Fire Safety Reader {on sale}

Happy Monday!  I'm just popping in quick this morning to let you know about my new Fire Safety Emergent Reader set!  It has two different versions of an emergent reader, picture and word cards, and sentence cards.  So if you need something to help you teach your kiddos about fire safety, check out my set in my tpt store.  It's on sale today only!

Have a GREAT week!

Treasure Maps.. Argh!

We completed our Map unit in the Fall, and yes, I'm just now getting around to posting about it.  During our Map unit we did several different activities.  Each student made an On The Map book that we completed together to discuss our classroom, school, city, state, country, continent, and planet.  I also assigned students to complete a Map Your Neighborhood project as homework.  I forgot to take pictures of this but they came out really cute!  And... we made treasure maps!

Before we got started on our treasure maps, we discussed natural features vs. manmade features.  We also read the book The Day I Became A Pirate.  Then we got started on our treasure maps.  First we created a chart to list what needed to be included, like a title, compass rose, and a mixture of natural and manmade features.  I posted examples of treasure maps I found online onto our whiteboard.  For the actual maps, I cut apart brown paper sacks.  Then the students got to work!  When they were finished, they crumpled up their map to make it look like it was old... I'm pretty sure that was their favorite part!  Here are some of my students' treasure maps.

I Voted, Did You?

I have to start this post by admitting I've been a horrible blogger this last month.  Yep.  Worst blogger ever... right here!  Ugh... I've just had some serious stressors this year and it's only November!

Anyways, yes I did vote today.  Did you?  Did your kiddos "vote"?  I think it's definitely fun to teach about voting during an election year.  I didn't spend a ton of time discussing voting, but I do want to share what I did in my classroom.  I know, not too much help now but I like to share!

We watched a short video on BrainPop about voting.  My school has a subscription, but I think this video was actually a free one.  If you don't know about BrainPop, you are missing out!  The kids LOVE these videos!

 I read aloud the three above books, Duck for President, Grace for President, and My Teacher for President.  I read them to my students on different days and we discussed why each character would or would not make a good president.   I got this idea from The First Grade Parade.

After some good discussion, my students voted which "character" would be the best President.  I really liked the ballot Mrs. Carroll had, so I made one that was similar.

Of course I had one student vote for Duck... not a surprise coming from this student.  There were also a few students that voted for Grace.  They seemed to really like Grace.  The majority voted for "My Teacher."

My school participates in KidsVote, so my students also voted on school items in the computer lab.

OK, back to watching the election results.

I promise to be a better blogger this month! :)