1st week, a Monday Made it and a guy named Isaac

My first week is done!  It was long and exhausting but it was very good.  I have 16 kiddos and they are all very sweet and very cute.  This is such a nice change from last year.  It was a very very rough year.  Now 2nd grade is enjoying them...haha!  We had a lot of fun and did some really neat things from ideas that I got from blog stalking...my favorite past time.

First I would like to share my Monday Made It.  It's not much but I love it!  Check out my tree.

It is kind of hard to see but my adorable owls that I made out of scrapbook paper are perched up on the limbs.  One of my teacher friends came through and tried to rain on my parade by saying that the fire marshall is going to make me take it down because it is not 18" from the ceiling.  Bring it fire marshall!  Let's see if that tree comes down.  And I realize I need some curtains for my cabinets but first I need to learn how to sew.


That is all I have for Monday Made it.  Check out the rest at 4th Grade Frolics.

  

Now I would like to share a little bit about what we did our first week thanks to you all in blog land!

1st up is an idea that I got over at Heather's Heart.  Check out her post for her exact lesson.  Mine is a little altered.  What I did is cut out a large heart.  Then we talked about kind words and phrases (heart words) and words that hurt.  I had my class think of all the words that kids say that hurt.  Each time they said something I crumpled the heart.  Then we came up with a list of heart words or sayings.  I made a circle map with these (my school adopted thinking maps this year and this was my 1st attempt).  For each heart word, the heart got a little better.  Eventually the heart was totally uncrumpled but you could still see all the lines and damage from the hurt words, which we talked about.  Here is what it looks like hanging on my wall.  It's not pretty but it was very effective.

The next day we made some Friendship Salad.  This was on several blogs that I read but the actual lesson that I followed is here.  The kids loved it and I tell you what...no one wants to be the rotten banana.  Every time someone started acting up throughout the week, I would say...are you the rotten banana?  It was like magic folks!  I may revisit this lesson several times this year as a refresher.  Here is our finished product and boy was it tasty!

We also had some Chicka Chicka Boom Boom fun.  Here are my kiddos hard at work stamping out their names.

The finished product looked something like this (although this is where I got the idea).  I forgot to take pics of the them.  :(

Click here for First Grade and Fabulous where this came from.

We also did an adorable craftivity.  I got the idea from A Teeny Tiny Teacher.  She also made these with her class.  She has the slightly adapted writing prompt which I used.  The original craft is from Miss Kindergarten.  You can get it in her TPT store for free here.  I adore this craft!  We had so much fun and they turned out so cute!  I can't wait for parents to see them at open house.  Here is one of my darlings working hard.

And here is the finished product.  Notice that they are hanging on my cute owl displays (also an idea from blogland). 

Clearly I am not a photographer.  I wish I had gotten a close up but oh well.  You get the point.  Super cute!  The rest of them are on another wall.


We did many more fun things but this was all I took pictures of.  Thank you bloggers for all of the great ideas that I can steal borrow.

We also did a whole lot of testing...ugh!  Now I have some serious grading to do but luckily I am sitting at home today on this yucky Monday morning thanks to a little storm named Isaac. 

I live in Sarasota, FL.  A couple of days ago this guy looked like he was going to come right at us but in true hurricane fashion, he went more west, thankfully.  They still closed schools though since we are getting Tropical Storm force winds and rains.  Super nasty but I am super glad to have the extra day.  I sure hope the north gulf coast fares well though. I  am saying prayers for them.  Hope everyone has a great week!

Tamara