January Sensory Bins

January Sensory Bins

This year I am working with three year olds.  So I am searching and creating more social

and early literacy activities.  One of the things I have found is that the little ones really like

Sensory Bins.  Sensory Bins can be almost anything and I have found the simplest things

are the best. 

The boys are very interested in construction trucks, firetrucks and pretty much any type of

trucks.  So I decided to create a snowy village for the sensory table. I picked up the snow,

trucks, and town all on Amazon. But I'm sure you can use anything you have.   

We have lots of imaginative play going on.  I love how they drive to the restaurant to get hot

dogs.  They drive to the gas station to get donuts. They drive to school to pick up their pick

up their sister.  Then they go home to mommy. It is so adorable. 

  

The second bin I created is a penguin bin.  I used water beads for the first time and plastic

penguins.    I also added some spoons and containers.  But to be honest the kids just love

the beads, containers and spoons.  They don’t really play with the penguins. However, they

are having fun.  I use containers left over from applesauce, pudding and the cover to my Tide
bottle.

Another fun activity the kids are playing is patterning with penguins and icebergs. 

They are working on counting, AB patterning and colors depending on each child needs.  

  

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.   

Author of the Month Helen Lester

I can honestly say the Helen Lester's books are some of my favorite books for teaching young children.  The children love the humor and illustrations in the books.   What I like about the books as a teacher is that each story has a lesson to learn.  

Helen Lester has written so many wonderful books it is really worth your time to look at her website and see which of her books will work in your lesson plans.  

I have been working hard each month creating links for the teachers at my school on our share website.  I also put a couple links for a few free resources I found on Pinterest as well.   I have created qr codes for the classroom with ipads.  

For each of the Helen Lester books I found on youtube I found the cover on google images.  Then I created a qr code.  

I created mini posters that I will hang up by the author board and it will have a dual purpose.  It will look good and the kiddos can get the qr codes to listen to stories. 

I also created some reading challenge sheets for advance students.  You know who I mean, those students who are the first to finish everything.  

   You can find everything FREE HERE!

Winter Sensory Table

I have been spending a lot of time over at my little grand daughter's house watching and playing with her and her new little brother.  

One of the things I put together for her after the first snow this year was a Winter Sensory Bucket.  It was super easy to do.  First of all I took into consideration how much she loves to put things into containers and make noise. 

So I found some little plastic spice bottles that were almost empty and cleaned them out for her.  Then I found some cotton for something soft for her to feel and tear apart.  Next, I put in some silver and white bells for some added fun.  She loves the jingle bells.  She put the bells in the containers and shakes them and smiles.   

I found some plastic arctic animals and penguins at Michaels to add to the bin.  In my basement I found a dalmatian with a scarf on, I'm not sure how that fits in but she likes dogs.  

She is enjoying the table a lot.  She sits and feels the soft cotton and listens to the bells jingle.  She spends a good 20 minutes putting the bells in and out of the containers.    I am working on several skills when we are playing:  1.  Sitting and standing from a chair,  2.  Working on the words in and out, 3.  I name the animals for her,(building vocabulary) 4. Cleaning up when we are finished.  

Of course she is just playing and having fun and that is the most important thing of all.....Learning is fun.      

Snowmen in First Grade

This week we made these adorable snow people in first grade. I love how I gave all the students the same materials and each one turned out unique and special.   We read lots of wonderful stories about snowmen and now we are writing our own stories during writing workshop.  

Cute.Simple.Sweet!

National Crossing Guard Appreciation Day is Feb. 10th, apparently my school wanted to get a jump start.  The committee wanted the cards this week.  So this year I went with something cute I found on Pinterest.  I had several of my students who finish everything first help me make them.  We tried using sticky tape but it would not stick to the card stock.  Then we put book tape on top of the sticky tape and that seemed to help.  I found some candy canes in the teacher's lounge and taped those to the back.  Finally the students signed their names on the back.  Cute. Simple and Sweet!  The best kind of project.   

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

This week in first grade is all about SNOW and Cold!  We started the week learning about what is snow...

I purchased the book, The Story of Snow, however my partner teacher found it on Tumblebooks.  So we watched it on Tumblebooks.  It was a bit long and lots of information but the kids enjoyed and learning some facts from it.  

Then I read, SnowFlake Bentley to them.  The book had a lot of information in it as well.  The first time I read it to them we focused on the story then later in the day we went back through some of the facts.  We are waiting for another snowy day to collect our own snowflakes.  Right now it is too cold to go outside for recess, -11 degrees today.  

During Shared Reading we read Snowflakes Fall, this is just a cute story.  I love the illustrations.  

Next we make our own snowflakes in science class.  The idea is from dellacreates that I found on while searching on Pinterest. We used different colored pipe cleaners so our snowflakes are fun colors.   Finally we hung up our snowflakes on some sticks with lights in the classroom. (My class wanted the sticks to have lights, luckily I found something in my basement.) 

No Two Alike

I found the cutest book in the Scholastic Book Order last month, No Two Alike.  It reminded me of these cute birds my class made in art class last year.  

Winter Birds

I had the children paint some winter trees in the classroom and the art teacher did a lesson about drawing birds.  The kids went crazy drawing birds, lots and lots of birds.  

I also read 

My students (I teach at a Catholic School) loved the book!  They were so excited as they noticed the birds were witnessing the story of Mary and Joseph.  

It was a great cooperative lesson between the art teacher and myself.  

Martin Luther King Jr.

This year for Martin Luther King Day I found a couple neat ideas on Pinterest.  I looked all over but I could not find what was on the inside of the project so I had to come up with my own idea.

  I came up with a four-part lesson for the day.  We started the day reading,

 The Story of Martin Luther King Jr, 

afterwards the children made portraits of Dr. King.

Then we read, Happy Birthday Dr. King and we discussed our dreams for the future.  What do we dream we will grow up to be?  It was the topic for show and tell this week, so the children had something in the backpacks to share.  We took pictures of the children and then they wrote sentences.

Next, we read Martin’s Book of Words.  We discussed the words that were important to Dr. King.  The children wrote a couple of words and added them to their portraits.

Finally our friends from the other class came to our room and we read the book, The Crayon Box that Talked.  I brought in a box of Crayola crayons and we talked about how all the crayons were the same and all the crayons are different.

Each child picked a crayon and colored it for a bulletin board in the hallway. 

 Idea from Pinterest 

More Photos  

Revisit this Snowman Activity

The Snow Family Math Lesson

Last year I wrote about this lesson of creating a snowball family after read the story Snowballs by Lois Elhert.  

Anyways I want to improve it just a bit for this year.  I want to make sure I am addressing the common core math standards K.MD.2  Describe and compare measurable attributes.  So I created this worksheet.

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