The Rest of our ABC Countdown!

T: Thank You Day

• We wrote and delivered thank you notes today to those who have helped us this year! 

U: Unusual Day

• Unusual things happen in our classroom on unusual day! Some things in our room were turned upside down (i.e. our daily schedule), we lined up in backwards order all day, and we wrote speech bubbles for these unusual pictures...

V: Video Day

• We watched a movie at school today!

W: Wool Day

• I borrowed this awesome book from my fellow teammate. It talks about how they made clothes long ago, then you open up the flap and talks about how they are made now. My kids loved this book! 

• We talked about the cotton plant and how cotton is used to make clothes. I showed them how to pull and twist cotton to make yarn. If you go HERE there is an instructional video and kits you can buy. We tried it with cotton balls, but it was pretty tough for my kiddos to do. Some of them were very persistant and others wanted to give up very quickly. A lot of them were having trouble pulling the cotton without breaking it, so I walked around and helped with that part then had them twist it. A lot of them didn't spin their cotton tight enough, so the bracelets didn't exactly look like the one in the video...but they didn't care! They love it! We also dyed them by soaking them in Kool-aid. They loved the bracelets so I would do this again...but I think next year I will purchase the kits to see if it's a little easier than the cotton balls. It was fun hearing the little conversations during/after the project. While they were spinning the cotton, one of my students said to his table "I can't believe we are wearing plants!" :)

X: eXceptional students

• Today we passed out awards! I totally copied what Reagan does at  Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits because it's just so DANG CUTE! She gives them candy bar awards...LOVE...and has them walk down the red carpet (a.k.a red butcher paper). My kiddos thought it was awesome!

Y: Year-end Clearance

• We cleaned our classroom today! 

Z: Zip and Zoom!

• We zipped up our backpacks, played some Minute to Win It games, then zoomed home for summer break! The Minute to Win It games were hilarious! 

Game Instructions: fan the fish (made from tissue paper) across the room with a paper plate. 

Game Instructions: Put a little bit of vaseline on the end of your nose. Transfer the cotton balls from one plate to the other using only your nose. 

Game Instructions: Put a cookie on your forehead. You have to get the cookie to your mouth by scrunching your face muscles. 

We also played Duck Duck Goose (only we changed it to First Grader, First Grader, Second Grader") and watched our slideshow of 1st grade pictures!

It was such a fun day...a perfect way to end the year!

ABC countdown: L-S

So sorry I haven't been here for awhile. A couple of weeks ago I took a week off of school so we could go on a trip....to Hawaii!! My brother-in-law, who has been going to school there, graduated so we decided that going to Hawaii to see him graduate was a definite must! :) When we got home, there were only 2 weeks of school left and holy smokes, those 2 weeks have FLOWN by!

Here is the ABC countdown from L through S. The rest will be coming shortly! It's a little lacking in pictures since I was gone, so try to use your imagination :)

L: Ladybug Day

• We read nonfiction books about ladybugs
• We played a ladybug math game which you can find HERE. 
• We made a class ladybug book to practice our doubles. You can find it HERE. 

M: Memory Day

• We made our 1st grade memory books today

N: No Shoes Day

• The kiddos got to take their shoes off during reading time today! 

O: Origami Day

• The kiddos made some origami. Here is what they made... 

P: Pizza Day

• My team and I challenged our kiddos to read 100 books in 20 days. They had a book log that they wrote the titles of their books on then brought them back to school every day so we could keep track of their books on this chart. 

• We also wrote about what the best kind of pizza is. Click the picture below for a copy! 

Q: Quiz Show Game

• We played a game to review things we had learned in 1st grade. 

R: Rainbow Day

• This is one of my FAVORITE days during the ABC countdown. Unfortunately it happened to fall on one of the days I was in Hawaii....sad! But not really. I mean, I was in Hawaii...how sad could I really be?! Anywho, my kiddos did a fun rainbow to 10 worksheet  that you can find HERE. 
• They also did a super cute ROY G. BIV craftivity you can find HERE. 

S: Space Day

• We did some math problems with flying saucers. LOVE this activity! Go HERE to see it! 
• We also talked about constellations and made "constellation words". I had them first write their word with pencil on a black piece of paper. Then using thumbtacks to poke holes, they made their word into a constellation. 

ABC Countdown: D-K

...and the countdown continues!

D: Dino Day

• We drew pet dinosaurs and wrote about them
• My plastic dinosaurs decided to go sit on desks of those who were working quietly
• Here are a couple of books we read...

E: Experiment Day

• We got to do a fun experiment today! Click the picture below to see the instructions. 

F: Favorite Book Day

• We got to bring our favorite books to school today. The kiddos loved doing buddy reading and sharing their books with each other! 

G: Game Day

• We played some fun games today! Here is one of my favorites...it's a place value game called Bullseye from What the Teacher Wants. Click HERE to go to the site for a free download! 

H: Hat Day:

• We wore our favorite hats to school today! 

Insect Day:

• We got to do some fun insect activities today! All of the activities I do come from Deanna Jump's Insect unit which you can find here. It is adorable and SO FUN! My kiddos LOVED doing the build-a-bug activity. 

Joke Day:

• For joke day, we had Laffy Taffy for a snack. However...before they could eat theirs, they had to read their joke to the person sitting next to them :)

Kindness Day

• For kindness day, we talked about things we can do that are kind. Then whoever showed kindness that day, got a little treat before they went home. I handed out 'hugs'...because hugs are kinds! ;)

Summer's almost here....Our ABC countdown begins!

The end is near!! I can hardly believe it. And I can hardly wait! Spring Break gave me little sneak peak of summer and let me tell you...I am pumped for it!

This is my project I started during Spring Break that I plan on finishing this summer...

I love crafts. But I have SO MUCH STUFF....and since we live in a 1 bedroom apartment, all of my craft supplies have been slowly taking over our bedroom. Over spring break I set up a desk, and started getting it all organized. It is nowhere near done...but at least the floor is visible now :) I'm excited to work on it this summer! 

By the way....for those of you who are into crafts and in need of a good storage solution for your ribbon, I found the PERFECT ribbon holder! My mom and sisters and I made these boxes awhile ago...they are made out of paint sticks! I discovered that they are the perfect size to store ribbon...AND they have a slit for the ribbon to poke through! You can find the tutorial HERE.

Okay....back to school. The last 26 days of school my team and I do an ABC countdown. LOVE IT! Here's what we've done so far...

A: Art Day: 

• We did some watercolor painting.

B: Bread and Butter Day

• We talked about where bread comes from and how it's made, and then we made our own bread! 

This was so stinkin' fun! I pre-measured all of the ingredients for the bread and had the kids help me dump them into a gallon sized bag. We closed the bags then they got to help mix everything by smooshing the bag around until the ingredients were completely mixed. We also made butter by putting heavy whipping cream and a little bit of salt in a jar and then took turns shaking it. So fun! They loved eating it best of all! :) I kept hearing things like "this is the best bread in the whole world!!" We ate it while we watched a video of The Little Red Hen...and several kids made the connection between the things the Red Hen was doing and what we had done to make our bread. 

C: Come Celebrate with Us!

• We had our 1st grade program! Each 1st grade class performed a reader's theater and we sang a few friendship songs. The program had its little hiccups...but luckily when you are 6 or 7 years old it's still really cute when you mess up :) The parents loved it...they did a cute job!

Stay tuned for the rest of our countdown!