BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!

We weren't supposed to have school today, but it ended up being a snow make-up day... and it was also the 100th day... and we exchanged Valentine's since we had a snow day on our party.

I'm surprised I'm still alive. But, I did manage to take some pictures! Check out some of the things we did today :-)

SO. I've officially seen the ways of the Daily 5 and I have no intention of ever stopping... until the next big thing comes along. I LOVE that it lends itself so well to fun little activities like these. At word work today, I put out a page that had my firsties list 100 words. I was SO surprised at how creative they were! I fully expected them to use the word wall and their spelling lists, but they went around and collected calendar words and words from posters and my heart went a-flutter.

Instead of guided reading today, I had them write about life would be like if they were 100 years old... Some personal favorites included "I'll play bingo and eat soft food since I won't have teeth" as well as "if my children are old enough they can take care of me."  They're a hoot and a half.  I also put out a list at work on writing that had them list things they'd love to have 100 of and things they'd hate to have 100 of. One of my kiddos just got stitches on his forehead from falling on the ice, so he said he'd hate to have 100 stitches... priceless.

AND, since today was also our Valentine's Day celebration, and since I love to utilize every moment of the day to the max, I had my aide's reading group squeeze in a little candy heart math.  These pages are from my Spread The Love Valentine's Day Activities pack, which is still for sale for the next few days.

I also came up with this simple (totally last minute) Valentine for my kiddos... Dollar tree pencils 12 for a buck?! Done. Bargain shopper.

And with all the things that were going on today, I literally forgot to tell them about President's Day. I could kick myself. Guess what we're talking about TOMORROW!

P.S. I added the 100th day of school activities as a freebie in my store... It won't be a freebie for long, because it's a pack I've been dreaming up in my head and plan on adding to very soon!!

100 Days Smarter!

Long time, no blog, and I have one simple excuse... it's conference week. They went fabulously, but I'm always so exhausted at the end of conferences. If you're conferencing right now too, I hope they're going well!

First of all, I can barely believe that my first year of teaching is half-way over! My little firsts have come so far in 100 days. I am falling in love with first grade every day. I have seen the light bulbs go off, and I get to see them burn brighter each and every day... It's the most wonderful year to teach!

Anywho, we had a BLAST on the 100th day of school! I started off by having them make 100th day glasses as their seat work in the morning, so they'd get a chance to dry. They turned out SO fun, and required no effort on my part. Definitely an easy and fun project for the kids, and even my "too cool for school" kids were fighting smiles :-)

We just finished up some winter centers, and I wasn't quite ready to start Valentine's centers, so I found this really fun 100th day freebie on TpT that lets students build as many words as they can using the letters in HUNDRED DAYS. They really enjoyed this one, so I'm definitely using it again next year! We also had lots of 100's fun in math!  I found another super awesome 100th day 100's chart freebie on TpT.  My students LOVED doing this... They had to use the cards to find out which blocks to color on their hundreds chart. It ended up saying "Yay 100," and my little firsts got a big kick out of that. It was excellent practice for today's math test, since we're using our hundreds charts to do ten more, ten less, one more & one less!

And since Valentine's day is just around the corner, I slapped all my centers on the laminator this morning, fully intending to cut them out this weekend. (I greatly despise cutting out lamination, so I tend to do it on the couch). I'm getting my day started and I hear the voice of an angel, AKA my amazingly-wonderful aide, asking me if I wanted her to cut them out for me. She managed to cut out everything while I did calendar time and the spelling test, and was ready to roll for reading groups. Ohmygosh. She's the best :-) And if you don't have any Valentine's centers yet, check mine out on TpT -- I'm super excited about these ones, especially the 100's chart puzzles!

Have a nice weekend!