What Did They Say? Linky

 

 

 

This story actually came from a good friend of mine who teaches 1st grade.  It's too funny to not share! 

 

The teacher saw a girl in her room who looked sad, so she approached her and asked if she was ok.  The students replied, "Yes, it's just that all you do is talk, and talk, and talk, and I get soooo bored!"

 

Boy are they honest! :-)

 

 

 

 



Gingerbread House Art and Writing Project

So many fun projects to do during the holiday season!  I love that I work at an arts focus school and get to incorporate that piece into my assignments!  This week we have been working on a writing project called Gingerbread House for Sale by Mz H. 

My students had so much fun just picturing their houses in their heads, but today we brought them to life by drawing them!  See pictures below.  There is a similar project on Art Projects for Kids, but I just took them through my own drawing - step by step.  They then added the details themselves.  All of the items on the house and yard had to be candy or a cookie!

 

 

Of course, I can't forget Ginger!  He sat on top of a magazines with a joke in hand!  I found a sheet of cute holiday jokes on Pinterest, click here for link!

Poor Ginger may have to absent again tomorrow with the kids bouncing off the walls this afternoon!  Rough time of year!!!

Elf on a Shelf Behavior Management!

I am having waaayyy too much fun with the Elf on Shelf in my classroom!  My students were B.A.D. - BAD yesterday!  I had a principal from another school in observing me and they were noisy and difficult to manage the entire time (don't you love those kind of days???)  Sooo, our elf "Ginger" didn't return this morning!  Here is what the students found....

(Edit: Check out the date on the letter!  Luckily, the kids didn't notice!)

 

They were quite upset and worked hard all morning, so when they return from specials they will find this...

 

 

 

 

The part that cracks me up the most is that he is wearing ear muffs to protect his ears!  Hee hee, I crack myself up!

 

 

 





I anticipate much better behavior until winter break - ha ha ha ha!  Again I'm so funny!  Ok, until the end of the day... maybe :-)

My Snowman Came Alive!

Even though I haven't posted much lately, I've still been working behind the scenes!  Now that we are in the second trimester in our district, we are working on narrative writing.  So, I created a fun winter/holiday writing activity called "My Snowman Came Alive!"  Students can create their own snowman, bring it to life, and tell about the adventure they have!  Check it out here!

So many fun holiday things out there!  I'm working on another winter writing activity/unit for after the holidays!  I'm home with a sick kiddo, so it could even be done fairly soon :-)  Love feeling creative!

 

 

 



Thanksgiving Compare and Contrast

Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year! So after utilizing my Amazon Prime (LOVE the 2nd Day free shipping!) and ordering a few books last week, I needed some activities quickly!!! 

Luckily, I happened upon a recent Clutter Free Classroom post and found the Pilgrims and Wamanoags Portfolio.  I'm so excited and can't wait to use it this week!!! There are great resources on this post for procrastinators such as myself!

I also wanted to compare and contrast different cultures, and life then and now. I created a few venn diagrams (see below) that will tie in nicely with Thanksgiving.  Click here to view at my Teacher's Notebook shop.

 

 

I also have a really cool art display that a member of our team started doing a few years ago.  All of the second grade students made a feather to add to the turkey.

 

 

Ok, so pictures taken on my phone don't come out well!  I keep forgetting my camera.  To make the feathers you need poster board, yarn, glue, foil, and colored permanent markers.  1) Using the poster board cut out the shape of the feathers. 2) Use liquid glue to glue yarn pieces on the feather. 3) Have students make sure that they close every line.  They will use a different color for each spaced created by closed lines.  3) Let dry over night.  4) Cover feathers in foil and press down to show the lines.  5) Have students color each space with a colored permanent marker.  They come out beautiful... this picture really doesn't do them justice!

 

 

I still need to take a final picture of our wall with the Turkeys in Disguise.  Some more really cute ones came in!

 

 

 I also posted about the family turkey project my daughter needed to do for her Kindergarten class.  This turkey just need to be decorated, not disguised.  As is true to my little cutie's style we went with pink, purple, and some serious bling!!!  Check it out below. I even found googly eyes with different color eyes and eye lashes.  So fun :-)

 

 



 

 

 



Turkeys and a bit of October Art

Our Turkeys in Disguise project is due tomorrow, but we got a few in early!  The pictures below show the very beginning of our wall display and a few of the early birds :-)  Along with this family activity, we will have students complete a Don't Eat the Turkey Persuasive Writing assignment - created by my awesomely talented co-worker, Mrs. H.

Angry Bird

Fancy Lady

Musician

 

Futuristic Spider Man

 

 

They are coming out so cute!  I can't wait to see the rest tomorrow!

Here are a few October art projects and craftivities I did last month.  The bat acrostic poem template and bat craft came from Erica Bohrer's Batty for Bats unit.  My students had so much fun doing this! 

They also really enjoyed learning how to draw cats in pumpkins.  I used the step-by-step instructions from Kathy Barbaro.  She has amazing ideas for art projects on her blog Art Projects for Kids!

 

 

The bat drawing also came from Art Projects for Kids and Mrs. H. created the template for the bat couplet.  The kiddos had so much fun with one too!  The couplets were really fun too.  They enjoyed coming up with silly rhymes!

 

 

 



 

Thanksgiving Turkey Projects

I'm so excited that I finally have the opportunity to do the Turkey in Disguise Project!  I've seen it on Pinterest and blogs and loved it!  I tried to do it in the classroom with my resource kiddos last year aaannddd... it just didn't quite work! 

This year I read:




to my class and sent it home as a family project.  I sent a letter explaining what to do and a turkey printed on white construction paper.  I also posted examples on my class blog for parents to see.  I cannot wait to see how they turn out!

I haven't read this book, but heard it's a good one to go with this project too:



My daughter, who is in Kindergarten, came home with another turkey project.  Her teacher sent home a turkey on white construction paper and we have to decorate it in any way we want.  Of course, I'm going crazy trying to figure out how to make hers the cutest!!!  I'm thinking maybe ribbon?  Scrapbook paper?  Hmmm... any ideas?

I will post pictures soon!

Place Value Game Freebie

I haven't been able to post much lately.  It's been a crazy few months getting into the school year and getting settled into a routine.  You all know the feeling!  Here is a game I made for our upcoming Family Math Night!  Click on the game board below to download for FREE (for a limited time!) from my Teachers Notebook Shop! 

Enjoy!

Fall Math Freebie

I have been terrible about posting lately!  I feel like all that I do is work, work, work and I haven't had any time to do fun things like blog! Now don't get me wrong, I still spend a fair amount of time blog stalking but haven't had time to share anything I'm doing!!! 

I am new to many things this year, and Investigations is one of them!  Our district has mapped out how to use the program and part of that includes pulling parts from other grade levels.  So, we've been playing Capture 5 from the third grade level.  Most of my kids really enjoy playing, and others are still a bit lost - and therefore not really interested!  Sooo, I made a fall version of the game. to make it a little bit more of a draw to those kiddos  This is played exactly the same way as Capture 5, so you can use the number cards (+10, -10, +3, -1, etc.) from the program.  I just made a fun game board and instead of using chips as markers, you use pumpkin markers :-)  I printed the game board on green construction paper and the pumpkin markers on orange.  Click on picture below for game board and here for pumpkin markers.  Enjoy :-)

 

 

Freebies!

The beginning of the year has been a crazy blur of events!  I haven't had time to blog or really do much of anything other than try to make sure I have lesson plans done, copies made... basically, just trying to survive!

Here are a couple of freebies for you.  I like to have everything "cutified" so these are just some things I made for binders :-) Click on picture to download from my Teachers Notebook shop!

 

 

I hope to get things under control in my classroom and have more time to blog soon!

 

 



Bucket Filling Freebie, Art Gallery, Made it Thursday?, and more!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while!  Whew, can I just say that I am completely exhausted?  I love being a classroom teacher and I am sooo enjoying all the lesson planning and fun activities that I can incorporate... but wow is it a LOT of work!!!

Here are a few things that have kept me away from blogging! 

I changed one of my bulletin board and made it a bucket filling board.  I have a class bucket and some compliment starters.  We will read out of the bucket each Friday!  I'm worried that some students won't have something about them, so I'm going to fill out one for each student!

I also put a reminder sign on our door!

 

I just love the font I found to make the signs, it's matches the Bucket TM sign!  The i's are dotted with hearts :-)

 

 Here are links to download the word signs and the TM'd Bucket, I got the image on line and just made it bigger!

 

Bucket Filler Image

 

We are bucket fillers signs

 

 

I finally got my art wall started.  I am working at an arts magnet school, so I wanted to create a space to exhibit student art work.  It was really hard for me to veer away from my bright greens and blues, but I wanted to have more neutral colors so that the focus was on the student's art work and not the sign. I have a few projects with no names that will need to be claimed tomorrow before Back-to-School Night!

 

 

 

These apples came out so cute!  They are pointilism apples inspired by the work of Georges Seurat.  We studies a bit about Seurat and looked at some large prints of his work.  The students used Q-tips and water colors to create a pointilism apple.  They LOVED this project!!!  I wish I could take credit for it, but another 2nd grade teacher on my team got me started with it.  Thank you Catherine!  Below is a closer look at one of the apples.

 

 

 

I used black card stock and glued small clothes pins on it to hang their art work on.  I printed their names on small mailing labels to show who the pieces belong to.  I stole that idea from the third grade hall!!!

 

 

I also got all of my owls hung up under my sign that reads "Mrs. Zuniga's Wise Owls."  I got the sweet little polka dot owls from Schoolgirl Style.  I absolutely LOVE her stuff!  That is where I got the polka dot lanterns that I made my owls out of - can't remember if a credited her on that one (if not, I should have!)   I haven't figured out how to add text onto the owls - I think I need to upgrade my Adobe- so I printed student names on small mailing labels and put them on each owl.  This is a terrible picture... I will take another one tomorrow!

 

 

 

If I had been anywhere close to functioning well on Monday, I would have posted this on Made it Monday (I did make it Monday!)  This was just a quick project I did so that I had a place to hang the hall pass clips we are all using at our school this year.  I used a cookie sheet from the dollar store, left over stickers from my attendance board, and glued ribbon to the back (it's a very light cookie sheet) to attach it to the wall.  I put an owl cut out to hide the old call button on the wall!



 

 







 

Click here for tutorial on how to make the number magnets.  The sign is a little cramped, but it works!!!

 

I have more super fun art projects to share.  I'm still finishing some up and hope to have them ready to hang for Back-to-School night tomorrow!  One of these days I may go to sleep before midnight... I'm just not sure when!!!

 

 

 



First week of school - Complete!!!

First week of school is done!  I made it to the light pedicure at the end of the tunnel week!  All of that preparation and worry about my move to second grade  was wiped out after Day 1... and replaced by fear that my feet wouldn't make it to their appointment on Saturday!  Luckily, it all worked out and I have pampered tootsies :-)




I promised myself that I would only work on Saturday and take the next two days off.  Yeah, that hasn't happened.  I am enjoying planning though - it's so much more fun than planning for small group, direct instruction!  Thank goodness for TPT and an amazingly supportive team member (who is a fellow blog stalker and is willing to share her fab finds!) 

I have done some fun activities over the last week and have some fun things to share... well, ummm, when I have art projects cut out and mounted, and pictures taken. Hmmm, still lots to do!  I hope to post pics this week though!

Back-to-School night is Thursday and I need to find all the fun things I found on Pinterest and decide what I'm going to do! Have you had yours yet?  What did you do (or are planning to do?)