End of year fun stuff!

Here are a few end of year projects we did to keep our sanity!
We finished up with our May "Math Strategy" Books where we practiced problem solving.

My kiddos absolutely love the "Strategy Builders".

We saw who was able to blow bubbles with gum and then made fun "Self-Portraits" with balloons for bubbles and crumpled tissue paper for no bubbles.

During the Month of May all of our schools First Graders had a "Nickels for Nepal" fundraiser to help with the Nepal earthquake disaster relief. The kids were very proud to see how much they earned! And took pride in knowing they helped people in need.

The last big project we do is a "Summer Bucket List".  This year I took two different ideas from two awesome teachers in the blogging world and merged them into one activity.  The glasses and self portrait idea cam from Third Grade Love and the bucket list came from Kayla at mpmschoolsupplies.com.

I always make sure that my last balloon surprise to pop is "Magic Spelling Foam" (that way I can get the tables cleaned before we have to pack everything up, LOL!) Teachers are such multi-taskers.

Habitats All Around!

Every year I usually develop a level of frustration at my small town status when looking for the perfect Habitat book.  I tell my self, as I dig and dig for ONE book that can introduce the idea of Habitats in a GENERAL way, that I need to just write one myself. HA! As a teacher, WHO has time for THAT?!  This was my third year to go to the public library looking for "the ONE" book describing Habitats.  Don't  get me wrong; there were tons of choices on individual habitats, from tundra, to rainforest, desserts, oceans and biomes etc. But, I always seem to run out of time towards the end of the year to do multiple read-alouds for this topic.  I need JUST 1!

Having expressed my "soap box" issues, I have just broken down and created a Power Point at a beginner level for my Firsties.  Since I am most likely not the only one who shares in my frustration of needing the perfect book but not having the resources at your fingertips, I wanted to SHARE this with you all!  WooHoo!

This is my first time sharing a PowerPoint slide so wish me luck! Not sure how it will turn out as a "Picture Slide show"

Habitat PowerPoint Freebie!

Skip counting fun!

So, I agreed to tutor this summer for the first time ever. Partly because I LOVED the little firstie and didn't mind meeting her this summer! When I was talking to my coworker before the school year was over we talked about what curriculum and resources we planned on using. 

We talked about how easy it would be to just have dry erase strips for them to practice their skip counting.....and of course one thing led to another......

Don't you love to laminate!!! 

after making ones for skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's I decided to make some for my daughter going into 3rd grade! So multiplication skip counting strips were the next thing on my list! 

That's a Wrap!

Well, we are done! It was a wonderful year, full of adventure and laughs!

We ended with our big habitat presentation which is always my favorite! 

We are getting ready to set up! 

The black widow was so creative! This little guy used strings of glue from a glue gun as the spiders web!

This parrot was tied to a stick on the outside of the box so you could make the parrot "fly" by lifting the stick up and down. 

This salamander was authentic looking! They sprayed him with PAM!