Mother's Day Is Coming!

Mother's Day falls on Sunday May 11th this year, which means, 

for teachers, we have to have gifts and cards ready to go home on  FRIDAY MAY 9th !!! Time to get cracking!

This year, I thought it would be fun to do something a little different so...

I added a new digitally-editable gift option to my Mother's Day Made Easy pack. HOW CUTE?! I made it so you can add your students' faces in either the flower or the bee or BOTH!  

But wait, there's more! 😅

4 more to be exact...5 options in total!

I get it, bookmarks--like tie cards for dad--were seriously overused years ago and I think we were all scarred from that and that's why they kind of lost popularity...but I want to bring them back! Because if you don't have a book on the go at all times then either your life is too busy and you need to make a change or there's something wrong with you (but we can still be friends 😉💛).

Anyways, need a card to go with it? 👇

This is another classic favourite: the Mother's Day newspaper article. I still love doing this one because I like pairing the activity with a little literacy study on newspapers. It's rare that a child sees a real life newspaper anymore (and by child I also mean myself as well...seriously, who still reads the paper?). 

But to keep it current, I like to bring one in (purchased from our local grocer) and we briefly look at the different sections, general layout, and chat about the "style" and tone of a newspaper article. This helps to give our Mother's Day card some deeper context and remedies the abstract concept of an "article" about mom.

Okay. I got distracted. Back to the bookmarks. 

The first option (pictured on the left up there) is just a print-and-colour option which is great if you want to keep it super simple or are short on time (or, for example, if we've done a painting or digital bookmark earlier in the week and a student has been away then I just have them complete that option).

The next 3 are different paint/ink fingerprint templates. And the last one is my favourite: the digitally-editable photo option, which I think mom's would absolutely love...I know I would!

The above templates (and more!) are included in my Mother's Day Made Easy pack. What are some of your favourite Mother's Day gift ideas? Let's share some ideas in the comments! 

Cinco de Mayo Activities

Que felicidad! 

I know it's still April but Justin has already been running around the internet since the beginning of the month making sure that we all are aware that in just a few days

Year after year, it never gets old 😆

Thanks for the heads up, JT! That must mean that our next seasonal opportunity for some more learning and FUN involves celebrating the rich culture of our neighbours to the south 🇲🇽

If you're looking for ways to share this holiday with your students, I've got some video, read aloud, and activity suggestions for you!

  INFORMATIONAL VIDEOS  

A quick search on YouTube will give you tons of clip options to introduce Cinco de Mayo to your students. To save you some time, here are my two favourite:

This one is perfect for Primary. It's simple and PACKED with fun and informative facts (which come in handy for the flag activity below!). 

This next one is a bit more in-depth in explaining WHY Cinco de Mayo is celebrated. It also includes fun facts at the end. I would recommend this one more for Junior grades.

  READ ALOUDS  

The concept of why Mexican people celebrate Cinco de Mayo can be a challenging thing to grasp, so Cinco de Mouse-O! is a great option for the littlest learners.

Younger students can experience what a traditional celebration is like without the sometimes confusing addition of battles and historical people. If you can't find a physical copy of this book, you can watch the read aloud HERE.

A great read aloud for younger students is Celebrating Cinco de Mayo: Fiesta Time!

It does share about the WHY behind the holiday but focuses more on HOW Cinco de Mayo is celebrated. If you can't find a physical copy of this book, you can watch the read aloud HERE.

  ACTIVITIES  

papel picado

Besides having your own lively classroom celebration (perhaps including chips & salsa, dancing to the Mexican Hat Dance, and decorating with colourful papel picado!), students can get crafty by making their own paper fans:

I LOVE these beautiful watercolour fans! You can whip out your paints or just keep it simple and have students use markers/crayons to decorate their own piece of paper to then fold into a fan. Then turn up the mariachi music and have a fan dance party!

Next up, students will have so much fun creating and working through their own Mexican flag activity book!

You can get the FLAG BOOKLET here.

And who doesn't love a guided drawing?! 

This is my favourite little guy to draw with students:

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo with your students? 

What are some of your favourite activities?

Earth Day Every Day

Earth Day always bothered me. 

Starting back in University, I began becoming more and more aware of my impact on the planet and what that truly means. I won't get into preaching, but it has become an incredibly important topic for me.

(from Topic #3: Sustainable Materials, Processes, and Actions, "Making Sustainable Choices" lesson extension)

Fast forward to my first grade classroom when April rolled around and I started searching for Earth Day activities. Although there's lots of great stuff out there, I always found the cute crafts and activities lacking depth, impact, and true connection. I wanted the message of Earth Day (to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our planet and it's natural resources for future generations) to really resonate with my students in a FUN, easy-going way.

(students make their own activity cards from Topic #3: Sustainable Materials, Processes, and Actions, "Making Sustainable Choices" lesson extension)

So we take Earth Day up a notch and spend a few days/weeks learning about and loving our planet! Students get to appreciate our planet and enjoy all that nature has to offer for more than JUST ONE DAY.

(from Topic #4: Healthy Planet=Healthy People, "Earth & Us" lesson extension craft)

We begin by exploring what "nature" means and what that means for us as humans.

(from Topic #1: We ARE Nature, "Me as a Tree" extension activity)

Next, we GET OUTSIDE and actually experience nature. (This is my favourite part!)

(from Topic #2: Building a Relationship With Nature, "I LOVE Nature" extension activity)

Then, this is where sh*t gets real😬 

...but in a FUN way of course!! 😆

It's so eye-opening for students when we discuss how when you throw something away, it doesn't actually go AWAY. Everything has to go somewhere. And playing the "How Long 'til It's Gone?" game (pictured above) really drives home the consequences of our choices. Students love guessing how long until something has fully broken down:

(from Topic #3: Sustainable Materials, Processes, and Actions, "The Wonders of Plastic" lesson extension)

And, to keep it light-hearted, we CRAFT! 

(from Topic #3: Sustainable Materials, Processes, and Actions, "The Wonders of Plastic" extension craft)

I love creating a hallway display from their finished creations inspired by these murals-with-a-message:

Depending on my class, I usually like to do a small classroom waste audit as well at some point in the month. This helps students see, in a concrete way, how much waste we produce on a daily basis and what exactly we are throwing away.

Next up is the Four Rs: We practice gratitude to Reduce our consuming, get creative to Reuse everyday items,

(from Topic #5: The Four Rs, "Reuse & Repair; Again, and Again, and Again..." extension craft)

and Recycle to make our own paper! 

This one is a particular student-favourite year after year, and a teacher favourite too since it is WAY easier than you think 🥳

(from Topic #5: The Four Rs, "Recycle; New Again!" extension craft)

Finally, we wrap up all our learning by putting our passion into action and going on a Litter Mission. The students love walking around their community to pick up trash and make our shared home a little bit nicer.

(from Topic #6: Little Changes, BIG Impact, "Every litter bit counts" extension craft)

Do you want to bring more authenticity, meaning, and hands-on FUN into your classroom this year, too? All of these activities (and MORE!) are included in my Earth Day Every Day mini unit:

I hope you had a wonderful Easter break!

How are you celebrating Earth Day with your students this year?

Teacher Week: Sanity Savers

It's Thursday already?!

When it comes to my classroom (and life in general!), I am often an overly-organized person. So having certain systems in place is key to my sanity! Here are three that I can't live without:

1. Washroom Cones

First of all, yes, there are only two cones. One boy cone and one girl cone (this works best for my classroom as, otherwise, there will be monkey business in the bathrooms!).

If a student has to use the washroom at any point during the school day (aside from snack, lunch, and recesses), they take the appropriate cone--male if the student is a boy, and female if the student is a girl--and place it at their spot on their table. This way, whether I am teaching a lesson, working with a small group, etc., I and the other students are never interrupted. Using the bright orange cone helps me to see who is in the room and who is out in a single glance. 

How they're made: All I did was buy two small pylons from Walmart (I found them in the sports section around soccer equipment). Then, I just printed a male and female washroom symbol off the computer and mod-podged the images to the cones. That's it! 

Yes, some stinkers will use the cones at the beginning of the year just because it's such great fun, but I find it only takes a few days for the novelty to wear off and they will use them only when necessary :P

2. Anchor Chart Solution

I like to "collect" specific anchor charts we make throughout the year and display them as a class big book in our reading centre for my students to read and refer to whenever they want. But wayyyyy back when I just COULD NOT figure out how to secure several anchor charts at one time AND allow students to easily flip through them without the use of a power drill! 

In the above pic I was using push pins to secure the anchor charts along the top. NOT good to have push pins constantly flinging out around your first grade classroom!

But then I remembered my love of  Command hooks. 

So off to Walmart I went and constructed this:

It's not exactly attractive but it works and I LOVE it!

How it's made: I stuck two Command hooks on the metal frame of my bulletin board and hung a $3.00 rod between the two:

Then I put my charts on binder rings and slid them on the rod. 

(I now also "fortify" my anchor charts around the holes by putting a piece of tape or two just above the hole to prevent the binder clips from ripping the paper...if you look closely enough you can see the tape in the picture below)

3. Literacy Centre Rotation Board

Click the pic below to download an *editable* file (directions included)!

So I made this *life-saving* SmartBoard file to help us rotate through our centres:

To rotate through centres, my Teacher's Assistant (which is one of my classroom jobs) moves the black bar down to the next activity each time I ring the bell. I typically ring the bell every 10 minutes or so. This works out really well for me because during this time I am pulling groups for guided reading. This way, when my Assistant rotates the centre board for me, the kiddies automatically clean up and quietly move on to their next centre *without me having to draw my attention away from my reading group once.* Love it. (This is one of the routines that takes LOTS of practice at the beginning of the school year to get everything running smoothly).

So anyways, each picture corresponds with one of our 7 centres (from year to year I might have less centres depending on how many kiddies are in my class, since I like to keep centre groups at no more than 3-4 kids). To help my little darlings remember where each centre is located around our room, specifically at the beginning of the year, I have picture and word labels at each centre:

(Sorry about the horrible image quality, I need to stop taking pictures with my phone!!!)

So above you can see the little label stuck above my Word Work 2 centre (the number beside the label is for my Math Tubs). 

Here's another example of the label at my Listening Centre (see the black arrow):

Because the kiddies are walking around the room for my Write the Room centre, this label is just on a basket on the back counter where kiddies can grab their clipboard, worksheet, and pencil:

If you would like to download ALL of my labels for FREE, just click the image below!

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I feel like I have way more sanity savers to share but my brain is still on Summer vacation! So maybe I will be back one day with another post of my favourite tips and tricks...if I ever remember them ;)

Until then, head on back to Blog Hoppin' to read about some other brilliant Sanity Savers other teachers can't live without!