Day 66 First Grade in Foxwell Forest

Mrs. Foxwell, Becca, teaches 1st grade.  You have got to read her post from March 5th.  If you aren't an educator of the littler learners...you will be overwhelmed after you read this post.  No, she didn't do it all in one day (ha ha), but you will see how much we put into our jobs!

All I can say after reading her post...is ditto my last two weeks too.  Well, minus the baby shower...but add in coaching a high school cheer squad getting ready to go to state!  Then I think we are even on the insanity and lack of sleep level.

So I was hopping around her blog and I was stopped in my tracks by this post:

 The Bravo Board

I do table points, but this Bravo Board just puts the bow onto what I already do.  I love the coupon idea.  I already let the table group with the most points have lunch with me in the classroom--and they think that is amazingly awesome--makes me feel almost like I'm Adam Levine or Taylor Swift--because they think it's the coolest thing short of a third recess!  I think mixing it up with her cool coupon ideas would make it even that much more worth winning!

I know it's March...and the groundhog came out over a month ago...but I am already finding new ideas for next year.  I downloaded this freebie graph and used it this year..

But somehow I missed her cute groundhog craft to go with my paragraph writing.  I am filing this one away for next year! Can't wait to change up the old one I've been using for the last 10 years!  She has it in her TpT store...and it's not free, but it is definitely worth a look and spending a few dollars on it!

Isn't this the cutest groundhog?!

Ok, there is a whole lot more to find in the Foxwell Forest. Be sure to go visit!

Day 32 A Cupcake for the Teacher

Starting February off with something sweet!

Here is a fun primary blog.  It is full of very creative ideas and clever art and crafts as well.  Teri is a young energetic 1st grade teacher from New Jersey.  Her blog, A Cupcake for the Teacher is full of ideas.  She also has a Teacher's Notebook and a TpT store and has quite a few fun freebies as well.

I am always looking for something different to do with my first graders.  They LOVE Art Friday in my class.  It really stinks that I don't get to do as much art as I would like. Every time we have an inservice day or a conference day it takes away my art day :(  But when we do get to the art/craft day...they know it's a special and fun treat!

I found this fun Groundhog activity on Teri's blog.



















I already had my stuff run for the special little rodent...but I put it in my file to consider for next year. I hate to do the same exact thing every year :)

If you haven't had your 100th day yet...our school's will be on February 19th (the day after President's Day) there are still a lot of clever 100th day activities out there to try.  Teri has 5 fun centers that she did with her class.  A couple of them, like the 100 compliments and the recording sheet for what your friends brought was a neat idea that I hadn't come up with before.  

And just as an aside, our 100th day would have been the Friday before, which would have been perfect timing from a teacher's point of view, but some very naughty kids decided they wanted to get out of school a day early for Winter break and started threatening some of the local high schools with veiled threats of 'shooting them up' or 'blowing them up'.  Nice thing that Facebook :(  So to be on the safe side, and just a couple weeks past Sandy Hook, all the local districts decided that an extra day off was better than worrying about the thousands of students trying to enjoy their final day of school in 2012.