Winter Wonderland

Man, we can really tell it is winter here!  The negative temps and snow accumulation have made for a long month of January, let me tell ya!  We got the new year started with a chilly bulletin board display.  Each firstie got to choose a shape and turn it into a penguin.  I just love this bulletin board each January!

We got right into the swing of things in our centers this month.  We had contraction puzzles from School and the City which are amazing!  There are all kinds of grammar puzzles there and I can't wait to use more of them this year.  There were also centers with file folder games featuring contractions.  Now I am noticing apostrophes showing up in words that don't need them... hmmmmm

Flashlight Friday is still a favorite activity in the new year.  These kids work so hard on Fridays so we have some extra time to just sit back and read.  Today they got about 20 minutes of free read time and they loved it.

I read the story Snowmen at Night to the class and they created hallway art and writing.  They had to say what they would do if they were a snowman that came alive at night.  There would be lots of dodgeball with snowballs, drinking hot chocolate, sledding, and ice skating.  They made their snowmen by tearing paper.

Our reading story this week was called Honey Bees.  As treats all week long we had honey flavored teddy grahams.  One day I also brought honey from home and had them try it.  Surprisingly, most of the students had never had plain honey before.  A lot of them preferred to dip their teddy grahams into the honey, and some licked their plates clean!

We used tens and ones manipulatives in math this chapter.  To make sure we had plenty of space to keep all of our materials handy, we spread out on the floor to work.  A small change of scenery was such a treat for this lesson.

During some free time I partnered the students up and had them read a book together.  I told each group to find a spot anywhere in the room to read to each other.  I am going to take a wild guess here but I think this library area is a favorite- 3 out of 4 groups chose to squish in this space to read.

Another animal came for show and tell!  Leah joined our class for a little bit one afternoon.  She was freshly bathed and still a little damp!  She was so interested in all of the kids, she could smell their dogs on them.  Georgia was a very good pet owner and answered our questions about Leah.  Georgia's dad brought her to town just for us!

Peyton brought a new Christmas gift as her show and tell.  It was a cute bear that you could feed.

One lesson in our SS unit was about landforms and bodies of water. We made a neat landform flap book filled with information on the landforms and bodies of water. We touched on mountains, hills, plains, islands, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Hope you are staying warm!!
~Ms. Anglin

Odds and Ends

Just some odds and ends to report here.
She was sitting in my rocking chair reading a story she wrote to the class and it was just to cute not to take a picture!

The Desk Fairy comes to visit our classroom every once in a GREAT while.  I try to insist on keeping a neat desk, but not everyone listens!  When the desk fairy visits she looks for a clean desk with no garbage in it and all supplies put away nicely in the supply box.  The last time she visited she left treasures for 2 students.  And of course she left behind a trail of glitter!

In social studies we learned about land forms.  The night before, I decided to do this project! What was I thinking!?  For as little planning and time to get it ready, I think these landform flap book turned out great!

Signing off!

~Ms. Anglin