My Teacher is Missing Activity!

Happy Monday everyone! This past Friday I was fortunate enough to take my personal day and spend the morning as the co-teacher in nursery school with my 4 year old daughter and then as a volunteer in the afternoon in my 7 year old daughter’s grade one classroom. It was so nice to spend the day with both my girls in their classrooms!

I decided to leave an activity for my sub that I had seen a while back on the wonderful First Grade Parade and also on Pinterest.  I have seen a variety of great ways to respond to the book Miss Nelson is Missing and decided to create something fun and engaging for my students to do while I was away. 

Click here for My Teacher is Missing Freebie. See below for some samples I got to read upon returning to school today.
~Wishing you all a great week!
   Jeanine

Freebie - How-To Survive ________ Grade - End of School Year Writing Template

Hey Everyone!!!

I had myself convinced that I had four weeks left of school this weekend....but when I checked my calendar this afternoon I was sadly mistaken. Five weeks it is! With the "four week" excitement that I woke up with I decided to create a How-To Survive ___________ Grade writing template for my students to use.  I have customized this template for grades one to four so hopefully many of you can find a use for it!  There are two different templates included: one template offers space for just writing, the other template offers space for writing and a small picture.  This product is great for end of school year bulletin boards, or can be shared with students entering the grade your students are leaving. 


You can download the product for free from our Teachers Pay Teachers store.  I really hope you and your kids have fun with this activity!


Happy Sunday!  Have a great week everybody!

Lauren

2D Shapes, Spring Art and a Freebie

Hey All,

Just wanted to keep you up to date with what was happening in my room last week.  We just finished up our 2D Shapes and 3D Objects unit.  If you are interested in what we did for our 2D Shapes unit, you can find the unit I used by clicking the picture below. 

In Writer's Workshop we have been busy with our story writing for the past few weeks.  Tomorrow we will be doing a spring rebus story.   I am sure the kids will have so much fun with it!  This past Friday afternoon the kids and I made spring plasticine art.  We created beautiful spring flower portraits.  It was a very step by step process.  We started with a 5x6 piece of cardboard.  The first instruction was to warm up the plasticine in their fingers and then spread it onto the cardboard.  After we finished the sky and soil we got to creating our flower.  I told the kids that the stem was like a little worm and the leaves were like eyes/teardrops.  For the flowers it was a very similar explanation as to the leaves.  The students had a choice as to what type of petal they were going to make and the colors they were going to use.  For this project I gave very small pieces of plasticine to the student to ensure that there was no waste and that their portraits did not start to overflow with plasticine.  I think the flowers turned out beautifully and it was a great way to end the day before a long weekend! 

I have to say I am very jealous of those of you who are off of school already or are off in the next week or two.  Jeanine and I still have five weeks left.  With that being said though I am most definitely positive that they are going to fly by with the many field trips and special activities planned.

Please enjoy a freebie from my 2D Shapes unit!

Have a great week!! :)

Lauren

Mother's Day and Birdhouse Ads!

As Lauren already mentioned, last week was a bit of a whirlwind! I am thankful that things have slowed down this week and we are back to our usual classroom routines. For Mother's Day, my class also created the mini My Mom is Excellent books that I posted on TPT. We also painted frames that held photos I had taken of my students on the playground. The frames looked super cute and sparkly when completed. During our Monday morning meeting, my students were excited to tell all about their mom's responses and reactions to their presents! I have included a couple of pictures of some finished books.

Last week we also did one of my favourite Spring activities for our bulletin board. I THINK I got the idea, years ago, from a Mailbox Magazine. My class LOVED this activity and had tons of fun creating their little masterpieces. We made birdhouses out of a variety of construction and coloured paper. (I supplied a variety of tracers for the kids to chose from.) My students got very creative and added lots of little details and features. Next, we looked at apartment/house ads on the internet to see how ads are written. Then my students had to get busy creating their own ads for their birdhouses. Next, we typed up the ads during our next scheduled computer time. Check out some of our adorable birdhouses and ads.

Dad, You Rock! A Father's Day book to give!

Hello and Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! I just thought I would post this Father's Day writing activity early as many of you fellow teachers will be starting your summer breaks sooner than us. Please click on the picture below to check it out.

~Jeanine

Mother's Day in Lauren's Room and What a Week!

Hey Everyone!

All I can say is WHAT a week!!! Sooo busy!  My kiddos and I were busy preparing for our spring musical Go Fish which was showcased this past Wednesday.  There were lots of practices, decorations to be put up,  dress rehearsals, and last minute things that needed to be done.  The kids and I were so wiped Thursday morning after all was said and done.  We then quickly had to switch gears and get to work on our Mother's Day presents.  No time to waste!

This year my class wrote cute little mini-books about why their Mom is excellent.  We used the Mother's Day Mini-Book that Jeanine created and which can be found at our Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Let me tell you - these books turned out beautifully!  I just know that the moms will love them!

I also found a cute idea on Pinterest that I thought the kids would love to make for their moms.   The idea can be found here: http://funhandprintart.blogspot.ca/2011/05/handprint-fingerprint-flowerpot-with.html   

You must check out this blog - it has the cutest ideas for hand and footprint art.

Our mother's day gifts wouldn't be complete without a card.  We were lucky enough to have an origami specialist come into our classroom about a week ago.  She helped us create the beautiful origami hearts that you see in the above picture.  We used these hearts as the cards for our moms.

It sure was a busy week in our classroom!  I am looking forward to getting back into routine and our regular schedule this week!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there! 

Lauren

Teacher Appreciation Sale

Happy Sunday Everyone!

I was sooo excited to get up this morning because I cannot wait to get my Teachers Pay Teachers shop on!  In honour of teacher appreciation week many amazing teachers are holding sales in their personal Teachers Pay Teachers stores.  This includes Jeanine and I as well!  We are so excited to be hosting our first sale, and in honour of such an important week.  We absolutely love what we do and we have the utmost respect for all teachers out there.  So click the link below to find some super sales in our store - 20% off of each item!  Also, don't forget to add the promo code TAD12 for an extra 10% off at checkout!!!

Happy shopping!

Lauren