Snowmen and Character Day

This week was a pretty fun week!  We spend some time learning about winter weather and did a lot of fun snowman activities.  The first one, featured below, turned out so adorable.  After reading many snowman inspired books we created our own snowman story.  I got the writing template from The First Grade Parade, however just 'free-handed' the size of the snowmen template.  The kids had to come up with a creative story about their snowman and then create their snowman!  They did such a great job! 

 This is a snowman activity I've done for the past three years, however, also saw that Mrs. Carroll does this as well!  I think the original idea came from a TLC lesson.  First the kiddos paint a snowman body with a marshmallow (this is BY FAR their favorite part), then after it dries, the cut out their snowman and glue him to a bigger paper.  We read the story Snowmen at Night and then do a reader's response.  Didn't they turn out so cute?!  I think so!

 The two snowmen above are playing a guitar and dancing in the snow!  I LOVE their creativity!  The dancing snowman even has a spotlight!!!!  How adorable!  The snowman below is going sledding down the hill of snow!  

 This snowman activity was taken from Deanna Jump's unit on Snowman.  It's a MUST grab!!  I did, however, change it up a little bit.  I was out of light blue construction paper so I cut the snow globe out of plain old white paper.  Then I had the kiddos illustrate their snow globe and then use blue water color paint to paint the background blue.  Then I used glitter modpodge to paint over once everything was dry!  Some look like they're underwater but HEY, I had to deal with what I had! :)  I think they turned out cute!  Next time, however, I will be prepared with the proper construction paper color.

 This week at our school was Celebrate Literacy Week and as a culminating activity, the first graders had Character Day on Friday!  I had my kids do a Favorite Character Book Report and bring in their book to share with the class.  They LOVED it!  Here we are getting ready for our Character Day Parade!!  We had so much fun going through all the other classrooms!

 Here are a few who were dressed up (and some others who snuck in).  We have two Fancy Nancy's, Pippi Longstocking, The Pied Piper, Pinkalicious, Alexander, and Mia the ballerina kitty. 

 I must say, these two were my FAVORITES:  This is Pippi Longstocking.  You can't really see her hair but it is braided and curled up w/ the support of a clothes hanger.  She also had a monkey that she carried around her the ENTIRE day, except of course while we were on the playground. :) Adorable!

 And this sweet boy is dressed as Alexander from the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!  He was so proud of his hair sticking straight up!  I must say this sweet friend was so excited to be dressed as his favorite character he INSISTED that I read HIS book FIRST (and I did, of course)!  So cute!

What does your school (or YOU) do to celebrate literacy?! 

Sight Word Jenga!

Since starting the Daily Five I've been on the hunt for some cute game ideas that I could easily adjust to make into a sight word review game.  Then I had a brilliant idea (that I'm sure is 'old news' to most of you) to change plain old Jenga to Sight Word Jenga!  

It's SOOOO easy.  All I did was write sight words on both sides of the Jenga blocks.  The kids play the same way, however, when they pull out the Jenga block they have to say the sight word.  They earn a point each time they say the word correctly.  The player with the most points WINS!  So fun and my kids LOVE it!  I have a worksheet that I created to go with it so the kiddos are able to keep score, however, I'm still trying to figure out the whole 'google docs' and 'scribd' thing (yes, I know I'm young and should know how to work the technology, but honestly, I'm struggling ) :(

Will have it posted, hopefully, SOON!

Happy Friday!

Character Day

I am so excited!  This week is Celebrate Literacy Week and on Friday my class, along with the other first grade classes, will be participating in Character Day!! This is a chance for my kiddos to dress up and if you know ME, and my kiddos, we L-O-V-E to dress up!  I already know who I will be dressing up as... no other than... Fancy Nancy!!!  :)  To prepare for this fun filled day of literacy fun, I have sent home a Character Book Report.  You can download it HERE.
The kids have all week to complete the report and get the costume all together.  On Friday we will each get a turn to sit in the Author's Chair and tell all about our character, our favorite book that our favorite character is in, and why we love them so!  I can't wait to post the pictures of us all dressed up!

Who's your favorite character?