measurement, time, and grammar. all the good stuff.

a few first grade things as of late...

gallon man!  

to learn liquid measurement... SUCH a great way for students to understand liquid measurement... they loved it!

we do time in lots of different ways.  but this one has a second layer behind that has "5, 10, 15...etc." to represent the minutes--the students really caught on to each number representing 5 minutes with this.

pronoun spring flowers. practicing some of the more common pronouns. we did spring acrostics with these and made a big hallway display!

yummy pasta and yummier baby.

life lately consists of the following...

 happy baby eating rice cereal.

 matt making us delicious whole wheat tortilla burritos.

 homemade tortilla chips. 

corn tortillas, sprayed with olive oil and salt, baked for a few.

 cupcake compound words.

 missing addend math facts. filling in with cards.

 micah discovered his feet.

 pasta with asparagus.

asparagus--baked at 400 with olive oil and salt for 25 minutes, cut into 1-2 inch pieces.

mix in with chicken, pasta, parm, olive oil, garlic.

so, so good.

walks with our child. who sleeps outdoors.

excuses to have fun...

happy valentine's day!

 from micah. and grandpa.

 and us. on a surprise date night. at a fancy restaurant.

 and first graders. doing probability and graphing with candy hearts.

oh, and a new tree for our door... 

100th day. best yet.

a lot of great things.

plus:

100 seconds to unroll a roll of toilet paper.

hats and crowns.

100 pieces of different items for a snack.

100th day read aloud book.

my favorite day.

first grade loving.

here are some fun recent first grade things:

how we do spelling...

(separating by syllables, then writing in paint, in sand, in glue, on giant rolled paper, with magnetic letters... anything and everything!)

 learning adjectives! (thanks, pinterest!)

 learning friendly letter format... writing to characters in stories!

melted snowman writings--so adorable!

(again...thanks, pinterest!)

side note: a long time ago, i wrote about BASE for math.

it's INCREDIBLE. my students are obsessed with it, and working with small groups while they're doing BASE has allowed me to move really quickly through material! so great.

i love my job.

so, i hate being away from micah... but i sure do love my job.

some days, or most days, i wish i was just two people.

instead, i'm just multiple personalities: teacher by day, mom by night and weekend.

here are some things from that the teacher side of me.

teaching half past and how to number a clock with pull and peel licorice.

(the kids get to bite the licorice to make the different length arms of the clock, too!)

teaching magnetic force with magnets, paperclips, and letting students choose items to discover what breaks the magnetic force.

a few other things i forgot to take pictures of...

-melted snowman writings: created pictures of melted snowmen and wrote how we thought our snowman melted.

-letters to our favorite famous character (after reading the jolly postman) and practice addressing envelopes

first grade is the best.

fall finally fell!

adios summer.

fall is here!

pumpkin picking with first graders!

a first grader picked out the teeny pumpkin for baby e.

 cider mill with high school girls... holy yum.

(except no cider for this preggo.)

nature center with the first graders... feeding birds, spreading mulch, trying to be helpful to the community!

 and fall cookies. these beauties are 

spiced pumpkin-oatmeal cookies.

they taste and have the consistency of cake.

you should try them.

i got the recipe from here, and the only change was i didn't add ginger 

(i didn't have any...)

happy fall, all!

the very hungry first graders. and more.

okay.

here's what we've been up to in first grade.

really adorable first real writing prompt that i have to share...

taken from, obviously, the very hungry caterpillar.  

teaching the students about beginning, middle, and end... while trying to teach them to love writing at the same time (thus allowing it to be silly!)

and also in first grade, some examples of the BASE centers...

Buddy Games... 

letting them roll dice with a partner and make matching number sentences.

All About Numbers... 

writing numbers in rainbow (this student reused a paper from a Daily Five center :))

 Solving Mysteries...

drawing all the squares they see in the classroom.

Exploring Manipulatives...

pattern blocks and counting pennies.

Also...

 Mystery Reader on Fridays.

 and... field trip to Great Harvest Bread Company to learn all about bread (since we're learning the food pyramid right now!)

good stuff.

a mix of things...

first:
quick dog bed tutorial, per request.
i'm not fancy.
so this is wildly simple...

1. buy two different heavy fleece fabrics (i bought .875 yards of each and it was enough for two dogs beds for a 30... should be 25... pound dog). never buy it on sale-joann has an app that gives coupons!
2. simply sew them together (and obviously, leave an opening to put stuffing in) and stuff, then hand sew the edge shut! i'm sure there are more complicated ways to make it happen, but i did super easy style and it words great.  i just make sure to buy stuffing that is not the softest, so it'll last longer.

second:
the pictures of the math program for school:

third:
i'm going to actually make creative foods again. on the docket for this week:
-fish tacos.
-shrimp and spinach angel hair pasta.
i'll be sure and update as to how they go.

i feel like i'm getting back into the real world, with grad school a-l-m-o-s-t over. hallelujah!