Spring Break!

Hello Spring Break(capitalization necessary as it is a holiday!)!

I am so excited to be able to relax this week. I have a very small list of things to do. They are as follows:
1. sleep in. Or at least take naps, to fully enjoy the laziness that Spring Break offers. I often feel guilty for sleeping in and taking naps, but on Spring Break, I need to just give myself some slack.

2. practice the uke daily. I printed out some songs to learn and I want to work on strumming. It's hard to play, strum, and sing! I can strum, but when I start to sing, I forget how! But I have to remind myself, I am retraining my brain. It takes time :)

3. finish my lesson plans for the rest of the YEAR! My wonderful team got together to plan it out and its looking great.
It looks like this-Think Link next week, 2 more weeks of the basal reader, 1 week of teacher rotations for reading (we are all picking our favorite book to teach...hmmm what shall I choose?), 1 week of fairy tale teacher rotations (Peter Pan!!), 2 weeks of Wizard of Oz, and 2 end of first grade days. WHOOOO!

4. see my sweet youngest sister (in-law) kick booty at her gymnastic state meet! Go for the Gold!

5. embrace the experience of a RUSH concert with my sweet husband. He loves RUSH. They finally came to Nashville to we are going to see them, of course! Darling husband doubts I will be able to "handle the noise". I am putting up a strong front (but secretly, he is probably right...).

That is all I have planned. 5 simple little things. The rest will be up to my whims and fancies. Hurrah!
If the weather fancies to turn itself around and allow the sun to bake me, I would happily add that to the list. Currently, it looks like a week of rain. Hmph.

Anyway- I leave you with a cute book one of my children wrote...
Title: There was on Old Lady Who Swallowed a Cupcake
Page 1: There was an old lady who swallowed a cupcake. I don't know why she swallowed a cupcake.
Page 2: It was Mrs. Person.

Apparently I am now and old lady :) At least they understand my obsession with cupcakes...

New Look!

So I decided the blog needed a fresh look for SPRING!
It's been truly beautiful here lately, and I have needed it something bad. Sunshine is a vital ingredient in my happiness. And the dears need it too!

And now readers, a gift for you! I made this graphic organizer to help us summarize a story. I purchased the clip art from Scrappin Doodles! SO CUTE! Hope you can use it.

How to Summarize a Story


I am going to start How To writing after spring break. I will start researching next week. I am very excited about it! The kids were so successful with our Moe Willems author study and I can't wait to see them explore a new genre of writing.

If you have used anything great for teaching procedural writing, comment and share! :) I saw on Proteacher a few weeks ago where a teacher had a piece of gum and asked the kids how to blow a bubble. She did -literally- what they told her. No one said take the wrapper off, so she put it in her mouth wrapped, etc... Sounds super fun! I think I will do it with How to make a PBJ! The point is to help kids really think through the directions they will write. As I said, I just can't wait!

Wizard of Oz FEVER!

Alright, so fabulous Babbling Abby posted this amazing Wizard of Oz unit a little while ago. My first grade team and I snatched it up from TpT and we are planning on doing it the last 3 weeks of school.
The unit has inspired us and we can't stop thinking of ideas!!!
- yellow brick road leading to the 2nd grade hallway "We're Following the Yellow Brick Road to Second Grade"
- cupcakes (lots of ideas floating around this)
- lollipops for the lollipop guild
- pictures where they dress as their favorite characters (funnel- tinman, witch hat, straw hat-scarecrow)
- choose-your-own spelling list of Wiz words!
- playlist of every version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow ever!
- and it keeps on growing!

Feel free to post your own ideas, and definitely go check out the unit on TpT!

Also on Thirst for First, there is a super giveaway of one of Babbling Abby's units about Poppin' Adjectives (it was already on my TpT wishlist!) and an AIR POP POPCORN MACHINE! Choose me, please!

Have a sunny, wonderful day!

Sweet Sounds of First Grade

Hello friends,
I recently discovered 2 things I must share!
1. The ukulele. I decided I wanted to learn to play. It is a great instrument, the Guinness Book of World Records calls it the easiest instrument to learn. I have already been able to learn about 5-8 chords and with those can play many songs! I decided that it would be fun to sing to one of my kids for his birthday. This dear of mine LOVES music. He sings his heart out every day while we work. Sometimes loudly. But I can rarely shush him because I understand when a heart needs to sing!
So, I brought my little uke to school. I had to teach the sweeties that it was NOT called "tiny guitar". haha. We sang a few songs I found on this website, Storytime Songs. I am still early in my stringed instrument playing, so I did not know, but apparently guitar and ukulele chords are written the same, just played differently on the instrument. So I used the guitar chords to have a little sing a long time. It was a huge hit! My birthday boy loved it! The kids begged for more! I sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow to them and they had never heard it. *tear* So I will be teaching it to them in the coming weeks.
I will also be rewriting some lyrics to familiar tunes (I hope) so we can sing about content, not just rainbows :)

2. Second great thing to share: Teachers Pay Teachers! Good gracious, why was I not perusing this earlier???? I knew what it was (a website where teachers post lessons/printables/anything and other teachers can buy them). However, I had no idea the vastness of the resources or that so much stuff was FREE!!!! Marvelous! I gave up facebook for Lent, and have basically replaced it with finding free TpT items! This week I found 2 great ones: A St. Patrick's Day measuring center and a creating short vowel words center! Both are fabulous and will be so helpful in the upcoming weeks! Love it!
I have decided this summer I will work on updating Writer's Workshop plans for the year and post them on TpT as well. This is my second year of teaching, and I have learned I have a strong love for Writing! I love making the plans, and watching how my little firsties improve every day! We are wrapping up a Mo Willems author study this week by reading our published books (in the style of Mo Willems). Maybe I'll post it up soon! I would have to work on making it a tiny bit cuter... Cute is NOT my strong point, but I try, because I know it comes with first grade territory :)

I hope you are making wonderful discoveries, as well!

Reading Pals

Here is that wonderful book I got the other day. My kids are working on learning their short vowel words to "beyond mastery" and starting on the long vowels, as well! They love using the puppets.
Check it out here!