A Bag of "Encouragemints"

This is the week that the older students at our school have the year end achievement tests.  At our school, every primary grade adopts an intermediate grade to give support to during this stressful time.  This year our first grade class is giving a bag of "Encouragemints" to our special friends in fifth grade.  Each bag of mints has a positive saying to help motivate each student.

We are hoping that a few "Encouragemints" will let our friends know that we care about them and believe in them.

We wish them the best on the test!  Have a great week:)

Planting Sunflowers!

We planted our sunflowers earlier this week and today we started  writing our nonfiction reports on Sunflowers.  I still love using this anchor chart to organize our thoughts.  We did this whole group and came up with lots of information about Sunflowers.

Next, the students were able to fill in their own chart.  They could use the information that we brainstormed as a class or any new ideas they might have.  We call these our "notes" and the students will refer back to these "notes" throughout the week.

We made our covers next.  This way we can keep our report papers safe and organized throughout the week.  

We then drew a diagram to show the different parts of a Sunflower.  We added labels and discussed how diagrams are important in nonfiction writing because it has words and a visual.  We will continue our project tomorrow and I will keep you updated on our activities.

Fabulous Fractions!

I love visual charts, especially for math.   I made this one in front of the students to show how a piece of paper could be divided into equal parts to show fractions.  I pasted a blue piece of paper to show one.  I then folded a piece of yellow paper into two parts and cut it.  We talked about how the parts were equal because the pieces were both the same size.  We continued with dividing a red paper into thirds and an orange piece into fourths.  

The students then made their own books about fractions by using the colorful visual as a reference.

The students were given a blue sheet to show one.   The students placed these in the book and wrote the numeral 1 and the word one.

The students were given a yellow piece to fold, label and place into the books.  The students cut the middle line to make the book more interactive.  The students then continue with the red and orange pages.

After this activity, the students had a clear understanding of how to divide things into equal parts.  The next day, we extended the lesson by showing other ways the paper could be divided equally into halves, thirds, and fourths.  The math visual will be on hand in our classroom to refer to as we continue our study of fractions.

Peep Snacks

I am just loving my short Spring Break.  We only have four short days...basically a long weekend. However, we had  absolutely NO Snow Days this year so this break was very much needed!  My little guy and I had a lot of fun making these Peep Snacks.  This idea was found on Pinterest from the website www.applevalleygirl.com and I modified it just a tad.  I melted some white chocolate, dipped some pink marshmallows, waited for the chocolate to dry, and then lined the marshmallows and peep onto a skewer.  This was so simple and kid friendly....much easier than dying eggs and my son will actually eat these.  He just won't eat the eggs!  I hope many of you are enjoying your break and all the joys of spring!

Spring Snack

I usually like to pass out candy snacks the day before Spring Break but not this year.  This year, I filled some triangle shaped bags I found at Hobby Lobby with cheese puffs and tied them with a decorative green bow.  I made 23 cheese puff carrots in about fifteen minutes and the cheese puffs were so much more affordable then candy.  I'm hoping the students like them.  Have a great day!

Easy Bunny Craft

The students had a great time decorating an egg with bright colors and simple decorations.  The egg was then cut in half long ways and then stapled to the top of another egg cut out.  The students then decorated the second egg to look like a rabbit's face.  This was a cute and easy craft and the kids loved it.  A nice way to spend some extra time right before spring break.