Learning Curve

I am still trying to get the hang of this blogging thing!
I am currently on April Break (I work on at year-round school) so I have some time to sit down and play around with this and upload some pics. This post is going to include my class's Earth Day project (I'm sorry I am posting after Earth Day! Hopefully its something you can file away for next year!) and our Mother's Day project.

Earth Day:
I had to be absent during Earth Day this year, so this project was done in three parts. We first made our coffee filter earths the day before earth day. I just had the children color the coffee filters with blue and green markers and then I sprayed them with water and let them dry.
On Earth Day, I had the sub read the book The Giving Tree to my students and generate a list of things the Earth gives us. The student then wrote a thank you letter to the Earth (I just used a copy of Earth day paper I had and added a sentence starter). On Monday, we glued our finished projects on black construction paper and I hung them in the hall! I loved the way they turned out!

Mother's Day:
For Mother's Day, I made salt dough ornaments for my students over the weekend using a flower cookie cutter. Each student then decorated the ornament with markers and I plan on spraying the ornaments with a clear sealant when we return to school and put a ribbon through them. I also plan on having the students complete an acrostic poem using the work MOTHER.

Tricky Y

I am starting to quickly learn that April and May will be the busiest months of the year. When the weather starts to warm up so does my social and school life! :) This is the first night I have had in a couple weeks that I have been able to sit down and catch up on my Criminal Minds!

I have wanted to post more/new ideas, but to be honest, I have just been crazy busy. My goal is during my April break, I will take an afternoon to sit down and update, update, update! But I am adding a quick idea tonight!

This week my student's are learning the 'y' that makes the 'i' and 'e' sound. In my classroom, we call this little guy...TRICKY Y! I have made a drawing of TRICKY Y, laminated him, and taped him to a paint stir stick to help us go along with our song/poem! (I don't have a picture! Sorry!)
I do have to admit though..I can't take all the credit for this song/poem about TRICKY Y. One of my good friend's niece, who is also in first grade, helped me with the lyrics! :) Too cute!

My name's Tricky Y,
I'm sometimes an I,
Maybe an E, but its always me!

If I have learned anything in my first year of teaching, its that if you put a song or catchy poem with a skill...firsties LOVE IT! (and it becomes their new favorite song at recess!) :)