Last Day of my First Year

Today was my last day of school. It was an extremely bittersweet day for me! It was hard seeing my firsties go, but it helped knowing that I was just sending them down the hall and I will be able to see them every morning as they walk to their second grade classrooms. I had a friend ask me this afternoon how I felt after ending my first year. After I thought about it, I told her it felt like going down a hill on a big roller coaster ride! It takes a while to get up the hill, you have a million emotions running through you, but when you finally reach the descent and start heading down, it all fades away and it feels worth it!

There were times that I felt like I would NEVER see this day or on those really rough days, times that I thought I would NEVER make it to this day. It feels great to know that despite all the challenges and emotions, I have completed my first year successfully.

Through the ups and downs of this year, there are a few things that I would have never survived without.....

1) My AMAZING team!
2) My family and friends
3) All the great first grade blogs
and of course....
4) QT fountain soda!

Thank you for letting me take the time to share my happiness with you! Its hard for anyone else to understand who isn't in this unique "teacher world"

Writing Posters

While I was sorting through some of my first grade documents I have created this year, I stumbled across these writing posters. I created them back in December to help my students prepare for a writing assessment. I thought I would post them to my blog! Hopefully they can help someone!

BIG IDEA!

SEQUENCE!

DETAILS!

CONVENTIONS!

Plants

We started our plants science unit a couple weeks ago. This is quickly becoming my favorite science unit of the whole year! (We use FOSS science kits). I have done a lot of supplementing for this unit, but my kiddos are loving it! They are so engaged. We started out by doing the ever so popular "growing a lima bean plant in a bag." It has been a huge success! I love to see them come in every morning and get so excited over the growth of their bean.

I have really been trying to focus on observations. I have showed them how to write and draw their observations in a journal that I created. It has been a huge success. Below I have added my observation journal, I hope someone else can use it for their class!

Lima Bean Experiment Observation Journal