Image Map

Friday, March 16, 2012

February in Review

Where has all the time gone? I won't waste your time by telling you all the reasons why I haven't blogged in forever but let's just say February was a crazy month! I'm kind of glad it's over and gone!

More for the sake of myself I'm going to write about some February classroom happenings. It was a busy month with many holidays and things going on.

First up was Valentine's Day. We did SO many fun Valentine's activities! I made my kiddos heart shaped crayons. I had fun making them and bagging them all up cutesy. The kids reaction- "Miss R, what are these?" :) Once I told them they were crayons they were pretty excited though. Oh and it didn't hurt that I threw a homework pass in the bag either. :)
We did the usual sweetheart candy graphing. I realized that while this is fun most of my kiddos have already done this activity in first grade. Next year I think I'm going to try using the heart candies to do some fraction activities.

Also in February was our Inferring Unit. I had so much fun teaching this unit, many thanks to Pinterest! I found this pin about using trash to infer about a person and we did it at the beginning of the unit.
Then we practiced inferring using many great books. Some of my favorites are The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg and Two Bad Ants, also by Chris Van Allsburg. Mandy Gregory also has some great inferring mini-lessons that I use as a guide to help me plan. I also found a fun ipad app, Understanding Inferences, that I used in reading groups.

President's Day! This was my first year to really put some emphasis on President's Day and I'm glad I did. I was able to incorporate it into Social Studies. I used this unit by the First Grade Fanatics on TPT along with this unit by Amy Lemons that had a template to make the Washington Monument. I made a few labels with info about the monument and voila - history in the form of a craft. My kiddos thought it was pretty cool!

And that wraps up February!