Paul Klee Art Projects

Paintings inspired by Paul Klee's Castle & Sun

 Oil Pastel Drawings inspired by Paul Klee's Senecio

First Grade Lent Retreat

Whew!  I got through my first First Grade Retreat!  I learned recently that each class has to have some type of spiritual retreat during the year (we are a Catholic school!), and first grade has their retreat in April.  (Since this is my first year at this school, there have been a lot of firsts for me lately!). We don't actually leave campus for the retreat, the majority of our activities are in the Hall (the auditorium), but we're out of the classroom all morning, which I guess makes it a "retreat" as opposed to just an extended religion lesson.

Our retreat was centered around pretzels, and how they represent prayer and penance (which I actually didn't know before).  First, I talked to the kids about the history of the pretzel, and that they were made centuries ago during Lent.  Back in the fourth century, the Romans abstained from milk, butter, and eggs (among other things) during Lent, so they would make pretzels using only flour and water.  The pretzels represented their fasting and penance.  The shape of the pretzel is of arms crossed in prayer, to remind us that Lent is a time of prayer.  The word pretzel even comes from a Latin word meaning "little arms."  I broke things down in more detail for the kids, but that's the gist of it. 

After learning about how pretzels can remind us of what's important during Lent, the kids actually made their own soft pretzels!  Wetzel's Pretzels was so generous to donate the dough mix for us, so that was one less thing to prepare beforehand. 

The kiddos each rolled and twisted their own pretzel, and as they finished, parents would put their pretzel on parchment paper, write their name on the parchment paper with a sharpie, and pop them in the oven!  Most of the kids did a pretty good job!  Here are a few of the better-looking ones.

Although I have one student who is allergic to white flour, and had to use a special dough from Trader Joe's. Which would be no big deal, except he couldn't use flour to help him roll his dough, and the whole thing turned into a blobby mess in his hands!  The poor little guy started crying, and then I wanted to cry for him!  Trust me when I say, rolling dough without flour is nearly IMPOSSIBLE.  I tried to help him, and just made a bigger mess!  Well let me tell you, I don't think I've prayed harder all year than I did in that moment, asking God to PLEASE help me turn that sticky mess into a pretzel for my sweetheart of a student, so he wouldn't be the only kid without one. Sure enough, God came through for me, because after wetting my hands to try and get the dough to slide off my hands, I was able to make this:

The extra water made it a little runny, but it's the only thing that saved me! (Other than a little help from The Man Upstairs!)  And that little guy's beaming smile when he saw it just made my week. "It's a perfect pretzel!!!!!" he exclaimed.  (If you say so! Whew!!)

After averting that crisis (I feel like at least 20% of my day is spent averting a crisis), we went back to the classroom to listen to our principal read a story about Jesus and the Passion.  It's a really sweet story about how all the garden animals try to comfort Jesus during the Crucifixion.  It's hard explaining the Passion to little kids without freaking them out, and this book does a really nice job of telling the story in an honest way, without being scary.

By the time the story was finished, the pretzels were all out of the oven!

And that was our First Grade Retreat!  The kids all sat in the Hall eating their pretzels together, and let me tell you, they were delicious!  The parents were so on top of it, they even had mustard and nacho cheese in little dipping cups at each child's place. 

    

I'm just glad it all went off without a hitch!  The kids had a great time, they were engaged, they seemed to really "get it," and the parents who came to volunteer were happy with how it all turned out. Success story!

Favorite Things ~ Erin Condren Planners

I want to start sharing all of my favorite finds with you, readers, and here is a biggie: Erin Condren Life Planners and Notebooks.  And because I just got an email from her about a big sale, I decided this was perfect to start with! 

       

I love everything Erin Condren!  I have the Life Planner (which I use for my personal life schedule), as well as the notebook with calendar insert, which I use to keep track of school events and deadlines, along with blogging ideas, lesson plan units I want to write, and miscellaneous teacher ideas I want to keep track of. True, they're a little pricey, but if you join her email-mailing list, you can just wait for one if her awesome promos (like right now!). I just got the above email this afternoon.  If I didn't already have the one (okay, two!) I'd be taking advantage of this new promo tonight!  Full disclosure: if you like to write a lot for each day, (like a lot), you might find this format a little limiting. (That's why I have a whole other notebook for my teaching schedule and notes, separate from my personal Life Planner.)  But the covers are soooo beautiful, it's easy to get past. I mean, it even looks pretty sitting on my night table next to my Sprite Zero!

Okay, I can't wait to share more of my favorite things!  Until next time!

I love the Phonto iPad app!

One of my new favorite iPad apps is a (free!) photo-editing app called Phonto.  It lets you write text over photos, in a bunch of different colors and fonts.  This app will also let you put a background color behind the words (like I did in white), and rotate the words (like I did on the second photo, along the left-hand side).  I had some fun practicing Phonto's options by writing labels all over some pictures of my classroom.  

I'm still looking for a good photo collage app though... I've tried a few but haven't liked any of them that much so far.  I just downloaded Pic Collage, but I'm not in love with it.  It's difficult to zoom/resize the images once you put them in the squares.  But don't worry, followers!  You'll be the first to hear when I find the one that works for me!

Class Dojo

I love Class Dojo!  It's the best way I've found to communicate with parents about the behavior of their kids at school.

 All you need to do is sign up for an account at www.classdojo.com, and enter all your students' names (and their parents' email addresses).  Each day, you login to the website and assign your students positive and/or negative points in categories you choose yourself.  And at the end of the day (or week, depending on what settings you choose), voila!  Every parent will receive, via email, a detailed report of their child's behavior.  Done and done.  There's even an iPad app, so you can use your phone to assign points instead of needing to be close to your computer.  It's brilliant. 

Can I Get A Word: Using "Word Girl" Videos to Teach Vocabulary

Part 2 of my earlier post on how I use Netflix to coax good behavior (and vocabulary lessons) out of my students:

I make my kiddos take notes while they watch Word Girl.  The beginning of each episode introduces two words that will be featured in that show's plot line.  I write those words on the board before pressing play, so that the kids can both see and hear each word.  Students then have to write those in their writing journal or on a sheet of paper, and keep track of the number of times they're mentioned in that episode using tally marks.  I have a few students who still don't "get" tallying, so this is great practice for them!  

After we're done watching the 15 minute episode, the kids have to tell me what the definition of each word is.  Word Girl does an amazing job of giving the kids context clues that lead them to the correct definition on their own.  The kiddos then write a definition of each word on their papers, and draw a picture for each.  Depending on time, I'll occasionally have the kids write sentences using each word as well. 

I have a pocket chart where I put the words we've learned so far, and for review I'll randomly choose a name from my stick jar every once in awhile to ask students what they mean.  So far, here are a few of the words we've learned as a class:

• devour
• confused
• persevere
• soar
• destroy
• flabbergasted

My students love learning new words!  (Or maybe they just love watching cartoons, and have been cleverly playing me in order to watch more cartoons . . . well, either way, they're learning, so does it really matter?)

Bloglovin'

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11978201/?claim=anz2cmmu4ya">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Soooo, I've just discovered Bloglovin'!  How have I never discovered this before?  While I may be new to writing my own blog, I'm certainly no stranger to reading other teachers' awesome blogs, so I can't believe this has managed to fly under my radar for so long!  I imagine that Bloglovin' will quickly rise to the top of my list of favorite things, alongside Pinterest, J. Crew ballet flats, Starbucks black tea lemonades, and Paper Mate Flair felt tip pens!  Let the Bloglovin' journey commence!

Classroom Pictures: Guided Reading Center