Lunchbox Linky

Tara at 4th Grade Folics is having a fun lunchbox linky party.

Here's my lunchbox. I recently upgraded from a brown paper Starbucks bag. I picked up this cute little bag from our school fundraiser via Mixed Bag.

My lunch generally consists of some type of leftover, fruit, and a protein bar that I usually eat for breakfast or after school. Today's leftover was jambalaya. I often carry that fruit back and forth for a few days before I eat it. It's not that I don't like fruit, but my first impulse is to reach for something not so...healthy.

My lunch is from 11:45-12:25. It is a duty free lunch, thank goodness. I always eat in the staff room. I have plenty to do in my classroom, but I find that I really need that few minutes of down time each day. When we are feeling really crazy, we go out for lunch at Taco Bell. This is generally only 3-5 times a year! We also have a few staff development days sprinkled throughout the year where we get an entire hour for lunch. Woohoo!

My husband, who I've been married to for 12 years, recently emailed me on a Friday and asked if I wanted to meet him for lunch. He has never, in 12 years, met me for lunch on a school day. It went something like this:

Husband: Do you want to meet for lunch?

Me: Sure, you do realize I only have 40 minutes for lunch?

Husband: Really? Aren't you guys always going out to lunch?

Me: Sometimes we go to Taco Bell, that's all we have time for.

Husband: Hmmm... (hates fast food)

How is it possible that he has been married to me my entire teaching career and has no idea that I do not have time to go out to lunch with him? I guess I need to complain about my short lunch break a little more. He ended up bringing me lunch and we ate in my classroom. It was a nice and unexpected treat. I doubt he'll be asking me to have lunch with him again anytime soon!

Our Week in Africa

Open House is a really big deal at my school. I can't remember the last time I did not have 100% of my class attend, not to mention the scores of kindergartners who come in to check out what is in store for them next year. So, even though it is still 9 weeks away, I am starting to get ready. Our first grade classes do a 7 continents theme. That gives me 1 week per continent and two extra to finish up anything we didn't get to. We started in Africa this week. Of course, I didn't quite finish and now I am behind on my plan already. We did get a good start and the kids are really into our world travels. Here are some pictures of what we have accomplished so far.

African Habitat Poems

Jungle Close-Up

Jungle, Savanna, and Desert Habitat Poems
These are from the book, September Theme Pockets, by Michelle Barnett


We do these adorable dancing giraffes based on the book, Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. The art lesson is from Deep Space Sparkle. Get the lesson {here}

My class used the creature feature from National Geographic Kids to research animals from Africa. They absolutely loved doing these. There are tons of animals on the website. They each have a short video to watch as well. The only issue was that the text was above their reading level. I was able to manage by doing it with small groups of kids during our Daily 5 rotation. Check out the website {here}

We made these zebras from Deanna Jump's Zoo Animal Unit. The venn diagram and worksheets are from the same unit. Her unit has a ton of cute animal art projects and other activities. Get it {here}

Venn Diagram and Animal Research

St. Patrick's Day

Lucky the Leprechaun visited my classroom every day this week! He left a note each day along with a present for the class. He left books, crafts, writing activities, and Lucky Charms to graph.  The kids were so excited each day to see what Lucky would leave for us. We also had a very wet week with many rainy day recesses which made it difficult to coordinate "surprise" leprechaun visits.

Lucky's notes from the week

My students wrote letters and Lucky wrote back in green ink.

Notice the end of this one. There always has to be a sceptic!

Lucky Charms Sort and Graph

Worksheets are from Teachers Clubhouse

Who is more precious than gold to you? This idea was from Pamela from First Class Teacher.

Books from Lucky

Leprechaun footprints!

Linky Party

Jeannie at Kindergarten Lifestyle is having a linky party for K-2 blogs. This is fantastic way to check out a bunch of K-2 blogs in one place Hop on over to this link to check out the details.

Potato Head Glyphs

On Friday, we made these fun Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head Glyphs. I love this project because it doesn't require any copying. If your school is like mine, wrestling with the copy machines is a constant battle! All the parts are cut free hand by the kids. In addition to the bonus of not having to fight the copy machine, all of them come out a little different because the kids get to create the parts themselves.

Click on the images to download a copy of the glyph worksheets.

TGIF

So glad this crazy week is done! We had report cards and conferences to do this week. In honor of surviving the stressful week, I spent the afternoon at our local outdoor wine bar with some of my favorite coworkers. I am lucky to have such wonderful people to work with. It was a fabulous way to end the week. My weekend will be filled with little league baseball, a viewing of The Lorax with the family, and approximately 17 loads of laundry.

I was also given an award this week from three awesome bloggers. I will pass on the award as soon as I recover from my whirlwind week.

A big thank you goes out to:





FAME Art

My school is lucky to have an amazing group of volunteers. Our parents do one FAME (Fine Arts Mini Experience) lesson per month with our students. Here are some pics of our last two lessons.

Portraits in the style of Modigliani:

Theme masks in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo:

Another Award!!!

Another sweet surprise this weekend when I was awarded the Lovely Blog award from The Journey of a Substitute Teacher, Dragonflies in First, and First with Franklin. Definitely feeling the bloggy love!

The rules:

1. Link back to the blogger who gave it to you. (did that!)

2. Pass the award onto 15 other lovely bloggers. 

(may be a bit difficult to find someone who doesn't have it. I'll be happy with 5!)

3. Follow the person who sent it to you. (Check!)

Here are my blog picks:

1. The Loco Teacher

2. Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes

3. Kristen Keeping it Classy

4. If You Give A Teacher An Ipad

5. 2KROCKS!

Green Eggs and Ham

Today we had pajama day in honor of Dr. Seuss. I LOVE pajama day! It was a treat to be comfy cozy in my jammies all day. I even purchased a brand new pair of hot pink Hello Kitty pajama pants for the occasion!

We did one last Dr. Seuss activity today. We wrote a Green Eggs and Ham class book. Check out the pictures below. Sorry, no pic of the hot pink pajama pants!

Fun with Dr. Seuss

We have been working on some fun Dr. Seuss themed activities this week.  We started out the week by  creating Cat in the Hat from paper plates. Then we added rhyming words to the hats.  Super cute!

We also made these adorable Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprints inspired from Mel D. Check out her blog {here}. She also has a really cute Lorax activity on her blog for free!

We have been working on using powerful verbs to spice up our writing. I taught the students to write a 3 action sentence to go with the Thing 1 and Thing 2 project. What is a 3 action sentence you ask? It is a sentence that follows this pattern: noun, action phrase, action phrase, and action phrase. For example, Mrs. Sousa hopped out of bed, gulped down her coffee, and drove to work. I teach them these in isolation first and then, hopefully, they will include them in their every day story writing to vary sentence structure.

I created a rough draft framed writing to help the students with their 3 action pattern sentences. Click the image to download a copy.

Thing 1 came to my bedroom. He jumped on my bed, spilled water on the floor, and broke my fan. What a mess!

Thing 1 came to my kitchen. He destroyed the glass, threw all my pans out, and jumped on my table. He is a little rascal.

Thing 2 came to my backyard. She yanked my dog's tail, made all the palm trees collapse, and leaped on my glass table. She was a little mean devil.

My First Award

I woke up to a nice surprise this morning. I have been awarded the Liebster Blog Award from the gals at 3 Teacher Chicks. Thanks so much ladies!

What it's all about...

The Liebster Award is awarded to blogs with less than 200 followers.  The award is passed along from blogger to blogger and highlights up and coming blogs.  Liebe is the word for love in Germany, which is where the award originated.  

Guidelines to accepting the award:

Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.  Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.  Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.  Present the Liebster Blog Award to blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.  Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

MY Liebster Blog PICKS

Lots of fun freebies on this site. 

An 4th grade blogger just starting out.

A first grade blog with many cute ideas.