Life As a First Grade Teacher

I'm sure you have noticed that people define themselves by what they do for a living. When you meet someone we ask:

Where are you from?

and

What do you do?

When I say, "I'm a first grade teacher." I usually get one of two responses. "Aww. . .don't you love that age?" or "That's nice. . .I don't know how you do that every day."
Well, I have to admit that teaching does have its ups and its downs. Luckily for me there are usually more ups! Here are just a few of the great things I experienced this week as a teacher:
I had to be gone for training on Monday. Then, Tuesday morning, as my students came into the school one boy looks at me, screams, "She's BACK!!" and bolts down the hallway to give me a huge hug. How can you not smile for the rest of the day after that?
Wednesday we were having "turn and talk" time during reading. Students were asked to turn and tell their partners their favorite book and why. As I'm listening to discussions I hear this, "I like how you used the word interesting to describe your book, that is very great vocabulary."
Yesterday my line leader kept grabbing for my hand when we were walking in the hall. Another child noticed and said, "We always held hands with our kindergarten teachers, that's why she keeps doing that. We like holding hands with you too."
And this is why I love 1st Grade!

A Great Spring . . . and Summer

The spring is always a busy time for teachers. That is why, combined with fun in the craft room and a demand for several cakes, my blogging time was lacking. I was planning to catch up in the summer but alas summer is coming to a close too. In fact, I've already been back to school for 2 1/2 weeks! We began early this year due to a construction and remodling project. We are so excited to have new and refreshed classrooms, hallways and bathrooms. Christmas Break will be halfway for us this year and I get out of school before my birthday. wooohooo! There's always a positive twist right?!
Anyway, I have a terrible habit of beginning a blog and saving it to drafts because my obsessive habit to reread and over-edit cuts my time short. (Not that it really helps - do you ever read something you've written and it seems great but then later you realize you're missing letters or entire words? That's me! and you've probably noticed.) Therefore, I have many blogs of projects and recipes to share with you from the late winter through the spring. As I find time to re-edit once again I hope to share them with you soon.

And THIS is reason #576 why I love 1st grade. You never know what will come from my students mouths or the tips of their pencils. This particular student (from last year) was very bright and apparently I didn't read the spelling test quickly enough for her. I guess it's a vocab and spelling test all in one. Just something to put a smile on your face as a new school year begins!
If you don't find this entertaining it's ok . . . one of my fellow 1st grade teachers always says "We need to get a life!"
Sometimes only Primary Teachers would understand our humor.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, my first graders were pumped up about Valentine's Day! The other day I asked them why we celebrate Valentine's Day in 1st grade. (I love asking 6 and 7 year-olds questions like this, you never know what you will get!) One student said, "We celebrate Valentine's Day because we love each other like friends and we want to show other people by giving them nice cards."


Surprisingly enough the kids were most excited about how some had small eyes and some had big ones.

Good thing I have pinterest to help me out with creative ideas for my students. Check out these super cute robots I made. I had them sitting on the counter when the student's walked in the classroom. They immediately had 20 questions about them. Are those for us? When do we get to pick one? Are they robots? Do we get to eat them? Can I take mine home? Etc. Etc.

I got a lot of sweet gifts, cards and even beautiful flowers from my students. I love to see their faces when they walk into the classroom with a gift for me. Most of them look like they are receiving a gift themselves.

 

 

 

Halloween

Our Pumpkins

A boy and a girl . . .



Pumpkin activity in the classroom. We counted seeds, measured girth and height, counted creases, weighed in lbs. and checked for buoyancy.
Fun time but I only suggest it if you have a lot of parent volunteers!



I ran out of eyes . . .
I played them up as "special cyclops mosnters"
They were excited to receive them.
I love 1st graders.
You can get them excited about anything!



For my students - monster cupcakes





the day after . . .

As I am sitting with my small group of 1^st grade students during our “intervention time,” of course the subject of the Packers comes up.  “It’s so sad the Packers lost.” “I wish the Packers did not lose.” “Yeah, I don’t like those monsters”  Wait . . . what?!  “The monsters?” I asked.  “Yeah!” responds the young girl.  “I don’t like those monsters because they beat the Packers last night!!”  Another student chimes in, “No, the Giants beat the Packers last night.”  “Oh yes, that’s right, I don’t like the giants!”  Well . . . monsters . . . Giants . . . I guess they are both big and usually scary creatures.  We are making connections in first grade!

Last night the Packers were defeated and tragedy has fallen over the cheeseheads.  Lucky for Matt and me, our lives do not revolve around football, although Matthew does love watching his Packers.  Thank you God that we have a great HOPE and JOY in Jesus that can pull us away from our lives ‘coming to an end’ after a bad game. 

I read Acts 5 today as our church and small group continues our study through Acts along with the book Act Normal by Scott Wilson.  The Sanhedrin was upset with the apostles for preaching of Jesus in the temple courts after they had ordered them to stop.  Again, the Sanhedrin ordered them to stop.  In 5:29 “Peter and the other apostles replied: We must obey God rather than men!  The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”  A wise man name Gamaliel addressed the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:34 saying that many people have claimed to be somebody but all had failed to spread their ideas and eventually were killed.  His advice is this in 5:38 “Therefore, in the present case I advice you: Leave these men alone!  Let them go!  For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”  The apostles obviously did not know what Gamaliel had said, since they had been taken from the room, but suddenly things take a turn. 5:40 “They [the Sanhedrin] called the apostles in and had them flogged.  Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.”  Well . . . if that wouldn’t cause someone to feel defeated I’m not sure what would.  But did the apostles leave with their tail between their legs and say, “Yes, of course.  We would never disobey you?”  Of course not! As Peter had told the leaders in Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than men!”  They were going to go on preaching this message in light of persecution or even death.  5:41 “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name [of Jesus Christ]. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”  So, what then is stopping us from sharing the Gospel as Jesus’s early followers?

Halitosis: a term used to describe noticably unplesant odors exhaled in breathing

My students came back from "intervention time" all hyped up today.  They had listened to the story Dog Breath!: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis  By: Dav Pilkey  The story is about a nice dog named Hally Tosis with a big problem.  She has terrible breath (halitosis)! My students were asked to write about the ways they would try to get rid of their dog's halitosis.  Needless to say they came up with some very interesting, funny and sometimes colorful responses.  Of course this was the day I was getting observed by the school principal.  Our principal came into the room with my 6 students quietly sitting at a kidney shaped table sorting word families like -ack, -an, -at and -ap.  The clock struck 1 'o clock and it was time to return to homerooms.  My class comes bursting through the door in a boisterous manner.  One boy in my class gets extremely goofy when it comes to some subjects and he is exceptionally animated in his story-telling.  "Mrs. F!" He yells, holding a paper to my face, pointing to each word as he reads.  "I will lake (take) my dog to my room I will giv Him a Spacin (spanking)" Well, we were off to a great start with the principle watching!  Maybe I will get bonus points for settling my students down for math in front of the SmartBoard in what seemed to be record time. (My co-worker and I laughed later when I told her the story. She said, “After I sent them back today I thought, ‘That’s right, today she’s getting observed . . . ’ ”) 
Some other responses:
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. I can poot sampoo in her moth. I can mack her eat a bar of sope. I can tack her to the vet. I can sel her to someone els. I can tack her to doktr scool. I can brush her teeth with a brush I can ues to brush my hare.”
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. I can make it eat smelly stickers. I can make him rich. I would put hot soss in his mouth. I would make him ride a bike so he would go brethles. I would take him to a scary move so he would barck his breth away. I would put Axe deordant in his mouth. (This child has older brothers) I would make him go biy a dragane when it’s breathing out fire. I would make him eat 100 ice cream cones.” (This one went on for 2 pages!)
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. Make wind go in his mouth. Put cinder, air, shaving creem, hot sos, huny and muny. 4000 galins of milk in, too! 1000000 ice creem conse, fire, 100 kangroo’s, 100 book, 50 panguins, 10 gas stashis, 100 desk’s, 100 zebra’s, all snowflake’s, 3 <student’s name>, <student’s name>, and 300 <student’s name>, too!  5000 dinoserse, and 10000 shell’s, too.”  (As you can tell, we’re still working on how to use apostrophes properly)
Hope the writings made you laugh, or at least smile.  Can you see why I LOVE teaching 1st grade?!

Still Catching On

Well . . . I have to admit it will be hard for me to keep up with this blog.  I find it hard to quickly write my thoughts and move on with life.  In fact, tonight I thought to myself:  'I'll just write a quick post since I'll be going to bed in an hour, post a picture and be done.' Then I got to thinking . . . I'm so much like one of my students when it comes to writing.  She spends at least twice as much time as other students with each sentence that she carefully painstakingly writes on her paper. Then, if she doesn't feel confident in it, out comes the eraser.  Not to mention her perfectionism.  She does not quickly swipe across the paper to remove the bulk of stray marks as other first graders, but holds tightly to her Pink Pearl eraser as she removes absolutely every mark to create an almost 'perfect' surface, to the brink of holes.  Today as we continued our tradition of writing birthday letters to the birthday person, she spent almost 10 minutes writing "Dear <friend>, I hop you have a gud birthday pardy."  Next thing I know she has erased the entire sentence and started over.  I've been encouraging her to write as much as she can, as quickly as she can, before she forgets her ideas during writing time.  "We can always fix mistakes and letters later" I told her.  Oh well . . . maybe she will be like her teacher someday . . . reading her emails 10 times over before daring to reach for the send button.  So . . . long story short . . . I need at least 30 minutes . . . maybe 45 . . . to write one of these blogs.

So, for the real reason I was going to make a post today.  Below you will find the contents of an Amazon package that arrived in my mailbox today!  It's the long awaited Nikkor 70-300mm VR zoom lens for my D3000.  Isn't it beautiful!