Pre-Spring Break Fun!


This week was our last week before Spring Break.  It was a little earlier this year than usual, so I'm still kind of in shock that we're on Spring Break and I don't have to go to work tomorrow.  :-)  I'm going to share a few of the fun activities we did to celebrate Easter/Spring this week!

On Friday, we used SweetTarts jellybeans to complete this jelly bean graphing activity I whipped up the other night.  I gave them each one Easter egg full of jellybeans to graph with.  They were so excited when I told them they were allowed to keep the Easter eggs!  So silly!  I didn't get any pictures of them doing this activity, though.  Oops.

This freebie is available in my TPT store.  I hope you enjoy!  (I have posted about it 3 times now, sorry!)



Cheering on our friends!
We also had a fun Easter egg hunt.  This girl was freaking out trying to figure out how this whole thing was going to work!  We originally were going to have it in the gym, with each class having their own egg hunt, but  then the other 2 first grade teachers were both absent on our egg hunt day, and our first grade assistant went home early because her high school aged daughter was sick.  So I was the only actual first grade teacher in the building, and so I spent my planning running around figuring out how many eggs we had, and who would help hide them!  Luckily our Reading Recovery teacher was able to help out since one of her kids went home early.
  

The kids had a blast looking for eggs!  

Since we had 2 substitute teachers, our RR teacher was doing progress monitoring, and we wanted to eliminate the element of change for some of our students, the Reading Recovery teacher and I decided to not switch our kids for reading.  So I had to come up with something very quickly for my students to do!  We made these adorable "Crunching through Numbers" bunnies, except ours were crunching through "oo" words because it was reading time and I needed a reading related activity.  (This came from somewhere, but I don't remember... if you know, please let me know so I can update this!)


We also made some super cute Easter "baskets" out of 2-liter bottles.  These are totally a pre-Pinterest project.  I don't even remember where I came up with the idea.  I don't know if I found it on the internet or if I made it up.  But I made them one year, probably my first year of teaching, and I haven't made them since.  I decided this year to make them for Valentines Day, and then I made them again for Easter.  The kids apparently like making the baskets because I gave them the choice between the baskets and bags, and this is what they chose.  I found the cute Spring stickers at Walmart.  I have to go back tomorrow and stock up when they are on sale! :-)
   

On Wednesday, we made crayon-resist Easter eggs.  The kids thought it was so cool to see how the paint resisted the crayon marks they had drawn on their eggs.  I took these pictures before we cut out our eggs.  (Actually, we haven't yet, because we ran out of time on Thursday due to our field trip, and I forgot on Friday.)

 

We also made an Easter egg wreath. :-)  (Please excuse my Lorax trees underneath it- it may be time to take those down soon!)

On Wednesday, we also made these 'What's My Number?' Easter eggs.  The kids love this game during calendar, so I let them pick their own number and make their Easter egg with the clues.  You can lift up the Easter egg to find the number underneath. :-)  (I got this cute activity from someone too, Common Core Teachers Toolbox.

 


We also had these visitors to our classroom. :-)


On Thursday, we went on a field trip to Gattiland!  I love going to Gattliand for field trips.  It's so fun and laid back.  For those of you who don't know what Gattiland is, it's like Chuck E Cheese, except without the little ball pit/play area.  There are games, and a buffet with pizza, pasta, and salad.  It's fun. :-)

We started out the field trip with a class about the Five Senses.  The teachers at Gattliand do a good job with the students teaching them about taste, touch, smell, hearing, and seeing.  The kids loved it.  They also ride the carousel.  Then they got to eat pizza, pasta, salad, and whatever else they wanted from the buffet.  This year, the favorite was "ice cream"- some sort of Oreo pudding thing on the salad bar.  It was pretty tasty- I tried a little bit.  But I was more worried about eating lots of pizza and mac and cheese! :-)  

Then the kids got to go play in the game room.  Gattiland has a game room with lots of games, bumper cars, and a carousel.  Each of the students brought in $5 for their game cards.  I wrote everybody's name on their card so we knew whose card was whose!  The kids got to go around and play the games until they ran out of money.
 


My only complaint with Gattiland has been the same complaint I've had the other 3 times I've gone on this field trip:  they mix up the grade levels, so there are high schoolers or middle schoolers playing in the game room along with kindergarteners or first graders.  This year, it was middle schoolers with my first graders.  In the past, there have been high schoolers running around cursing with 5 and 6 year olds around.  Not pleased.  But this year, one of my first graders was playing the game where you take the giant hammer and try to hit something as hard as you can.  There were 2 middle school girls standing behind him making fun of him.  I just happened to walk up behind them and hear them making fun of him.  I was MAD.  "Mama teacher", for lack of a better word (and my own children!  lol) came out.  I said something to them about how it wasn't very nice to make fun of a first grader.  I believe the word "REALLY?!" may have come out of my mouth.  They walked away, looking at me.  About an hour later, they came up to me and gave me a game card (a time card).  They said they wanted to give it to the kid they were making fun of.  I told them they didn't have to do that, and they said they wanted to and that they hadn't used it.  So I took the card and gave it to the student, and he and his friend went on the bumper cars.  I'm glad they thought about what they were doing and took the time to apologize.  The apology would have been enough-  I don't think my first grader even knew they were making fun of him- but they went the extra mile and I thought that was sweet.

We had a really fun time on our trip. :-)

And now I am on Spring Break!  I hope this week has some great weather and I get some stuff done!  I have a lot of things to do around the house this week, some blogs to write, some taggies to make, and some stuff to add to my TPT store!  I guess I better get to work! :-)

Have a great week!







2 comments:

  1. Good for you speaking up when the bratty middle school girls were making fun of your student. I also have a real issue if bigger kids pick on my students! That is awesome that the girls actually thought about it and wanted to make up for it! There may be hope for them yet!
    Justin- Writing Pad Dad
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    1. Yes, there may be hope for them yet! :-)

      I was pretty upset about it. I mean, the kid is 6- come on! But I was very impressed that the girls came back and apologized. I have a friend who teaches at that school, so I told her what happened and how the girls came back to make up for it. Middle school is a hard time though.

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