Last Minute Non- Halloween pumpkin activity!

I may have mentioned that we do not celebrate Halloween at our school. We also have a large group of children that will not be in school tomorrow because of a big non-Halloween celebration that they do at their church. So.......I will not be starting my new math unit tomorrow if I am missing the 5 students that I think I will be missing. So.......I am going to do an activity that has us look at the properties of a pumpkin. We won't carve it. We will just study it. Promise.

I know that it will be too late for you other Halloween "celebraters" but you can certainly use this ANY time in the fall. Enjoy!

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Bee the Change~

Fall Leaves!

If you have not been on Pinterest yet, do yourself a favor and treat yourself! It is "idea nirvana" as far as I am concerned. I love to see what others are making and what they think is beautiful, funny etc. I came across a great lesson that was pinned from Michelle Oakes' wonderful blog, Fabulous in First. I wanted to do the craft part and thought that I would look for a poem that would fit the project for a hallway display. I had a hard time finding just the right poem so I wrote one. It won't be winning any awards but it is perfect for what we needed!

My students worked hard to do their best work!

Here is the poem!

Below is a copy of the poem. It looks really tiny on the screen but when you go to Scribd, it is regular size...promise) Enjoy!

Fall Leaves

Bee the Change~

Autumn book

Wanted to share a fun activity for Fall!

For Science, we need to teach about the seasons and the weather as well as things that occur in each season. My team and I decided to make a little book out of it for the children to write, illustrate and take home.

We started by reading some easy level books to the children and making a web about autumn. On the web are the 3 areas that we wanted to cover; weather; animal behavior and leaves.
For some independent work tomorrow (always nice on a crazy Friday), the kids will work on their Autumn books!

I have included the book for you to use if indeed the leaves change and fall where you live! NY sure has its share of Fall!

Happy Autumn everyone!
Autumn Book

Bee the Change~

Busy Busy Busy

Nothing new from me here today because I have been a busy bee posting on my classroom blog! Check it out and let me know what you think!

Mrs. Faas' First Grade

Do you have a classroom blog for parents and students????? Let me know how you use it!!!!

Bee the Change~

Writing Time Freebie

We are doing the Lucy Calkins Units of Study for our Writing Workshop this year. I have been teaching "Small Moments" and struggle with capturing these with 6 year-olds. As I was working with one of my smarties today, she said to me "Mrs. Faas! I have a bunch of small moment ideas in my head right now!" So of course I grabbed the post-it notes and began writing for her.

I have created the following for the children to keep in their writing folders! Let the ideas flow!

Small Moments PDF

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Halloween Fun?

I am going to grouch a little about the fact that we can't do any halloween activities or anything in our school. This is so sad as I see SO MANY CUTE halloween activities out there!!!!

GGGRRRR.....

Bee the Change~

Time Out Tuesday

I was inspired by the folks over at

to do a little Time Out Tuesday for myself. I was sitting on my sunporch (an oddity for October in NY) and surfing the net, while watching my 9 year-old daughter read in one of the other chairs. We were being serenaded by the sound of my 11 year-old practicing his trumpet (he is really good so this was actually a good thing) and I was having a hard time making my mind stay still. You know that hum that we all get when we feel overwhelmed?

Well, I hopped over to Pinterest and found this picture......

......so I decided to sit and relax a while and give myself permission to NOT think about school for a little bit. This is not a picture from my deck or even my picture at all but I love this time of year. I know that not everyone gets to see the beautiful change of colors so "Happy Autumn from Western NY"

Bee the Change~

Holly Bloggy Christmas!

Ready to start thinking about some holiday cheer? I am! Head over to Caitlyn's blog to enter and participate in a fun bloggy gift exchange.

Bee the Change~

Tears

OK teacher friends, something happened to me today that has never happened to me before and I felt that I needed to blog about it.

First, I have to tell you about how my day started yesterday. We had a faculty meeting in the morning that was VERY stressful. The bottom line was that the teachers are expected to do a TON more work within the time frame that we still have. Do more with less. It is a stinky bottom line. It made the day yucky for all of us that got into teaching because we wanted to teach....the children.....not collect and interpret data.

Fast forward to today.

I have a little girl in my class who is an ELL (English Language Learner). She has been on my radar as a child that may need more assistance than simply ESL services. She has difficulty getting work started, likes to distract others and waits for adult help to get anything done. I have been having the ESL aide work with her at writing time when I am working with the other children simply to keep her on task.

Today, my aide got my attention and I went over to see what she and my student were doing. She showed me a writing paper with a beautiful illustration and neat, understandable sentences about how flowers are beautiful and how they need water to grow. I immediately made BIG DEAL about it and told her that I was SO PROUD of her. What happened next is what I was NOT prepared for.

The little girl cried.

Her table-mate looked concerned but said "Mrs. Faas, I think that she is so happy that she is crying!" When I asked her if that was true, she nodded.

She cried.

It led me to think........had she never been praised before?

She was ALL smiles ALL day and I got a big hug as she was walking to the bus.

After a crappy staff meeting yesterday when all we were told was we needed to collect MORE data with LESS resources and no extra time, I was able to end my day with a sweetheart that cried with pride.

THAT is why I became a teacher.

Bee the Change~

Shocked and Proud!

Thanks to my blogging friend Debi at Just 4 Teachers and Barbara over at Grade Onederful have each honored me with awards this week.

THANK YOU SO MUCH LADIES!

I am working this weekend on building my lists of great blogs that I follow on the right side of my blog! I love them ALL! Go and check them out!!!!

Bee the Change~