kids doing fun things and writing captions to go with them.

 More vinyl speech bubbles to use on my classroom door.
I just love the things you can find at the Dollar Tree Store.

 During  trip to a Maine I found some treasures in toy and museum stores.
I am obsessed with dice and found this package of multi dice.  I love the  cool colors.

I bought 2 hand held Microscopes for kids to use in a science center or out on the playground.

 A tin whistle.  I guess I need a few lessons on how to play it.  It will become a way for me to help kids transition from one activity to another, like my chimes.

 A box of sharks teeth.....fun for my science center. 

 A cute baby owl by Gund and squishy happy faced ball for morning meeting tossing games.

I can't wait to share these fun items with my new class.

Book Talk Today

Here is one of my favorite books Be Happy!  By Monica Sheehan.  It is so positive with a terrific message....."Have fun and be happy being you!"  It's an easy read with great pictures.  I love listening to kids reading this book.  They are always smiling.

I love this book!

Happy Reading!

I've linked up to Mrs. Jump's Book Talk Tuesday!

New Technology Osmo

      I am getting very excited about a new technology for my iPad.  It's called Osmo.  This month the company will be shipping out it's first round of pre-orders.  In June Osmo offered a 50% discount on all pre-orders.  I jumped at the chance to be one of the first to have this new technology in my classroom.  Check out what all the hype is about here.  There is still time to get this great product at 50% off.

 

It's August!  The count-down to my back to school inservice and our first day has started.  My last few days of summer seem to fly by with lightning speed.  It takes me about 3 days to put my classroom back in order and set up for my Smarties to arrive.  How long does it take you to set up your classroom?

Enjoy the warm days of August!

Summer!

It's summer time and the living is easy.  The pressure from the long school year is finally leaving me. I love the sunny days and warm nights.  The relaxed atmosphere of my new patio is heaven.

I told myself that I would work one hour a day (if I'm home) on school work.  It really has been a great plan.  There is no pressure if I miss a day or two and I'm accomplishing tasks that I always say I'm going to do.  Hopefully, I'll be getting a new Smart Board this fall so I've been doing lots of research to be prepared for it, like watching videos and webinars, reading blogs, and articles about the cool things you can do with the board.  I found a treasure trove of  free Smart Board Lessons Plans already created at http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0   Check it out if you haven't seen this.

I made a stop at my favorite store last week Barnes and Nobel and picked up a couple of great books. Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

........a great book to get kids thinking about engineering.  My plan is to read it and put out all kinds of materials to have the kids engineer some kind of toy.  Love that little Rosie with the hair across one eye.

Another book that I just had to have was Books Always Everywhere by Jane Blatt

.....a very simple book with a simple message.....you can read anywhere and that reading is important and fun.  I think I might try to recreate this book with my class using the iPad cameras.  I will have my kids brainstorm ideas of similar pictures and have them take the pictures.  It might make for a great Open House display in the fall.

http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com

I've linked up to Book Talk Tuesdays on Mrs. Jumps Blog.  Check out all the reviews of great books here.

 I hope you are enjoying your summer.

Annual Project Tee-Shirt

        It's that time of year again.  My Annual Tee-Shirt Project has arrived again.  I ask my students to send in a new white tee-shirt, usually from Walmart.  I design a tee-shirt using self portraits of my kiddos.  Then I use tee-shirt transfer paper and iron the design onto the tee-shirts.  My class wears them on our field trip to the Tyler Place.  It will be a day to celebrate the end of first grade with loads of fun, swimming, boat rides, hiking and games.  We'll picnic together, too.  We love our time at the Tyler Place every year.  I love that my class is united by our shirts.  I bumped into some parents of former students that I had many years ago in Walmart.  I was getting a few extra white tee-shirts to complete this project.  They mentioned that they still had the tee-shirts from many years ago.  They are cherished mementos from first grade.  That's why I do it.  I'm making memories.

 My cat Ziti apparently loves them.

 Enjoy your week!

What a Week!

First off Happy Mother's Day everyone.  I hope you were all able to spend some time with or thinking about your moms and hope your kids remembered to honor you today.
    On Tuesday was were treated to a wonderful presentation on farming by our new superintendent Winn Goodrich.  It was exciting to hear him speak of all the things we have been learning about in our unit on farming.  It was great to hear about the different kinds of cows and where they originated in the world long ago.  Mr. Goodrich shared a video of his parents on the farm from a local tv station. It was fascinating and fun.  We enjoyed some yummy Cabot cheese snacks, stickers and booklets about cheese.  Mr. Goodrich had a hand in making the cheese snacks earlier on in his career.  It was a great way to illustrate farm to table for our students.  We welcome Mr. Goodrich to our district and look forward to sharing more first grade events with him.
Check out Mr. Goodrich's Family Farm...Molly Brook Farms

     On Thursday of this week I had my annual Mother's Day Tea.  It was well attended.  I love seeing all the smiling moms.   We sang, served, spoke great thoughts, and created for our moms.  It was an afternoon of genuine love between mother and child.  I would like to thank our fabulous assistant principal, Ms. Casavant who spent time with our class helping to learn the song  Sing (Karen Carpenter).  You know the song....."Sing.  Sing as song.  Sing out loud.  Sing out strong.  Sing of good things not bad.  Sing of happy not sad." .......  It was adorable!
     Part of our event was a slide show of our year together.  Then a video with kids declaring their love for their moms and the special things they do for them.  I get choked up just listening to my kiddos speak about their moms.  It was a special afternoon.  Thanks to all the moms for making an effort to come.

Check out our Slide Show of our year HERE.

Sweet declarations of love!

Non-fiction Writing and Immersion

      The importance of non-fiction materials in the first grade classroom has outweighed fiction for many years.  It has taken me eons to gather non-fiction books and magazine for kids to get their hands on.  I believe that I now have more non-fiction materials than fiction in my own personal collection.  I do have to say that I have an addiction to children's books.  I can see the delight in my students eyes as they open a beautifully written book.  When that book happens to be a non-fiction one the excitement of seeing and learning new things brings the noise level up.  That bit of happiness is what keeps the smile on my face.  I have called my class "smarties" for a long time and write the statement: "Let's Get Smarter!" every day for a class goal.  Non-fiction books make my job easier.
Before the Common Core first graders wrote "reports".  They were very scripted.  I think I did a poor job of selling the importance of the task.  I just wanted to get it done because it was on the list.

I have a whole different view on first graders writing an informational piece.  Though I had all the right materials I wasn't using them to their full potential.  Last week I had the pleasure of attending a great writing workshop with the fabulous Leah Mermelstein.   I love Leah's writing workshop style.  The importance of mentor text is changing how I will teach this genre of writing.

We all know about immersing kids in the content of a topic so that they'll have something to write about.  Leah's focus with us was to focus the immersion on what makes good informational writing in the mentor text. An  aha moment for me.  Yes yes yes....get out those books and scan them for great openings, or topic sentences or the style authors use when writing informational text.  I am completely changed.

Here is Leah in our workshop in Burlington, VT last week.  We love it when she comes north to be with all of us.  Thanks Leah.  Great workshop.  Can't wait to dive into a better session with my kiddos and helping them to "get smarter."

Check out Leah here!

Her latest book: Self Directed Writers: The Third Essential Element in the Writing Workshop