Made It Monday

Here's my entry for Made It Monday. A very small one, I know but useful. You know all those teacher mugs we get every year?

Well, I made this to go inside the mug so that I could use it for something else besides drinking coffee.

Yeah, I know, it looks like an apron but it's not. They're little pockets that can hold markers and pens and pencils. And yes, you could just put the markers and pens and pencils in the mug without it but this looks so much cuter. And I like to sew. And I have lots and lots of fabric because I bought way too much.

If you've made something you'd like to share, head on over to 4th Grade Frolics and link up.

Vegas Blogger Get Together

These were the signs pointing the way to the Vegas bloggers and stalkers get together at the ITeachK conference on Tuesday, July 10! My pictures did not come out that great, sorry. I was so excited to meet everyone and either forgot to shoot the pictures or moved while shooting and ended up with lots of blurry photos.

Here's a couple of shots of everyone mingling together:

All the blogger celebrities were there, it was so exciting. I gushed all over them. 

After we briefly chatted, it was time for the raffle. Lots and lots of wonderful prizes!!! I actually won two prizes, a $10 gift certificate for TPT, oh yay, and a book on CVC words from Heidi Butkus, yay again. I love her DVDs. 

I had a great time. Thanks so much to Rachelle from What The Teacher Wants who organized it and to all  

those who sponsored the wonderful prizes!

Slow down summer, you're moving too fast!

This year I have 10 weeks of summer vacation. 5 weeks down and 5 weeks to go! Ever notice how 5 weeks during the school year draaaaaag but 5 weeks during the summer just fly by? What's up with that?? Anyway,  I've been enjoying my summer except for one thing that has put a HUGE damper on it. I got moved to 1st grade. Boohoohoo. I am soooo upset about this. I love K and am sooo not thrilled with the move. I know it's not the end of the world but I DON'T WANT TO TEACH 1ST!

I do follow many, many, 1st grade blogs and so I have been spending time looking at all the great ideas, especially for Common Core. Last year, we began CCS with Kindergarten and this year 1st grade will begin. Oh joy, I get to start all over!

 But for now I am in Vegas, Baby!! But not at the ITeachK conference because I don't teach K anymore. (boohoo) But I am excited about the blogger meet up. Can't wait to meet everyone!

 

Open House

It's been a month since we planted our lima beans. We didn't have very much success. Usually 2 or 3 plants don't grow but this time about half of our beans did not sprout. The students were so disappointed. I told them we'd plant again and they could take them home that same day.

These were the few that sprouted although one of them seems to have given up.

We also had Open House last week. I usually love Open House, but this year there was so much to do, testing, staff development and trainings, I kept it pretty simple. It was a combination of of two themes, spring and the farm.

 

We did some writing about the farm. We made a circle map about animals that live on a farm and what they do. I forgot to take a picture of the inside.

Saw this all over Pinterest. Went great with our plant unit.

Did some addition facts.

We watched the video The Very Hungry Caterpillar and illustrated the life cycle of a butterfly using a bean and pasta.

We  read The Grouchy Ladybug and made a book re-tell and a clock to go with it.

We also made the graduate portraits but I didn't take pictures of them. They came out really cute.

Little Gardeners

It's planting time again. This is one of MY favorite activities - planting lima beans. I always plant a bean too, but last year nothing sprouted. We planted the beans yesterday and when they got to school this morning, they were expecting to see some sprouts. Nope, they're not magic beans, sorry.

After we finished planting, we wrote in our plant journals.

Open House is in four weeks, I'm hoping everyone's plant sprouts and there are no casualties. Seems like someone always drops their cup or breaks the stem.

Our next activity will be our vegetable tasting party. We'll be graphing our favorite veggies.

Let's Get Together

 Today's the day! Do you live in S.Cal? In the Orange County area? Come join us at Cheesecake Factory at 1:00 pm at the Irvine Spectrum. And don't forget your camera.

February Activities

There's always so much going on in February!!! I love seeing all the activities everyone is doing with their students. There never seems to be enough time to get everything done! But here's what we've been doing so far this month.

We started off with Groundhog Day. We graphed whether our Pomona Phil would see his shadow. Then we made these headbands with our predictions. The headbands came from Mailbox Magazine.

Then we took Pomona Phil outdoors to see if our predictions were correct.

And yep, he saw his shadow! Six more weeks of winter for us! The kids got the biggest kick out Phil seeing his shadow and then realizing they could see their own shadows as well.

Next up, the 100th day of school. I wanted to make a t-shirt that I found on someone's blog. It looked like the easiest thing in the world. But it wasn't, at least not for me. It turned out to be a hot mess!!! Ruined a very good cheap t-shirt.

We made crowns

counted out 100 fruit loops to make necklaces

counted by 10's to sequence school busses on their way to school

We also made a hundred link paper chain, and brought in 100th day collections. I would have liked for them to make their 100 year old portraits but NO TIME!!!

Valentine's Day was simple. We graphed the colors of the Sweetheart candies. I used the graphing pages from Teacher bits & bobs blog.

After this, we passed out our valentines and finished up with cupcakes that a parent sent in. Those 2 activities took up pretty much the whole morning.

And that's been our month so far. Still working on president activities but end of trimester testing is taking up much of our time. This year is flying!