The Longest Blog Post Ever... Stuff, Pics, Freebie, Giveaways, and a Gerbil!

Ok.  It was a Monday.  Did anyone else have a friend who was hysterical for 40-minutes today and also refused to do work?  And also refused to move from laying in a ball on the floor?  And also wouldn't speak?  Luckily, my friend perked up by the end of the day... but it made for a long morning!

On to the longest blog post ever.  Probably not, but in my mind, it's pretty long right now.

Up first... stuff.

Last week we did a solids & liquids writing assignment.  Students were to write to a poor snowman/girl/lady/boy/kid/etc... who was melting and explain to them what was happening using our matter vocabulary and changing states of matter.

They turned out SUPER cute and so full of learning!  I was impressed!

Here's a picture of one of my kiddo's good work:

And, if you click the image below, you can get a copy of the "liquid" and "solid" words and the "title" one of my girlies colored to put with our display.  The snowman pictures came from Today in First Grade's blog.  I just used two of the pictures and blew them up.  We colored on them and then pained my cool blue dye over them; it resists the crayon and just looks super cool!

 

Next... pics.

Last Thursday and Friday we had work days in the afternoon and, on Thursday, I recruited some child laborers who were here due to parents on staff.  One of my first grade teacher friends bribed encouraged them to help me by buying them a candy bar!  :)  They worked their tails off and helped me change the set-up of my room...

To this:

So, the "meeting area" moved from the back of the room to the front.  The main reason for the move is the Active Slate that I'm using.  I've always been a teach-from-the-rug kind of teacher, but having that slate makes the need for a meeting place closer to the board so important!  I'm loving the arrangement!

Freebie:  See "stuff" above.

Next on the list... giveaways!  Who doesn't love those?!

I'm currently involved in two.  One for all of my themed Valentine cards AND a cute tumbler from Ann-Marie at K&K Designs.  If you've not yet entered, it's a MUST check out!  You can click that text to head over there.  I'll be choosing a winner on Wednesday.

The second ends TOMORROW and is for my Groundhog's Day mini-activity pack and one created by my friend Sandy.  You have to enter that one at Ms. Fiorini's blog... click the graphic for more info.  There are only 18 entries right now so you still have a super chance to win!  All you have to do is "follow" us on Teacher's Notebook and our blogs.  Easy peasy lemon squeazy!  This file is still on sale at my shop (along with everything else!) until midnight!

And last... a new gerbil.  I tried a class pet for the first time this year and LOVED it!  We got a gerbil and named her Lily.  Sadly, she did not return to school after Christmas break.  And we've missed her ever since!  Well, one of my classroom families got us a new gerbil last week.  I used my powers of teacher persuasion to help her get the name "Gerbie"!  :)  The other choices to vote on were Sugar, Missy, and Sally... and Gerbie won by one vote!

Here she is!  She was being shy this morning, so it's not great.  I'll keep working on her!

Also... she might secretly be a he.  So... yeah.

Tomorrow my hubby and I have tickets to "Rock of Ages"... and I can't wait!  I got the tickets for Christmas, so tomorrow Christmas is officially over for me.  Ya'll know I'm a nut for musicals and this one sounds like a great one!  All 80s and hair band-ish... YES!

Penguins, Promethean, a Plethora of Pictures, and Pumped for P-Friday...!

Alliteration at its finest!  I claim poetic license on that "P-Friday".  Whatever works!

Anyhow...

Here are two of my favorite things we did this week.

I shared earlier how I had acquired a Promethean ActivSlate to use in my classroom.  And we are loving it!  On Wednesday, we did a sink/float lab.  I made a quick table in Publisher, added some clipart and shapes for the things we were testing, and the kids used the tablet to move the items into either the sink or float category, depending on what the prediction of the class was.  It was a HIT!  And super easy!  Since I don't have an actual Promethean Board, I'm not sure about making the flip charts and stuff... but this worked perfectly and was truly super easy!  On a side note, I also typed up words using Tux Paint and then we used the paint feature to circle "hunks and chunks" to practice decoding.  I love this ActivSlate!

So.  Back to sink and float:

 

Then we tested out each item and re-evaluated our predictions.  It was GREAT!

We also read and learned about penguins.  Each of my table groups made have/can/are charts for penguins, we combined our ideas and typed one that we displayed on the LCD screen to use for ideas, and then they wrote informational paragraphs about penguins.  And, in my classroom, no hallway display writing piece is complete without a super cute craftivity to go along with it... so check this out:

I traced the body which they cut out.  Then each kid got a different color hat and had to trade around with others to get three different colored hat pieces.  We added the googley eyes, feet, beaks, and the hat.  Then we mixed shaving cream and glue to make the white bellies.  Did you know that their white bellies help protect them from predators...?  I didn't!  So we learned that when they are swimming and predators look up, they may confuse their white underside as a reflection of the sky!

You can get your own "hat" pattern here:

Ok!  That's a wrap for me for the week!  Tomorrow I'm going shopping and Sunday will be laundry and school for me.

Don't forget about the giveaway for my prefix/suffix pack!  All you have to do is head to that post (click the pic below!) and leave a comment that includes a word with a prefix/suffix.  I'll announce the winner on Saturday morning!

A "HANDY" Way to Learn About Texture Freebie!

The matter unit is in full swing and we had so much fun today playing with properties of matter.

I found this project on Pinterest last night, but forgot to "Pin It"... so I don't know where the idea came from, so I'm sorry if I stole this from you and you aren't getting credit for it! I created the freebie for the hand and it's on my Teacher's Notebook Store... you can click the picture below of what we did to download it!

I ran copies of the hand on many colors of paper and passed out pieces of sandpaper, waxed paper, cotton, beans, and macaroni. We talked about the texture and what the best describing word would be to tell about the texture of each of those pieces of matter. We glued a piece on each fingertip and wrote the texture word on the finger. They LOVED it! Then I hung them in the hall with the chart we made earlier in the day about how to describe properties of things after we sorted bags full of randomness into groups based on their properties.

Tomorrow is the magnet freebie I posted yesterday and some other fun magnet play!

I don't know what happened, but we did SO much work today... I'm hoping for another successful day on Wednesday, again on Thursday, and then a snow day on Friday! HA!

Properties of Matter Stuff

**Just a note! If you purchased the "magnets flippy" from my Teacher's Notebook store, please go in and re-download it from your account. When I printed it tonight, the fridge didn't print correctly so I have fixed it and uploaded the corrected file! Sorry!!!**

I've been pinning away all night and have found some GREAT resources for my unit on characteristics of matter which was supposed to begin today but, since it was the first day back and all, that didn't happen.

BUT tomorrow... it WILL happen!

We're going to start off the day sorting bags of stuff. Just random stuff. Then talking about why we sorted it the way we sorted it.

Which will lead into a fun activity where we'll get to chew gum. In. School. As shock rings out across the classroom, they'll be documenting the properties of the gum using their senses.

Next, some fun videos from United Streaming.

Then... this:
How totally fun!

Followed by some in-depth discussion and exploration of properties of matter including solids and liquids and all sorts of adjectives... rough, hard, smooth, soft, bouyant, etc...

We're going to make hands to help us remember texture words. On each finger will be one of the following: the word BUMPY with some beans, ROUGH with sandpaper, SMOOTH with waxed paper, SOFT with cotton, and HARD with macaroni. This was also from Pinterest, but now I can't find it and I forgot to pin it.

A big 1st grade topic is magnets, so we'll be making this Pinterest inspired project:

For which I made this freebie to share... thanks for the start, Mrs. Richardson! My kiddos will have to draw their own "thing" in the last box and then glue it to the appropriate area- magnetic or not magnetic.
Of course we'll do the magnet flippy book... (see note at the top of blog if you've purchased this file from my store)

and solids, liquids, and gases flippy too!
And to wrap it up, we'll be taking our assessment by playing a "SCOOT" style test game where students identify characteristics of an object, jot a word on a piece of paper, and then move at the signal to the next desk. You can grab it for free!
This will all lead in well to the 2nd grade idea of mixtures and solutions.

Phew! That was a lot of science! I hope you enjoy the freebies and... thanks, Pinterest, for the great ideas tonight!