What's for lunch linky party

I'm joining in the linky party! 

Tara (4th Grade Frolics) is hosting this party. Come join in!

I always, always, always take my lunch. I haven't eaten in the school cafeteria in years! Usually left overs are the meal of the day. But I carry it in my 31 thermal tote.

I have to have my tea. I make it (sun tea style) in the Rubbermaid quart container. I fill it up with water as soon as I get to school, pop in a quart size Luzianne tea bag=tea by lunch time. It has to go in my Tennessee cup. (The Target tall straws that I get when I partake of the popcorn and drink combo is perfect for my cup!)

I always take a banana and the leftovers in the container. My grade unit eats in our work room (not a room for work obviously) and most days we have Oreo cookies if we want dessert. For some reason we have a "cookie monster" who gets them if we don't hide them at night.

I wanted a new lunch bag but 31 doesn't have it in the same pattern as my school bag. Boo-hoo! Aqua is my latest favorite color.

And totally random--the dogwoods are bea.u.ti.ful this spring! I am anxiously awaiting spring break after four more school days!!!

A Touch of Spring

Spring. My favorite time of the year. The weather here has been warmer than usual over parts of the USA and we haven't been spared either. We have been studying plants.

Using clear cups we planted bean seeds., By placing the seeds near the sides of the cup it provided the kids with a great view of what was happening when the seeds sprouted. Those roots were amazing. The kids couldn't wait to take a look each morning. One looked exactly like a spine. Boy--those kids must have green thumbs.

I was up for my dreaded evaluation and planned a great lesson. But...stomach virus caused me to miss the day of the evaluation so it will have to be rescheduled. DRAT! But the lesson still provided my kids with some learning and creativeness too.

I'm searching for the link to this amazing lesson and will edit a link as soon as I find it. (Can someone tell me how to organize my files so I can actually find them?) Finally found it: from Dragonflies in First blog: and it's free!  

On another note--our phonics spelling pattern this week was the /ou/ow sound. I found this idea last year and the kids loved doing it again. Easy as pie--draw a picture, pick a bandaid, write about it. I hung these up for conferences yesterday and the parents loved seeing them!

I make a movie maker slideshow using their pictures/writing and add a song by Katherine Dines--Itchy Itchy Owie Owie Boo Boo. If you've heard it you know it is just perfect. (By the way I really didn't ask for the "crying face" from this little one--it was done...all...by...herself!)

Speechless

I am...speechless. I have received not one but two awards in the last few days!!! I feel so unworthy. I first received the One Lovely Blog Award from Mrs. Nunley over at First Grade Magic. This is super touching because she is the first blogger that I have found that actually works within 50 miles of me!


And...then I received another award from Wild About First Grade for one of the "the new bloggers on the block--meaning we don't have thousands of followers."

I am thankful to both ladies for thinking of my blog. I am new. I really have so little to share--and most to gain by reading and sharing a great profession of teaching. I just know that I have become a better teacher. I have become more excited about sharing these great ideas with my class of 20 first graders. And in the end--they are the ones that are the winners.

I was trying to plan my writing workshop and my science unit last night. I just was so unmotivated. I just turned off the computer and decided to wait for another day--well this is the only day since tomorrow it is back to school. When I turned my computer on this morning--the very first new blog post was about plants and seeds. Just what I was looking for. I raced over to TPT and bought two units that were so cheap. For $4.50 I had both my writing and science planned. Again...winner!!! If you want to catch some of my luck--hee hee for St. Patrick's Day week luck! then go over to Dragonflies and catch the Sunny Sunflowers and Me and the Beanstalk ideas. Ah--Now I have time to re-lax.

To pass some of my loveliness on to others that are deserving--I'll start with both of these blogs.


1.  First Grade Magic

2. Dragonflies in First

3. Wild About First Grade

4. Dew Drop in First Grade

5. Dilly Dabbles in First

6. Fabulous in First


7. The Inspired Apple


8. The First Grade Parade


9. The Polka Dot Patch


10. First Grade Fanatics

These blogs are a mixture--new ones, great inspirational ones, ones that continue to help me.

We adopted Envision Math this year. We are currently on the topic of Graphs and Tables. It was a welcome relief from some of the skills we have been working on--for what seems like for-e-ver. On Friday we got to use spinners to gather data and analyze the data. Relief! I have been skipping around a bit to get the major topics in before the dreaded end of the year Stanford 10.

Have a great week. I will be back with some pictures of those plant themed ideas!

Scrambled Word Sentences

Whistle for Willie Scrambled Words">

My kids have had difficulty using a set of words to make a sentence. I was disappointed amazed suprised totally unbelieving that they couldn't do this skill. I made this little work station to give them opportunities to improve! Our basal story in Treasures is about a dog (Whistle for Willie), You are welcome to use if you wish!

Tornado end of the week sigh

Whew! what an end to a week. With lots of activities going on for Dr. Suess week/AR pirate/map activities our week has been full of all kinds of fun.

 I used an idea from The First Grade Parade's Cara to make the writing about where we like to read. Cute idea and the kids did a great job of writing to describe where they would choose to read. We've been learning about maps (which will need to be continued next week due to our abrupt ending to our day). Read Across America offered me lots of ways to coordinate those standards!!!

The ar sound Pirate activity was so much fun. I'm not sure how to say that pirates mix with Dr. Seuss but we don't really care! They loved searching for the words in the classroom. There was one missing word and I finally found it last night. You can find the unit on Abby;'s site here.

And a sad ending to our shortened day. Our student teacher was leaving today. He was wonderful. I never thought I could be so sad but we all sobbed!!! Yes. Sobbed! He asked if we could eat in the room and we did. He went around and told each child how special they were. Melt my heart. These kids ate. it. up. They looked him in the eye and loved his praise of how special they were. I had made a DVD of pictures and activities so we watched that (and cried some more). I am sure we would have cried the rest of the day if the tornado early dismissal didn't change everything in a flash.

So, I sit at home...waiting...and...hoping that no bad weather will come. We had severe tornadoes through our region last March which destroyed many homes. So we pray.

And, a little request. Say a prayer for my student teacher. He found out this his mom's cancer is terminal and she only has a short time left. He will miss his second part of his student teaching to fly across the country to be with her. So I am sure he can use prayer support.

A fun idea he used this week was to make a Sam I Am by incorporating our color words in a direction activity. The kids read the Who Am I? which was projected on the SMARTboard and put the parts together.