Martin Luther King Lesson

Just found this awesome idea for teaching about Martin Luther King and his message.  It's from Elementary School's Counselor Blog. The blog seems to be inactive since last spring, but she has some wonderful ideas that still work today and can be used.

This M & M lesson is very simple but very clear and powerful for young minds to understand the concept that we are all the same underneath the color of our skin.

The lesson actually begins with two wrapped presents.  One neat and pretty and the other poorly wrapped with old torn paper and tied with a string.  The students get to pick which one they would open.  As predicted, most of them pick the pretty one.  When they open it they find it is filled with rocks.  Then they open the other one and find M&M's.

You can start with the M&M's wrapped in the boxes or just skip the gift box part as time allows.  Either way it is a creative way to illustrate your point.

It is a great warm up to the MLK Art/Writing activity I created and have done the past couple years.

  

Friday Fun - Creative and Useful Bathroom Passes

I teach 1st grade and I can tell you that little boys go to the bathroom very quickly and though most of the time they remember to zip their pants, they do not leave time to wash their hands.  I know my classroom is fun and they can't wait to get back to me and the lesson we are in the middle of...

ok, well maybe it's just because they are preoccupied with the way the toilet flushes or they were talking to the other little boy who came in as they were finishing, but they seem to forget to wash their hands quite often.

Yes, I know the girls do too....but honestly it's just not as often as those little fellers.

Here is a very cool find that I started using this week.  (I don't believe in overusing hand sanitizer and we wash our hands every day before lunch with soap and warm water)  I look at is not an alternative, but as a helpful reminder to them that they should wash their hands after going potty!   

Some of them go to the sink when they get back and wash and then some just use the sanitizer.  Either way, I am hoping that it cuts down the flu germs that have yet to fully hit our classroom this winter.  Fingers crossed and sanitized!

I found this on Stephanie's blog: 3rd Grade Thoughts.  She also has a link so you can print out these handy little labels...or you can make your own like I did.

My last weekend of Summer 2014

Yeah....life is busy and life is full and life is flying by....But this blog is something I really want to revive and move forward with because I realized I am neglecting some of my hobbies I love the most!

This is the blog post that inspired me to blog again!   Post --> {Click THIS}  

Kathy has a whole list of great math game ideas for levels K-3.  My first graders will be coming right after Labor Day, and when I saw this I knew exactly what I needed this for!  

I am going to make one of these...

• My version: The game will be for two-4 people.
• Each person gets 6 linking cubes of of one color (or little bears or whatever you have that they can have six of one color per person) 
• They will roll one die and they get to put a color token in each section when they roll it.  
• If they roll the same number twice, they lose a turn.  
• The winner is the one who gets one of their tokens in each section first!
• This is a very easy beginning of 1st grade center game which won't take adult involvement to participate.

Kathy has other great resources on her website...check her out!

KathyGriffinTeach.com 

Day 22 Tonya's Treats for Teachers

 Tonya must think that all of us teachers like ice cream...ok, so maybe it's true....

But on her blog, Tonya's Treats for Teachers, she has treats that won't make you have to take an extra trip to the gym! She is from North Carolina...a state that did not have it's proverbial head in the sand and has been tackling the move to Common Core for much longer than the state of Idaho. When I need help with Common Core, I am always finding resources and references that link back to North Carolina.

Tonya teaches 3rd grade and she has fun ideas on her blog.  She has a Teacher's Notebook store as well as a TpT store.  If you are looking for some great math resources...she has been making a lot of those lately.  She has a huge unit on fractions that she is almost finished with.  I saw some pieces of it and it's clean, organized, and beautifully done.

I also liked this multiplication freebie she has...very visual.  I could probably even use it for my 1st graders at the end of the year.  I linked the post...just make sure you go down a little ways into it to find it.  It looks like this:

Have you followed my blog yet?  Don't miss the next best blogger I find tomorrow!

Day 19 Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas

It has been a long two weeks.  It seems hard to believe that this was the same amount of time that we just had off for Christmas break.  These past two weeks seemed a whole lot longer.  Don't you think so?

But now it's Saturday morning! And to make this one even sweeter, it's a 3 day weekend!  So what fun plans do you have for your weekend?

To start my morning, I am on the search for more teacher blogs.  It's not hard to find them...it's harder to keep track of them.  Pinterest is great for that.  I always tag my favorites that I want to go back to on my board. But I started my 365 Blog Hop Challenge to get to know more of my blog neighbors and to be able to find them again.

If two weeks flew by, then my three day weekend will be gone in a blink of an eye!  Especially with all that I have to do this weekend....

My weekend will include:

• Sleeping in (I got up at 7:00 instead of 5:30 -- woohoo!)
• Adding blogs to my 365 Blog Hop Challenge
• Staying warm (it's 9 degrees outside right now at 8:30 in the morning)
• Finish grading the assessments I gave last week
• Start my report cards
• Taking pictures at my friend's daughter's 18th birthday party
• Adding more blogs to my 365 Blog Hop Challenge
• Working on my report cards
• Watching the 49ers game
• Finish lesson plans for the next two weeks
• Making the program for our Cheer Competition next weekend
• Working on my report cards
• Paying the bills :)
• Turning the pictures I took at the birthday party into a photo book on Shutterfly
• Working on my report cards
• Catching up on the laudry folding

So now you see how a 3 day weekend can fly by?  Goodness....just looking at that list makes me feel like it's already Monday night!

I think I will get back to the fun part of my weekend...looking for blogs...

This is the one I was hanging out on this morning.  Her blog is called Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas!  Fern is from Florida and teaches 3rd grade. She was even chosen as teacher of the year at her school...so her co-workers know what a treasure she is. She has lots of fun ideas and freebies and items on her blog and in her TpT and Teacher's Notebook stores that you and your students will just love!

I have to admit, one of her posts just stopped me in my tracks...

Read what it says under the picture!

Yes, this is the top of her desk when she leaves school everyday.  This is what I have always wanted to achieve, but have never been able to accomplish!  I just love the 3 hole punch next to it all.  Maybe if I had that on my desk it would help me stay organized...lol.

Nope, organization is just something I have to keep striving for...I don't think it is what I will ever attain 100%.  I just have little windows of hope!  But Fern, you are amazing!!  Not only do you create awesome units and activities...but you probably know where they all are! lol

My New Year Challenge

Happy New Year to all 12 people who have visited my blog.  LOL...yes, I know there have been more than that, but sometimes blogging without comments makes it like talking to yourself.  And ask my teenage daughters, I do enough of that already.

My blog is a fairly new blog...just a fun little thing I'm trying to get started.  I love blogging.  I have been doing it for about 5 or 6 years now.  Ever since we got real internet in our last house.  Most of my blogging time has been about our life in the Inland Northwest.  If you want to learn about life in North Idaho...you can read my other blog: Life in Idaho

This blog is my teaching blog....ergo...Primary in Idaho.  Kind of catchy I think in a first grade sort of way.  I have lots of ideas to post and very little time to do it.  I guess I could stop trolling through the 'net and actually spend some time drafting my stuff...but there are so many really cool teachers out there that already have there teacher 'stuff' together and apparently have lots more time on their hands somehow.  I think they must have one of those time turner necklaces.  You know the one Hermione had in the Potter movie?

Until I can get one of those awesome necklaces...I am hobbling my way along in the teacher blog world.

Ah...but then I got to thinking there must be other teachers out there in the same proverbial boat.  Perhaps there is a way I can help them out as well as making a great resource for myself as well.  So I won't always be looking for the biggies in the teacher blog world...but instead I am looking for the 'little guy' out there.

So my Project for the new year is to post a blog a day.  That's 365 blogs to find.  They will be primary of course...because those are the ones I stalk for ideas and freebies.

So, if you subscribe to my blog you can discover what I've found.  Maybe you will find a new favorite.  If you are an active teacher blogger and you want to be linked up on my blog, just let me know...I'm happy to add your blog as one of my 365 in 2013.

If I link your blog....I will send you this blog button