Conference notebook

In YWs this past Wednesday, we had the girls make conference notebooks to use this weekend for General Comference. One of the leaders daughters has making them for years and the other one found the idea for the tabs online. We had the girls take pictures and sayings from old church magazines and the such and glue them to the outside of a composition notebook. Afterwards, they glued laminated tabs to the pages. The tabs have the picture and name of the First Presidency and the 12 Apostles. This makes it easy to find notes on their specific talks. The girls were then able to mod podge over it to protect the covers. These are pictures of the one I made. I have not mod podged mine yet. 

 

This is my front cover. 

This is my back cover. 

This is what the tabs look like glued to the page. The picture is glued to the paper so the name sticks out. We did black and white pictures because it was cheaper. 

I used it yesterday for the Saturday sessions. I love how organized it is. For talks given by other speakers, there are pages leftover in the back. I put four pages between the First Presidency tabs and two between the others. 

It was way easy to make and a lot fun! 

Science Journal Pages

So I found a way so you can see what the pages in the journal look like. It's not the. Idea but it is pictures of the blank pages. Let me know if you like them and I can email them as a PDF. 

I took a screen shot of them in my pages app which is what I used to create it. If you have Amy questions about it, I would love to answer them for you. 

P. S. I do know how to add video and such but only when I use my computer which I am not currently doing. 

How I got my name

So at the beginning of the school year, we read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. We talk about our names and how they have meanings. As a homework assignment, the students have to find out how they got their name. The kids love it! They think it is so cool to share with the class. Also, it helps them feel important and like their name means something. After that, we do an art project where they get to decorate their name with tissue paper. When they are done, we hang it in the hallway with a types up version of where their name came from. We have them hanging up outside our doors for open house. Here are this year's. 

It's a cool idea and they can put the tissue paper on while you are doing beginning of the year assessing. I leave them up for awhile until I have something want to replace them with. 

Our discovery!

So in case you didn't know, last year I got moved to first grade. I am still teaching first and I am loving it! Also, for the first time ever I stayed in the same classroom. This might not seem like a big deal but it made such a difference. I feel like I am finally getting more organized and my classroom the way I like it. 

Anyways, enough of that. I have a class with quite a few boys. I am trying to. Ale science and writing more fun. To do that, I created a science journal for them to write in when they are at the writing center. One person at a time can go to the science center and observe something and write about it. Sometimes we will do little experiments to put in there as well. I was going to buy science journals but they are too expensive and don't have everything I wanted. Here is what I developed ( I made this video for my sister but you get the idea): 

Ok well I can't put videos in using the app. Or at least I don't know how. I will try and add what it looks like later. 

Anyways, when my students were outside, working on doing filling out an observation for the first time, they found something. They had a huge discussion on whether it was a caterpillar or a worm. I was going to put a video of it here, but like I said, I don't know how. 

We talked about what we knew about caterpillars and worms and we made a Venn diagram. After that, we looked up some more information and watched the video of it moving. Then, each student drew a picture and wrote about what they learned. I put it all together so we could hang it in the hallway. Here is what the finished product looked like: 

They loved doing it so I got an idea. We are going to partner up and do little science research projects. We started today. They are really excited. They are going projects on birds, bats, owls or a combination. They are also deciding on how they want to represent what they find. I am trying this for the first time so we will see how it goes. Also, I am walking them through it. I hope it goes well. They are super excited. 

Blogger App

So I finally thought to download the app onto my iPads. I have a lot to share but most of the pictures are on my iPads. Hopefully this will remind me to blog more!

Holiday Activities Part

Hello.  Here are somethings we made at school to celebrate the winter holidays.  Something that was cool this year for me was that we actually got to look at where some of the holiday celebrations came from.  I guess at our school, first graders used to really study Christmas around the world.  It isn't written the same in the curriculum as it used to be, but many of the ideas and activities are still done because it hits on things in the core.  We looked at who and why certain holidays are celebrated.  We learned about Ramadan, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas.  With Christmas, we also learned how some different countries celebrate and where some traditions come from.  It was interesting because we were able to look at WHY people celebrate these holidays.  The students had AMAZING things to say.  The conversations were able to go beyond just Santa and presents.  I can't tell the students what I believe, but they were able to express some things that THEY were taught to believe.  Some of them have a great spiritual background that really shocked me with how much they understand.  It really impressed me and showed me how ready these young students are to embrace others' beliefs and cultures.  Here are just a few of the projects we did.  Some have pictures and some don't.

We painted Menorah's and then used the top half of our fingers to make the candles and the tip of our fingers and the flames.  The students wrote something they learned about Hanukah.  This was more difficult than I thought it would be because we do similar activities all the time.  Another teacher and I realized that the reason why it was difficult, is because for most of them Hanukah was a brand new idea.  They had heard of it and knew a couple songs about it (like the Driedle Song), but they didn't understand what it was about.  They had almost no background knowledge of the topic.  Everything else they respond to, they knew something about it before we talked about it and read nonfiction books on the topic.

We made count down chains.  The students took them home and used them to countdown how many days until Christmas.  Now I have many different poems that can go on the star.  I was given this one this year.  I like it because it can be used to countdown to any holiday in December OR if you have a student who does not celebrate any holidays in December, you can use it to have them countdown to the break.  Since the students are still young.  I encourage them to glue the links in a pattern.  This year they were able to choose what pattern they did.  They are also responsible to count them before they bring it to me.  I sent them home the day we made them.  Also, I sent a sheet of different activities parents could do with them that addressed different skills.  For example, have your child count by 2's.

Here is a closer look of the little poem.

 We also made ornaments.  They were very simple.  They are made out of glue, cinnamon and apple sauce.  We made it into a dough and used Christmas cookie cutters to make the shapes.  Next, we used a straw to make a hole at the top so we could put ribbon through it.  Then you let it dry over a couple days.  It makes the whole room smell like cinnamon.  We discovered this year, that if you rub glue over the outside of the ornament after it dries, they do not break as easily.  The students thought it was cool.

I was planning on adding a bunch more, but I don't have the pictures to go with them right now.  Hopefully I will get them put on here soon.  We will see how it goes.

It Looked Like....

At the beginning of last year, we read the book "It Looked Like Spilt Milk." We then made our own pictures by putting white paint on blue paper and then folding the paper.  The students then decided what their picture looked like.

Bats

So I just found an activity I did with my Kindergartners last year.  We learned about bats and wrote a bat fact we learned.  Then we got to make a bat!  We used our foot for the body and our hands for the wings.  The students loved this, especially putting paint on their foot!

Girl's Camp Summer 2012

So I just recently got released as the 2nd counselor in the YW's presidency.  I enjoyed my time in that calling and I do miss the girls.  I am now the Special Needs Primary Worker for our ward.  This is a great calling as well.

When I was in YWs I was able to attend a couple days of Girls Camp.  It was so fun!  I wish I had been able to attend more of it.  I got to spend time with the 2nd year girls.  This was great because I was over the Beehives.  We did not have a swimming pool for the girls and they DON'T go swimming in lakes or rivers (alligators you know).  I thought, "how are these girls going to survive?"  It was so hot!  Well they get this awesome slip and slide!  I even went down it several times.  It is steeper than it appears in the picture.

You could go down with a tube or without.  Let me tell you that if you add soap to your back or the tube, you fly!!!

So as you all know, I am not so great at taking lots of pictures.  The girls were also able to do lots of cool activities.  They learned how to throw tomahawks and knives, do archery (I did this and it was so fun!! I felt like I was in Brave), canoeing, and many other fun things.  The last night there was also a great spiritual experience for the girls when they were able to do an interactive activity where they got to learn more about the Tree of Life dream in Nephi.  It had a great impact on ALL involved.

Halloween

I came back from a teacher training and a parent had decorated outside my door with this really cool pumpkin.  

 This year for Halloween, my class got to carve Jack-O-Lanterns (with the help of parents).  The students were placed in groups of two and three (I had that many parents and pumpkins volunteered) and they designed what they wanted the pumpkin to look like when it was carved.  They then asked the parent if it was something they could do easily.  This was good practice on compromise and working together for them.  After the parents cut the top off, the students had to pull out all the seeds and stuff from the inside.  While the parent carved, the students separated the seeds from the strings.  Some of the pumpkin seeds were kept and I took them home and cooked them for the students.  The students loved eating them the next day!  Also, I took all the seeds from one pumpkin.  I cleaned them and the next day we counted them.  We would place 10 seeds in a little solo cup.  Then we stacked 10 solo cups together.  We placed the stacks of 10 solo cups under a chart that said hundreds, the leftover solo cups under the tens, and the extra pumpkin seeds that didn't add up to 10 under the ones.  We are learning place value in first grade so it was a great math activity.  Here are what the pumpkins looked like when they were done.

Here are some other activities that other classes did for Halloween.

These students learned about how a pumpkin grows and then put it together themselves.  

These students learned bat facts and made a bat out of a small paper bag. Their fact is under their bat.    

My class also made spiders.  I thought I took pictures of theirs hanging up, but I guess I didn't.  Here is what my example looked like:

I gave the students different numbers depending upon their current skill level in math.  The students had to find 8 different ways to make that number.  They could use addition, subtraction, tally marks, etc.  This is one of the standards for math in first grade.  They traced a body pattern onto black, brown, or tan construction paper.  They cut out their own legs from the leftover paper.  I am thinking of making this a game students can play during centers or math rotations next year.  They will pick a spider body.  They will then have to find the 8 legs that match it.  The legs will have addition and subtraction problems.