Lyle unit is up

My Lyle the crocodile unit is now up on Tpt: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lyle-the-Crocodile-Thematic-Unit  Please check it out!! Happy teaching!!

Springtime Fun!

I hope everyone has been enjoying the springtime weather and end of the year crunch! I always feel that when May rolls around there is so much to fit in and get done before the end of the year. Today I will share an end of the year project that I did two years ago. The children and parents loved it. It was for our Social Studies Curriculum that I titled, International Chefs in NYC. Throughout the year, we picked a different chef each month that created an ethnic cuisine in a New York City restaurant. The class learned about the chef, the country which the food came from and how to cook (and eat) a dish from that country. We made a world map and placed a star on each country after we studied it. The culminating end of the year project was a restaurant. Here is the menu we used:

Menu of the Afternoon

 

Prix Fixe  $10.00

Tasting Menu $15.00

 

Ala Carte

First Course

Panzella Salad (Mario Batali-Italian)    $2.25

Beet Salad (David Bouley-French)         $2.25

 

Main Course

Pizza (Mario Batali-Italian)                   $3.50

Sushi (Nobu Matsuhisa-Japanese)           $3.50

 

Sides

Cheese Quesadillas                                   $1.75

(Bobby Flay-Southwest)

Plain Croissant (David Bouley-French)  $1.25

 Dessert

Pear Tart                                               $1.75

(Alain Ducasse-Mediterranean)

 

Beverage

Indian Fruit Punch                                $.50

(Suvir Saran-Indian)

 

 

 



The class used a small lunch room and decorated it with flags and pictures of the chefs we studied. The children wore aprons and acted as waiters and waitresses.  The parents were given play money and the children had a cash register. The day before, we made the salads, pear tart and fruit punch. The  morning of the restaurant, we cooked everything else. The children did a terrific job and the parents and administration were impressed.  You can of course tailor it to your city and cuisines of your choice. It is a lot of work but a lot of fun.

Thank you for visiting today! I posted a new springtime worksheet on Tpt, please check it out! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Superdog-Plato-and-Sidekick-Ollie-Mission-Spring-Counting

Understanding

I thought I'd write about something a little different today. Since having kids I now feel like I understand the parents of my classes better. I think about perceptions of parents and kids that I had pre-kids and a lot of those perceptions have changed. I will share two anecdotes with you. One year when I was teaching I looked around at the kids in my class and they looked a mess. Especially the boys, not a single boy had neat hair, most stood up in all the wrong places and many had toothpaste on their faces. I remember walking into my friend's classroom next door and told her that I vowed to never have kids go to school with messy hair and dirty faces. Well, a few years later and I feel lucky if my hair is brushed! Having two wild boys with complete bedhead and an aversion to combs and brushes, I totally understand why those kids were a disaster. As a parent you pick your battles, brushing hair is not one worth fighting. Not to mention the marathon a parent feels from wake up to drop off at school. Get kids up, get them dressed, feed them, pack all their stuff for the day, get your own self together and try to be on time. Hair is the least of a parent's worry! One other child I had in class a while back came to school wearing pajamas under his clothes every day. His mother said he always wanted to wear pajamas and this was their compromise. Again, pick your battles! One other day I remember is one particularly emotional first day of school.  On this day many of the parents hugged, kissed and cried like they would never see their kids again. My co-teacher and I found this a bit strange. Now as a parent I get it. I felt like crying on my son's first day of preschool. Every morning, I hug both kids and tell them how much I love them at drop off.  I can truly see the reasoning and emotion behind a lot of what the parents in my class do, say and how they act. I think it has made me a better teacher. Thank you for listening to this today. I will be back with more freebees and ideas soon. Happy teaching!!!!

I'm Back!

I'm sorry for such a long hiatus! My five year old had a birthday party, then my three year old was sick, then I was sick and then we were inundated with potty training. All is now settled and I'm back. I've been working on my Lyle the Crocodile thematic unit. It will be finished soon and it will contain everything you need to do a thorough character study on Lyle the crocodile in Bernard Waber's series. Every year, I culminate this unit by having my students write an original play or puppet show depicting how Lyle got to the House on East 88th Street. It is always so exciting for me when the kids realize that the reader has no idea the events that lead to Lyle being in the House on East 88th street.  I love hearing all of their ideas. I have been doing this unit for 6 years and every year is a little bit different. One year, my assistant teacher wrote a song based on the kids ideas and they performed it at the end. It was amazing!
Besides my Lyle unit, I also do a unit on the Frances series by Russell Hoben culminating in the children writing their own songs about the character Francis. The songs are based on Francis always singing her own original songs. After Francis, I do a unit on Amelia Bedelia culminating in the children creating a life size collage of Amelia Bedelia. I put the kids in groups and each group is in charge of a different body part. The groups come together and glue their body part on giant Amelia Bedelia and then we hang it up in the hall. Lastly, I do a Frog and Toad unit culminating in a shadow box project. The students work in pairs making a shadow box of their favorite scene in a Frog and Toad story. I will be putting all these units on my TPT page in the future so keep checking! As always thank you for visiting!!

Projects!

Happy Sunday Evening! I hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did. My adorable neice turned three and we had a fun time celebrating with her.
If you enjoyed my project idea in a previous post, check out my Neighborhood Project Pack on my Tpt site: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Student-Neighborhood-Project-Pack
The pack contains a series of projects that you can do over the course of a year or semester. You can also pick and choose which projects suit your classes best. I hope you enjoy them!
Spring break is underway and I'm enjoying some free time with my family. During the break, I will be working on some more worksheets and units of study for my Tpt site as well as getting ready for the Spring in my classroom. Two writing projects we always work on in Spring are our "How To Books" and our "All About Me Books". The "How To Books" allows the students to independently pick their own topics and learn how to create a piece of writing from start to finish. Our "All about Me Books" let the students express themselves and their interests while honing in on their writing skills. If you have any specific questions on how I do these pieces, feel free to send me a question through my Tpt site.
Thank you for visiting!! Check back soon!

Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Today I'm going to share a project that my class finished recently. We call it our long vowel scrapbooks. The children are very proud of their work! Here are the directions:

To prepare: gather as many brightly colored magazines that you can. The more, the merrier! I have my students at four tables and I put an assortment of magazines at each table. You also will need construction paper, pencils, markers, scissors and glue for each child.

1. Have the children take five pieces of contruction paper.
2. Have them write one different vowel on the top of each page (if you want to do this part yourself in advance you can.)
3. Pick a vowel page that you would like to work on that day. For example, we began with long "a".
4. The students now need to find at least five pictures in the magazines that have long "a" in them. They do not need to begin with "a", simply have a long "a" sound in the name. For example- a picture of a face or a cake or a rake.
5. Children cut out their five pictures and glue them on their "a" page.
6. After they are finished glueing, they write first in pencil and label each picture.
7. Then the teacher checks for correct spelling and the child goes over the word in marker.
8. Repeat for all five vowels.
9. Once the vowel pages are complete, kids make a cover saying "Long Vowel Scrapbook by ____" and decorate it however they like.

My students have enjoyed this project year after year. I hope yours do too! Thank you for visiting! Check back soon!!

Fun Game Idea

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a little while. This weekend my husband, two kids and I moved apartments. What an endeavor! Now we are all settled in and I can get back to sharing my ideas. Since my first year of teaching all my students (and my own two kids) have always loved what I call "the game". We play it in the hallway when waiting to go to a special (art, music, etc) or in the classroom at the end of the day while waiting for parents. It is such a simple game but children adore it.
How To Play:
 1. line the children up horizontally almost shoulder to shoulder, I have found putting their backs against a wall works great if you are near a wall
2. pick one students to be the "picker" and have that child stand in front of the line facing the other kids
3. the "picker" must choose the child who is standing the quietest and the stillest, the "picker" cannot choose a friend who is not quiet or else he/she forfeits being the "picker" for the rest of the game
4. once the quietest child is chosen, the "picker" goes into that child's spot and the chosen child becomes the "picker"
5. play as long as the kids want and as many children have had turns to be the "picker"
I hope it works as well for your classes as it has for mine!

Thank you to those of you who have downloaded my activities at Tpt. I hope you are enjoying them. I just put up two worksheet packets called Superdog Plato and His Sidekick Ollie Story Problem Mission:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Superdog-Plato-and-His-Sidekick-Ollies-Story-Problem-Mission  and Superdog Plato and His Sidekick Ollie Number Match up Mission: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Superdog-Plato-and-His-Sidekick-Ollies-Number-Match-Up-Mission
Thank you for visiting. Come back soon!