Five for FRIDAY!!!!

HAPPY FRIDAYYYYY!!! 

I am so glad I get to link with Doodlebugs Teaching! I haven't been linking up much preeetty much because wedding planning is a priority now! (I get married in less than 56 days !!! Anyhow we had a great week in first grade! Check out my five! :)

We finished this week our plants unit! Since we were celebrating all we learned we made a "garden" with shapes on each table! I'm always so impressed with my kids' imagination! 

I LOVE ART! I love painting and lately I have discovered that I can actually draw! "Ms. Parra you draw soooooo good!" - my kids ;) I found a book called Camille and the Sunflowers in the library and it was simply perfect for me! We got to learn a little bit about Van Gogh while talking about flowers! After we read we did a quick direct drawing and this was the result! A beautiful sunflower garden on my wall! :) 

                                

We had a Field Trip!!! ON A WEDNESDAY! It was great! My children had so much fun! We went to a science museum ( I LOVE SCIENCE) hehe I basically love teaching EVERYTHING! I love exploring and getting my kids' hooked! This museum lets them explore and is "children - proof" ;) They wore many hats during the trip, from archeologists to architects! 

Today I decided to take teaching OUTSIDE. It was a Gorgeous day and the sun was calling my name hehe! We had an impromptu art session outside, we use finger paint! THEY LOOOVE to paint with their fingers and honestly I do too.

I'm getting married soon!! So my five is actually wedding updates! 

I have sent my wedding invitations and I already started to get our RSVP's! I also designed our wedding guestbook! I love our engagement pictures...so why not using them for our guestbook?? I got it done through Shutterfly (I use this site for everything)!

        

Well friends these are my five! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Dr. Seuss' Birthday - Week!!!

One of my favorite writers is Dr. Seuss! I love every book he wrote and little by little my collection is growing ;) Anyhow, I celebrated his birthday the WHOLE week! How can you only do 1 day with such great BOOKS!!!!???!? Here is how my bookshelf looked like: 

I challenged my friends to read all of the books in one week...we almost do it but I decided to keep them one more week :) (My librarian won't be getting the books back quite yet-my friends LOVE them)  

Side note: one of my struggling readers picked up today Green Eggs and Ham while in centers...he read the WHOLE book! I know the vocabulary is pretty basic but is +60 pages! I couldn't stop smiling...and the boost in confidence this little dude got is priceless! Thank you Dr. Seuss!!! 

Now back at my Dr. Seuss week ;) 

Day 1. The Foot Book  - We reviewed our opposites! One of the best activities for this book I found at The First Grade Parade! 

I traced their feet ... but then I saw this little one...she kept on stepping on her yellow feet! It was too sweet! :)

Day 2- The Cat in the Hat - We designed a new hat for the CAT!

 Since he cleaned up after his mess and we always see him with the same hat we made new hats for Mr. Cat! I love seeing where the imagination of my kids would go, they are so creative! I have some pretty amazing artists this year! 

I forgot to snap a picture at the end of the day, this one was from Wednesday after half of my class had left their hats at home :(  Still, see how colorful their hats are? 

I made an opinion writing about The Cat in the Hat, I love using my product with my class, it makes me feel really accomplished ;) Click on HERE or on the picture to grab the freebie! :) 

I love hundred's charts with "secret" pictures on them, so do my friends...Our picture last week was no other than The Cat in the Hat! They FREAKED out! 

Day 3. Oh the Places You'll Go - Wacky Wednesday! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. SEUSS! In his honor I wore my thing 1 hoodie...AND it was picture day...I got caught up with Dr. Seuss that I forgot to bring a formal sweater for the picture...oh well. 

We started the morning my reading wacky Wednesday...one of the funniest books EVER and let me tell you that my kids couldn't get over the fact that it was ACTUALLY WEDNESDAY!  Then we read my favorite book, "Oh the Places You'll Go" We talked about the many places we wanted to explore when "we" grow up! It ranged from Orlando FL. (Since they found out there is a Dr. Seuss theme park) to Egypt because of the pyramids! (We were learning about 3-d shapes). Their writing is on my bulletin board and I have forgotten to snap a picture of it! I will upload it soon! :)

Day 4- Green Eggs and Ham! - Tasting Experiment!

After we read the book we talked about the yucky green eggs from the book, I tried to persuade them into thinking the green is really nasty ;) After a little conversation we were ready for our experiment. Each child hat two cups: 

cup 1 = water+a bunch of salt + blue food coloring

cup 2 = water + green kool-aid + green food coloring

I found this idea at Finding the Teachable Moments. (I changed the orange juice for kool-aid though)

We voted about which drink we wanted to try first and why, 90% of my friends chose the blue water since it looked refreshing, so we ALL tried that first...

It was NASTY! Too salty! They were so funny! Their faces were simply priceless! After that we tried the green and found that this one was actually pretty good! We learned that not everything is as bad as we think it could be..."don't judge a book by its cover". 

Day 5- Bartholomew and the Oobleck + Dr. Seuss Soup!

I thought it was appropriate to celebrate our week with some soup ;) It was delicious! 

 Time for Oobleck! Our materials were:

Glue

Borax

Water

Green Food Coloring

I placed the materials in front of the class and asked them to predict what we were making, I heard several things including bread! NONE of them knew the story so I was quite excited! We started reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck and while I was reading I could see their little faces light up everytime I showed them the oobleck...by the end they KNEW we were going to be making OOBLECK! (It was my first time making it too) 

1. I gave each child a paper bowl and some glue. 

2. After that we put some food coloring and they started mixing with a popsicle stick. I tend to use and re-use popsicle sticks...they are so useful! 

3. While they were mixing I sent some friends to the bathroom with a bucket for some warm water, when they came back I put some borax in it. They mixed it too. 

4. The fun part! I started putting the water + borax mix in their bowl and voila, magic happened! It was FANTASTIC! They had a blast, and I did too! 

Clearly it felt WEIRD and YUCKY! :D 

Well friends this was my Dr. Seuss Week! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Snowmen at Night - Art!

Happy Monday!

It has been quite a week thanks to the snowstorm Jonas right? I teach in beautiful North Carolina...we have been OUT of school since Thursday! I do miss my little ones now! Anyhow I wanted to share a cute activity we did some weeks ago. The school is having Literacy Night for the parents to learn how to help their children in reading and tips for them to do at home, to make it more fun each class chooses a book and decorates door and classroom based on the chosen book!
Well we, (I) chose Snowmen at Night, quite fitting right? If you haven't read this book is great for predictions, inferences, and sequencing!
We don't have an art teacher so I have to incorporate it in my class (Which I truly enjoy) and I found this cute activity from The Elementary Art Room !

How cute is that?!?!?! 

The fact that the kids have to tear out the paper made my heart jump with joy because sadly the majority of children do not have fine motor skills! Great project and practice! 

This is how ours turned out! (We have some still *in process because we have been out of school) 

I love to see how creative my students are! They do so well! :) 

I mean, I even got an OLAF!!!! :)

Oh and this is my door! Nothing too fancy but cute enough :) 

We will write about it soon too so a writing post will be up soon :)

Thanks for stopping by!