A little visitor.....

Today the children were surprised with a trail of glitter to follow!  At the end of the trail was the "Mystery Box" (great idea from Abby at The Inspired Apple).  After reading the clues and using what they knew about the season, the children predicted many things including Santa, although I don't know how he would fit in the box!  Anyway, inside was Skippy, our elf on the shelf, a note from him, and a treat for each of the children.  Since we can't give food products or have food products in our classrooms in my district, each student received a holiday pencil. 

Being Thankful

Rachelle & Natalie over at What the Teacher Wants are having a  “I’m Thankful” linky party so I thought I’d link up and say  thanks :) 

1.  What are you most thankful for in your classroom?

I am so thankful for the first grade team that I am part of.  Between them and the Kindergarten gals I have a lot of support this year!

2.  Who are you most thankful for?

I am so thankful for my family.  My husband especially!  Having a child with special needs usually puts so much strain on marriages, but ours is stronger because of it!

 

3.  What 3 Blogs are you most thankful for?

I can't limit it to just three...



4. What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?

I love, love, love Reese's Peanut Cups.  I am also addicted to Coke Zero! I also spend way too much time searching for awesome blogs and cruising Pinterest!

5. What are you most thankful for?

I am most thankful for my family.  They are my inspiration each and every day!

Literacy Chit Chat for this week!

This week our focus is on characters, which tied into The Littlest Pilgrim.  We are also comparing long and short a, and finishing the H family.

Turkey Graphing

After reading Turk and Runt,  I tied in a graphing lesson with this cute story.  Got this adorable idea from Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Adorable Pilgrims

Today we read the story The Littlest Pilgrim.    We did an extension activity that I found on Cara Carroll's awesome site.

Families

This month we are studying families as part of our Social Studies curriculum.  Today we made a tree map about families.

Turkey time!

Today we made these adorable turkeys...the girls even added eyelashes!  They are made from ellison machine circles, feathers from an old mailbox magazine pattern, and of course googly eyes!

Literacy Chit Chat

This week I started creating a focus anchor chart for what the students will be learning for the week.  I got the idea from (I Think!!) from Deanna Jump's blog.  The littles loved it, and went back to refer to it and add to it throught the week.

Snow!!!!

Holy Cow everyone....we had the first official snowfall of the school year!!!  The students were cheering so loud all over the school!  In the midst of the excitement, the children were engaged in an extension writing piece to go with our shared reading this week, Where Does the Rabbit Hop? from the Good Habits, Great Readers series.  After the snow started, the stories changed to the bunny hopping to Starbucks to get hot chocolate, the North Pole to peek at its Christmas gifts, and making "snow bunnies" in the snow.  Many were hoping that we would have no school tomorrow....but the snow is melting as soon as it gets on the ground!!!

Even and Odd number dice tally roll

http://www.scribd.com/doc/70241229/Even-and-Odd-Dice-Toss

Classroom Pictures

My Gathering Spot

First Post

It has been a really stressful start of the school year.  So many changes on top of meeting all of my firsties for the first time.  This year we have started differentiating spelling using Words Their Way.  Anyone out there using this?