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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Green Eggs Xperience!

My school had a special reading activity this week. All the school was submerge in reading. All the students got involved, high school students work together with elementary students to present stories in their native language, Spanish. Guess what?  I said, oh well!  I want to add to that too. During my English classes I prepared special activities. 

The real experience goes like this. I have a new student that was not fully adapted to the English class. He came from another school and did not have the same learning experiences that my second graders. Since I taught them first grade too, they didn't feel that much of a change. Just that they are bigger now and have new books, another classroom, etc. 

Last week, my student came to the class so motivated! He had received a gift from his mother. It was a very funny book, and he wanted to read it in front of the class. When he showed the book to the class, everybody recognized to author!  Of course! It was Dr. Seuss. He had a book of Dr. Seuss, the author of Cat in the Hat, that they all loved it! Immediately, I saw the happiness on his face!... He read the title, Green Eggs and Ham and started to read a few pages.  Since, I knew about the special activity that was coming up, I secretly talked to him about it and we planned to read the whole story on that they. 

I planned some activities related to it, but the funniest part was to see them try the green eggs and ham.
Not only them, but faculty members too. Their faces, their reactions ...it was so funny! We had a great time. 
Thanks to all the volunteer mothers that contributed to the activity, without all of you I wouldn't be possible. 
You can tell by their faces... Did they like green eggs and ham?   Yes or No ! 


I'm not even going to try it!
Yes! Can I have more?
                            
          
Our Principal and the Spanish teacher who planned the original
activity "Submerged into Reading" in Spanish 

Administrative personnel also loved it! 

  






Fnd the rhyming pictures, cut and paste and write the words.
Of course I used a green paper as a background

DIY Spooky Banner


Spooky Banner 

I made the Halloween Spooky Banner for my classroom decor. I used foomie and hot glue to make them. First, draw a triangle template to use the same size on all the pieces. Use black, green, and white fooamie to add the details. So, simple and so beautiful! Thanks to Pinterest! another idea grabbed from there!

Boo, Friendly Ghosts!!

My kindergartners made their Halloween Ghosts for our classroom decorations. One group used big paper plates and the other group used small paper plates. They colored the eyes and mouth. Some added more details. Then we use crepe paper streamers and glued them on the back of the plate. I first saw the idea from  Craft -N- Things for children. We didn't add the arms, but you may add them too.
The kids have lots of fun!








Sunday, September 30, 2012

Main Hallway!

My school's  main hallway bulletin boards are famed by the themes selected. Specially  for the back to school class lists. Everybody knows Rosita, a lady who works at the school administration and the person responsible for "dressing up" the bulletins. She takes pride of the artwork put on there. The school community always expect something new, spectacular. The themes always remain a "secret"  until the calendar marks "the day". She has a team that always help her. She assigns them part of the theme, gives them an idea of what she would like to see there, and then...magic comes on. Every teacher starts creating, drawing, cutting, pasting... their vision from her idea. Time comes to put all together and ...Voila!






DIY OWL Thingy for School Materials

Are you always looking for things that you can reuse? Here's a simple DIY project for Back2School!

Materials:
  • plastic soda bottle 
  • scissors
  • felts or foamies
  • hot glue
  • butttons
  • Owl template
Steps: 
  1. Cut the top section of the bottle
  2. Trace and cut the foamy using the desire template
  3. Trace, cut,  and paste the eyes, beak, and  wings 
  4. Trace, cut, and paste the claws
  5. Finally use the hot  glue to adhere it. 
gather all the materials 

trace your template
cut 

cut details, eyes and beak



glue in place, add the buttons

wings (style 2)
cut the wings (any style)


cut the claws





OwlMaNiA...OMG!

My classroom's theme for this year  is Owls. I have Owls all over... and my student's binder is called the OWL Binder. OWL stands for Organized While Learning. I asked them to be creative and do a drawing or a craft for their binder cover related to an OWL.

Well, guess what?  My students have been infected with Owlmania...LOL, yes! No medication for that yet!
Now a lot of things with owls invade the classroom. Let's take a look at them.

Owl made out of old t-shirts, felt,
 and buttons for the eyes

an owl purse 
another stuffed owl 

Owl notebook 

Owl lunchbox



Henry and Mudge

It was kind of fun having all the pieces
and gluing all together, just like a puzzle.
 
I guess you  have noticed that it has been quite a time that I don't stop by to post anything. Well, it has been difficult for me to adapt to a new grade level. It hasn't been an easy task to have a last minute change,  when you have three levels: kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade. Oh,  well!  I keep going!

My second graders loved the story Henry and Mudge and we worked on the sequence of events using a very creative idea  I saw on Pinterest ( I believed) but I can't remember exactly. 

First, I made a template, traced the dog face on different beige tone construction papers, traced the floppy ears, and the snout. Then they drew and colored the eyes, and added the collar. The students cut and paste following oral instructions to create their own Mudge. 

We cut out bones to write the story events and then placed them in order. We glued them to a strip of poster board for the bulletin board. It was a huge success!  Hope you like them!

This is how it looks on the bulletin board of the hallway. 



Everybody loved the dogs! 





A drawing made by one of my students


We cut out bones to write thestory events
 It was a huge success!  Hope you like them!



smile! 

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Interactive Wisdom Tree

For this school year, I chose the OWL theme for my classroom. It was my daughter's idea. She loves owls!! I like them, but I need to accept that I'm starting to love them!  Well, after drawing, painting, cutting all my classroom decors, I needed to decide what I was going to do for the exit door. I was clueless on Friday. All of a sudden, my daughter told me: Mom! I know !!... I have an idea!?!?  I have seen it in Pinterest !!        She then explained me the idea of making an interactive fingerprint tree were all the visitors "stamp" their thumbprint. "Perfect!" I exclaimed.  I just needed to draw and paint the tree trunk with the branches, then added a small owl as a special touch.  Since this was going to be for the Open House, I used fingerpaint. I set up a table with all the materials needed. My daughter and I placed our fingerprints first as examples. We had such a fun time, all family members stamped their fingerprints, teachers, office's secretary, our Principal even our School Director.

Thank You All for sharing with us!

Interactive Wisdom Tree 



my daughter,  thanks for the wonderful idea!! 






Classroom Pic's

After having to move to my new classroom, I'm almost ready...yes, I have to say classes began today and my classroom was almost ready. I still need to finish some details, but I'm so happy that I want to show all of you the results. I will appreciate all your comments.
Entrance Door
Reading Area 

Focus Wall 


Here you can see the back of the room
 From left to right,the reading center, spelling center, poem, center



my board
teacher's desk


Back 2 School

After a lot of summer planning, we were ready to start a new school year! Yesterday was our Open House. A Big Surprise for the Fifth graders, when they saw me, on the 2nd floor classroom."Teacher Leisha" they exclaimed. Why are you here?  Oh, no!  Really! ...Yeah!!! Yeah!!

It was  a mix of emotions!  On one side, I will miss my little ones (preschool) which I would not have this year; on the other hand, the fifth graders  were my students when they were on second grade.  Their parents were as happy as them. To see their bright eyes and emotions made feel so happy and enthusiastic. What else can I ask for at the beginning of the year? Not much... Thanks to all!

So after some changes made by the school administration, I will be teaching English to kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade. I'll be hopping from one grade to another ( LOL ) Well, after practicing blog hopping during my summer vacations, I think I'm in good shape!


Sunday, July 22, 2012

Glogster Mania


I've been "playing" on Glogster.Edu & I made this for my kindergartners! Have you worked with Glogster before? If so, can you give me any advise, suggestions or any comments? Do your students like it?

I also made one like a graphic organizer, for my second graders  with the idea of completing it with them. Check it out!  What do you think about it?



My First Glogster



Hi, I'm so excited!  I did my first Glogster. I'm just "playing" around a little bit with the program to check what things we can do there. It's just a matter of  your imagination, find the pictures or photos that you want, get your style, color scheme, size,borders, background, write your own titles. It's great!  You can add sound, videos, animations and best of all they have a FREE OPTION for teachers!!
I started by linking some sight word videos in my first poster. That was simple, but it looks nice! Better than going to youtube and finding one by one. I can have them organized by week, by theme, etc. It's more appealing to the kids sight.  If you haven't try it, check it out Glogster Edu 

Monday, July 16, 2012

Sight Words Reading Blocks



 Today's project was to make the sight words reading blocks. I first saw this idea on Pinterest. I read more about it from Filth Wizardry . What is it all about?  Simple! get some white stickers and write sight words on each Duplo block.  I got the stickers in the dollar section from Kmart, and I was lucky enough to have a set of blocks at home that nobody wanted because my kids are grown ups, now. I'm using a plastic storage box to store them because I don't have their original box. There are so many other alternatives given on that blog, that I'm looking forward to get more blocks.