Celebrate Earth Day With Plants and Seeds

With Earth Day quickly approaching, I would like for you to take a minute to look at the Environmental Health Unit, I wrote as well as some of the ideas about plants and seeds I am posting here. There are also a ton of ideas that Scholastic put together for you in Caring For The Environment You will find many ideas that you can use in your own classroom to help celebrate the day we celebrate our Earth!

Happy Bunny Day!

I have always had a bunny party, including a bunny brunch each of my ten years at Metz! It is such a fun little day and just one more way that teaching first graders keeps me young and full of magic!

Technology in the Classroom II

Here is Part II of III of quick tech ideas that I have completed with my 1st graders over the past several years. Many of the PDF examples I am sharing with you were done in Kid Pix. We now have Pixie in our computer lab, so a few of the ideas will have come from that program. In many ways the two programs are very similar, so you should have no trouble adapting the ideas! Hopefully you will find something here that you can use with your own students or maybe these lessons will inspire an idea of your own!

 

St. Patrick's Day Activities

In keeping with my blogs of holidays past, I would like to offer you some quick, fun and simple ideas to use with your students to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. These activities cover a wide spectrum of academic lessons such as rhyming, estimation, writing, blends, surveys, graphs, higher order thinking, cooperative learning, science experiments, word play, and class books to ensure varied learning opportunities for your students.

 

Love Bug Art

The “Love Bug” activity, taught by my friend and amazingly talented colleague, Metz art teacher, Rebecca Nusinow, gives students a chance to integrate science, math and art skills to create an original insect.  The “love  bugs” my own students brought back to class were so incredibly cute, I knew I had to write about how they made them and show some photo examples!

100th Day of School

Schools start at many different times of the year usually in August and September. At Metz, we started the latest that I ever remember, and as a result, we are celebrating the 100^th day of school next week on February 4^th. Whether you have already celebrated the 100^th day of school with your little monkeys this year or having it coming up in a few weeks, I hope you can find some fun ideas here to use and have some 100^th day fun!

President Obama's Inauguration

With the incredibly exciting Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama coming up on January 20th, I thought I would share with you some links of lessons and resources. I hope you find time to teach about this historic event so your students are able to feel that they have been a part of our country’s democratic process. I know my own first graders are fascinated with President Elect Obama and pictures of him are hung all over our classroom. We have one particular solemn looking photo that is hung on the Good Citizen Board because the kids like to think he is looking down on us making sure we are all doing a good job in our work. They are such cute little sweeties, I really love working with 1st graders!

Grant Writing For Your Classroom II

Last week in my blog Grant Writing I, I listed some of my favorite grants, many of which I had success with. Of course I can’t possibly share all grants that are available, so I wanted to follow up with links to websites that have many different types of grants, scholarships and contests listed.

Thanksgiving Activities

The holidays always inspire me to create fun and exciting learning activities and Thanksgiving is no exception. I love taking a real life event from my student’s lives to extend learning through language arts, math, science and creative expression activities. It makes for a more fulfilling holiday experience for me as well as for my students.

Do Your Homework! (and read up on the latest ideas)

Even though we are a couple of months into the school year, I wanted to give you some link to some informative articles and ideas about using homework in the classroom. It is never to late to add some new twists in your own homework assignments for your students. These recent articles might just give you some ideas to make the ordinary, extraordinary!