Five for Friday

We did it.  It happened.  Vacation is here.  I’ll be sipping that coffee and sitting staring out the window for the next 15 mornings.  #teacherbliss

I decided to join in with the Five for Friday FUN to celebrate this joyous occasion!

Number 1
Pardon my mess while I am having a blog design make over!  I am in mid design change right now so things may look a little strange and act a tad glitchy.  I am excited for a new look just in time for the new year. 

I tend to change things up all the time.  There are two kinds of people in life.  Those that believe that there are two kinds of people and those that don’t. 


Wait…I mean those that like change and those that don’t.  I like controlled purposeful change.  Don’t be switching things up on me without a valid reason.  Just don’t!

Number 2

 I projected the recipe for students and we read it while making sure we had all of our ingredients.  Next, we put the recipe into three sentences in a How To story.

 Finally, we made our reindeer food!  The red sprinkles were for the pinch of love and the green sprinkles were for the dash of magic dust.  #studentbliss

 Then I snuck in a craft.  Do not tell the authorities. 

 Number 3
We went right from Rudolph to Santa.  A very kind and generous family brought in a REAL LIVE SANTA just for the first grade.  This guy was the REAL DEAL.  I mean it.   My students were determined to get to the bottom of the Santa questions. 

 First we mobbed him.  He actually yelled, “Group Hug!” when my students walked into the library and discovered him!  It was so awesome.  I started to try to maintain crowd control, but I lost all my power.  I had to relinquish to the Santa effect.  You go ahead and have your month big man.  I’ll catch ya’ll back in January…

 This was a Santa interrogation interview.  My students pulled out all the tough questions.  Am I on the nice list?  How do you get in every house in one night? What did you give me last year?  What is my name?  Which reindeer is your favorite?  How does your sleigh fly?  I was biting my nails for the big man, but he had me completely convinced by the end of the session.

 This was the part where he explained how he gets into your house if you don’t have a chimney. 

 It was such a wonderful experience! 

Number 4
Sticky Dot Math
I am in process of creating a new math journal packet that includes sticky dots, so I created these two activities below to test run the concept with my students.  Students decorated a picture using sticky dots.  Next, they create a key to match their color choices. Finally they total the sticky dot value based on the key.  I used cent signs because we had been wrapping up our studies on pennies, nickels, and dimes so I wanted my students to practice those values as well as seeing the cent signs.   I plan to keep these more generic for the new journal packet.  My class gave this a BIG thumbs up.

Decorate the Tree

Put Lights on the House!

Number 5
I have who has…
This one is just melts my heart.  We played a simple game at our small group table this week to really see if we know our doubles facts.  It was precious.

I got a new camera so I have been a little snap happy this week.  I can be out of focus and a little blurry at times, but I am learning!  Happy VACATION!!!!!