Teachery Tidbits: Groundhog Day

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Substitute Groundhog

Hey yall! Happy Groundhog Day!

So glad that Phil didn't see his shadow today...I'm ready for spring!

Speaking of groundhogs, I wanted to share what my littles did yesterday in preparation for Groundhog Day.

We read the book "Substitute Groundhog" by Pat Miller.

Its a super cute little book about how Mr. Groundhog gets sick right before his big day. So he holds auditions to find himself a substitute groundhog! Lots of little animals try out, but none of them seem just right. Until he meets....well, I won't spoil the book for ya :)

After we read the story, we wrote persuasive letters to Mr. Groundhog on why we would make good substitutes. We've been working on opinion writing, so this was the perfect culminating activity for my littles. We also used Jennifer's {First Grade Blue Skies} groundhog freebie to put at the top of our writing. They did such a good job!

"Dear Mr. Groundhog, I would make a great substitute groundhog. I can see well. I won't hop up and down."

"Dear Mr. Groundhog, I would make a great substitute groundhog. I can see well. I won't hop up and down. I will hop up and stay up. I will stay awake. I will fit in your cozy hole."

"Dear Mr. Groundhog, I would make a great substitute groundhog. I won't go to sleep and I will stay awake."

"Dear Mr. Groundhog, I would make a great substitute groundhod. I don't mind small spaces. I can see well."

Some of them took it upon themselves to sign their names formally, ie Mr. Shamir or Miss Brown. Ha!

We also took a vote on whether or not Phil would see his shadow {but I didn't get a pic of that} and graphed our responses. Almost all my kiddos thought he wouldn't see his shadow, so they will certainly be happy on Monday!

What did yall do to celebrate ol' Phil???

Friday, February 3, 2012

T.I.R.E.D

Hey yall! Whew, it has been a loooonnnnng week. Sorry I have been MIA, but things have just been crazy hectic this week. This has been my schedule for the past week:

7-4 Work, work, work. Teach, teach, teach. Mold, mold, mold.
4:30-5:15 Scarf down something for dinner. This week has been full of frozen dinners...eck.
5:15-9:30 Drive, babysit, drive.
9:31 Pass out.

Soo....you see where my lack of posting comes from :)

And I still have 5 more days of this just waiting for me...yay. I just keep reminding myself money, money, money.

Moving on. We had some fun stuff going on this week, along with ~~some not so fun~~ some benchmark testing. Does anybody else have to take benchmark tests 4 times a year for both reading and math? These are not my favorite days. Mainly because its mandatory for the whole school to be silent for 2 hours...and we all know how well that works out. My littles always finish their tests within the first hour, so then I have to keep them quietly occupied for the next hour. Hmm...better stop before I get myself in trouble :)

On Monday, we had a guest speaker come and talk to us about sound. She is a parent of one of my former students and works as a sound engineer. I'm not sure the littles were as fascinated by her presentation as I was, but they did seem to enjoy watching popcorn jump from sound vibrations.

We also explored sound with a tuning fork. Ever use one of those before? Neither had I, but boy was it fun! It was pretty neat to actually feel the sound vibrations, and then when I hit the fork and touched it to a glass of water, the water sprayed everywhere! My firsties pretty much thought it was the most awesome thing ever...and I might tend to agree :)

Yesterday, we read 3 different groundhog day books:

They really liked all these books, but they especially loved Substitute Groundhog. It might have had something to do with my Texan armadillo accent...

After we read the books, we discussed burrows and hibernation. Then we made these adorable groundhogs, stolen from Cara at The First Grade Parade. She is amazing, isn't she? I mean, why come up with my own activity when she already has an adorable one, right? They turned out super cute. See for yourself.