1st Grade Science Fair Winner!

Ankle Issues

I have really been busy for the last few weeks.  I found out that I need yet another ankle surgery (#4) which will require me to be out of school for an extended amount of time.  Planning lessons, assessments and homework for several weeks was an exhausting task.  I finished up on yesterday and I am ready for the surgeon on Tuesday with my class fully prepared.  Thank goodness I found a wonderful substitute while I am recuperating.

Our School Science Fair

Enough about that and on to good news.  Our school held its annual Science Fair.  First Grade classes were to do a class project.   This experience will prepare them for next year when they must create their own experiment and science board.  

Drumroll please.... the winner for the best First Grade Science Project was........ MY CLASS!! Yay for the Foster Froggies!  Let me share our experiment.  I had always heard that adding pickle juice to Gardenia plants will produce more flowers.  Every so often I give diluted pickle juice to my Gardenia bush and the flowers bloom in May.  I was not really sure that it helped, but it made me feel good and I love the smell of Gardenias.  So I decided to have my students test this concept out on Begonia plants.  We took 3 Begonia plants and gave them only water while the other 3 plants received water with 2 droppers full of pickle juice.  Every several days we recorded the number of flowers on the plant.  Low and behold the Begonia plants with pickle juice did produce more flowers than the plants that were only given water.  Apparently the vinegar in the pickle juice makes the soil more acidic which indeed is what these flowering plants need. Next stop is the county competition.

Abraham Lincoln Fun

Just thought that I would share a little art project that we did for our unit on Abe Lincoln.  I collected paper towel rolls and spray painted them black.  I found a head shot of Mr. Lincoln in Google images and copied one for each child.  I gave them a piece of black construction paper and they had to design the hat, arms, legs and shoes.  Then they made tiny hands out of white paper. Mr. Lincoln is looking fine!

Until next time remember...

• You are a blessing!

• You are amazing!

• You are important!

Counting By Tens to 100 Lotto Fun

For many of you, the weather is cold and snowy so here is a fun 2 in 1 Math Center Pack that reinforces the Common Core Standard 1.NBT.C.5 Given a two-digit number, mentally find 10 more without having to count...

Click Here to See More

The cards give a sequence of numbers with one number missing.

  In the first activity the students must find the missing number card and match it to the sequence card. An answer key is given so the activity can be self-checking.

In the second activity, the students play a lotto game with the same sequence cards.  

The first person to cover their lotto card is the winner. 

I've also included a cute 120 chart to help those visually see the pattern on the chart.

This was a hit with my kiddies and I know your students will love it too!  Stay warm check out this cute little snowman pack.

100th Day Fun

The last Friday in January was our 100 Days of School Celebration.  I love finding new ideas from other creative teachers to expand my students' learning.  This year I added the 100 Day Cape from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business.

If you haven't seen her post, you should really check it out.  I chose the red plastic tablecloths from the Dollar Store. (Don't you just love that place?) I cut them into 6 rectangles which were transformed into 100 Day Capes.  I sent them home for the families to help decorate them with 100 items.  Then using shoelaces (also from the Dollar Store) I taped the middle to the top of the cape for a tie.  Aren't they adorable.
We also made hats with 100 stickers and beautiful tasty necklaces with 100 Fruit Loops.

Now that our outfits were complete, we made our Derdnuh snack mix.  Derdnuh is hundred spelled backwards for those of you who don't know.  Everyone brought in 100 pieces of a snack (pretzels, M&Ms, raisins, cereal etc.  Then we mixed them all together in a big bowl.

                                                                        Yummy!
I hope your 100th Day was fun and I would love to hear about any other ideas that you had.

Missing Number Freebie!

A beautiful three-day weekend is just what I needed to jump back into creating more Fun And Easy Center Activities.  It's in the 50s here and we are expected to dip down into the 30s tonight.  Just the right amount of winter coldness for me.  I've recently finished my 50th product (can't believe it) so it is time for a FREEBIE!

                             Click Here To See More!

This set addresses the Common Core Math Standard- MACC.1.OA.C.6-Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition with 10.

The center includes 24 addition and subtraction Kitty number sentences (written with the answer first and last) with missing numbers. Students work together in a small group, partners or individually to find the missing number for each Kitty number sentence.  Once found, the student places the correct missing number mouse over the kitty picture.  You may even want to split the set into 2 centers to enable more students to work this center.

Thanks for stopping by and grab your freebie now!

Snow Day in Florida = Flood Day

FLOOD DAY
When we hear about the horrific freezing temperatures and the huge amounts of snow up north, our hearts goes out to you.  We were in for a BIG surprise Thursday night when we received 22 inches of rain!  Needless to say, roads and schools were closed on Friday.  An unexpected 3-Day weekend is always welcome, even if it is a soggy one.  Here is what we woke up to Friday morning.

 

                    

Here is a little fun fact from the weatherman.   1 inch of rain =  10 inches of snow.  So if the temperature was quite colder, we would have had 18 feet of snow!  I think I will take the rain. 

So wherever you are- stay warm and dry this winter!

More teacher tips in my next post.

30 Seconds of Fame and More!

I usually don't toot my own horn, but this has to be tooted. It is not often that teachers get recognized for the hard work that they do day in and day out.  I was so fortunate to have the mother of one of my students- Mrs. Oller ( I also had her son last year) to write an essay for My Teacher Rocks in the local October Parenting Magazine.  Her essay won and we both won tickets to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes perform their Christmas Extravaganza here in West Palm Beach.  I was so honored to have a parent write such a beautiful essay.  We had such an amazing evening.

After that a reporter from the Palm Beach Post saw the My Teacher Rocks essay and asked if he could do an article about me.  Wow!  What a nice surprise to see such a great article and photos of my class and I.  I am truly honored and blessed.

Thank you to all the hardworking teachers every where!  You all deserve to receive recognition!

Thinking Back to Fall...

It is hard to believe that December is almost here.  We have been very busy during October and November and I would like to share a few highlights.

Pumpkin Carving-
Each year I invite parents and volunteers to come in and help with Pumpkin Carving.  Before we begin, we are scientists who weigh, measure and make predictions about the pumpkin floating and how many seeds will be inside.  I was surprised that most of my children had never carved a pumpkin before.  I even had some parents who had never carved before.  Perhaps carving a pumpkin is a dying art?  Not in my room!

Skeleton Fun- We had fun learning about the bones in our bodies, their functions and names.  Step by step we built skeletons.

Character Dress-Up Day-
Each year our school has a Character Dress-Up Day where children dress up as their favorite character.  They bring in the book that the character is from or make up their own storybook.  The kids had so much fun sharing their costumes and books.

Later we had skeleton races to see which team could be the first team to build their skeleton correctly.

We Did It!

On to yummy treats and face painting!

We had an AWESOME OCTOBER!!

Healthy Harvest-  It is my Thanksgiving tradition to have the children celebrate with a Healthy Harvest party.  Everyone brings in vegetables, fruits, raisins, nuts, dips, and more to have the experience of trying new healthy foods.  We sit at a long table (push the desks together) and enjoy a family style tasting activity.  We made our own placemats too!  It was great fun!

 Hope you enjoyed taking a look at our fall activities!