Field Trips and Summer Linky Party

We had a great time on our field trip to the Zoo. Here are a few photos of what we found on our scavenger hunt!

Our fabulous librarian helped us set up a trip to see a puppet show held at our Main Library Downtown.  The tale, Stonecutter, ties into our quarterly theme of Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Nursery Rhymes. Stonecutter is a Japanese Folk Tale similar to the Fisherman and His Wife story. The children's area of our library is so whimsical and inviting, it also has some amazing artwork in the theater area. It's one of my favorite places to visit.

Since my grade level had scheduled six field trips in one month I found myself wishing I had a checklist to make sure I have everything I need to bring along.  Anything to help simplify the process makes life so much easier when you are going on a field trip. Here is a Field Trip Checklist I made to make preparing the day before and the day of a field trip go a bit smoother.

...and finally...

Lory at Fun for First is hosting a Summer Project/Summer Fun Linky Party.  I've been meaning to start writing down what I need to get accomplished this summer but have yet to take the time to sit down to do that.  Between the things I NEED to get done and the things I would like to get done (Ex: Pinterest ideas for the classroom) I will be a busy little teacher this summer!

Summer Projects

1. Add labels to my new classroom library books.

2. Clean out my house and send things to Goodwill.

3. Complete PINTEREST inspired decor crafts/projects I want to use in my classroom this coming school year. This could also be seen as fun :o) 

Summer FUN! 

1. Plan a quick road trip getaway!

2. Head back to my hometown for a bit to visit my family and my best friend since middle school.

3. RELAX, sleep in, go shopping at our newly redone outlet mall, and head to the local water park!

Zoo Scavenger Hunt Freebie

My school's kindergarten and first grade is taking a trip to our local zoo on Wednesday aka TOMORROW. Hooray!  I created this scavenger hunt to share with teacher coming on our trip.  I thought this could be helpful for anyone who is taking a zoo field trip so I thought I'd share with my blogger friends too :-) I was originally inspired by this post from I Can Teach My Child. You can find her full page Zoo Scavenger Hunt here. My lanyard half sheet Zoo Scavenger Hunt can be found by following this link. I purposely put punched holes at the bottom of each page so students can cross off the animals as we find them without taking the list off their necks.

I'm planning to take some photos tomorrow, so I'll be sure to share!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

My first grade team decided to adopt Cara Carroll's Brown Bag Book Club for the entire grade level. Each Monday the firsties meet in the library and a guest speaker reads a book to go along with our weekly theme on the Elmo.  It has been a MAJOR hit with all the classes. Here is the link to Cara's Book Club post. Check it out, its a fantastic activity!

Each teacher rotates bringing snack for the entire grade level each week and one of my lovely teammates makes the graphic organizer to put on our brown bags.  I think this is an activity I'd like to do every year for quite a while!

During Shared Reading we are reading this Scholastic Mini-Book version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Here is the direct link to the printable.

Last Hurrah and Follower Shout Outs

Well folks, I'm officially in the home stretch of the school year and man is it packed with activities!  We have SEVERAL field trips planned before the end of May.  We will be having our quarterly nature walk at the park TOMORROW and having a visit from the Puppet Truck sponsored by our local library on Friday. Next week we will be attending fairy tale play downtown. In two weeks we are planning on visiting our local art museum, taking trip to the zoo, as well as going a special trip to the Main Library branch, and of course field day will be squeezed in somewhere in May.  Lord have mercy! We will be a busy bunch of firsties for the next 32 days!

Here are some more new follower shout outs too!

Krista from Stellar Students

Farley from Oh' Boy Fourth Grade

Vicky at Traditions, Laughter and Happily Ever After



Fellow TN Teacher teaching in my hometown, Jessica at Under the Alphabet Tree

Rachel at A-B-Seymour

Jenny at Luckey Frog's Lillypad


Casey at Second Grade Math Maniac

Erin at Eberhart's Explorers

Staci at Going Nutty in Mrs. Squirrel's First Grade

A Pinterest-ing Spring Break #3

My Spring Break is officially coming to a close :-( I thought my final Pinterest inspired post during the break should be dedicated to centers!  I need a fresh round of centers to get my kiddos psyched about being back at school.  We will be in it for the long haul this time!  No more breaks til summer begins on May 25th!

I love this new blog I found via Pinterest, First Grade O.W.L.S.!  I re-pinned this easy little pattern center activity and figured it would be simple enough to re-create for this coming week. Here is the link to my rendition of the Making Patterns Recording Sheet Pin-spired by First Grade O.W.L.S...my first little freebie :-)

Place Value Marathon is a great activity from Ginger Snaps and Pitner's Potpourri. I'm planning to do it in the place of math centers for a day. I re-created this activity to work for my firsties. Im already having ideas of how I could do another marathon so hopefully this will go over well with the kiddos.  You can find my first grade version of this activity here.

A Pinterest-ing Spring Break #2 and MORE!

Hey there blogger friends!  I'm back for my second day of Pinterest inspired ideas for after Spring Break.  And I also have some exciting news as well as a few blog shout outs!

Earth Day is still a couple of weeks away, but it never hurts to try to be a little ahead of the game.  My kiddos love coffee filter spray bottle craftivities!  I re-pinned this neat little 3-D earth craftivity on Preschool Crafts for Kids.

I'll most likely couple this craftivity with one of the writing activities I re-pinned from Classroom Freebies made by Shelley at Teaching in the Early Years.

I'm so thirlled to have several new followers in the past couple of days so I thought I'd do a few New Follower Blog Shout Outs!  My newest followers are:

Tamera at My Heart Belongs in First

Heather at Heather's Heart

Fellow TN Teacher Laura at Kinder Kraziness

My newest blog find and now follower Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher

Erin at Miss Blecki's Pre-School of Fish and Creating and Teaching

  

Last night I was poking around the internet on BLOGS and happened upon this fantastic post from Heidi at Swamp Frog First Graders!  Tennessee teacher bloggers are having a meet up in a few days!  I've been very curious about what other teachers in my area are bloggers.  I contacted Laura at Kinder Kraziness to get myself on the list of attendees and found out that she has a list of 25 so far...how awesome is that?!

Lastly, I need to tell about TBA's 1st Birthday Celebration and Giveaway!  TBA will be a year old on the 8th of this month. To celebrate they are hosting a MASSIVE giveaway on their blog.  If you're interested head on over!

A Pinterest-ing Spring Break #1

I've been thoroughly enjoying my Spring Break.  Since I haven't been going into the classroom everyday I have been surfing the internet...mostly Pinterest and BLOGS...for  ideas to use until the end of the school year next month. Here is a collection of activities and teaching ideas that I plan to use through the end of the year.

I re-pinned this tattling activity from Rachelle at What the Teacher Wants.  My kiddos had quite a bit of trouble refraining from tattling before Spring Break.  I thought this would be a great lesson to use to re-teach my class about big problems (issues the teacher needs to handle) vs. small problems (issues students can handle themselves).

This inferencing activity has SEVERAL blogs that have linked and re-created it. I found the idea on Pinterest from Coconut Cutie's Classroom who found it from StrongStart who in turn found it from ChildCareLand.com. Whew! Good ideas are contagious! However, Coconut Cutie's Classroom created a free printable that I'm using to re-create my own set! 

 

My First Grade Team has decided to teach a Fairy Tale, Folk Take, and Nursery Rhyme unit this nine weeks. Next week we are planning to study The Princess and the Pea, Rapunzel, Stone Soup, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Strega Nona as a part of our European folklore week. I thought this collage along with a sequencing writing activity would be an awesome activity after we read Stone Soup by Marcia Brown.

I'll be back to post some more Pinterest inspired ideas that I am collecting for after Spring Break!

April Currently

Linky parties always look like so much fun.  Excited to link up for the first time EVER with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade!