Randomness from 2011-2012!

I was bad about taking photos this year.  I lost my camera charger and always forgot to use my phone.  Here are a few pictures of things we did.  Most photos I took, have kids faces in them and I am still trying to figure out how to fuzz kids faces out in photos since I did not have parents sign a release. 

I am taking pictures of other things we have done and will post later this week.

"First Grade is a Blast"  

These were done this past week, reflecting on the past year.  They will be on the bulletin board for Open House for next year.  They were kind of funny.  The things they remember! haha  These are hard to read because of the camera on my phone, and they had not edited at this point, so these are very rough.

 I had a battle with this child over her handwriting.  Her handwriting has come SO FAR this year.  I am so proud of her.  So on her reflection she wrote, "And here's some advice, you have to write really neat. Ok? You will do good.  I promise!"  haha. So sweet!

 This one ends with, "Here's some advise, do your homework!  Probably by the twentieth day you will know everybodys name."  Love the estimation of time for learning peers names :)

Birthday graph.

100 things we have done in 100 days.

 Ways to make a dollar using post its.  I just had them write different ways to make a dollar.  No one could use the same way as another student.  They LOVE doing anything with post its!

 Adjectives web.

Christmas gift from the room moms.   They know me too well.  I had just pinned this on pinterest.  So Cute!!

Back where all the kids signed.

 A gift made for me on the playground by my lovelies.

 Our symmetry Christmas ornaments.

 Our school has a christmas tree sale every year.  We were very fortunate to have a family donate a tree to our classroom.  So of course we made symmetrical ornaments.  (Don't worry, we have menorah's, dreidels and kinaras all over the room also:)

 Christmas contractions.

 Our first acrostic poem from the very beginning of the year.

 Here is one of the notes from a student about the promethean board after they took it to fifth grade.  These kids crack me up!

Roll the dice, add and graph.  Beginning of the year.

Common/Proper Nouns

 We did a draw a rhyme about monsters and then wrote about the monster.

 Snakey Subtraction game I made.  They LOVED it.

 Another monster.

 Recording sheet from Math War game.  "I love adding,"  what a great note!

 Group chart from our landforms project.

 What makes a good friend.

 100th day count down.  A calendar favorite.  Turned into a countdown after the 100th day.  We are down to 1 day!

 Cut and past map of the world.

 Landforms flip chart inside.

 Landforms flip chart outdide

 Where in the World am I? booklet.  It begins with your city then expands to county, then state, then country, then continent and finally world

 Last page of booklet.

 Who what when where foldable.

 Addition strategies flipbook.

 Punctuation chart.  Once again they love stickies!

 Noun Town!  A favorite!

 Beginning of the year graphing unit with skittles.  Each group graphed their skittles using a different graphing method, then presented their findings to the class.  And of course a skittle treat at the end!

 Fairytale illustration of the fairytale they wrote as a group.

I can verbs.

My Classroom Year 1 in First Grade

To begin here are some pictures of my classroom this past year.  Keep in mind that I had about 2 days to get set up with my last minute move to first.  Also our rooms are on the smaller side, and I was fortunate enough to have an old hearing impaired room covered in carpet!  It is ugly, but certainly does help with sound!

These are the only pictures I have and they are form the very beginning of the year.  I never got my room how I like it, so I didn't take any more of the room than this.

Next year I am moving into a teammates classroom who is moving to an EIP position.  Then the following year we are getting renovated.  Anyways here are the pics from this past year!

 The boxes are the school supply boxes families ordered from Office Depot.  Word wall on the right.  IB PYP Learner Profiles and Attitudes on the red bulletin board.

 Doorway.  That teal cabinet houses maybe half of the first grade textbooks!  Who would've known first graders get so may textbooks!

 A far away view of the left front side.

 Front right side.

 My table/guided reading/small groups.    The pocket chart on the left houses my daily activity files for each subject.  The green pocket chart on the right is where my small group rotations will go.  This used to be my only space.  I have since gotten a desk.

 IB PYP Key concepts and Transdisciplinary themes on the cabinet on the left.  The bulletin board is where Vowel Valley will go.  It is part of pur phonics program.  The school adopted a local program called SMART in addition to the Treasures series.

 Reading area.

 Beginning of the year calendar area with student cubbies below.  Helper pockets on the right.  Objectives on the left (ribbon idea from Deanna Jump!)  I print and laminate my objectives so that I can use them again.  However, now that we are switching to Common Core, the ones from this past year will be useless :)

 Supply rolling cart in front for parents to put supplies at open house.  Promethean board, which sadly had to be moved to the new fifth grade classroom a few months after school started.  My kiddos, in May, draw pictures and write me notes about the board, which left in October.  That goes to show what kind of an impact technology can have!  Hopefully first will be getting boards next year!

 Open House bulletin board in the hall.  Very last minute, but turned out nicely.

View from the hallway.

This year my room stressed me out.  I am normally very organized and I never got the chance to get it right this year.  So I will be spending some time this summer getting things in order!  Pictures to come!

Hello!

Hello!  I am so glad to begin my blogging journey.  I intended to get my blog started for this past school year, but as you can see that did not quite work out.  So here I am.  I am new to blogging and am so excited about having the chance to contribute to the amazing first grade blogging world!  I am a blog stalker of many other bloggers and hope that I can be as helpful to others as they have been to me!

Let me begin with a little background.  I taught kindergarten for my first two years out of college.  My husband was relocated shortly before we were married and I got a job teaching preschool (thinking that was what I really wanted to be doing) and decided that was definitely not as good of a fit as I originally thought!  So I began interviewing in public schools and was offered a kindergarten job for my neighborhood school.  What luck, it was such an amazing opportunity to be so close to home and in such a WONDERFUL school.  A few days before open house, I was moved to first grade.  I was scared because I had heard rumors of how difficult first grade can be to teach because of all the content.  But  I fell in LOVE.  My little firsties are amazing.  They are still so sweet, but more independent; with even more curiosity, energy and excitement for learning than the kinders (I guess because they have had a year in school and are in the swing of things).
Also, please excuse any type-o's!
This blog is going to be a great opportunity to document my students and my growth throughout the year, and hopefully a way to share some of the fun things we do!