Science lately

I've been absent from blogging for over a month, oh my! Lots of pictures to share but I'll stick with science today. I have to share a few random pics from today too. Tomorrow's my birthday so we celebrated it at school today.

This was an awesome way to start a Friday morning. I got the cutest birthday gift from a sweet child. Didn't her mom do a great job putting this together?!

Here's what I found when I got to my room this morning.

 

I've eaten so many brownies, pieces of cake, and other sweets today(blew the diet, oops). I have the best coworkers ever!

Now onto science.
I've been taking pictures all along I've just been so busy (or lazy) to post lately.
We've studied animals and had many classroom pets...

humongous earthworms and...

giant snails!

The kids loved getting their hands on these guys.

Then we spent a few weeks on dinosaurs and fossils. The kids became real paleontologists and used these notebooks daily to take notes.

I love the fire-breathing dinosuars (they were a very rare breed you know).

We labeled lots of pictures and wrote about paleontologists, characteristics of dinosaurs, and fossils.

We also made our own fossils and then pretended we were at a museum and walked around and looked at all the amazing fossils.

We talked about not touching (but do you see that little guy at the bottom touching!) and using quiet whisper voices to discuss the cool fossils in our "museum".

And now we've started a space unit. So far we've studied the sun, stars, and moon. We painted suns to brighten up our room! Best idea ever... q-tips for painting. Just throw them away, no cleaning the brushes. Plus I like the dotted look on some of them.

Next week we're studing the planets and astronauts and their tools. Luckily, my dad works for NASA and has given us tons of really cool pictures taken by the space telescope and X-ray observatory. NASA has lots of things that they give away including coloring books, bookmarks, postcards, posters, and stickers (all of real outer space images). I don't know exactly how to get it but it'd be worth googling.

Goodbye Old Rug, Hello New

I've always wanted one of those awesome but super expensive classroom rugs with squares or dots to "organize" the kids. But I bought a cheap Wal-mart rug instead and it held up much better than I expected. However, 20 plus kids do not fit in a 5x7 space. We've made do for years. Well, last week I had to say goodbye to that cheapo rug after an "accident" (throwing it away was just the easiest option).

Bye bye green rug.

Hello new black rug. Same size, but I bought two this time. 12 kids will fit comfortably on one, so I'll just put them side by side and pretend I have a big fancy rug. And here's the best part (if it goes as planned)....I'm painting colored spots on it! I'm numbering each spot and each row will be a different color. I started this afternoon and got three spots finished.

It's certainly not as great as the expensive rugs and the paint looks splotchy up close, but eh, I think it'll be good enough to walk and sit on. I used contact paper as a stencil and a sponge brush to dab on the paint. Spray paint might have been the way to go. I'll post pictures again when it's all finished.

Also, on Wednesday I'm marking all my TPT stuff down by 20% to combine with the site's 10% off sale. Don't forget to use the code L2P9Y.



March Daily Data

A few weeks ago I posted about the morning work my kids do (click here to read) and I was so happy with the responses I got. I finally finished up the March Daily Data packet and uploaded it just now to TPT ($2.00). I'm planning on making a pack for each month and going back and doing the fall and winter months over the summer. But for now March is ready. Can you believe it's almost March?!

I'll send a copy to the first three who'd like it. Just leave a comment and your email. I'll expect you to publicy praise me of course=) Just kidding.

Also, yesterday I had such a great time at lunch with some very lovely Alabama bloggers! It felt almost like a blind date and I lied to friend on the phone that I was having lunch with "friends" while in my head I was thinking "strangers". The silly thing is that we all know each other by our blog titles and not our names. But I think it's safe to so we're all officially friends now. Stop by and say hello to my new friends.

Jennifer- http://www.firstgradeblueskies.blogspot.com/ (she's got pictures to share)

Mechele- http://www.barrowshodgepodge.blogspot.com/

Angela- http://www.dailyalphabet.blogspot.com/

Lauren- www.justaddclipart.blogspot.com 

Ashlee- http://www.peace-love-learn.blogspot.com/

Kelli- http://www.castlesandcrayons.blogspot.com/

Vickie- http://www.plantspress.blogspot.com/

Jada- http://www.daisydaysforlearning.blogspot.com/

Valentine Funny

My teaching partner did an activity today with my kids making sentences using conversations hearts. After they got started she realized the hearts she bought were not what she thought. Here's my favorite sentence.

Yep, they were Spanish! There were English hearts in there too, but that was a fun surprise. The sweetie pie above thought her sentence said "Jaguars can climb." I love it!

And these were my two favorite Valentines.

Super cute frame and yum yum yummy Krispy Kreme's. What a day!

Heart Shaped Boxes

Just an idea in case you picked up some of those heart shaped boxes at Target or Dollar Tree and don't know what to do with them. I got mine last year and used them in a word work station (here's an old post). I'm only teaching math and science now but I couldn't waste these cuties!

We just finished working with money so this will be a math station activity for the next week or so (or until everyone gets a chance to complete).

Did you notice my little note inside of the lid? It's so the kids will be sure to put the coins back where they belong (because you know they'll mix them up!).
Here's a recording sheet to go along. Happy Valentine's week!

Fractions are my favorite

and all my kids know it! I still remember my wonderful first grade teacher, Mrs. King, teaching us about fractions and boy did that lesson stick. Since I've been teaching first grade I've always started the unit just like she did.

1)Write some fractions on the board and show the kids a big pack of chocolate chip cookies, boy does that get their attention and stir up some excitement!

2)Let the kids vote for which fraction of a cookie they want. Now at this point I have not explained what a fraction is so they have no idea what the numbers mean. I just tell them these are fractions, they're my favorite part of math ever, and we're going to be learning about them. I also tell them that nobody will get a whole cookie to themselves they will only get a piece so this helps them realize that a fraction is just a piece.

3)Cut up the cookies (using a doc. camera so they can all see) and this is when we really talk about what a fraction is and what the numbers mean. We compare the size of one half, one fourth, and one eighth. Being the nice teacher that I am, I give them a chance to change their mind and vote again and wouldn't you know, they all want one half!

4)Eat!

This is how they voted before we cut up the cookies.

Easy Morning Work

Do you do daily data? All the teachers on my grade level have our kids work on "daily data". It's really just a question of the week and then each day there is an activity that goes with it. I use it as morning work (once my kids get the hang of it and pick up the routines) and it's a nice way to have them practice lots of math skills and there's a little bit of writing in there too.

This is the data we collected today. I call Mondays "Make it Monday" since that's the day we make the data display. Then the kids record the data in their math notebooks.

There's a different task each day for the kids to complete in their notebooks:

Make it Monday

Tally chart Tuesday

Write about it Wednesday

Three equations Thursday

Another way Friday

I give them the paper on Monday and they cut it in half and glue into the notebook so it's ready for them to complete one task each morning. Here's a look at a whole week's worth of work.

Anyway, I've been working on putting together a daily data packet for TPT and I wanted to see if anyone was interested. I made it for the month of February and I'll hopefully get it posted tomorrow.