Open House

Open House is such a BIG night for everyone! For the kids, it is a chance to share our classroom, our home away from home, to our family. For the parents, it is a night to see what their child does when they trust Cypress Creek with their most prized possession. For teachers, it is a night we showcase our teaching, design, and organization for the world to see. It was a FABULOUS evening! Most of the families toured the classroom completing the scavenger hunt with their child. We showed off our Promethean ActivBoard. We took pictures of families sharing in the joy that is 1st grade. Thank you to the students and parents for making every day like Disney World here at Cypress Creek Elementary. Did you see Connor with Annie? Guess what his name was drawn for the $25 worth of free books from the Book Fair AND I won $25 worth of books too just for being his teacher! Thanks Connor! We heart you! I got a copy of the latest Pigeon book, Fancy Nancy, Ruby Bridges, Fly Guy, and Dirt on My Shirt. We can't wait to read them.

Where is Annie?

I got the most unbelievable gift this week from a great teacher friend! My friend Robert Miller does some consulting and presenting on behalf of Brainpop. He gave me a cardboard Annie! Now for those of you that do not know Annie let me explain. Tim & Moby are THE characters of Brainpop. They answer questions and teach children through 4-5 minute movies about all kinds of topics. Teachers love the quizzes and activities that accompany the movies. Brainpop decided to make a primary user friendly approach with Annie & Moby. That is where my 1st graders have come to know and LOVE Annie. Here is a picture of Annie with my own children Kaile & Carson.
I have decided to do a "Where's Annie?" installment on our class blog. Stay tuned for clues and pictures and see if you can guess what Annie is up to in our classroom, around our school, and in our community.

Wordle anyone?

OK I have seen these "wordle" things before and thought how cool. I decided to finally have the website analyze my class blog. It looks at the text and looks at the number of times you say/write particular words. I was so happy to see that school, friends, thanks, reading, learning, classroom, and parents showed up the largest! It was pretty neat and you might want to try it out some day. The gracious people at http://www.wordle.net/ created the wordle art! Thank you wordle.net

Time Flies...

Ok so it is true-time flies when you are having fun. It has been quite some time since my last post and I can honestly say I can't believe how fast the days turn into weeks and then weeks and weeks...
We have been so busy learning about different scientists and various lab equipment so we can do some investigating. Take a look at 2 of our scientists, all ready for the part. In math, we finished up patterns and then moved right into geometry. Did you child show you their 3D shape bag? Did it make it home, unopened, before they could explain the different shapes? Thanks to Mrs. Tyner for the idea :) The carmels were cubes, Starburst-rectangluar prism, gumball-sphere, Hershey's Kiss-cone, and of course Smarties-cylinder. It was so tempting to eat them but I made them promise to eat after they explained it to you. Maybe tonight you could ask them how many faces, edges, and vertices? YES they do know what those are!

First Grader at last...

Junie B. Jones has been a favorite of mine for quite some time and I love reading her books to students and hear them laugh in all the right places or predict what will happen next. I am sure for the parents of my new friends they are finding it hard to believe their child is officially a first grader, at last! We have had great fun getting to know one another, looking for patterns, reading books, and even thinking about scientists. Our adventure began Monday morning with reading the Kissing Hand and hunting for Chester the Raccoon around the school. We never did catch him but got to see Mr. Butler, our principal, Nurse Rhonda, Mrs. Stevenson, the Media Specialist, and even Ms. Maureen, the Cafeteria Manager. He was nice enough to leave us a snack after our tour of the school. I can tell this is going to be the start of a wonderful year. Some friends were missing from this 1st class photo so I will have to do an official class photo once I have everyone at school. I can't wait for you to see how stinking cute they are!

Tomorrow is the 1st day of school...

I am so excited tonight I can hardly sleep. It has been a very busy week of getting our classroom back in order to prepare for the upcoming school year. On Thursday, I met 18 of the 20 new friends I will see for the next 180 days. The room looks ready except 1 thing is missing... I know my new friends. I can hardly wait to get to know them and their individual personality. Hope they enjoyed the last weekend because I have many adventures ahead A favorite area of mine is the classroom library. I know it will be a favorite of theirs too. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes...

THANK YOU!!

Where do I begin? I can hardly believe the school year has ended. On one hand, I am looking forward to a wonderful summer with my husband and kids. On the other, I will be sad to not wake up to go to school with all my 1st grade friends. I want to first thank the parents of these friends for an awesome year. You have let me be a part of your family for the year and for that I am grateful. Your kids are unbelievable and I got to see them grow and become independent readers this year. THANK YOU! Of course I would like to thank each one of them for the laughs, the learning, and the overall feeling of joy going to work each day with a smile.
We had some help throughout the year from all of the families with time in the classroom, supplies for projects, or treats/rewards to celebrate successes. I especially want to thank Ashley and Paul who donated 5 iPod Shuffles for the class to use at home listening to stories and practicing their oral reading fluency. My dad for donating the 6th iPod so I could have a set of 6. Chantal and Michelle who gave time every week of the year doing anything and everything I ever asked them to do. Joel and Melissa for sending in "big" items for our learning and enjoyment. Smart Start Tutoring for awarding our class a grant to fund our Reading Counts store-JW Beanies. Walmart for donating the primary journals our friends wrote in each day (Parents love this artifact of the entire year!) Promethean for providing the BEST and most fun way of learning through their Interactive Whiteboard, wand, and ActivExpressions. Dayle Timmons in Jacksonville, FL for being an inspiration and guiding force behind our successful classroom blog. Our principal and staff for making this school like Disney World each and every day of the school year. The biggest thank you goes to my husband who lets me give so much time and energy into being the best teacher I can be and to my kids who give me hugs and kisses everyday!