Wall Outside My Reading Room

Here is the wall outside my reading room.  I wanted to do something that would encourage the children to read and incorporate winter and Valentine's Day.  This is an idea similar to what I found on Pinterest.  It was very simple to make.  

Olaf was made by Grace, a former kindergarten/first grade student of mine who is now in fifth grade.  I had some book jackets that fit perfect for this purpose.  Then I cut out some simple hearts and the librarian at my school cut out some snowflakes.  I wrote out the words "I love warm hugs and books." in fancy letters.  

That's it!!  The kiddos just love it.  I love that it is bright and cheerful and it reflects my love for reading. 

I haven't shared much this school year because I have been logging in a lot of books in the reading resource room.  I have NO prep time so the little bit of free time I do have I am logging and shelving books.  I really didn't think it would take me this long to log in books.   

Valentine Math Ideas

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and I am seeing lots of colorful hearts everywhere in school and at the stores. This week I have a new lesson for the kindergarten students thanks to Oriental Trading.  They gave me these wonderful ten frame trays and valentine erasers.  Which are perfect because the kindergarteners are just beginning to learn about decomposing numbers. The trays are so nice and easy to use.  I like that they are easy to wipe off the germs. I don't know about your classrooms but it seems everyone at my school is coughing and sneezing.  

I created a simple little worksheet for the lesson and it is in color to match the heart erasers.  It is also a FREEBIE and you can download here... something simple and fun to help the students learn during the month of February.  

 The kids are loving the heart erasers.  I am using them with several different age groups through the day.  

 I had my little four year olds sorting and counting the heart erasers by colors.  Then we use them as markers in our Alphabet Bingo game.  

Another group was working on patterning and having tons of fun creating patterns with the hearts.  

I also received from Oriental Trading these sensory cards.  At first I was just using them with the four year olds in our little sand boxes.  Then we started using the cards as flash cards and if a student mades a mistake on the number he traces the number 3x with his finger. The boys love touching the cards.   

One of my five year olds is working on what number is missing.  So I pulled out these cards and it is so easy to set up the numbers in a row and then figure out what is missing.  The little girl loves this activity as well.  

Don't forget to look for the coupon link on the OT site.  Scroll all the way down to the bottom and look at the links on the left.  If you are anything like me, I always like to save anything I can. 

Thank you Oriental Trading for the wonderful products.    

A-Maze-ing Valentines for Your Students

If you read this blog often you may already know that I am working with many students from K4 through 2nd grade at my school.  So when it is time to put together valentines for the children I starting looking for something simple and easy.  

Oriental Trading offered me some wonderful gifts for the children. So I picked out these little heart mazes for each child from the valentine page because I thought I could easily put something together with these.    

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Then I had to decide what to do with them, however there are already so many wonderful ideas on Pinterest.  So I combined all the best ideas and came up with my own layout. 

I really liked the idea of adding the word FRIEND because that is something all the teachers at our work really hard to teach the children friendship.   

Click Here if you want your FREE Valentine Cards.  

PS  Don't forget the coupon page if you have a big order.  

Valentine Cards for the Elderly and Parents

I saw this idea in a recent magazine.  I torn the idea out so I could remember it.  Unfortunately I lost it so now I don't know where the idea came from.  Anyways, I thought this would be a fun project for my first graders.  Each student made two cards:  one for an elderly person in our parish and another one for their parents.  

The children thought is was fun to draw the XOXOXO after I explained it meant hugs and kisses.  I tried to get them to paint with shades reds, pinks and purples however they had their own favorite colors.  

It was very simple to do.  I cut regular construction paper to the size I needed.  Each child used their white crayons to draw the xoxoxo or hearts.  Then they watercolored the covers of the cards.  The cards were left out to dry.  Then I put them under a heavy basket to flatten them out.  

We put a little prayer inside of them...which of course I can not find now.  

Chinese New Year Idea

I found the cutest book on Amazon a couple weeks ago, Paper Lanterns.  I took a chance and ordered it.  My class enjoyed the book a lot.  The story was about a little boy who studies under the master to learn how to make paper lanterns.  The book was a great tool for discussing author's purpose, setting, characters and events. 

After we read the book we made Chinese lanterns in a variety of colors.  We sponge painted flowers and outlined them with black sharpies.  Next they wrote some Chinese characters on the border.  The project was a lot of fun. The bright lanterns are a joy to look each day.

    

  

In My Heart

I found this wonderful book at Target.  It is a beautiful book about feelings.  My class enjoyed it so much.  They loved looking at the hearts.  

Each holiday my students make cards for the elderly.  It is hard coming up with new ideas.  When I saw this book I knew right away what I wanted to do this year.

After I read the story to the children I showed them how to create the hearts by starting with a small heart and making it bigger each time.  

My partner teacher found these wonderful bible verses on Pinterest.  You can find them at Bible Story Printables.  I had the children pick the verse they wanted to put inside their cards.  

The  cards turned out cute.  Each child made two cards.  One for his/her parents and another one for the elderly.  

101 Day Follow Up

This is our puppy bulletin board.

  I wanted the children to do a writing about dogs however I was out sick part of last week so I ran out of time.

I washed out the doggie treat container and put in some Scooby snacks that I received from one of my students.  I put 24 treats in a baggie to give to the speciality teachers to pass out if the puppies were good in class.  The kids and the teachers loved this.  

Here are my little puppies.  They were so excited to come to school in spots.  When we watched the movie 101 Dalmatians,  I was surprised how many children had not seen the movie yet.

At the end of the day, I had the children work in pairs.   Each pair was given a piece of string that was 101 centimeters long.  The children searched around the room looking for things greater/less than 101 centimeters.  

Throughout the rest of the day the children worked in their 101 day booklet.  

read more here

Valentines for my Students

It's that time of year when you have to search out wonderful ideas of valentines to give to your students.  My students this year are all about OLAF!   Still.....really I am not joking.  when we read stories about snowman and created our own snowmen that is what everyone of them were drawing and making.  It is the number one song request for Brain Break time.

When I was telling my daughter about this.....she got all excited because she LOVES Olaf too.  (She is 24 years old!)  She found a cute Olaf valentine on pinterest to make.  So that is what we made today.....

20 Olaf valentine treat bags.  It was really easy to make.

1.  Go to One Creative Mommy.com  and print out the Olaf bag toppers.  Fill out one per student.
2.  Supplies you will need:  stick pretzels, candy corn, brown mini m & m's, a mini tube of white frosting, large marshmallows, and mini marshmallows and bags to put the snowmen in.

3.  I "glued"  the m & m's on first with the frosting to the large marshmallows.
4.  Then I assembled the bags.

This project was very easy to do.

Happy Valentine's Day to you!

I'm Done.....What should I do??????

I hear it all the time......I finished my work what should I do know.  Well it is February and I think (knock on wood) the kids can finally figure it out.

In my first grade classroom I have a system.  It starts every time we do an assignment.  In their desks each student has a red folder, that is where they put work they do not finish throughout the day.

When they find themselves with a free moment they start with their red folder  and finish their work.

The next step is to move to their challenge folder.  Each month I create 16 challenge assignments from the help from other bloggers.
They have incentives to complete the activities correctly.  My students must complete one challenge activity before they can have "free choice"  in the classroom.

The goal is to get four in a row to earn a ticket.  Tickets can be used to get coupons.  

Click Here for the Freebie

Activities
#1  Addition Love Bug Game 
#2  Mixed Up Animal Sentence
#3 Find, Tally and Graph
#4  Letter for My Valentine
# 5  Money for My Valentine
#6  Valentine Word Problems
#7  Adding Up Postage
#8  Valentine Word Search
#9  Sweet Nouns
#10  Double the Fun Game
#11  Read and Write
#12  Valentine ABC
#13  February Reading Challenge
#14  True and False Spin Math
#15  Solve, Cut, Paste It
#16  Sort Math Facts

101 Day Freebie and Ideas

I don’t know why or how this happened but several people purchased my 101 packet in January.  I was so surprised when I looked at my dashboard on TPT.  Apparently I don’t get emails anymore when someone purchases something or leaves a comment.  I will have to look in my spam folder. 

Anyways,  I was in the process of getting organized for 101 day in my classroom this week and I made some updates to the unit. 

First I added a wonderful poem by Leroy Jackson, unfortunately I don’t remember where I found it.   You can get the poem for FREE just CLICK HERE. 

I made a homework sheet for it as well.  I loved the poem because we are working on short and long i this week so it worked perfect for phonics. 

TPT Store

In my updated unit I created one of those I SPY sheets and I am going to use it for adding three numbers.  I left if blank in case you wanted to do something different.  I also put in making small words with the big word Dalmatians.    My class loves doing this activity. 

I found a cute art idea on Pinterest.   I will let the kids make their own and I want them to name their dogs.   The children will do a writing assignment as well. I want them to write several facts about dogs.   This dog is made by an adult, I know the first graders will create something just as cute.  This is such a good idea. I can't wait to see their creations.   I'll let you know how it works out.  

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President Day Art/Writing Project

Dear Teachers, 

Please excuse my tardiness with my blog posts I have been sick lately and I am doing a lot of resting.

I do have a cute Presidential Project to share with you.  We did read a couple of books:

 I like to read this book first so that we can talk about what a president does and how a president gets elected.

Then we read about some real presidents:

 In the afternoon we read about the present president:

I put a little twist on my traditional president’s day project.  I added a torn paper American Flag behind a coin.  

Stop by Mrs. Ricca's Blog she had a great freebie book and some other idea's to share about president's day today.  

Class Valentine

I know I am a bit late with this post, however it is so cute I just had to share it with you.

This year for Valentine’s Day my class gave me the cutest Valentine.  

BTW…I just love homemade valentines.  

It's hard to see the valentines...it is a long chain of hearts.  I am holding them in my hands and they extend down to the floor.

On the back of each heart the children answered questions about me.

How tall is Mrs. Schueller?

As tall as an ostrich

40 inches

She is as tall as a basketball player.

50 inches

5 feet

What does Mrs. Schueller say all the time?

Flip back or flip up (behavior chart reference)

Sit down on the carpet

Behave

Go flip up or go flip back

Do your work

How old is Mrs. Schueller?

I think 36

88

40

49

I don’t know

If Mrs. Schueller was a super hero/cartoon character which one would she be?

Millie from Team UmiZoomi in a pink dress

Wonder Women

Princess Leia

The invisible woman because she’s a girl

She would be strawberry shortcake

What does Mrs. Schueller do after you leave school?

play on her ipad

she get ready for the next day

She writes down words in our word books

She packs up her stuff and goes home.

Work on our art projects

 Honestly does it get any sweeter than that!