Apple Day!

Apple Day was a success! We had so much fun! Here's a little peek at some of the fun things we did...

I found this yummy recipe for homemade applesauce from The First Grade Parade. Unfortunately, time didn't allow for me to let it cook for 4-6 hours like the recipe says, so I cooked it on high for about 3 1/2 hours and it was still DELICIOUS! And our room smelled sooooo good all day!

I used an apple corer/slicer to cut the apple and showed them the different parts of the apple. I cut up 2 apples in front of them then had them work on an apple labeling project (see below) while I finished cutting the rest.

We read a few books about Johnny Appleseed and recorded facts we learned (I will post a picture of this soon...) and we received a special letter from Johnny!

You can read more about the math letters we are doing HERE. Some of them honestly believe these letters are being delivered by the book characters. It's hilarious!

We had an apple tasting party! We got to taste a red apple, green apple, apple juice and apple cider and decide which ones we liked the best!

We also had LOTS of fun doing our apple centers activities!

These are included in my Apple Math and Literacy Centers pack. You can find it at my TPT store. Click the picture below to visit my store!

I am so blessed to have a wonderful aide and parent volunteers that helped the day to run smoothly! It was a great day!

What we've been up to and a new unit!

Holy cow, the beginning of the year has been a little N-U-T-S to say the least! I have been sick and not feeling very motivated to do anything except sit on the couch and watch Disney movies. (I always watch Disney movies when I'm sick...for some reason they always make me feel a little bit better.)

Here are a few things we have done at school...

Read the Room: Short O/Long O

(Just FYI...I took this picture from my computer, which is why my number poster looks backwards)

 

 I am in LOVE with read the room activities. They are so fun! For this particular one, I grabbed a short/long O sort freebie from Christina Bainbridge. (Click the picture below to take you to her blog!)

I hung the pictures around the room. They had to go find a picture, decide if it had the long O or short O sound, and write the word on a recording sheet I made. You can grab it HERE.

My co-worker saw a fun idea HERE on The First Grade Parade where book characters write to the class asking them to help solve a math problem. Love it!

 Our first story problem came from Toad. We had read "Cookies" from Frog and Toad Together the day before, so my kids were so excited to get a letter from Toad!

Our 2nd letter (which I forgot to take a picture of) was from Jean (from the book The Recess Queen). Jean, who was now a good friend thanks to Katie Sue, wanted to buy 5 bouncy balls for her friends. The store had red ones and yellow ones and she wanted to know how many of each she could buy.

We also received a few Guess My Number letters from some 1st grade classes! Our team did these letters last year and they were so much fun!

My kids get so stinkin' excited when we get one delivered to our classroom!

And last....but certainly not least...my students had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Abeyta! For 9/11 we had a special school assembly. I got to sing The National Anthem with one of my former students and her 3rd grade teacher (who also used to be my roommate in college!) It was so fun! After the assembly, everyone went back to their classrooms and my wonderful husband walked through the halls playing his bagpipes. He has been playing since he was 13 and is an AWESOME bagpipe player, so of course I had to convince him to come to my classroom afterwards and play a few tunes for my cute kids!

Here's a shot of my husband playing at school. Isn't he handsome?!?! I love this man!!

And......I have finished and uploaded my apple math and literacy center pack to TPT! I will post more on our apple activities later, but you can check out my unit HERE. SO EXCITED to use these with my kids next week!

Apple Themed Number Practice (freebie!)

Just uploaded my first product to TPT! This is a great activity to use at the beginning of the year or during Johnny Appleseed week. It works like a 100s chart...only this goes up to 50. Have your students write 1 number in each apple until they get to 50. Click the picture below to take you to my TPT store!