It's Official: The Universe Hates Me

My laptop is D-E-A-D. 

That would be awful in its own right but here is the kicker...

 I haven't backed up since January.

Goodbye every original I have blogged about for  the last 3 months.

Goodbye months worth of fabulous downloads from my blog-stalking obsession

Goodbye pictures of my sweet class I was planning to make a slideshow with for Open House.

Goodbye report cards that I now have to re-create by begging my parents to send in the hard copies.

I AM SUCH AN IDIOT!

If you don't back up regularly, please learn from my painful mistake.

Sigh. I  just can't seem to catch a break this year. 

 

Daily Editing Word Problems for the week of 5/02

Here are the daily editing word problems for next week. Can you tell we are studying insects? :-)
5-02 Daily Editing Word Problems

Meow

Look who visited my room today!

 Meet Rosebud and Jaguar.

One of my parents rescued these kittens when they were only 1 week old. They are now 6 weeks and adorable! Rosebed fell asleep in my arms. It took all my will power not to take her home.

Mother's Day Gift Idea

Have you seen the poem "If You Give a Mom a Muffin" floating around the internet? I think it is really cute and wanted to do something with it so I made it into a booklet for my students to illustrate.

I will take a picture of them about to eat a muffin for them to glue in.  {This is my son, Quinn.}

I thought I would buy muffins and Starbucks VIAs (instant coffee that is actually not bad)

and have students put them in a bag with the poem "Breakfast in Bed." 

And we will decorate the bags like this:

You can get download these printables and directions in my TPT store. The version there does not have 1st grade 2011 on the cover.

Junie B, First Grader: Dumb Bunny Book Packet

I made another book club packet for my high group. They get so excited to start a new book. I got these books for only $1 through the Scholastic Lucky February flyer. I think you should still be able to get them if you hurry!

Dumb Bunny

If you are interested you can grab a copy in my TPT store.

Daily Editing Word Problems for the week of 4/25

Here are the daily editing word problems for next week.
4-25 Daily Editing Word Problems

Earth Day Making Words

I made another making words worksheet.
Earth Day Making Words

Easter egg vowel sort

Last day of Spring Break :-( It was terrific to see my family and hold lots of babies!

Trying to get back to reality. Teaching the sounds of aw/au and oi/oy tomorrow. I made little picture cue signs I am going to add to my phonics wall. There is also a word sort with Easter eggs.
aw oi

Daily Editing Word Problems for the week of 4/18

Here are my daily editing word problems for next week.

4-18 Daily Editing Word Problems

CHEEP!

The Pot of Gold game I made was so popular with my kids I decided to make an Easter-themed one. CHEEP! is a sight word game similar to Bang! I found the container at the Dollar Tree.

Cheep

Sweet Shop: A Coin Game

Since my students are loving Pet Shop so much I made another coin game. This one is called Sweet Shop and focuses on exchanging coins.
Sweet Shop

After much encouragement from others I also put it on TPT to reach other teachers but I still can't bring myself to charge my followers. {Though I have to admit when I saw I had over 2,200 downloads of Pet Shop it did make me wonder if I am doing the right thing. A summer of no income is quickly approaching} I would appreciate if you went over to TPT to leave me positive feedback.

Freckle Juice Book Club Packet

2nd day of Spring Break and I was up all night for the 2nd time with a sick boy doubled over in pain. :-( SO we are home again...

I made a new book club packet for the book Freckle Juice.

Freckle Juice

As I have mentioned before, I have a lot of high readers so their reading group reads a chapter book. I meet with them once a week to discuss the book and packet answers. The rest of the week they complete the assigned reading and packet on their own. If they have difficultly they are encouraged to meet with other group members during Daily 5 time. My students LOVE having Book Clubs as we call it.

If this is something you can use you can grab a copy in my  TPT store.

Sprink break virus

1st day of Spring Break and my son Quinn kept me up all night with a stomach virus.  :-(
So we are home and I am blogging.
Starting to get in the Easter mood. Are these not the cutest treats?!

bunny ear cupcake toppers from the sweet adventures of sugar belle

or how about some cookies?

 

Psanky eggs! My students would get a kick out of that since we learned about those.

I am always awed by how artistic some people are.....maybe in my next life!

amphibians

In our continued study of animal adaptations and environments we focused on amphibians this week.

We discussed the difference between toads and frogs. We reviewed how bright colors indicate to a predator that the animal may be poisonous to eat. Can you see the red on this fire-bellied toad?

 

We observed tadpoles 

and completed a life cycle diagram

 

We discussed the environment amphibians need and how to tell a lizard from a salamander. 

Do you know how to tell?

This arboreal salamander was not cooperating for my picture.

 

We also went on another nature walk in our outdoor classroom and saw this Gulf Fritillary which one of my cuties reminded us was an example of mimicry (orange color suggests it is poisonous even though it isn't really.) Yes, this firstie really used the word mimic. One of the joys of teaching at a science school!

Only 1 more day until Spring Break. I can make it...I think.

Wetlands Field Trip!

We went to Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge yesterday and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!

Look at those amazing tule growing along the slough!

"I cannot.resist.that.marsh.puddle! "

 We were allowed to go into the salt marsh to look for evidence of animals.

 We got to try some pickleweed (salty!) Kira gives it a thumbs up.

We learned about many native plants like the California Poppy.

Binoculars are always fun!

Using microscopes to see what is really in the slough water!

We also learned about different bird beak and feet features and then played a matching game.

It is hard to believe this is so close to us!

Wetlands

We are going on a fun field trip on Monday to the wetlands in Alviso so we have been learning all about them this week. My awesome team member, Robi, convinced a ranger to let her take some items back to school for us to study.

Did you know that wetlands actually filter water? We did our own experiment to see if it really works.
1. We turned a 20 oz. soda bottle upside down into a glass jar. Then we poured in a cup of rocks,

 a cup of sand,

and a cup of peat.

You need to run water through at this point until the water runs clear.

Then we made muddy water by adding a half cup of potting soil to a jar of water.

Finally, we poured our muddy water in and watched in amazement as the water that came through was pretty clean!

We did notice that less water came through and hypothesized that it was absorbed by the filter.


 Bill Nye has a great wetlands video which was extra fun since most of the kids had never seen his wackiness!

We also read this cute and informative book that Robi got from the field trip last year. I forgot to take a picture but there was also a finger puppet of Salty the mouse who helped me read the book! :-) The Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse is endangered and only lives in the S.F. bay area! I am sure some of the kids will claim to have seen Salty even though the mouse is nocturnal. ;-)