Skip to main content

Snow Doubt About It!

Well it's the middle of January and we finally had our first snow.......which of course is directly related to the firsties inability to focus on anything except the snowflakes falling outside our classroom window. So with that being said we are diving into snow themed activities! Jan Brett's books www.janbrett.com are a great avenue for teaching inferences, predicting, sequencing, and comparing and contrasting skills. The borders in her artwork give clues for what will happen next! We read The Mitten and The Hat and completed a Venn Diagram. We sequenced The Mitten by putting animal cutouts into real mittens. (that I have collected out of the lost and found over the years) I then had the kids write descriptions for the mitten that they chose using adjectives.

It's math time and we are jumping into symmetry with snowflakes. We made super cute tie dyed coffee filter snowflakes. I laminated them to make them more sturdy and hung them up. Here's how:
  • Have your kiddos color them with washable markers. This is their chance to scribble to their hearts content!
  • Then spray each coffee filter with water. Don't be afraid to soak them, the colors will bleed together. (OCD warning-it will make their desk a mess, but cleans up easily with wipes)
  • What is great about using coffee filters? They dry super quick! 10 minutes tops.
  • After they are dry fold them into fourths and have the kiddos cut symmetrical shapes. Viola! These are great to keep up in your classroom all winter too!

Need a fun activity to encourage affirmations in your classroom? Have a snowball fight! Give each student a piece of scrap paper to write an affirmation on. Crumple them up into a ball and throw them! After each student has a new snowball have them open them up and read their affirmation. This also works as an exit ticket at the end of a lesson. Ex. How do you know that water can be a solid, liquid, and gas? Have them write down their answers, throw them, and share out.

Hope everyone has a cozy, fun winter, with a few snow days thrown in too! ~Mandy

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to be a Well Balanced Teacher

      I have recently had an "a-ha moment" that even though I have been teaching for 14 years now, I will never reach the ideal I held for myself of being a master teacher. There is always something new to learn-new teaching styles, new technology, new curriculum, etc. There are days where I feel stressed and overworked and burned out just trying to keep up with it all, and I know that many of my fellow teachers feel the same way. How do we as teachers stay well balanced in regards to all the roles we play and responsibilities we have. I am fortunate to have a boss that values taking care of yourself and family before your job, but I realize that I lose sight of these priorities at times and put my classroom first. This led me to taking a professional development class about refocusing and recharging and learning strategies for becoming a well balanced teacher. Here are a few of the things that I have set as goals for myself, in order to better balance my home and work ...

Common Core, Learning Targets, and I Can . . Statements Oh My!

Well it's official...I'm losing my mind over Common Core and Learning Targets a.k.a I Can . . . Statements. There is not enough Starbucks and hours in the Tri-State Area to keep my head above water. I need to create an I Can . . Statement-inator. (We may watch a little too much Phineas and Ferb in my household.) So to begin my adventure back to sanity, I created a little Check-O ff Class List. In the top corner you can list the domain, and across the top the corresponding clusters or I Can . . .Statements. Of course, since I am the differentiating to meet the needs of my Firsties my checklist is broken into 2 groups. This checklist allows me to see if my students are mastering the I Can Statements, which in turn means they have mastered the domain. We shall see how this attempt at formative assessment works. You can grab my checklist on my Teacher's Notebook Shop . Let me know if it's working for you, I would love feedback!

Addicted to Anchor Charts

Ay yi yi! I am addicted to anchor charts! I do at least one a week! The cuter the better! I get a lot of my ideas for anchor charts off of pinterest and from my fantastic colleagues. They say copying others is the finest form of flattery right? SO......with that being said what do I do with them all? I was running out of space quick. Solution~ hang them on clothesline above my cubbies. I am so happy with how it turned out! :) Not only does it take care of my space issues, it hides all the curriculum boxes on top of my cubbies! JOY! I will take some pictures and post them soon! So what's new this week? Character Tube Puppets! We are choosing our favorite books and creating a story map and a puppet of our favorite character from that story! They turned out super cute and the firsties did such a great job! We used paper towel rolls, constuction paper, glue, and some imagination. In the meantime, I am busy planning for March Reading Month and leprechaun shenanigans! Here are a few ...