Great Giveaway!

So, I've been looking at my reading list and trying to figure out why it's so LONG! It's because of awesome bloggers like Michelle of The 3 AM Teacher who continually introduce me to OTHER new blogs! Click on the images below (links are attached) to visit Lisa at Growing Firsties, Katie at Teacher to the Core, Kim at Kindergarten 365, Amy at Little Miss Organized and Greg of Kindergarten Smorgasbord for an incredible giveaway....Life is Better With Friends!

 

 

 

   

Check out these incredible blogs for some sweet ideas and an even better giveaway! I'm on break this week, so I'm hoping to get a couple of freebie posted in between the latest grad class nightmare I'm working on:-)

Staff Wearing Hats, Like a Well-Known Cat!

On Monday, we all dressed in black and white, donned tall stripped hats and greeted our students with  "Happy March is Reading Month"! The students were also informed of their reading challenge...they have to read 15,000 books by the end of the month! This has been raised by 5,000 due to our students' previous year's numbers. What their goal earns them has yet to be revealed! (Little hint: two principals, costumes and heights:-)

Fabulous in FIRST!

Teresa and Krissy

 Our Awesome Custodian-Kiesha

Spectacular in SECOND!

Kris and Taneia

Have a great rest of your week!

March Is Reading Month Has Arrived!

It has become tradition in our building that we (the teachers, paras, administrators, secretaries and day-shift custodians) stay late on the eve of March 1st, or the Friday evening closest to March 1st to decorate our ENTIRE building. We have six themes that we rotate through and we keep the year's theme a secret from the kids and parents until they walk in the door the following Monday morning. Now, our building is not a small building....it used to be a junior high! So when I say we stay late, I'm talking 11:00 PM after a full day of teaching. But the energy is unbelievable and our principals have become masters of creativity and organization. We actually broke a record last night and had the building done by 8:15! The pictures below walk you through the building, starting with the front doors and ending in our cafeteria. I'll add pics throughout the month, including the front windows, which are a large mural and the staff who will be in costume to greet the kiddos on Monday morning.

So, WELCOME TO SEUSSVILLE!

The Greeting Board outside the main office

Entrance Hallway outside of front doors

Entrance hallway

Entrance hallway

Outside 3rd grade pod

Outside 4th grade pod

 Outside of 2nd grade rooms

Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose..outside my room! I LOVE him!!!

Start of back hallway

 Back hallway

 Back hallway

Back hallway

 Back hallway

 Across from kindergarten

Kindergarten

 Kindergarten

Media Center windows...the Sneeches have invaded inside! 

 The tree goes to the ceiling of first grade...this team CLIMBED tall ladders in order
to get the tree and large book cover attached. The new "rookie" was the designated climber...good thing Mike isn't afraid of heights!
Thing 1 and Thing 2 greet the kiddos heading down the stairs.

 Trivia Fact...did you know Eastman studied under "Dr. Seuss" and that's how this book is in the "Seuss" Collection?

Hallway leading back to the office

Office hallway

The kids' reading challenge board...this is where we will track the reading progress...more about their challenge in posts to come!

Our cafeteria
The problem solving and collaboration that went into getting the trees to be free-standing was incredible...and incredibly hilarious! At one point we had plungers involved!

I hope you enjoyed your tour of our version of "Seussville". Stay tuned for future posts...including pics of the staff in costume on Monday morning!

Have a great weekend!

Snowman Number Representation

Early in December, Donna, of Math Coach's Corner, blogged about recreating a project to build number representation using a Christmas tree. I loved the idea, but we aren't allowed to do a lot with Christmas due to the very diverse group of students we have. So, I cornered one of our fabulous first grade teachers who I had been working with and asked if she wanted to be my guinea pig. Luckily for me, she said yes!

Our work began with having the students brainstorming ways they knew how to represent numbers. Once they got going, they were tough to stop! They'd see me in the hall in between our sessions together and yell new ideas out to me. As a result, their final anchor chart looked like this:

(The fabulous Teresa...I know the chart's a bit tough to read, but it's FULL!)

Our second session started with adding more to the chart...the ideas they were yelling at me down the hall...and then on to the introduction of the project in full. Each child began by choosing a number. It had to be between 20 and 99. After telling Teresa or I their number, they got their page of "Snowman Items". These were pulled together from Scrappin' Doodles, Create a Snowman. They immediately chose one of the hats and put their number on it. They then got started on their first representation. 

In all, the snowmen had between 5-8 different number representations on them when they finished. We forgot to add the cool ten frames presents the kids made and Teresa had to have the kiddos stick those on after we took the pictures. These came straight from Donna's great project.

The kids did a fantastic job with these! It was the perfect project right before break, and I'm thankful to have such willing teachers who take risks.

Football Giveaway

Four fabulous blogger:Katie from Queen of the First Grade Jungle, Kelly from the Teacher Idea Factory, Susan from TGIF and Michelle from Fabulous in First
have put together a great Football themed GIVEAWAY in honor of the upcoming Super Bowl. The giveaway ends tonight at 7PM, so head over now to get yourself entered. Click on the picture below to get to the giveaway link.