Guest Reader: Officer Marini

Today marked the first day of Dr. Seuss' Read Across America Week. Our morning started off with a "surprise" visit from a guest reader, who my students later found out was my fiancé! (Their reactions were priceless). Officer Marini came to first grade for the morning, to read us the classic Officer Buckle and Gloria. Though I'm not sure how many of them actually listened to the story as they were so enthralled with the fact that there was a Police Officer in our classroom. Giving my students this opportunity was one of the greatest feelings. To show them that everyone, even the men and women protecting our streets and keeping us safe, enjoy reading books. Once Officer Marini was done reading the book, he asked my students a few questions about the book and almost every single hand was raised- which is often a rarity. This conversation quickly segued into the typical questions that kids ask an Officer. "What is that thing for?" (pointing to his duty belt) "Have you ever arrested anyone?" Thankfully we rehearsed these questions at home prior to him coming into the classroom. He was able to address their questions appropriately and efficiently, so that their innocent curious selves were appeased.

Tomorrow is Green Eggs and Ham day, we will be wearing pink and green and students will be offered green eggs in the lunchroom... can't say I would be jumping at the thought of green eggs from the school cafeteria.  I will update you all as the week goes on with more pictures of the fun activities planned for Dr. Seuss' birthday and Read Across America Week!


PS. Today was also "crazy hat day", we don't always wear leprechaun hats and gift wrap ribbon on our heads 😉

Well, the 100th day of school has came and went. Only 80 more to go!!! On the 100th day of school my first graders took part in a couple of different activities. As part of their homework assignment, the entire first grade team created t-shirts with 100 items on them (stickers, polka dots, legos, coins, band-aids, fingerprints, etc.) The kids were super creative with this assignment and I loved how different everyone's t-shirt was. For morning work, my students had to write 100 words that they knew- they could choose from our Word Wall Words, spelling dictionaries, sight word flip books, and any other basic print from around the classroom. Then we switched gears to work on our informative writing. My first graders were asked to think about what their life will be like when they are 100 years old. After much laughter, the response I got to this activity was amazing. My students are all 6 or 7 years old, so for them to comprehend the idea of being 100 years old, was a lot to ask. This activity had me in tears due to the hysterical responses from my students. "When I am 100 years old, I will be sitting on my couch eating Skittles with my fake teeth." "When I am 100 years old, I will be 'a-tired' (retired) to Florida with my Mimi and Papa, golfing everyday." "When I am 100 years old, I will go to the old people club and play board games with all of my friends." "I will have 18 grandkids and 2 kids, I will visit my kids and their family everyday." "When I am 100, I will go to church everyday because I think that's what my Grampy and his friends do everyday." They were then asked to draw a self-portrait of what they would look like when they are 100 years old. Their final products were hilarious!

After lunch, we switched gears from ELA to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math). Unfortunately, it is very rare that my first graders get much time with science, let alone STEAM. So for this special day, I decided to throw out my typical afternoon plans of reading, and I brought a couple of different 100th day STEAM activities into my classroom. I put my students into teams of 3 and set up the stations (as pictured in this post) around the room. I told my class that they were to work as a team, and using the materials at the stations they had 100 seconds to build anything they could. They really enjoyed the freedom to build without being told what they needed to build. This allowed for creativity and most of all, teamwork. Something that children this age need a lot of practice with. They thoroughly enjoyed rotating throughout all of these stations, and really loved that they only had 100 seconds at each station. After seeing their enthusiasm and their creativity with this activity, I will be making more of a point in the future to incorporate STEAM challenges whenever possible!

Morning After the Superbowl

Being fans of the Nation's greatest football team isn't as easy as it sounds. Especially the morning after a late night of friends and family, Superbowl snacks and a whole lot of yelling. The thought of having to teach 20 first graders this morning seemed nearly impossible... That is, until I got my 87 cent iced coffee from Dunkies! Fuel power at it's finest.

9:05 A.M.  rolls around, and the first few students came strolling in with big grins on their face. It wasn't until about 9:20 when the last few stragglers made their way to their seats that mayhem broke out, and the only conversation in the classroom was, "Oh my God! Did you stay up late last night for the Patriots?", "I watched it! They won!", "My mom and dad were screaming so loud!", "Tom Brady is the best football player of all time!", "The Patriots turned it around after the half", "I stayed up until the end and it was way past my bedtime!", "The last touchdown was the best one!" Due to their innocent (and natural) excitement, I let them be for a few minutes and simply listened. It quickly became very clear to me that most of my students had in fact watched some, if not all of the Superbowl game. Some knew exactly what they were talking about, while others just repeated the statements they heard from an adult at home, or from the Morning News. Either way, it made for a great writing assignment. Motivating young learners to write is a constant struggle, so to hear them discuss what they did for the Superbowl game, I took it and ran with it. I thought, what better prompt for a narrative writing piece than to have them write a paragraph about what they did for the Superbowl game. I provided my students with a few different prompts to get them thinking." Did you watch the game at home, or did you go to a Superbowl party? Who did you watch the game with? Did you stay awake for the whole game? Did you eat Superbowl snacks? What did you do when you saw they were losing? What did you do when the Patriots came back to win?" 

Next came the quietest 30 minutes ever! My class was so enthralled and focused on their writing, it was unbelievable. They put so much effort and detail into their work, and a few even asked if they could present their writing. Seeing their motivation truly turned my morning around. Though I was an extremely sleep deprived teacher, I suddenly got that extra boost I was looking for all morning, even after the coffee kicked in. For once, my first graders were excited about writing, and it was all because I saw and felt their excitement regarding the Patriots and the Superbowl. This enforced the idea that if you find something that your students like or take interest in, they are more likely to be motivated to want to write about it.

Yay Patriots! Thanks for a "not-so-bad" morning after the Superbowl after all. :)