First Grade Fanatics: February 2013

Plenty of president fun!

Well, after last week, we're definitely looking forward to this week! Two sick teachers + sick husbands + sick kiddos doesn't equal fun! With both households on the mend, we're back and ready to blog!

American presidents has been a main focus in our classrooms this month. We began this month by introducing George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We read several books about both presidents, incorporated activities from our FREE President's Day Mini Unit, and each of our first graders made their own George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

You can read more about this art project {HERE}

This week and next we'll focus on Presidents' Day and other important presidents. Presidents' Day and Celebrating Presidents' Day (see below) are two WONDERFUL books that introduce the holiday and introduce other important presidents as well.

Our kiddos will also put together our Pocket Guide to Presidents which can also be found in our President's Day Mini Unit . We like to print this with two pages per sheet, which actually prints four booklet pages on one sheet. It makes it more "pocket sized" plus we save a little paper too!

Need help printing more than one page per sheet? If you're using a Mac, just go to layout and select two pages per sheet.

We also love to take our first graders on a little tour of the White House by visiting the White House website and taking an interactive tour!

The White House Interactive Tour

Finally, one of our favorite ways to end this unit is to have our first graders complete a "When I Become President" writing activity. This can also be found in our FREE President's Day Mini Unit. We just love their cute little drawings of themselves as a president!

We'd love to hear how you celebrate Presidents' Day in your classrooms!

Have a fantastic week!

Snowmen and a FREE President's Day Mini-Unit!

Happy Monday! Or in our case, we survived our Monday! Man, it was a rough one! Here's to hoping that the week gets a little less chaotic...

The last few weeks we've tried to fit in any snowman activities possible. Our schedules are so tight this year, that we really feel like we don't have time for anything other than what we are being required to do, but we do the best we can. We tried to incorporate some activities from our Snowman Fun unit from our store. It's a great little unit based on our some our favorite snowman stories. Even when you don't have a lot of time, the activities are easy to do after just reading the book. If you haven't checked it out, you should pop on by and take a look.

Several weeks ago we had our school's winter carnival, so we had to create our cute little snowman wall for some fun winter decor. These snowmen were sooo easy and the kids just loved them! We used a little glitter on the hats to brighten them up, and they were just to die for! If you'd like the patterns, click {here}.

We try to get in a least one little craftivity each month, so for January we made these adorable little snow globes. Didn't they turn our cute?

Click {here} for the pattern for the snow globe.

We wrapped up our activities with one of our favorite activities from our unit that goes along with Sneezy the Snowman. After reading the story, and completing a writing activity, we did our ice cream tasting.

We started by tasting all four kinds of ice cream. If you plan on doing this activity, you need just 1 carton of each type of ice cream. We actually each buy two different kinds, and share. So we actually only use about half a carton for each class. We just give each child a spoonful, and it works out great!

After the taste test we created our large class graph on the smart board.

After the class graph, each child made their own graph, and then completed the rest of the graph activities. If you'd like more info about this activity, check out the Snowman Fun unit.

President's Day is coming up, so make sure you check our our *FREE* President's Day Mini-Unit! You can find it at our TpT store.

Hope you stop by again really soon! We have a really fun Rainbow Birthday party to share with you, and some fun space activities. Happy Monday!

Super Bowl Weekend Sale! (and a printable Super Bowl Game)

Make sure to stop by our Teachers Pay Teachers Store and pick up some great treats! Everything is on sale all weekend for 20% off. On Sunday there is an additional 10% off using the promo code: Super.

Here's a fun little game to keep you busy during the super bowl!
Click on the picture to get your copy.