Fabulous Fall Activities!

Most of these event happened last week, with a couple being more recent, just wanted to link up before I forgot again...I'm linking up with Clutter Free Classroom: Week in Review 

I have been having a great fall in my classroom. I would love to figure out how to have more time for blogging all the fun things I've been doing.

We have been learning about characters & today they got to create a brainstorming web of their own real or make believe characters and illustrate them. I took a few pictures cause I thought they were so cute!!!

We also started squiggle journals (I got this idea from the other 1st grade teacher at my school), which have been so much fun. If I forget to do them my students are very quick to remind me! They each get a squiggle that then they have about 10 minutes to turn into whatever illustration they can imagine, and then they have to write a story about it. So much fun!!! I have one or two students that really struggle with the creative thinking piece, they will just sit there any stare at their paper and say they can't think of "anything" to turn it in to...but overall I get some AMAZING writing!

These are pictures of our writing wall...this week/month's writing was about our favorite thing about fall :-) so so cute! I took a picture of each student writing and hot glued it to a clothes pin and then glued the clothes pin to the board. This was not my idea originally but I don't remember which amazing blog I found it on to give proper credit to....I love the way it looks and gets my students excited about reading!


    

Hope you enjoy my post I hope I can figure out how to post more often...however I LOVE reading all your ideas and seeing what you're doing in your rooms!

Nosey is GREAT!

I just found a website and contest that totally describes me! I love it. I am constantly walking around my classroom listening to my students as they are working and talking with each other. Often I hear little things that help me to tailor their education to each individual student, I learn things about their culture and home life that I wouldn't know unless I was working around them and being close to them while they are engaged and working!

I love sitting down near them with a project, grading or something while they are working, it gives me an opportunity to engage with them while they are working. I so enjoy their conversations, it also gives me a heads up on little issues before they start. I have heard students who won't speak with me (nervous, second language issues & other various things) carrying on full conversations with their friends when they didn't know I was listening it's a great informal assessment of where their at when they don't even know I'm assessing or listening.

I have caught kids doing things and been able to deal with them on a personal basis before it became a major issue and I didn't have to address it in a large format. I have also addressed things to the whole class when they didn't know I knew who had caused the problem and watched the student squirm and squirm until I was done and they had the opportunity to come and speak with me personally about the issue. It was so valuable for them to realize that I do know what is going on in our classroom even when they think I'm not always there.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this and I would love to have the opportunity to win one of these fabulous prizes!

Grand Prize

iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 32MB, your choice of black or white.

2nd Prize

Bose SoundDock Series II Digital Music System for iPod (Silver)

3rd Prize

Amazon Kindle 3G

One of the requirements to enter was to post this into my blog so head over and check it out. I think this was pretty fabulous!

If you are interested in learning how classroom management software can help you become a nosey teacher and manage students on computers more effectively, check out http://www.netop.com/products/education.htm


Head over and check it out if you are interested in entering yourself! Looks great to me! http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/138031?order=recency&preview_key=fd40dc3b2cad6c05fbe22d2b6b9ea2a6&view_entries=1