Eight More Days...But Who's Counting?!

I know I'm not counting the days until summer vacation (wink, wink)!  I thought I would share a few pics from our Authors' Tea last week.  The kids had a BLAST!  First...a little background:

I started this process a few months ago by having my kids each select an animal that they found interesting.  We had everything from a catfish to a triceratops..which is exactly the way I wanted it.  We went to the library to find a variety of non-fiction texts and websites on our animals.  The kids completed a research packet (which took a while...but it was totally worth it!).  After we completed our research, the kids began to write a rough draft.  I did A LOT of instruction on what it means to be a non-fiction writer.  I didn't want to see any "I like" sentences!  Anyway, after writing, editing, and writing some more, we were ready to move into our final copies.  My grade level ordered hard-back books from Bare Books for the kids to use.  They always look awesome when they are done and kids feel like serious authors when they are writing in them.

When all of the writing and illustrating was complete, we braved the world of paper mache.  I painstakingly collected every shoe box, toilet paper roll, paper towel roll, water bottle, etc for weeks (I HATE messes...so this was not easy for me).  I let the kids have at the pile of goodies and they used more masking tape than I thought humanly possible to build their animal.  Once they were all constructed, we paper mached and painted them...whew!  They were time consuming, but totally worth it.  Our animals became our awesome centerpieces when our guests arrived for our tea.

The kids all did an amazing job!  Some were super nervous about getting up in front of a lot of people and reading into the microphone, but they all met the challenge.  I was one proud teacher!

In the midst of all of our school stuff, we took a break this weekend to celebrate Mother's Day with some of the coolest people around. My mom, dad, Allison, and I joined my grandmother and uncle for breakfast at The Old Hickory House (yum!).  We were rained out of our annual visit to the Mother's Day Art Show (boo), but we made a day out of it anyway.  We met up with the rest of the family at my grandmother's house, watched New Year's Eve, Joyful Noise, and a little golf...and, oh yeah, we ate some more (eating is kind of our thing).  It was a fun day for sure!

Well, Team Fannin also did a little work this weekend on a summer packet for our kiddos.  My parents always ask for something to do over the summer with their kids...so I thought I would beat them to the punch this year with this little packet.  It is a cute little calendar and journal that has either a math, reading, language arts, or science activity for each day of the break.  Nothing should take more than a few minutes for them to complete, but it helps the parents set a little "school routine" for the summer.  You can click the picture to take you to our TpT store.

I hope you enjoy your last few days!

Get Ready...This Is A Big One!!!

We have been busy little bees over the past couple of weeks!  School is getting to that crazy point where there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done and panic sets in...yet you are wishing like crazy for the days to go by quickly (something only a teacher could understand).

With that being said, we thought we would share what is happening in our classrooms these days.  The "Firsties" (Ashley and Debbie's classes) are working like crazy on animals using our Animal Safari unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.  The kids LOVE it!  I am so impressed by the information they are retaining and the advanced vocabulary that they are integrating into their conversations...so cool!  We finished up mammals last week and are headed full steam ahead into reptiles this week.  Lucky for us, we both have pet turtles in our classrooms, so the kids are having wonderful real life experiences with a reptile. 

The "Pre-Kers" (Allison's class) are beginning a wonderful unit that integrates the love of field day with some really important math and language arts review.  I don't know about your school, but field day is HUGE for us!  The kids adore it...it is all that they talk about for weeks.  We made this cute little unit so that you can put some good use to that field day enthusiasm.  Click on the pictures below to see the preview.  It is available on Teachers Pay Teachers now (we also included activities for the Olympics so you can extend the fun into August too).

Included in the unit are some fabulous crafts!  Our little cutie here had a great time making them...so much fun that she put on quite a show for the camera!

In addition to our Field Day/Olympic unit, we have also added a sweet little packet for Mother's Day.  It includes many great ideas for gifts, crafts, and a "Mom of the Year" certificate (so adorable).

FREEBIE ALERT!!!!

We decided to add a quick little memory book/yearbook that our kids do the last week of school.  It is such a fun way to look back on all of the fun things that you did as a class.  This activity always opens up great dialogue and usually leads to quite a few laughs, plus it helps to keep a bit of the routine during that CRAZY week.  Click on the picture to download. 

Check back soon for some pics of a cute little math review activity we've been working on in first grade, plus some pics of our annual Authors' Tea!

We're Getting The Hang Of Things...

We are a few days into our new blogging adventure and we haven't given up yet...that's a good sign, right?!  We have a few things posted on Teachers Pay Teachers in our Team Fannin store.  Here is a little preview:

We also have a freebie available...daily graphing cards...yay!  Our kids LOVE them.  We have a graph up every morning for part of their morning work.  The kids just simply make their choice as they come in and then we interpret the data as part of our calendar time.  This is a great way to continuously review those pesky questions like "How many more kids said yes than no?"

I also thought I would take this opportunity to share a few things that we have been up to lately.  First, one of my former student's family has recently started a chalk art business called Field of Bling (They are on Facebook and online at www.fieldofbling.com).  They invited my family to take part in a great activity at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta where we got to do artwork with the patients.  Oh my...it was so rewarding and soooo fun!  We can't wait to go back.  Here are some of our masterpieces.

Field of Bling is an awesome company...go check them out!

We currently have 22 more days of school (but, we're not counting)!