Get Caught Up In a Good Book!

It is time for fall/Halloween! I wanted to create a new bulletin board that was about Halloween, but nothing about witches etc. This spider sticks out from the board so it is 3D. I used push pins all over the board and then wrapped yarn around them to create a spider web. Tip: Make sure to staple the yarn as well, in case the push pins come loose. The staples will hold the yarn in place. The next step to this project is giving the students cut-puts of a book and then having them write a book about fall/Halloween that they enjoy. Other students can look at the board to see what books they might like to read! I will post a photo once my students have created their books to be "Caught in the web". :)

We Are Special Flowers

I saw this activity on pinterest! The students cut out petals and wrote one reason that they were special on each petal. They wrote their names in the center. They are posted around the classroom near the ground so they look like they are growing. It is a great way to bring sunshine into the classroom during gloomy weather! :)  If I could change this lesson, I would have had the students cut out more petals so their flowers were more full, or made the center smaller. My favorite reason that a student wrote was "I am special because I am me." :)

Fish Friends

This is a project that I did with my students using the book "Sea Monster and the Bossy Fish" by Kate Messner and Andy Rash. The story is about a new fish that comes to school and bosses everyone else around. Eventually, the other fish create a "Friend Fish" club to show that everyone should be friends with everyone. This book really teaches children not to bully others and to be great friends to other. My students had such a great reaction to this story, I was so happy to see that it made an impact on them. After reading the story, I let them decorate their own "Friend Fish". They were able to decorate these in any way that they wanted. I recommended that their fish wear a "Friend Fish" button like the fish in the story. Afterwards, they could decorate a piece of seaweed by writing a way that they could be a friend fish. The student above wrote 4 ways that he had learned in the previous lesson about friendship (Take turns, talk, share, listen). If you go to Kate Messner's website, there is a pledge that you can have your students sign promising to be "Friend Fish". You will need to scroll to the bottom of the link to find the link to download the pledge. I will post the link below!

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/sea-monster-and-bossy-fish.html

Our New Pack of First Graders!

This is a bulletin board that I made to welcome my new class of first graders. Each student had their name written on a crayon that was attached to their picture. I created a large Crayola crayon box out of tag board! There is a 23 instead of a 24 in the center because I only have 23 students in my classroom. The students loved getting to see their face on the bulletin board. I think this is very appropriate for first grade! If I could do anything differently, I would make sure to print out the number 23, rather than drawing it myself.

First Post Ever!

This is my first post on this blog and also my first blog ever, so don't go too hard on me :) I decided that I wanted to share my ideas with others so they may borrow them if they would like. I find a lot of ideas on pinterest and modify them to make them unique in my own way! I also enjoy coming up with my own ideas! I will be posting them on here as often as I can. Right now, I am doing my last semester of student teaching in a first grade classroom! My ideas that I post will be geared towards 1st and 2nd grade. Thanks for reading!