Crafty Christmas!

All of our Christmas crafts are finally done!! I am so excited! It seems like we have slowly been working on these for months :)

We made pencil holders for moms, dads, grandmas, cousins-- whoever would use one!  I love this idea and how great of a keepsake it can be.  My dad has the one that I made over 20 years ago in his office at work. Here are some closer up.

We also made picture frames as gifts.  These are generally what I plan as mom gifts but they can be given to anyone really.  The kids loved painting the frame and the old puzzle pieces.  They giggled and giggled at how the Rudolph's turned out.

We also made 2 different ornaments for our classroom Christmas tree.  When the students leave for Christmas break they will take them home to put on their own trees.  We made trees out of popsicle sticks, glitter, jewels, foam, and buttons.

Our last project was making beaded wreath ornaments.  The kids thought this was so easy since they just had to follow a pattern.  They looked beautiful on the tree!

 



Have a Merry Christmas and a great winter break!!

~Ms. Anglin

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Season's Greetings to all!  Our class has been busy getting in the Christmas spirit!

We started decorating with our bulletin board.  Each student got a brown gingerbread person shape to cut out.  Then they could dive into my craft supplies to decorate their boy or girl.  They did a fabulous job!  I even had to add a little to my example because their decorating skills were showing mine up :)

Then we put up our Christmas Tree as a class.  We all helped fluff the branches, string the lights, and hang ornaments.  It looks beautiful!

A very fun and cute writing project was done this week as well.  The students had to write a story that started with "If Santa got stuck in the chimney I would...".  They were all very creative.  Some are going to jump on him or pull on him and some are going to pour water to losen him up.

 

The Santas legs and feet sticking out of the chimneys look so great in the hallway!  They have been getting lots of compliments.

More Christmas pictures are coming soon!

~Ms. Anglin

Gobble, Gobble, Wibble, Wobble

I read that line in a story this week "Ten Fat Turkeys" by Tony Johnston and it makes me smile :)

Thanksgiving in our classroom started with a bulletin board showing things we are thankful for. 

Each student traced a buddy's hand 3 times on 3 different colors of construction paper.  Then they cut out their 3 hand prints and wrote 1 thing on each hand that they are thankful for.  Examples were family, friends, school, Ms. Anglin :), and food.  Then the hands were stapled up to look like the tail of our turkey.

A fun project to display in the hallway was our scarecrows.  We used a little paint, glue and straw to make these scarecrow heads come alive.



The kids loved using real straw for the hair!



Scarecrow Boy

 

Scarecrow Girl





Our last Thanksgiving project was paper plate turkeys.  These take more prep time than actual project time.  I had all of the body pieces except the tails stapled together in advance.  Then it was just a matter of painting.

  

Gobble Gobble!

~Ms. Anglin

Animal fun!

In science we learned about the 6 different kinds of animals: mammals, insects, reptiles, birds, fish, and amphibians.  To close out the chapter the kids got to make an animal magnet to take home.  Here is our awesome zoo-

Giraffes and rabbits and turkeys and peacocks and alligators and cheetahs and horses and toucans, oh my!

The kids loved making their own magnets!

~Ms. Anglin

God Bless America

I must say that I am grateful to be able to work in a school where the Pledge of Allegiance is said with PRIDE!

November 7th was Voting Day for my school.  We all got to participate in Kid's Voting.

A student proudly wearing his voting pin and "I Voted" sticker.

We made these cool Cascading Star Mobiles for Veteran's Day.  These are even easier if you have someone else cut out all the stars in advance :)

Our star mobiles hanging for everyone to see.


On Veteran's Day (November 12) our community had a Veteran's Day Program.  There were speakers and all past military were recognized.  The Kindergarten through 3rd Grade students started the program by saying the Pledge of Allegiance in front of the crowd.

 "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

~Ms. Anglin

Halloween Update

Halloween is over, how sad!

We had an awesome time watching a movie, The Lorax, with the other lower elementary classes.  Then we had our Halloween party and even ate in our classroom!  Those tacos sure were great!  We had other treats too, including these Frankenstein Jell-O cups.

I originally saw these on Pinterest made with vanilla pudding that had been dyed green.  Well, I have a dairy allergy in my room so I opted with lime jell-O and Oreos (which surprisingly don't contain any milk) for the hair.  Very easy and very cute!

Then we got all dressed up and went Trick or Treating around town.  We go to the Assisted Living Center at the hospital and the Nursing Home.  I think the residents enjoy this a little more than we do :)  Our last stop is to walk around the Junior High and High School to show off our costumes.

They sure make scary Grim Reapers, Cleopatras, Power Rangers, Batmen, Pirates, and Princesses!  Our Halloween was a success, I hope yours was too!!

~Ms. Anglin

Halloween is in the air!

Fall is definitely in the air here in the midwest. I love Halloween! I love the decorations, the candy, the costumes- absolutely everything!



Spook-tacular 1st Graders

Each of the kids made a ghost for our bulletin board.  Some are walking dogs :) and some are wearing clothes :)

Here is a shot of the hallway outside my classroom.  It's a little off center buat thats the way it is for now!




Glow, Jack, Glow

This Glow, Jack, Glow pumpkin project was found in an old issue of Mailbox Magazine.  The students had a blast creating this 3 dimensional pumpkins.



Eerie Silhouettes

This might be my favorite art project to date.  I took profile pictures of my class and downloaded them to the computer, just to Word.  Then I found a clip art witch had and placed it on top of the pictures.  They were printed and traced on to black paper.  The kids should have actually been wearing a witch had when I took the picture but I did not have one available.  The kids's names are not on the front of this project, so parents and others have to guess who is who.



Painted Pumpkins









Last week we painted small pumpkins.  I am not a fan of carving pumpkins myself (GASP... I know, me- the big fan of Halloween) and the kids have just as much fun painting them.

~Ms. Anglin

Learning About Plants

Last chapter in Science we learned about plants.  We made a cool project that involved planting a lima bean in dirt and watching it grow.  The cool part about it is that we planted them in clear CD cases so we could see the roots and everything else growing.  I got this idea from someone else :) I am a pinterest fanatic and found it on there at 2busybrunettes.com. I forgot to take a picture so here is a picture of their example.



CD case plant

 When learning what the roots, stem, and leaves do for a plant I drew a picture on the white board so the students could actually see what I was talking about and what we were reading about. Air and light go in through the leaves to make food. The food travels down the stem to feed the plant. Water travels up through the roots and goes through the stem.



Flower Drawing

Then I turned my drawing into a poster to keep for the future.




Plant Poster



~Ms. Anglin

Fall art projects

Again, here I am playing catch up with some fall art projects we have created.  Project time is by far my favorite part of the week.  We do a project every Wednesday and sometimes Fridays.



Fall Leaf Rubbings

When the leaves started falling from the trees, but were still soft, I had my class bring leaves to school.  In science we were learning about plant parts and this project would tie in perfectly.  The students laid a piece of white paper on top of leaves and rubbed the wide side of a crayon over them.  I chose only fall colors for the crayons.  When the papers were filled with leaf rubbings we painted with brown water colors over the entire paper.  Then they used fancy scissors to cut around the edge of the white paper.  Lastly, the students backed their creations with fall colored construction paper. 




Button Trees

 My mom really wanted me to do this project, so I gave in ;)  Partners traced each others arms/hands and then they were painted brown.  After the paint was dry, the kids got to pick out buttons to glue on as leaves.

Fall projects... DONE :)

~Ms. Anglin

Better late than never...

Wow, I cannot believe it is already the end of the 1st quarter!  I have been busier than ever this school year it seems.  Hopefully I can quickly get you caught up on this school year.

Here is a fast tour of my 1st grade classroom.

I have genre posters hanging in the back of the room.  For each story we read out of our reading book, I have an arrow point to the genre the story is from.

The back of our room has our job board, in the news board, holiday/season board, and our vocabulary board.  The cupboards have my classroom management system on them.  The kids start the day in the green pocket, if they get a warning they move to the yellow pocket, and if they actually get in trouble they move to the red pocket.



Back of the room

 The calendar area of the room is where we start each day.  The person with the calendar job gets to put the number on the calendar.  They also fill in the sentences I have written beside: Today is (fill in day of the week). Today is (fill in date). Today it is (draw a picture of the weather).  We also have straws to count the days we have been in school and the 100 chart.  Under the calendar area there are paw prints with numbers on them.  They also count the days we have been in school.



Calendar Area

The library area of my room is probably my favorite, although my students don't use it as often as I would like them too :( There is a listening center with books on CD, a bean bag, a comfy chair, holiday/seasonal books, and an easel. I love all of my books and they are all labeled for Accelerated Reader (which we just started this year).

Library

On my closet doors I have a bunch of posters hanging.  There is a Reminder Board with all of our important things to remember throughout the week, Lost Tooth chart, Cafeteria Queen lunch menu, Top Banana aka Student of the Week, Hallway rules, how we get home from school, and a Reporting Vs. Tattling poster.

Closet Doors

Word Wall starting to fill up with new words!

Wild About Words

That's all I have time for now!  Off to a 5th/6th grade basketball game :)

~Ms. Anglin