April Showers

Happy Spring!
I love these sunny spring evenings (I leave school when it is still light out, LOVE it!)

We started a brand new unit in Geometry last week. I think the students are enjoying a little break from crunching numbers. We started by learning our solid shapes. I found a fun poem to go along with solids and put it on an anchor chart that I hung in our room. We recite this as a warmup to start math each day during this unit.

  We also played a game called "Guess the solid". I put one of our manipulatives inside a lunch bag. Students got to travel to various stations, feeling the bags (prompted to feel for edges and corners). Students then had to guess which solid was inside! 

 First graders love to use manipulatives! One of my little kiddos even said "when we use our shapes, it feels like we are playing and not studying!" We used our shapes manipulatives to help us find different ways to sort objects (color, shape, size etc)We also used our geoboards to help students learn how to create their own "plane shapes". My students mastered the plane shapes in our curriculum in a flash, so I decided to extend their thinking and have them create "Shape Monsters!" Students had to make a creature using their plane shapes (circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles. They then had to count how many of each they used in their creation. (Please note the monster below is affectionately named "Christina" after me. I like to think it was done in an act of loving your teacher.. not thinking that I look like or act like a monster! HA.)

 Since I've last blogged, I've also survived my very first "Grandparents Day" and became the winner of Lampeter Idol, a singing competition in our district! What a busy couple of months!
This Idol singing competition was so well organized and so much fun. The local Women's Club ran the event and all proceeds went to scholarship funds for the high school. I sang "Gimmie Gimmie" from Thouroughly Modern Millie. Some of my students and their families came and even made signs. It was such a special night!

 
On Grandparent's/Special Visitor's Day, we had a full crowd of  visitors packed into our room. What made it so great was the wonderful and sweet people that came to visit. They were all so happy to spend time with their student. I really appreciated their kindness because it was a tough day for me. My grandfather passed away that same morning. I had the most WONDERFUL grandfather (Nonno) in the whole entire world, and thought back to all the school events he came to support me in.. even my own elementary Grandparent's Days. We all wrote a special Grandparent/Visitor story the week before to give as a gift to our visitors, and I gave my own to my Grandmother, to reiterate just how special they are to me (even today at 22 years old!)
One of my fellow teachers also put together a Grandparent's Day Program.. a few short songs that students performed in the cafeteria. This was great because it gave us some time out of the cramped classroom and showed our visitors what fluent readers are students are!

 My students also loved learning about fact and opinion last week. We had ddiscussed the terms before, but as a review I found this awesome worksheet on Pinterest. We watched an audio version of the story on Youtube and then went through each of the questions together to decide if the statements were the Wolf's opinion or a true fact! Students love this twist on a popular fairy tale!
Below is the link to the Freebie:
http://pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=true+story+of+three+little+pigs+fact+and+opinion

Lastly, as a special Easter treat I sent my kiddies home with some Easter Bunny peeps. While I know many of my students probably ate them before they even got off the bus, I did put a fun website on my gift-tag that had various experiments the students could try at home with their peeps (putting them in microwave, adding vinegar/baking soda to alter the color etc). With Easter being so early we ran out of time to try these experiments in the classroom, so I thought they might be fun things to try at home!

 We have been having so much fun, but have also been working so hard these past few weeks. I know everyone was glad for a few days off for spring break to relax and recoop. We are now in the home stretch! 

PS: For any of my fellow teacher friends, (especially those with no real breaks from now until June...) found this on Pinterest, ain't that the truth!! ;)

 Hope everyone is out enjoying this beautiful weather!!