Happy Fall From Scooter and Socks!

Scooter and Socks welcoming the First Graders on the first day of Fall!

 

Now....if only the weather would cooperate.  Or the leaves would change colors and stay on the trees for a while so that we can actually enjoy them....and then fall off so that we can jump in them!  

 

OR maybe we will just love the fact that there isn't any SNOW in the forecast yet!

Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Spider Fun in October!

We could not believe it!  A REAL author...a REAL, AMAZING, TALENTED author, Doreen Cronin, has allowed us to use her book Diary of a Spider in our amazing and fun letter and journal writing unit!  We can not sing her praises enough!  She was so kind and we appreciate her generosity SO much!  EEEEEEEE!  In fact, when we received her e-mail giving us permission we both danced around the room jumping up and down like crazy people.  We originally created this unit when we first began selling on TPT but after realizing that we may be infringing Doreen Cronin's copyright of the book we pulled it from our sight.  As we were pulling out our October files to begin planning next month we decided to ask Ms. Cronin if we could post the unit...and she said "YES!"   So it is up and ready for you to purchase and it is perfect for the month of October.  Here is the original post from our blog detailing the unit.

Halloween is just around the corner and while looking through our October files we began to feel a bit pumpkin-ed out by all of our regular go-to activities for the season.  Each year we have done some kind of fun and interactive character activity, such as the Pumpkin Elf or the Candy Corn Bandit. While this has always been a HUGE hit with the kiddos we were feeling the need to try something new.  This gave us the perfect excuse to be creative (otherwise known as "not getting our correcting done during our prep")  One of our favorite book series to use during Writer's Workshop are the Diary of a Worm, Fly, and Spider books by Doreen Cronin.  Being that spiders make the perfect Halloween character, we ran with it and this is the unit that we ended up with!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Diary-of-a-Spider-Mini-Unit

Keep in mind that while spiders are perfect for Halloween, this unit could really be used at any time of the year to teach all sorts of writing concepts including voice, point of view, friendly letters, diary entries and so much more!

Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

What Are We Doing this Week?

Each week as teachers we inevitably have to answer the question,"What are we going to do this week?"  In the primary grades its more like every five minutes we are answering, "What are we going to do next?" 

We decided that we wanted to come up with a creative and exciting way to answer this question.   Since we have classroom sock monkey mascots, Scooter and Socks (See our previous post)...we figured why not make them a part of our weekly antics?  So we decided that they should drop the first graders a clue on Monday mornings that will give them a hint about what is to come later in the week.

This week we will be learning how to write in our science notebooks and will be completing our very first SCIENCE EXPERIMENT on Friday!  So fun!  Check out how Scooter and Socks were dressed this morning!  The first graders were so excited and spent all morning guessing.  Oh, and we had a blast not telling them if they were right.  I guess they will just have to wait and see right?

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

We Are Alive!!!!

Wow! Well....where have we been... EVERYWHERE and no where and mostly have been buried in our classrooms bursting at the seams with excitement!  Why...finally WE ARE TEACHING PARTNERS!!!  Yes, we know it is more exciting for us then it is for you all, but really it will make our blog more exciting (we promise) and our creative lesson posting more often (we REALLY truly promise).

So what's the FIRST GRADE news around here you ask?  Or we will pretend that you asked, so we will answer!

We are busy "Sock Monkey-ing" around with our new favorite theme of sock monkeys, thank you Trend for such AWESOMENESS!!!  We have a freebie art project on the way so keep checking back in with us!!! We have also adorned our classrooms with Socks and Scooter.  They are our official classroom mascot over sized sock monkeys who will wear costumes to match weekly themes in various subjects.  So exciting!!!!  Pictures soon to follow.

Sock Monkey Love!
Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!!
Deanna and Jenelle