Before I Decorate for Christmas....

I thought I should at least document that I did in fact pull together some fall and Thanksgiving decorations. :-)

This is our classroom display for the interactive Pilgrim simulation we worked on with the other 3rd grade class at my school. We combined classes and split up into 5 colonies. Each group had to work their way across the Atlantic Ocean, write a Compact, elect leaders, build houses, plant crops, make peace with the Indians, trade with the Indians, and pay back the merchants in England with furs. The kids loved it and learned so much!

Our "I am thankful for...." display:

Our reading corner became fall-like with fall decorations and my students colored turkeys.

And our door...not the prettiest ever, but the kids loved making their own paper leaves to display.

And on a different note I thought I would share a few other favorite wall displays I have up right now.

A couple weeks ago each student read a biography and then gave an oral presentation on their person. They even dressed up like the person they read about. I took a picture of each of them and displayed them up on the wall:

Below is perhaps my favorite wall display so far, only for the fact that it turned out exactly as I saw it in my head. And that, friends, is no small thing when you are not very artistic and envision things turning out so nicely and artistically done only to be constantly shown that you are not as artistic in reality as you are in your brain...haha....with all that said, this is a picture of how I displayed our pen pal letters in our classroom:

By the end of the week I should have some pictures of Christmas/Winter decorations in my classroom!

Oh and by the way....Our seeds did grow! They grew really well actually! Here is a picture:

First Christmas...Help Please!

This is (obviously) not my first Christmas ever, but it is my first one as a teacher. I definitely need to be better planned with Christmas activities than I was with Thanksgiving ones. There are so many Christmas activities out there that it is overwhelming trying to choose some. I also need to figure out how to decorate a classroom for Christmas quickly and cheaply. That is where I would love your help.

- What Christmas activities do you do with your class?

- Also, which ones work really well and which ones should I completely avoid?

- What Christmas decorations do you put up? Is your class involved in making them or do you purchase them?

Heading Back and the Sunshine Award

Thanksgiving has come and gone way too quickly! The last Friday of school before break we had a big potluck lunch at school. This was such a wonderful time of fellowship with the parents of my students. Saturday, I was able to fly home for the week! It was such a blessing to be with my family for Thanksgiving.

And now it is back to school and I am so ready to be back at it. I am looking forward to seeing my students tomorrow. I can't believe we only have 15 school days until Christmas Break! Time is flying fast. As soon as I finally got my classroom decorated for Thanksgiving I now need to decorate for Christmas. :-)

This morning I woke up to a new comment posted on my Thanksgiving Turkey post. It was from Keri at Teach Play Smile saying she had given me the Sunshine Award. Thank you so much, Keri!

Thanksgiving Turkey

Today our morning writing prompt in our "Wake Up Your Brain" notebooks was, "Imagine the turkey decoration on our door could speak. What would he say?" This was one of the responses I got that made me laugh aloud. :)

A Nature-Filled Week

This past week was full of discovering new and exciting things about God's creatures and plants.

Tuesday when I was eating lunch in the teacher's room I saw one of the recess aides run into the teachers' room and grab a plastic jar and run back out to the playground. Something told me that my students had just caught something and were about to put it in the jar. There were at least 3 different classes at recess but somehow I knew it had to be my students the jar was for....and sure enough, it was. I walk out to pick up my class from recess and my 5 girls run up to me with the jar hidden under their jacket saying "Can we keep it??"....Umm...keep what?! It turned out to be a moth that they had put in the jar along with some dandelions for it to eat. Of course I said we could keep it! I didn't expect it to live for long but it could stay with us for the day. Well the moth, Rainbow, lived for three days.....Actually, it was 4 days come to think of it! Tuesday-Friday. My girls kept feeding it dandelions and watering it. Friday after recess I said it was time to let it go. We took a "field trip" to the tree and let it go there. The girls were upset but they understood. We got back to the room and of course the discussion turned to Rainbow. One of my boys said, "She looked pregnant!" And another boy shouted out, "She would need a mate for that and she has been in the jar." (Thank you, hon, for sharing with us about mates and babies.....) I said, "Well...if she was pregnant (not likely, but if she was) then perhaps she found a mate before we found her. (although I know nothing about moths...)" Then my girls got all upset at the possibility that they had taken this poor moth away from her family....It was really a lose/lose situation with my girls being upset over the moth...but at least we had fun watching Rainbow for a few days. Here is a picture of Rainbow the miracle moth:

On Wednesday we had a special guest speaker come to our classroom to share with us her knowledge about birds. Mrs. G is a teacher at our school and loves birds. So, when our reading story for the week was about birds living in the city, I couldn't resist asking Mrs. G to come share with us about birds. The students loved learning more about birds! Mrs. G had some home footage of cranes in a field dancing that the students loved. She also showed us how long a Californian condor's wings are. We were all amazed at this! She also left us with many bird books, stuffed animals, and coloring sheets. One of my students even made a paper nest for one of the birds Mrs. G let us borrow.

Also on Wednesday I had planned for us to plant seeds. Mrs. G's bird talk lasted a little longer than I thought (but it was such a good time that I didn't mind at all!) so we didn't have the scheduled time to plant seeds. However, the pre-sprouted seeds needed to be planted that day. So we multitasked. Our room is only a few steps away from the play area for recess so we went out there and as soon as their seed was planted they ran to play at recess. We amazingly got it done (the motivation to play at recess was a good "move along" for the students who wanted to just play in the soil). After recess we had to get packed up as we had choir that afternoon. So half of the students watered their seeds and the other half packed up. When we got back from choir they switched. I hope the seeds grow! I do not have a green thumb at all and have in fact killed some herbs I had planted at home.....but perhaps these will work so they can go nicely with our science plant unit.

Chapel = Done

Every teacher at my school is responsible for taking care of two chapels during the school year. We can find a speaker for one and must have our entire class involved in the other one. Well.....my speaker couldn't do my first chapel and so three weeks ago I began the endeavor to 1) put together my first chapel, 2) attempt at organizing my students in a performance which I also have never done, while 3) surviving the end of the first quarter.

Today was our chapel day. We presented on Barnabas and practical ways to encourage one another. I wrote a script, divided up the parts amongst the students, we made signs, we rehearsed and practiced, and a parent volunteer taught us a song. And it went wonderfully! My students did great and the rest of the school enjoyed it and said they learned a lot. The song was especially a big hit! :)

We also did a lot of other things this week like have a Bird Talk with a birder (I had no idea that was an actual term for a bird watcher but apparently it is according to our expert) and we planted seeds and we had a pet moth/butterfly for a few days (yes it was a miracle butterfly and lived for about 3 days!). But, it is late, I'm tired and my pictures aren't loaded onto my computer so....those will have to be in another post later this weekend!