Calendar changes
This morning when I got to school, I changed the calendar that hangs in the front of the room. This calendar holds a special spot in my heart because it was one of my "art projects" this summer. I painted all of the months, and also made little tags for all of the holidays. It may seem like "just a calendar," but it's one of my pride and joys :) I loved being able to switch from October...
...to November.
I have "special days" on the calendar for Election Day, Veteran's Day, and Thanksgiving, and naturally, this sparked some discussion. Thanksgiving was a day that everyone understood, and after some explaining, almost all of my kiddos had a grip on what Veteran's Day was.
Now, I like to think that I have a pretty bright class (not to brag or anything ;) ). I push them pretty hard, and they know this and respond well. But, I've come to terms with the fact that there are some things that a 1st grade mind just cannot be wrapped around--and one of these things is Election Day. They get the idea of voting, but who the voting is for was...whew!...just a bit over their heads! Maybe it'll sink in by 2nd grade...
Tomie de Paola
If you know me personally (or have read earlier blog posts like this), you know that Tomie de Paola is one of my all-time favorite authors. Y'all, any chance I have to insert a Tomie book into my lessons, consider it done! Today was one of those days, which makes me a very happy teacher :)
In math, we are working on patterns, and are beginning a study on quilts and how they create patterns. So, before we began the lesson, Ms. Hall (our wonderful math resource teacher) read The Quilt Story to my kiddos. So good. My heart was fluttering for the rest of the day :)
Some Pigeon fun!
For other teachers--or any Mo Willems lovers!--I just wanted to share this great link that was passed along to me (thanks, Dad!). This is an iTunes app that allows kiddos to play along with Mo Willems pigeon characters...an investment I'm seriously considering for my author study on this great author/illustrator next year!
Lunch buddies
We are lucky enough at our school to be a "Jan Richardson" school for the year, which means that Dr. Jan, a guru in guided reading, comes and holds data meetings and training sessions at our school about once a month. For a first year teacher, this is magical, and probably one of the most powerful things that I am adding to my teaching toolbelt.
Each visit, she does a sample lesson for us, except the only "sample" part of it is that she is doing the teaching--the kids and books and lessons are all real! This time around, I got to bring one of my reading groups to the meeting as the "test" group, and it was such a great learning experience for me. To celebrate the kiddos' success, I ate lunch in the classroom with the five of them that were part of the lesson. Let me tell you, I would love to have lunch in the classroom more often! It was so great! During the day we learn so much, and it was awesome to sit and talk with some of my students on such a "real" level--I was still the teacher and they were the kiddos, but we were six people enjoying lunch together, without any other pressures (on me or them!). Stay tuned for the next batch of lunch-in-the-classroom kids!
Before I sign off, I just wanted to keep you posted on Teeny Tidy...we haven't had any other visits from her yet, but I did see one of my students going around to each cubbie at the end of the day stacking everyone's things neatly. One of his classmates walked over and asked what he was doing and his response was a whisper, "we never know when Teeny Tidy's coming back--gotta get the classroom ready in case she comes tonight when we're asleep!" I love the magic of children :)
Hope your Novembers are off to just as sweet of a start!
Love from Room 106,
Allie
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