Science: Lab Safety

First graders had a very special surprise last Friday. We got to practice science lab safety in a whole new way! Our Watch Dog Dad brought liquid nitrogen to school. He reminded us how important it is to wear gloves and protect our skin. With protected skin, our Watch Dog Dad, Ms. Mars, and the first grade teachers carefully placed a bouncy ball, roses, and more into the liquid nitrogen. We observed, what happened to each object when it was cooled to more than 300 degrees F below zero. The molecules were so cold they stopped moving and the objects become very hard solids. The objects all broke when hit on the ground and table.

When we were all finished with the objects, our Watch Dog Dad poured the liquid nitrogen onto the bus parking lot.  It was so cool to observe what happened when he did that.  

Friday, Spirit Day, Ice Cream and more!

Check out this Panther Spirit!

This post is coming a week late, but goodness at the fun we had in the first grade last Friday.  After studying all week about scientists and what they do, we decided to experiment with a little ice cream on Thursday.  Our experiment didn't turn out, so we decided we needed another trial. We changed a variable or two, (added an ice cream maker, thanks to a very helpful momma) and tried again on Friday. 

Friday's experiment worked out much better, so we had a tastey snack! 

After our snack, we spend our hard earned pennies on prizes from the class store--mustaches were favorite! 

Then it was time for our First Spirit day of the year. Way to go character kids! Ya'll showed so much initiative in August! 

Classroom Reveal!

I signed up to do this blog post in order to connect with other teacher bloggers, and, well, show off my own hard work. I figured it would be another quick little post with a few pics, but, as I sat down time and time again to write this post I kept putting it off. I put off taking pics of my room and I put off describing into words what I had attempted to create inside the four walls I was given this year at Wooster Elementary. I tried to create a warm, welcoming, magical place. A place with endless possibilities and inspiration. A place to learn and grow for all of my wonderful students, as well as myself. Let's take a closer look!

See those sticks over there, they were collected over several months this summer. My Ozzie (my puppy dog) would bring me his leash each day, that was a signal that he wanted to go on a walk. If it were late enough in the evening, and the hot,hot sun had went to bed for the night, we would walk. Sometimes just a block, but sometimes a few miles away from our home. Oh! That Ozzie, he loves sticks! And while he could sometimes pick up just the right one, he often picked sticks that were only good for chasing or chewing. So, it took a great many walks to collect enough sticks that were suitable for a classroom rather then chasing and chewing.

Did you notice the river cane on top of the cubbies and that little wooden bench in the front of the classroom? Well those are most special too. I told Dad all about how I wanted to have a forest theme in my classroom. My Dad, you see, is quite the outdoors's man. He loves to be outside, and knows where all the goodies are. So, one summer night we hopped on the four wheeler and rode down to the creek. Dad told me how the river cane would stay green for weeks when placed in a cup of water. (Those cups of water you see are actually Mason Jars I have saved from a great many batches of sweet pickles my Pa canned and sent home with me) Dad also showed me how beautiful river cane would become when dried. Let me tell you, no matter how old you get, there is nothing quite like a carefree summer night spent riding around a hillside with your dad. Now, for the wooden bench, that belong to my granny's sister. I found it in my dad's basement, and he loaned it to me, but really, when I see it I think of my granny. She loved her sister so. Now, my students sit on this bench each day they are assigned to the listening center.

Do you see those pine trees here and there? Those are from my momma. For many years she loved Christmas. She would set out Santas and snowmen. And where you have Santa's you must have tree's for presents. My momma had many Christmas trees, and my goodness how she would decorate them and fill them with presents. It seems now, with my sister and I grown, Momma doesn't feel she needs as many Christmas trees. So, to give those trees a new home, she has entrusted them to my care at Wooster Elementary. I think they just make the forest don't you? You have seen most of my classroom now. But if you have time, take a look at these last few pictures. Speaking of mammas, my sweet husband's mom Mary helped a great deal with my classroom as well. She is very crafty so she sewed all the fish pillows in my iPond--Thanks coteacher Ashley for that cute center name! My iPond is a blue rug with my iPad in it as a center. Mary also helped me to create this sign she saw I had pinned on pinterest. The tree you see in the corner is made of paper. My sister was most helpful with that little project! I mentioned to her that I wanted to create a tree in my forest classroom, and the next day I had soooo many ideas and examples sent from her on just that. All her ideas were great! So great that I put them all together and the outcome was just what you see pictured.

I am most certainly blessed with many wonderful people in my life. This school year I have been given the opportunity to get to know many other wonderful people...my students! We have been in school for a little over a week now and I already love each and everyone of them so very much. This summer the classroom was created for them, it has many imprints of my own life and family but it was designed for them to learn and grow. I am so excited to see this classroom become changed, modeled, and adapted to each one of my kiddos as they learn and grow.

ps. If you like any of the printed décor in my room, (Birthday Chart, Center Labels, Word Wall, Alphabet etc) you can pick them up individually or as a whole classroom bundle in my tpt store. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Special-Adventures

First Week and Friendship Salad

I can't imagine a better start to a school year than the one we just had.  I am pretty sure I have some of the best kiddos, to ever set foot inside of Wooster! We have been busy learning procedures, exploring our new classroom and getting to know each other this week. In our room we have dancers, singers, artists, ropers, Cardinal baseball players, Minecraft champs and more! 

We also have friends! With our friendship salad recipe, we explored what it means to be a good friend---honest, caring, loving, and hard working just to name a few!  These qualities were represented in our salad with yummy things like fruit, marshmallows and yogurt.   We decided on things friend would never do, such as be mean or rotten (like the black banana.)  We will keep those things out of our classroom just like we kept the rotten banana out of our friendship salad. Friendship salad was mighty tastey. 

BTS Blog Hop and Giveaway

Whew!!!!! I don't know about you, but I think that was a great bts sale on teacherspayteachers.  I was able to purchase many new items for the upcoming school year and even snagged a couple freebies.
After all that fun, I am so excited to keep it going with a give away and bts blog hop!  Enter the Raffelcopter for your chance to win, prized from all these great sellers.

To enter, just check the Rafflecopter below.

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Then, check out Dropping Knowledge's blog to find even more giveaways and freebies. http://droppinknowledge2.blogspot.com/2015/08/back-to-school-blog-hop-giveaway-time.html


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All things bulletin boards

I am so excited for the up coming school year.  I will be moving from teaching Special Education in an inclusion setting to teaching first grade.  I am saying to myself, "Yikes and Yay!" all at the same time.  One very excited part of the upcoming school year is having my very own classroom to decorate, organize, and make special for my students.  I have already been working many hours in my new classroom cleaning, organizing, planning and more.  Not to mention, guess what is smack dab right in the middle of my room?!?!?!  A bulletin board!  I only have one in my classroom so I wanted to make very good use of it. 
I considered several things as I was thinking about what to do with my bulletin board.  I thought of math vocabulary posters, a behavior chart, class jobs, and more-the ideas just kept coming! Today though, I finally decided on (and created) Drum roll please.........A spelling and sight word bulletin board.  I know, that is not very out of the box, so why did I choose to use my only bulletin board in this particular way?  Well let me explain.
First grade is a huge year for many students.  With CCSS in use in my district, first graders begin on day one building on the literacy skills they learned in kindergarten.  We will practice our letters, sounds, spelling, phonics, phonemic awareness, and more each and every day.  I will have a whole classroom of visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and hands on learners.  So how do I grow those literacy skills in so many different ways? 
We will start by looking at simple cvc word patterns.  These patterns will be right in front of us every day on our....?   That's right bulletin board!  The spelling words chosen each week will intentionally pull out a certain pattern that students will study not only in spelling but also in writing, small group reading, whole group reading and more.  By studying a certain word pattern in just a few spelling words, students will hopefully generalize that pattern across multiple content areas and outside of the classroom to develop well rounded literacy skills.  The patterns will grow in complexity of course throughout the school year. 
With the spelling words being front a center, students will have ample opportunities to visualize those words each week.  In addition to visualizing the words, we will clap the spelling patterns, cheer the spelling patterns, stamp them, play games with them, rainbow them and more all week long.  There will be an activity for every type of learner throughout the week and an assessment on Friday.     
Here is how my bulletin board turned out.  All it needs now are some spelling and sight words. 

Welcome to our giveaway!  I am so excited to be a part of the Big Heartland Big BTS Giveaway.  We want you to be prepared for your upcoming school year so we are giving away lots of products to get you all set.  Enter the rafflecopter below to win my Addition and Subtraction Fact Fluency Unit, created with a cute fishing theme.

This unit is full of addition and subtraction strategies (for problems within 20) ideal for 2nd grade.  This unit also has fluency quizzes that an be used to measure growth all year long.

After entering the raffle-Check out my tpt store!  August 1,  I will have my forest classroom decorations on sale for 1$.  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Special-Adventures

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a wonderful 2015-2016 school year. 
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