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Text of the page (random words):
ny chance of the stuff i get my tail to that grocery store to stock up on all the milk and bread in the world that is if there s any left by the time i get there but i believe i could live just fine off of cookies and coffee and that is all anyone with me anyway flashback to a few weeks ago when we woke up to a blanket of thick snow and the flakes were still coming down hard hands down one of the most amazing snow days i have experienced here it was magical and surprising and it was something my own kids took full advantage of even though they had no snow boots or snow suits because of the whole not prepared for this kind of weather clothing deal they ended up changing out of wet clothes about a million times but they didn t care and i didn t care because snow check this out emma s jacket is two sizes too small but we hadn t bought her a winter coat yet this year so thankfully we had a jacket from our ski trip a few years ago to get her through bless yes greyson is wearing fuzzy pj pants it was the warmest he had i mean gracious luckily his coat fit praise the lord for an elf who had the idea to leave some gloves and earmuffs for these southern children usually at this time of year when i teach a science unit about snow or read snow books or we do snow themed writing it can difficult to get kids to relate because in their 6 or 7 years living here in the south they haven t had much experience with snow this year all of that is very different because of that one magical snow day the kids are more engaged and curious and able to contribute ideas during our snow and winter unit than i have seen in other years when we didn t get snow at all i think it just proves that personal life experiences are integral in building interest and creating background knowledge for learning today we did a precious directed drawing with a cute snow kid then we wrote about our magical snow day from a few weeks ago truth be told when the kids first got started they struggled with details it was a lot of one day it snowed i was happy i made a snowman i mean i know these kids woke up and were about to burst like a confetti cannon from excitement they probably did little happy dances some probably laughed and clapped and grinned from ear to ear i know it because i did almost all those things and i m old so i had to stop them where they were i said guys let s think back to our snow day let s try to relive that day a little starting with when you woke up can you describe exactly what your eyes saw so we walked through trying to paint a picture with our words i explained that the words we use have the power to paint pictures inside a reader s head sometimes in reading i like to call their mental pictures their brain tv after sharing a few examples with them we practiced sharing descriptive words and figurative language to tell about the snow some kids said it looked like vanilla ice cream all over the ground one said it looked like a white paintbrush had painted the ground and trees um that s what i m talking about yes after they focused on writing only what their eyes saw we worked on explaining how they felt in case you didn t know according to first graders there are only three emotions happy sad mad ha but really anyone else see this besides me so we had to talk about what they truly had going on those heads when they woke up to see all of this magical glorious snow one friend shared that he felt all of this blood rushing around that he was so excited he felt he just had to get out in the snow right then another one said she was so surprised and couldn t believe her eyes and another friend just wanted to stare at it she felt calm finally i guided them to explain the adventures they had in the snow we shared out the different things they did and i explained that even the littlest details in writing make it more interesting to read i loved that instead of seeing i made a snowman a friend revised his work to say i worked with my brother to roll snowballs for a snowman we gave him a warm scarf and a blackberry nose so much better our directed drawing is inspired from johnpost us so i learned a few things today as a teacher 1 personal real life experiences make learning about certain subjects more accessible for students 2 guiding writing with a explicit examples can make all the difference in the details and effort they put into their writing 3 break down writing projects focus on one thing at a time even if it takes a few days to complete ideally this writing piece would have taken three days i couldn t wait so we did it all today because i had to see the finished products mean old mrs cooley hands were hurting a little today from all that writing 4 teaching writing makes me tired but it s rewarding to see results 5 coffee and cookies are always necessary and always yummy whether they are for a snow day or used just as a reward for getting through the writing lesson that day can someone please invent time travel and take me back to this day nothing better than a snow day posted by sarah cooley at 7 12 pm 2 comments saturday january 6 2018 meaningful morning tubs i started morning tubs this past year as an alternative to traditional morning work worksheets i have loved being able to integrate stem concepts and purposeful play into our daily routine i have also enjoyed seeing the classroom community and relationships that are built by allowing students to have the first minutes of the morning to socialize problem solve share ideas and work cooperatively getting started at the beginning of the year i used items from around my room to fill the bins legos pattern blocks wooden blocks geoboards puzzles snap cubes play doh etc these materials encourage building and design but don t require much explanation after reading the most magnificent thing a precious book that encourages creativity critical thinking perseverance and engineering i go over my expectations for morning tubs which is to use materials to build and create work nicely with others share materials and clean up for the first day of morning tubs student tables numbered 1 5 are assigned to the tub that matches their table number table 1 gets tub 1 table 2 gets tub 2 etc they will go to one tub each day working only at the assigned tub the next day whoever arrives first for the group will grab the next number tub if they had 1 yesterday they will get 2 today i use a cube organizer and tiffany blue tubs from wal mart to hold our activities themed stem this month i posted a few pictures on my instagram account sharing what i planned to do during january with the morning tubs i literally bought nothing for these tubs i found all items inside my classroom or at home i wanted to make all tubs snow themed and came up with a few simple ideas that the kids will rotate through for the month of january i love watching my students work together to think creatively about the items they come in each morning so excited to see which tub they will get and from the moment they get started they are engaged in play based work they love beginning the day this way and i love it too because i am able to complete all morning tasks for our classroom while my students busily work on their own is our room a little noisy in the morning yes students are talking planning laughing thinking out loud sharing and having a blast i had a lot of questions about the tubs and how they work so i created labels and listed ideas for materials in a resource that you can find here i plan to create themed morning tubs like this for each school month here are some photos of the snow themed morning tubs this snowman though he looks a lot like olaf i love this build a snowman tub i added mini cupcake liners for hats cut little pieces of orange pipe cleaner added buttons googly eyes and scraps of fabric for scarves mitten clothesline dry out those mittens that get wet in the snow leave me a comment sharing stem concepts you would like to see in future tubs my goal is to create a set of these for each month of the school year posted by sarah cooley at 11 25 pm 1 comments sunday august 13 2017 dot day one of my favorite books to read at the beginning of the school year is the dot by peter h reynolds it is such a sweet story about a little girl who thinks she can t draw but with encouragement from a teacher she makes a mark on a sheet of paper when her teacher frames her small dot she realizes that she can do even better and begins creating dots of all colors shapes and sizes by the end she is an artist and realizes she can do anything she puts her mind to i use this story to talk with my students about how they too can do anything if they just try we all can make our mark in first grade by bringing our different talents and encouraging each other to try and do our best each day i love making the very first week of school extra special and exciting for my students the first few days we spend building community but i also make sure to do activities that will spark their curiosity and leave them wanting to come back for more the next day i thought since i always read the dot why not have a whole dot day we started the day by coloring coffee filter dots with markers we put the colored coffee filters under some water to let the colors bleed together and set it out to dry one of the finished dots is in the picture below i also served candy spree as a little dot snack after the coffee filter dots were drying the kids rotated through different dot activity stations they kept their activity pages to compile into their dot day activity book one station was cutting out dots using magazines another station was to practice just a dot not a lot with liquid glue after they did their glue dots i came by with glitter to add to their page anything with glitter is a big deal for a first grader ha a third station was dot stickers that the kids had to transform into something else the sentence stem at the top of the page says it looked like a dot but it was really a _______ another station was to create their own names using dot markers and the last station was to paint watercolor dots it was such an artsy day and the kids were able to be artists for the day while also getting to know their new friends in their class you can download a free copy of the dot day book by clicking here we also couldn t pass up doing some dot science well it was actually more sphere science we practiced observation skills by looking closely at the small beads drawing pictures in our science journals and describing the beads before adding water they also practiced making predictions about what was going to happen to the beads when we added water and color fizzy tablets after leaving them to soak up water overnight the kids were so excited to see how much the beads had grown and changed from the day before i found the jelly bead kit on amazon i hope you can use some of these ideas for your own dot day in your classroom posted by sarah cooley at 1 53 pm 0 comments friday january 6 2017 snow sensory tub i am so excited to be typing this blog post from my couch in front of the cozy fire it s an alabama snow day which basically means they shut the whole state down and you can t find bread or milk in any store anywhere p s it s around 10 a m and i still haven t seen a snowflake i m not complaining although this southern girl sure would love to see a little bit of snow well since we hardly ever get real snow here i wanted to bring a little bit of snow into the classroom in a creative way by using a sensory tub i added a sensory tub to my classroom last year and the kids love it i bought my tub at target just a large storage bin with a snap on lid and i added two bags of cotton balls some snowman erasers and a few clear pebbles for the ice i created 5 literacy and 5 math activities that can be used with the snow tub or even without the tub you can check it out by clicking the picture below it will be on sale today to celebrate my little snow day away from school i added the snow sensory tub to our reading restaurant station this past week my students worked on rhyming skills with the rhyming snowballs and next week they will work on sight words by playing a game using the animal and snowman cards inside the tub for math i plan on using the activities in my snow sensory tub packet without the tub i wanted to place them in separate bins so they can rotate through the activities sort tally we are working on tallying so i made a mini snow tub using a small shoebox bin i added craft sticks ribbon cotton balls buttons and paper carrots chilly cover up this is a basic addition dice game i added itty bitty dice to make it a little more special you could play with cotton balls but i used snowman erasers i may also change this game up a little bit by playing with snap cubes for a game of bump even and odd snowballs players choose whether they will be the even bucket or the odd they flip a card to reveal a number and if the number is one that goes with their bucket choice they are the odd bucket and flip a 1 then they get to grab a snowball to add to their bucket the first player to fill their bucket first is the winner snowball measurement we are beginning our nonstandard measurement unit next week this is a fun little activity to measure with snowballs or cotton balls hoping for snow real snow today wait i think it might actually be sleeting right now i gotta go i have two excited little kiddos here posted by sarah cooley at 10 44 am 2 comments sunday august 14 2016 magic bracelets a magical first day activity one of my absolute favorite activities for the first day of school is making magic bracelets the kids faces are always priceless when they discover what these bracelets can do i give everyone a bag of clear beads and a pipe cleaner and tell them that even though the bracelets look a little plain they are actually magical immediately they get to talking with their table friends about what they think will happen t his year some thought they might glow in the dark others thought they might be able to make them fly some wondered if they might change color one friend hoped it would grant wishes i loved seeing that spark of curiosity on the first day and it is my hope to keep the kids curiosity for learning all year long i told them we would be taking a walk outside and by the time our walk was finished they would know why those bracelets are special you see if you are going to have an amazing first grade year something will happen to that clear plain looking bracelet the kids were absolutely amazed when they stepped outside those plain clear beads became bright multi colored i was so impressed because they immediately started questioning why it happened which became a lesson about scientific thinking because scientists do exactly what they just did predict question and wonder the kids shared so many smart ideas a few kids wondered if the bracelet changed color because of the change in temperature...