Earth Day and Dollar Store Finds!

This past week we finished up our Earth Day project!  It looks time consuming, but it really is a fun and quick project to do with your kids!  I cut out circles for each student to use for their painting.  As I'm typing this new post up, I am thinking that I should have taken pictures of the step-by-step process of how each first grader made his/her marble Earths. I set out four cookie trays (to work with four students at a time) and sprayed a small amount of shaving cream onto each tray.  Then, I added some blue and green paint to each tray.  The kids used a paintbrush to swirl the colors together in the shaving cream.  We put a white circle cut-out on top of the colors and patted around to push the paint and shaving cream onto the paper.  After the painting was dried, I shook off the dried shaving cream and beautiful marbleized painting were uncovered!  I absolutely love how each one turned out and with such unique patterns!

Now, onto a teacher's dream!  If you're anything like me, you are about organization or know that organization is important when having many games, papers, and STUFF for your kiddos!  I have become obsessed more than ever with going to the dollar store!  Granted, you get what you pay for, but I have found some great things to add and hope that I can keep better track of everything in my classroom!  This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to see the re-stock of containers, buckets, and more!  I FINALLY found the small containers I've been looking for!  I have wanted these small containers for so long to add dice!  My firsties are like any other group of energetic lovies who enjoy tossing the dice up in the air and at times across the room when playing different games.  Hopefully, these containers will help keep the dice in one place!  In addition to this little cups, I also bought more boxes for card games and other buckets for indoor recess games and puzzles!  If you're a new teacher, student teacher, or a teacher needing a re-do, go check out your local Dollar Tree and pick up some of the colorful containers!  

SCOOT!

Here's a game that can be played in so many ways!  If you go on Pinterest or any teacher's blog out there, chances are you'll find SCOOT games!  It is such a common but awesome game that so many are playing and using it in A LOT of ways!

For this last time of playing, I set it up to review telling time to the hour and half hour.  My kiddos struggled with telling time to the half hour, so I thought moving around (I mean, when is movement a bad thing in first grade world....right?!)  would be good to help master this skill.  Anyways, I set up different analog clocks in the hallway.  Every other time I've played this, I've set it up in the classrooms on the desks.  For something different, we used our lockers.

Each locker had a different time: hour or half hour.  When every student got a sheet (sort of a grid style) they picked a clock to sit by.  Each clock had a corresponding letter with it.  The sheet each student had, listed the letters from the cards.   When I said, "GO" they had to write down the digital time that the clock showed. So, if a kiddo was sitting by card "A" then he/she wrote down the time in BOX A...then when I said "SCOOT" he/she would move to card "B."  If a firstie started at card "J" then after I said "SCOOT" they would move to card "K."

Like I mentioned earlier, I have played this in the classroom.  Rather than a card on each locker, each desk had a card.  The kiddos would move around to each desk answering the problem.  Listed below are different skills you can practice by playing SCOOT:

• Addition Facts
• Subtraction Facts
• Write the Missing Number ( ex: 12, 13, ____, 15, 16)
• 10 More/10 Less 
• Place Value
• Skip counting (ex: 2, 4, 6, ___)
• Write the Fraction
• Greater Than/Less Than/Equal To
• Patterns (ex: A, B, A, B, ___)
• Unscramble the Sight Word
• Rhyming Words (ex: What word rhymes with fan?  hop or can)

 I hope this game can come in handy in your classroom!  It truly is such an engaging and fun way to practice math or literacy skills!  Each time we play, my kiddos LOVE it and are so excited!  If you have any questions about the game or need ideas, please leave a comment below!