What have I been up to?

With everyone getting back into the 'swing of things' with school starting up in a little over a week, I feel very odd.  I feel like I should be laminating like crazy.  I feel like I should be making daily visits to Scholar's Choice.  I feel like my days should be spent photocopying, organizing, and preparing.  However, none of that is going to happen for me right now because I have a little something at home keeping me busy...

My little girl arrived into this world mid-July, and the world hasn't been the same ever since.  She's currently taking up almost every spare minute I have, but I'm told this will 'level off' at some point.  I do have hopes though for my year off for maternity leave, and I'm hoping that by recording them, I'll follow through.

1. Prepare and post at least 5 products to my TPT site.
2. Blog fairly regularly about something...maybe teaching related...maybe family related...probably a little of both.
3. Take an AQ course next July.  I'm trying to decide between Reading Part 2 or Math Part 1.

Wish me luck! (both with parenting and my goals)

Father's Day Gifts

The end is near...and I know that because Father's Day is over and done with.  I always have a tough time coming up with Father's Day gifts.  In the past, I've done a photo frame, a tie themed card, a key chain, and snack mix.  I haven't really loved any of them.  I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought I could adapt it to make it work.  I picked up some picture frames at Dollarama and set to it.

I wanted to have the kiddos really take a part in the gift...so I thought about having them draw something, and then remembered what June is actually like and thought we needed something a little more 'straight forward'.  I took some clip art that I had and made a collage that they had to colour in.  I demonstrated proper 'colouring in' technique (which you would think we'd have by the end of grade 1), and because of the demonstration, they actually turned out quite well.  Here's one of the finished products that I was pretty thrilled with.

We wrapped them up in bags inspired by this pin, and sent them home.  I still don't know if I'll repeat this again, but it wasn't so bad for this year ;)

How do you organize papers?

For the past 2 years, I have been using a daily duotang system to collect/organize my kiddos papers.  I have found this system has many benefits including:

1. keeping subject specific papers together
2. keeping parents informed of what we're doing in class
3. creating a format for assigning homework (if needed)

Our school board operates on a Day 1-5 schedule (instead of a Monday to Friday schedule), so this year my duotangs look like this...

Day 1: Weekly Newsletter/Reward System Update/WWW (Word Wall Words) Spelling Sheet
Day 2: English Poems and Songs/English WWW Homework
Day 3: Math papers
Day 4: French Poems and Songs/French WWW Homework
Day 5: Misc. (e.g., science, social studies, health)

Students are taught at the beginning of the year how to add papers to their duotangs.  Each day when they come into class, they drop them off in the appropriate bucket, and their new duotangs are laid out on the carpet.  The papers to go in are either at the carpet (if they're a completed sheet with their names on them) or in a pile on their desk spots (if they are blank).

I am super excited to add my first product to purchase onto TPT!  Take a peek to see what I put into my Day 2 duotangs.  Here are a few pics...

Last year, I started this project of creating Word Wall review pages that I could send home in my weekly duotangs.  The focus was on making the activities predictable so that students could complete them without parental assistance.   I have found that the students love doing these pages and have actually cheered when I gave them time in class to work on them.  I am so happy to have the chance to share this work with other people. 

Click on the image above or below to visit my TPT store to download this Word Wall Word Pack.

What are your thoughts on homework?  Do you have a system for keeping track/sending home all the goodies your kiddos work on in class?

Oh Canada!

Thanks to Heidi over at Secondgradealicious for introducing me to my first blog link up!

As a French teacher, it's so nice to connect with other Canadian teachers with Canadian ideas!

Click here to link up with other Canadian Teachers.

Click here to link up with Teachers across Canada based on the province.

A bientôt mes amis!

Mother's Day Cookbook

So I can't be the only grade 1 teacher who dreads Mother's Day just a 'little' bit (and same for Father's Day and Christmas)...you need to come up with the perfect gift.  It needs to be easy enough for the kiddos to complete, but still be something that is has that 'wow' factor when you open it up.  For the past couple years, I have done the same project, and it always turns out super cute, so I thought I'd share ;)

We make a cookbook of our favourite thing our mom makes us, and it ties into our procedural writing unit.  The best thing about this project is that the kids really don't need to know AT ALL how their mom makes it.  In fact, the ones that have no clue how it's made and need to 'make it up' completely are usually the ones that turn out the cutest.

The first step is for the kids to decide on a recipe and make an ingredient list.  Next, they write down the steps needed to make the dish.  Finally, they record why they like it the best.  This year, I added in a page for them to add a picture of them helping their mom to make the dish.  In the past, I have typed out their answers, had them type out their answers, and them write their answers for me to input (which is what I did this year).  Really, it's up to you!

Here's the final product!

 

 The front cover.

 One of the pages.  I love that when I asked "Why do you need to wait until 3 o'clock?" his answer was, "I don't know how she makes it, but that's when we eat it."  Makes sense, EXCEPT consider our bell doesn't ring till 3:25 pm...things that make you go 'hummmm....'

Another one of the book pages.

All wrapped up and ready to go.  Of course we needed a card.  I downloaded this card from Cassie on Teachers Pay Teachers for FREE!!

 

I added in a little poem to the inside, and now the presents will be ready to go home tomorrow.

If you want to pick up a copy of the printables, I'm including them below!  I'd love to hear what you think of the idea and please let me know if the download worked (this is my first attempt at using Google Docs) :)

 Click here to download the recipe template.

Click here to download the picture frame page

The frames are courtesy of Creative Clips by Krista Wallden.  Click here to visit her TPT store.  The food clip art is courtesy of The 3 AM Teacher.  Click here to visit here TPT store.

A bientôt!

Is there a "wrong time" to start something???

I think there might be...

Maybe it's the spring weather...maybe it's impending motherhood...maybe it's the thought of report cards just around the corner...maybe it's a student leaving for the year in 2 weeks and thinking 'oh crap - I still need to do this and this and this with him'...

Maybe it was the wrong time to start my blogging/TPT adventure.  I'm not sure...

James Cameron said "If you wait for the right time to have a child, you'll die childless"...so if I waited for the right time to start a blog, I'd die blogless, right??  Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing ;)

Anywho, long winded way of saying that I've been behind in blog posting, and I'm not going to remedy that tonight, but I'll leave you with a few pictures (cause that's what I like looking at when I read blogs).

In the class:

Here's a girl after my own heart.  Sorting everything by colours!!

This boy even had admirers from another class looking at his structure.  It reminded me of Jenga...

Here's an attempt at more purposeful play..."make a plan before you build your structure"...well I'm pretty sure they drew theirs after making the structure...not exactly the point...hummmmmm

Hopefully the focus for my next post...classroom tour: version 1.0

At home:

Thanks to my hub (...and dad...and father-in-law), the pool is getting clearer by the day...won't be long now till I can relax with a floaty and a cool beverage (probably just a Pepsi, until I'm cleared for more exciting beverages this summer).

My 3 baskets FULL of laundry to be put away...

At least I'm done the quilt and clock for the nursery, however still need to paint that bassinet (fyi - I've had the paint since August...even BEFORE I was expecting).

Lastly, the thing that is helping me to sleep at night...although I'm almost out!  Oh no....

Back to working on Mother's Day presents, and procrastinating working on the Mother's Day presents by making my first 'sellable' item for TPT.  Who am I kidding though...I'll be in bed within the hour :)

Mystery Mail

My grade 1 partner and I have been working on writing letters as well as the concept of inferring.  I found this amazing unit on Teachers Pay Teachers, and this past week I tried it out with my kiddos.  It was such a success!  Pick up the original Mystery Mail Unit on TPT from the Clutter Free Classroom.

The first step was to find some people in the school to 'send' the mail to our class.  I asked our gym teacher, the library clerk, and the principal.  Here is what our library clerk sent us:

Object #1: bandaids (from the time she spends in the office)
Object #2: a ruler (for choosing books in our library)

Object #3: a photocopy of her favourite book, Giraffe and Bird

Next, the students needed to use their 'inferring skills' to explain why the mystery mail person would send the objects they did.  Their next step was to fill in the graphic organizer provided in the pack to explain their thinking using some of the sentence starters on the anchor chart.  Here are a couple of my 'stars' working hard to complete the graphic organizer.

This proved to be a super engaging activity for my reluctant writers because they all wanted to guess who sent the mail to us.  When they were done with the graphic organizers, I read them the letter that was sent with the objects.  It was one of the highlights of our day.

I've made the anchor chart available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store for FREE, so head on over there if you want to download a copy to make for your own class!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Strategy-Poster-Inferring

À bientôt, mes amis!