Valentine's Day Smores

I wanted something different this year for my students for Valentine's Day. I saw these HUGE marshmallows at Wal-Mart and sparked a great idea! Not to mention another blogger posted about it recently too. Sorry the picture won't turn!

So I bought the following things from Wal-Mart to create my special treat! 

Here it is in the cute heart bags that I got from Dollar Tree a few weeks ago! I am working on a label for it that says You Melt Our Hearts Valentine! There is a cute one already made on TpT but it is only for one teacher to give and I need something from two teachers. If you would like to check it out click here. It is a freebie too thanks to The 1st Grade Teacher!

I hope everyone has a great week! I know we have a SUPER busy one ahead for us at school this week! 

Space

 I am a few weeks behind but better late than never I guess. We did a space unit two weeks ago and it was a HUGE hit in our classroom. It always amazes me what information four and five year old children can learn about outer space.

1. We made constellations after reading stories and studying them in books. Here are my students creative constellations.

2. We identified and used shapes to create rockets. Sorry the picture is blurry!

3. We made our own pie pan planets and named them. Each student painted the bottom of a pie pan with his or her choice of colors and then named them.

We also tasted space food, wrote space words by looking through telescopes at stars, and many other exciting activities that I failed to take pictures of during the week. 

Five For Friday

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday recap of my week! Be sure to check out everyone's links as well. I always enjoy seeing how everyone has spent their week in education.

 

 1. Spiral Tubes

We added these tubes to our science center this week and they have been a huge hit. The students have enjoyed stretching, connecting, and creating various sculptures across the classroom floor.

2. Princess and The Pea - Number and Quantity

We were inspired by Mrs. Goff's Pre-K Tales and her picture on pinterest found here to enhance our fairy tale unit. We counted mattresses and put them on the bed and wrote the number of mattresses on the line. 

  3. Castle Building

We viewed castles from various places around the world. We identified the shapes used to build them. My students soared with the concept of castle building and let their creative juices flow. Two of my boys worked all of center time to build this castle. I loved the excitement on their faces with their finished product.

4. Capes and Crowns

 We used boys XL t-shirts and cut them out to make capes. The students used stamps to decorate their capes. We also glued hearts on a sentence strip upside down to make a crown. The students used foam squares as "jewels" to create an AB or ABC pattern on their crown. We wore these during center time and they had a blast!

 5. Favorite Book Character Day

On Friday we dressed up like our favorite book character. My students were great! I had knights, Peter Pan, Woody, The Big Bad Wolf, Pinkalicious, Ladybug, and many princesses. I dressed up like Mary Poppins since it has always been one of my favorite books and movies. I think I like the play on Broadway the best!

I am so glad it is Friday! I am looking forward to some rest! Have a great weekend!

February Made It

I am linking up with Tara at 4thgradefrolics for her monthly made it. Be sure to check out all of the great ideas others have posted!

Made It #1: Space Beginning Sound Cards

You can purchase these cards in my TpT store by clicking the picture above.

Made It # 2: Space Rhyming Cards

Made It #3: Alphabet and Number Heart Matching

I found these hearts at the dollar tree. I wrote a capital letter on one side of the box and a lowercase letter on the other side. I also did this with numbers and dots for quantity. I also cut out and laminated some great things from TpT. 

Have a great week!

My Favorite Snowmen

We had a lot of fun making these cute snowmen this week!

We found this super cute idea on pinterest and fell in love with it. You can click on the picture above to go to the original source. Since I teach Pre-K I knew that much q-tip fun would not work so we revised the artwork some. We drew two circles for the students to make the white q-tip dots inside. We gave them a hat, carrot nose, and scarf to glue on. After the white dried, we put the black arms and face on with q-tips as well. Here are a couple of closer looks. I think these are my new favorite!!

 

Hope everyone is having a great week!!

Winter

 Winter is something that we do not see a lot of in the south. We have to learn about winter through books and the internet. We did a winter web with things that we knew about winter before our unit really began. I was proud that my students knew so much already. Often times, these are epic fails!

We did a winter syllable chart for our visual learners. When we do syllables, I usually call out the words then we, slap our knees, clap our hands, stomp our feet, and count it on our fingers. Then, I choose a student to tell me how many syllables that word has. For the most part this works really well but some students a visual helps greatly. We did the usual for each word on the chart and then a child glued a snowball beside the words and we wrote the number. It was cute to see them explaining the chart to their parents in the hallway!

My student teacher found this door via pinterest from Mrs. Ussery's blog. She then used her idea to decorate our door! The kids love the penguin!!

This week we are continuing to learn about winter and animals.

Snowman Fun

We had our first full week back at school. We did many different snowman crafts via pinterest. I thought I would share how they turned out! We also did the Snowman Adjectives, how many snowballs it takes to build a snowman, and snowman sequencing. 

 Graduated Order Snowman

We gave the students three sizes of cups and had them put the snowballs in order from biggest to smallest. Then we added the accessories. They turned out super cute!  Here is a close up of one of them. I love how they each have his or her own personality just like that student.

 Shaving Cream Snowman

 

 We have done this snowman every year that I have taught and it is always one of my favorites. As my fellow coworker says "I love it when we find something on pinterest that we already do." Below are a couple of close ups. Just like no two snowflakes are alike neither are the snowmen.

 I think this snowman melted!!

Snowman Names

 This idea came from Under The Big Top. We had each child count the letters in their name and count out that many "snowballs." They glued their snowballs down, wrote one letter of their name on each snowball, glued on the face, then drew their hat and arms. This was a great task for some of my students who don't choose to write because it was more fun! 

Snowmen At Night

We read Snowmen at Night multiple times this week! My students love that book almost as much as I do. They drew what they thought their snowman would do at night but this was not my most creative group so I chose not to share those but rather their pinterest inspired ones. The idea came from The First Grade Parade. They tore their own white strips of paper and for some that was a VERY challenging task! They glued on their noses and eyes and mouth once all of their white paper was glued down. I love the way they turned out!