The Leprechauns Have Left the Building!!!

St. Patrick's Day is always a day full of fun for me. We spent all week getting ready for a possible visit from the Leprechauns, so this post will have picture overload!!! One of my students was in my class last year, and remembered, with fervor, that the Leprechauns snuck into our room when we were gone and "destroyed our classroom!!" I explained to them that last year we were unprepared. So this year...we were ready. We wrote letters to the wee little men...

And we definitely decorated our room with lots of fun holiday themed activities...

And finally...it happened. The Leprechauns came. We came back from art class, and there was golden dust everywhere! It was in a path on the floor, on chairs, covering the tables...apparently everywhere those little Irish men went. They wrote us a lovely little note and left treats (and tiny footprints) in return for our nice gestures of welcome!

I didn't catch a photo of it, but those tiny guys left little cups of Leprechaun powder (pistachio pudding) and instructions for how to make a Leprechaun snack. We mixed and mixed (and mixed some more), after we counted 20 tiny cups of powder and 6 cups of milk...and the result? Green goop with golden nuggets (the pistachio pieces) that the kids HATED!!! I wasn't surprised that they didn't like it, but am so proud that they tried it!

My favorite activity that we did new this year was an activity that I got from Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade. It was so cute! I am so thankful that she posted the idea and printables.

Buddy Up!

Now that we are reading somewhat independently, I have the students 'buddy up' every day. We call it 'knee to knee' reading in our room, that way I know that they are close enough to hear each other without getting too loud. As you can hear though, it doesn't always work that way! This was a quick snippet of one of my buddy groups reading today.

Happy 107th Birthday, Dr. Seuss and other literacy stuff :-)

Today would have been Dr. Seuss' 107th birthday! We had a fun day celebrating by wearing Cat in the Hat hats, making birthday cards featuring each child's favorite Seussical character ("zower in the shower" from There's a Wocket in my Pocket was the class favorite), reading books written by Dr. Seuss, and watching a video of Hop On Pop. I am featuring his books all week long, and the kids love it! It is a terrific author spotlight incorporating rhyming and reading with expression. They are really beginning to understand how much fun books can be when you read with feeling!

In February, we have been working on reading grade level texts and independently taking Accelerated Reader (AR) comprehension tests on them. The babies think they are hot stuff getting on a computer and making "5 out of 5 and 100%!"



Another activity we have had fun doing is working with magnetic letters on the ELMO. I call each child up and assign them a sight word. They rummage through my letter box to find the correct letters to spell their word. This is a hard game for some of them, but they always work hard to figure out the correct answers!



First try to spell "of"



2nd time's a charm!