Valentines Heart-felt Handprint Hearts

 A few weeks ago I saw this adorable idea floating around the great www and just had to try it out. 

 (Sorry I don't know whose original idea it was - I wish I did so I could say thank you.  It's genius!)

  I was actually REALLY happy with the result.  I had the kiddos work on another activity while I pulled them aside one-by-one to paint their hands.  It was much easier than I had anticipated. (And I have 26 first graders and just me.)

  The trickiest part was having them write their message to their parents around the outside of the heart once it dried and then outline it with pen.  Here are a few of my favorites.  They turned out SO cute.  I think we'll adhere a handprint poem on the back before we send them  home on Valentines Day, but we haven't gotten to that part yet.  

 And this photo is just a little blast from the past of our Valentines activity last year.  Their  heart valentines bags turned out SO cute (all pre-cut and prepared by parents - the best kind of craft :).  This year I opted to do a valentines box/bag contest.  (I snagged a great freebie for it on TPT here.  Thanks so much to Cute Classroom Creations!)

One of my favorite things about teaching is sharing ideas.  Tell me what you're doing for valentines!  

Leave me a comment or a link to it!  

(Check out my previous post if you want to grab my free bubble valentine template or a free February scrambled sentence sort.)  

Bubbly Valentines {Freebie!}

 Around Christmas time, (or it could have been after - it's all kind of a blur you know) I picked up these cute little bubbles at Michaels.  They came in an 18 pack for $2.50 and I knew they would be perfect for some little student gift or another.  

Well... I've found the perfect use for them.  Valentines!  (What 6, okay, maybe 7, year old really needs more candy after Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines all packed into 4 months?)  

So I whipped up some bubbly little cards and went about assembling my valentines.  I didn't have any cardstock on hand so I glued them to colored paper, but that is certainly not necessary.  Feel free to pin or download the template here.  (Please follow my blog if you do).  You could use them with wedding bubbles (also found at craft stores) little bubble jars (found at the dollar store) or even bubble gum! 

 

I've been so excited to share these, I just had to link up!  I've joined Teresa's linky party over at Fun in K/1, DoodleBugs Five for Friday, and Mrs. Lilypad's Little's Valentine Linky Party! Go check them out and link up!

On Friday my kiddos starting making an adorable valentines craft for their parents, but we had to leave it in-the-works, so stop back soon to see it.  It's so cute and so easy you don't want to miss it!

(I also recently posted free February scrambled sentences - check out this post if you want to download those.)

What do you do with your kids for Valentines?

Do you have a blog post about Valentines?  I want to see it!  Leave me a comment and a link to it!

Egypt anyone? + ancient civilizations and I LOVE my lamp!

Egypt anyone?  Do you teach it?  Do you kiddos just EAT it UP?  Mine certainly do.  They love it.  They are so fascinated by everything about it. What fun activities do you? (Leave me a comment or if you have a blog post about it leave me a link! I want to see!)

 We teach the Core Knowledge Sequence, so we learn about several ancient civilizations in first grade...so... each student creates one of these ancient civilization pocket books.  (We actually do one pocket for each civilization and put them all together when we've covered all of them.)  If you teach ancient civilizations and are interested in creating a similar book you can snag it here. It also includes the the vocabulary flapbooks you can see below.  

 Here are some of the activities and things we do when we learn about Egypt:  (click here for TPT and the image for TN if you're interested)

A few weeks ago I saw a lamp similar to this on Pinterest.  I loved it!  And of course I had to make one instantly.  I actually already had the $2 lampshade from the thrift store just waiting for me to put it to good use and a goldish/bronze lampstand that I just wasn't a fan of.  Lucky for me I already had blue spray paint too.  The only thing I had to buy was the ribbon. Using a 50% coupon and my 15% discount at Joann's that didn't cost me much. And here's the final product.  What do you think?

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 If you want to see more of my classroom you can see pics here.

And if you followed Becca's great linky party over here looking for a February freebie... well here it is!  A valentine/february sentence sort. If you like it, follow my blog! :)  And join the linky!

Hooray for the Humans! {Human Body Systems}

We spent the last 3 weeks learning all about the Human Body.  I love to teach it and the kids really love learning about it! As part of the Core Knowledge Sequence we learn about 5 major body systems: Skeletal, Muscular, Circulatory, Digestive, and Nervous.  We started with the skeletal system:

Don't their dancing skeletons look adorable?  (Sorry the hall lighting is not so great...) We labeled most of the major bones and the kids loved singing 'dem bones' along to a youtube song video.  

We also labeled all the bones (and later the organs in the digestive/respiratory/nervous systems) on this awesome velcro felt board that a student's parent sent.  I tried to find where I can buy one but was unsuccessful. If you know, PLEASE tell me.  I must know.

While digging through old files from my parents I found these x-rays of my own teeth when I was 8 years old.  The kids thought it was pretty fun to see my permanent teeth hiding beneath the roots of my baby teeth.

We were SUPER lucky since our school is a K-9 charter school the Jr. High Science teacher happened to have a real human skeleton that we borrowed for a week.  I was worried that the kids might be creeped out, but they were really mature about it and even nick-named him Bob.  I couldn't help but chuckle when they would grab their writing paper and walk past and say "Hi Bob."

A parent picked up these 36" RCWilley tape measures for free which made measuring our bodies MUCH easier.  I highly recommend.  Snag some at your local furniture store (IKEA also has them) and laminate and they are PERFECT!  So much easier than end-to-end rulers. We recorded all of our measurements including the circumference of our heads, the length from our hips to our toes in a little booklet about our body measurements.

I also had this great medical flip chart straight from a Dr.'s office.  It has AWESOME realistic diagrams.  Next time you visit, ask your Dr. if he has one you can have! :)

Here are a few sample pages from my newest TPT & TN products.  First is our Human Body book containing a picture and writing page for the Skeletal, Muscular, Digestive, Circulatory, Nervous, Respiratory, and Urinary Systems.  We added a page to our book as we learned about each system. It also includes a the human body systems paper dolls (a favorite with the kids) pictured below and few 5 senses things as well. Check it out here (TPT) or here (TN).

I also created these Human Body Posters for each of the systems. You can see those here (TPT) or here (TN).

What fun things do you do to teach the Human Body?  

Leave me a comment or link to your blog post about it.  I would love to hear and see!

Giveaway Winner & Wintery Update

Okay.. so I just might be the worst teacher-blogger ever...you know how the holidays are, plus it's like 5 degrees outside and I have been sick, sick, sick for weeks and with all those little kidlets coughing in my face, sneezing, and nose-blowing left and right it has seemed impossible to stay healthy!
But school starts up again tomorrow so my fingers are crossed for a healthier 2013.

Anyway, some of you probably thought I completely forgot about this little giveaway I ran what seems like way-back-when, but I didn't, and the winner of a $20 TeacherNotebook giftcard is
.... (drumroll please....)

 Denise @ Yearn to Learn!

However, if you commented on the giveaway post and you are reading this I want to say thanks so much for your support so please feel free to choose anything from my TN or TPT store that you're interested in and I'll send it to you for free.  Yes, Anything.  :)  Just let me know in your comment and tell me where to send it.  I promise not to be such a major slacker this time.

Here are just a few of the fun things we did before the break...

 We made shaving cream-glue snowmen invitations to our Christmas program... aren't they adorable?
So easy too!

We had sPiRiT Week @ the school.  

It was a pretty big deal because our school has a strict uniform dress code so the kids LOVED all of the creative freedom.  They were so cute.

Monday was crazy hat day so of course I had to go with the Dr. Seuss hat (if you've seen my classroom pics you know why...)  

Tuesday was crazy sock day. Mine were a huge hit. They're like Dr. Seuss & Mrs. Claus at the same time!

Wednesday was pajama bottoms day and I was woefully boring that day.

Thursday was crazy hair day and I stuck with the Dr. Seuss theme and tried to pull of a Who. How did I do?

Friday was our Christmas Program & red, white & green shirt day!  

That also happened to be my Masters Graduation Day.  So I saw their program then gave the reigns to a sub and headed to the university for my commencement.

We did lots more and I promise to be back soon.

 Happy New Year!

ALL about SPACE! And Giveaway update...

Right before the Thanksgiving break we finished studying all about Space.  It is always one of my favorite things to teach and I was sad we had to squeeze it into less time than usual. :(  But we still managed to do TONS of fun things.  Check them out!

First we learned all about Earth and it's layers (plus volcanoes, geysers, etc... all that fun stuff) so we made these fun layers using an awesome recipe from First Grade Fanatics (thank you!)

 Then we dove into the universe and learned all about each planet.  After learning about each one and its place in the solar system and distance from the sun we made these fun posters to display in our hallway.

  (Hint: The stars ("constellations" are just normal white paint put into a regular spray bottle, then sprayed on.  Looks fantastic and it's so easy.  You might need to dilute the paint.)

The kids were THRILLED to discover the planets magically hanging from our ceiling when they came to school mid-unit one day. You can't see in this picture, but each one is labeled on the ceiling.  We practice singing their order and pointing to them and the kids just LOVE lining up under them.  (Our song goes "Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, these are the planets and their order in our solar system" to the tune of One Little, Two Little Indians)

Each student all made their own Planet Booklet with a secret page.  I'm not sure what the "true name" of this kind of book is, I just remember doing it when I was in school and thinking the secret page was the coolest thing ever.

 Inside we drew and wrote about each of the planets.  

 Then last of all we took a Field Trip to the local Planetarium.  We got to see "Perfect Little Planet" and it was a perfect culmination.  The kids LOVED it and it was so educational.

Of course they had to play on the moon...

And on Mars...

And last of all we made Solar System Space Cookies. My wonderful student's parents provided all of the materials and the kids had a blast. 

Here's what one from last year turned out like.

Leave me a comment and post a link to what you do for space, I always love to get great new ideas!

PS - My giftcard giveaway is STILL going on! I just posted it on Facebook and was thrilled to see that TeachersNotebook is going to match my $10 giftcard giveaway.  What was going to be $10 has now doubled and is $20.  Can beat that!  It's free!  So hurry and check out my previous post already.  

Click here to go straight to that post.