The Countdown

Do you count down the days in your classroom? Or count them "up"? We do.  Every day a fish goes into a big giant fishbowl on the wall. We change colors after every ten.  And every now and then we have a special celebration.  We have always celebrated on the 100th day. Bringing collections of 100 items, drawing portraits of ourselves as 100 year olds, all the normal 100th day activities. Last year, I ran across a unit celebrating the 50th day of school fifties style, and it was so much fun, that this year we celebrated the eighties as well.  On day 87 to be exact.  I happen to be an expert on the eighties.:) I found a 300 page unit on TPT, all aligned with Common Core, devoted to the eighties. It was like, totally radical:)

 I recently watched a clip of a news anchor from 1982.  She was talking about how one day in the near future the public would be reading the morning news from our own PCs. It is astounding to me how fast technology has evolved and continues to do so. And kids today are so savvy when it comes to their devices, from gaming to texting, music listening and video viewing... So when I brought in my Atari and my Merlin (anyone else remember that??), plus Pac Man, Frogger, and Donkey Kong, for our "museum", along with Cabbage Patch dolls, Member's Only jacket and Gasoline jeans, they were just in awe. As in we had an AWESOME day.  Because we talked about music, listened to cassette tapes, danced to Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Duran Duran and watched a couple of videos from when MTV actually played music! We talked about how telephones have changed, compared the boom box to ipods, did  Rubik's cube activities, did some surveys and graphs, created a nonfiction book, and ate neon cupcakes. We even did a little moonwalking:)

 Our literacy small groups were centered around eighties themed words...we divided syllables, worked on parts of speech, punctuation, verb tense and more. The entire unit, for those who are interested, can be found here: Totally 80's

 

 Did I mention that we danced?? A lot? Which was great indoor exercise because it happened to be freezing cold outside, and cupcakes plus kids trapped indoors are not always a good combination.

 Aww...look what we found in the Cabbage Patch:)

See the shirt with all the zippers?  I want you to know that I rocked that sweatshirt in high school. I bought it on a school trip in London..1985. It was my absolute favorite shirt of all time, and I always knew I would need it again someday:) (Yes, I realize it is tacky. As is the Swatch that I thought was ultra styling back in the day.) Swatches, big hair, Aquanet, skinny jeans, leg warmers, neon sweaters, jelly shoes, the metal bands that stuck around and the one hit wonders, the bazillions of cassette tapes (anyone else remember those Columbia music clubs??:), plastic jewelry, mullets, arcades, Sun In, tanning oil, and NO cell phones. Best decade ever. I miss it and I am glad to be able to teach that little bit of history to my firsties, firsthand. Such nostalgia...

And even further back....I should have posted much longer ago, because I have field trip photos, gingerbread projects, and sooo much more.  I hope to do much better about keeping up to date from here out.  Here is the class on the fiftieth day of school: Again, they were amazed at the record player. But the quote of the day was "Mrs. Raby, do you have one of those players that plays the big rectangular DVDs?"

 Record players, poodle skirts, phones with rotary dials (ohmiword...I brought one in to show and they cannot keep their hands off it.  They love to dial their phone numbers.) black and white tv, Leave it to Beaver, hula hoops, soda floats, bubble gum, Elvis, they did love fifties day too.

 The greasers...

If any teachers are interested in the unit we used, I recommend. It, as with Totally 80's, had way more activities than can be done in a day, and is great fun. Next year, for each unit, I plan to take at least a week to explore the activities in more depth. Here is the link for the 50th day unit:  Cruisin' through the first 50 days of school.

     The kids asked me why we didn't do the 60's and 70's too, and then they said "What do we call these years? You know, 2014...What will we call it one day? And will there even be school as we know it when we have grandkids?" I'd say those are excellent questions.


    

The Outdoor Classroom

 I love trees.  I always have.  When I was a little girl, there was this one June Apple tree that I climbed constantly.  It was the place I always headed after school.  My best friend had her limb and I had mine. We sat in that tree and solved life's problems as we knew them.  (Actually, we probably argued over which of the Dukes of Hazzard was cutest, but that is beside the point.) My dad even added a monkey bar between those two limbs so I could just flip right down to the ground instead of jumping like a wild chimpanzee.
     My point is, kids love being outside and there is just something fascinating about trees. And I believe today's society is way too geared toward organized sports and indoor gaming, when there is a whole outdoor world to be explored.
     Several years ago, I took the best workshop ever. It was called UTOTES (Using the Outdoors to Teach Experiential Science).  I looked FORWARD to those days after school...and believe me when I say I generally do not get all excited over workshops.  But something registered with me during the course of that particular one which stuck with me....I remember thinking this is the way we need to be teaching kids science, NOT out of textbooks. And then, during a walk around our school's amazing campus, which also has a butterfly garden and bluebird houses, I discovered this place. In the woods. (I did not even realize the woods were school property.) An untapped goldmine. The OUTDOOR classroom.

 I had taught here for years, and I had NO idea it was even there.  I began calling it Terabithia. (Of course my first graders had no idea what that meant, but it soon became our "secret classroom".) It looked pretty rough back then.  But there was a neat little "stage" where we began doing Reader's Theatre, sometimes for other classes, but usually just for our own fun. And we did a lot of nature exploring. Eventually, it got so overgrown we couldn't use it.  Last year, an Eagle Scout rebuilt all the benches, because trees had fallen on them and crushed them.  When I took my class out for the first time this year, the weeds had once again overtaken the outdoor wonderland.  (Not to mention the fact that we all got eaten alive by mosquitoes.) And then a very nice thing happened.  Last weekend, a former student (whose brother happens to be in my class this year) took on the project of clearing the path and the classroom once again, and when we went out today to do science, we were sooooo excited to see the improvement!
     I have a confession. I was supposed to do testing today, but I forgot my iPad on the charger at home.  I pretended to be upset by this.  But since I did remember my hiking shoes, we just made the best of a terrible situation;)

 The kids took field guides and observed the life that one tree can support.  We talked about how trees help us breathe and the resources that they provide.

 And I read this book to the class.  I discovered this one last spring and had to have it. Because it talks about how a tree became a special part of a family, the center of activity, and even after a storm blew it down (my favorite quote from the book) "protected all of us to the very end, and friends like this are hard to find."

 At the end of a stressful week, I find refuge in the woods as often as possible. I love the air, the smell of the leaves, and the quiet. If I can leave behind fluorescent lights of a classroom and head to the woods with "my kids" as I call them, I will do it every chance I get.  But don't tell everybody...I don't want to have to share my Terabithia:)

The Night Before First Grade

The Night Before First Grade. I'm sure that phrase has a different meaning for teachers and kids. For kids, the book bags are packed and the clothes picked out, and it is hard to go to sleep because of all the anticipation of seeing friends from kindergarten and wondering what the new teacher will be like, and there is almost the same kind of excitement as the night before Christmas. almost
     Well, this is my 20th year of teaching, and I am still a nervous wreck the night before that first day! I worry that I do not have everyone's transportation information and I will send a child home the wrong way. I worry that I will lose someone. Literally. That I will leave someone behind on the playground or in the cafeteria. Or that one will have an asthma attack or one will cry all day for their mama, or I will plan too much or I will plan too little. So I overplan. And I double check. Obsessively. And I pack my lunch 24 hours in advance. (It's the only night of the year that I actually think ahead about what I am going to eat for lunch the next day....usually I just grab a pack of  Jalapeno Cheetos and a Coke...and plan to do better tomorrow:)
     So when I found this book last year, I decided this was so me!  I read it to my class and they loved it. It is about a teacher who is scared to go to school on the first day. 

 And I found an adorable unit on TpT by Babbling Abby, with some perfect first week of school activities for first grade, some of which go right along with this book. I am so addicted to that site.  I had planned to actually publish some ideas to sell, but I can't stop downloading the good stuff I find there. I'm seriously going to go broke. Oh. Wait. (if you are reading this and you are a teacher in NC, I shall say no more)

 We all made Jitter Juice. Yep. Jitter Juice. It took those first day jitters right away, and they have been gone ever since. We read a poem, wrote a recipe, mixed an interesting drink... first grade style (rainbow Sherbet, Sprite, and Kool-Aid) and graphed our preferences.

 

 

And truthfully, it was a fun first day. My nerves finally calmed down and everyone got home the way they were supposed to (for the most part, but that's another story...it was all good, really).

This little group is full of sweetie-pies. I always forget they are more like kinders at the beginning though.  And I ask them to do a simple activity and they say things like "I don't want to write." or "I don't know what you're talking about." or "When do we go home?" And I just keep saying, "Just wait until next week...we haven't even gotten cranked up yet." That's what I love about first grade though. I see an astounding difference at the end from the beginning.  These babies grow so much in maturity and independence in just one year. So I am trying to appreciate them exactly as they are, and nurture them and watch them grow.

 

We are starting with a camping theme (this one by Cara Carroll...I have blogged about it before) and so yesterday we did a little "fishing". We wrote a fishing tale then sorted some goldfish for math, added groups together to find how many "in all".

 Today we brainstormed words that describe S'mores. We did a sequencing activity and wrote steps for making S'mores. Of course that discussion also led to fire safety tips, which led to a little girl informing everyone she had learned to be a fire breather. I really hope she was fibbing. I made everyone promise they would not try that. Ever.

We also are learning about animals and habitats we might encounter while camping. Today we talked about skunks, did a skunk "crafitivity" and wrote about things that stink. If you ever want to get a six year old talking, just start asking about stinky stuff. They get on a roll.
     Tomorrow we are hiking. I hope everyone remembers their tennis shoes. And that we don't encounter any skunks on the trail. Or fire breathers.
     Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

Concerts, Pirates, and Summer

I have blogged about this activity before.  I wasn't going to do it again this year, because it does require the waste of Band-Aids, which are a commodity by the end of the year, ya know. But when the apostrophes kept ending up in the wrong places and I started to say "Remember when we operated on the contractions...." and I realized that was last year's class, we did some quick surgical procedures. We divided up as surgeons and assistants, got our scalpels (scissors) ready, surgically removed the os from the nots, reattached the words, and stuck Bandaids on in place of the removed letters.

 

 

Now the Cool Cats can go to second grade remembering where to put the apostrophes:).

 

First Grade Dance Party

 Speaking of Cool Cats, the king of all Cool Cats, "Dan, Dan, the Guitar Man"(otherwise known as Daniel Justin Smith) made a return visit for the entire first grade and brought his kick drum and guitar for an outdoor concert. He shares his love of music with kids around the state, and we were lucky enough to have a surprise concert brought to our back door during one of the last days before summer break. And it happened on one of the days we (I mean the kids:) REALLY needed a break! The firsties danced their little hearts out and ran around a little and picked up a few sticks, had a great time.

The ending days were fun and full of celebrations.

of

 We had a water party for selling pizza dough. We had a water party for AR rewards. We had a game day, a movie day, a clean up day, and a pirate day. And through it all, we did learn a little too.  But let's face it. By day 150, 175 the kids are finished and it is all about the friendships and the anticipation of summer.

 


 
              
Pirate day was full of ocean activities, as well as some interesting facts about Blackbeard.  We even learned a little about Ocracoke, one of my very favorite places in our state. (For those of you traveling there this summer, there is a pretty awesome little pirate museum there in town.) 

 Love the costumes!!

 
 
One last hurrah for our favorite character this year, Pete the Cat. One of our students drew this giant poster for Kaleidoscope, and made a design for T-shirts, which were given out on awards day.

 

(video below of our talent show performance of "Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes")

 The class wrote these letters of advice to the current kinders and read them to partners. I thought they were quite precious:)

 Goodbye to this year's sweeties. I hope summer is full of warm memories and happy times. After 180 days, I feel like they are all part mine, and I miss them already.  Stay safe...

The energy was almost visible as they headed out the door:)....

 LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!! HAPPY SUMMER!