FINISHED!

WOO HOO!  I finished my last class at BYU on Thursday and had my last day of student teaching on Friday.  I am officially FINISHED with my undergrad - no finals, no nothin!  Until graduation of course...

Anyway, my class and I celebrated in style :)

They all wrote me letters that my teacher made into a book and the majority of them said that their favorite lesson I did was compound words.  We spent a whole week on compound words a couple weeks ago and had a blast!  The culminating activity that I planned was a compound word Easter egg hunt!  I had all the eggs pulled apart and scattered across the back of the room - they had to find halves that matched together to make a compound word, give it to me, and then go write their word on this huge egg cut out I made.  By the end we had a whole poster filled with compound words to hang on our door :)  Obviously it would've been crazy having the whole class do this at once, so I had half the class doing the egg hunt in the back while the other half was reading books from their book bags and writing compound words they found on sticky notes, then adding the sticky note to our "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" cloud.  They were so well behaved and were so enthusiastic about finding compound words in BOTH activities - I was so impressed :)

 

My last day was also their last day before Spring Break, so they were all a little antsy about the upcoming Easter weekend - my teacher had them write a story about a bunny/Easter/Spring- whatever they wanted, really, but they all ended up being some type of CLEVER story about some Easter Bunny. Either she couldn't find a basket, the town lost their Easter Bunny and had to find a new one, the bunny had to keep her babies safe from hunters, and another story about what the Easter bunny does "but the real reason for Easter is because Jesus Christ was resurrected".  His parents would be proud. :)

And of course, an ice cream party :)  1st graders make the grossest ice cream sundaes, let me tell you.  But they'll eat anything!

My teacher was fantastic and really taught me to have fun with the kids - basically I just feel really lucky to have had the experiences I've had and wouldn't trade them for anything!   

Now I'm just busy getting last minute errands done, packing/organizing/cleaning, and getting all set for graduation and moving!  It's crazy to think of all the changes coming our way: moving to Boise, new(bigger, nicer, above ground) apartment, Devin's new job, starting a family, hooray! Pin It

Luck of the Irish!

Holidays are seriously TEN TIMES more fun when celebrated in elementary school! 

Although St. Patrick's Day is on Saturday, we celebrated it today, learning some things about Ireland, limericks, and other poems about leprechauns/Irish things.  Their favorite were the math centers, one of which being Graphing Skittles (the colors) and doing math problems with the amount of each color.  

And then Lucky the Leprechaun paid a visit:

(aka Mrs. P and I came and rummaged through/destroyed our classroom while the kids were at Art)

 

Please note- boy on the right with hands on his head like "Is this really happening?"  

The best part was:  THEY TOTALLY BOUGHT IT.  Lucky the Leprechaun REALLY visited our classroom.  The kids immediately started searching for him and coming up with traps to catch him. Haha! 

 (And of course they quickly had the disaster cleaned up in like 10 minutes because they are the most OCD 6 year olds I've ever met).  

After/while seeing the FURIOSITY in these little people were over what Lucky did, I decided they should take their anger out on paper by writing him a letter about how they felt when they walked in the classroom and saw it or what they thought of what he did.  The second I finished explaining this, kids were running up to me, grabbing paper, running to their desks, and writing like CRAZY!  I've never seen them so passionate about anything haha...so worth it !

Results:

Boy #1: Dear Lucky, Why are you so mean? Why don't you be nice if you don't no presents from Christmas.

Boy #2: Dear Lucky, You are a bad leprechaun. You're very bad.  Give me your gloud (gold). 

Boy #3: Dear Leprechaun Lucky, Please tell us where you are and where you are hiding. We need to find you Lucky! Or give us cloos (clues) to find you.  

I'm telling you, they totally fell for it. 

Girl #1: Dear Leprechaun, You will get pau bake (pay back) for this! You meany leprechaun poop. 

Girl #2: Dear Lucky, Please do not mess up our class room.  Pleas pretey pleas. Could I see you I would like some gold!!!

Girl #3: Dear Lucky, It was not funny. Maybe it was fun and funny to you.  But it was not fun to me.

Once again, another fulfilling day in 1st grade.  3 weeks down, 3 weeks to go!

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"These things are fun, and fun is good." -Dr. Seuss

 

 

 

Devin totally made fun of me today when talking to a friend, saying "Claire wants to watch a Dr. Seuss movie tonight.  It's Dr. Seuss's birthday - she thinks it's a holiday."  (This was in the middle of making green eggs)   
I'LL SHARE A SECRET WITH YOU: when making green eggs, don't add green, add blue!  When combined with the yellow of the eggs, it makes the perfect green color.  You can thank the preschool for that little tip :)

What can I say?  It's hard not to be excited about something so fun when you're around kids and reading silly things like One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish all day!  I just love celebrating something that has created and promotes joy in reading, rhyming, and having an imagination. 

Fun facts

-To pen the name "Dr. Seuss", he used his middle name and his father's dream. Seuss was his middle name and he put Dr. in front of it because his father had always wanted him to be a doctor.

- He used 220 words in "The Cat in the Hat". His publisher heard that 1st graders were having trouble learning to read because the books were boring so he thought he would send Dr. Seuss a list of 400 words. He asked him to narrow it down to 250 and Dr. Seuss narrowed it to 220 words.

-"And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street" was his first book. 

I'm so glad he chose to be a writer instead! Here are some of his fantastic words to live by:

(click image to enlarge)

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New Class

Woohoo!  I've been in a 1st grade class since Monday afternoon and loving every minute of it :) I've never gotten so many hugs in one day, they are seriously so loving - even the boys.

Favorite quotes so far

1st day/hour:
-Boy: You remind me of my aunt Mary! (as soon as I walked in the door - we've been best friends ever since)
-Wow, I like you already - I can tell I'm going to like you as much as Mrs. P
-I just love you so much (with a hug)

2nd day:
-Where are your glasses? [from my favorite girl who wears everything purple everyday, including purple glasses.  We totally bonded the first day when I was wearing glasses, too (thanks to the no sleep I got the night before, TWS)]
-(after lunch/recess)  I just thought you should know, I'm saving my chips for the bus so that I can have a yummy snack on the way home! 
-Is there anything I can help you with?  I just really want to do something for you, like - should I make you a card or something? (from purple girl)

Today: 
-Purple girl: My birthday is March 11th so you can start making me a card now if you want to.  I just want some really nice cards.

Gah. so precious.

Since the TWS was turned in, this has been a pretty chill week.  Our friends, Mike and Jenna, picked us up yesterday to go to IHOP for FREE PANCAKES on National Pancake Day!  We were expecting like 1 or 2 each, but no...they gave us each THREE pancakes!! It was awesome, and so fun to see them again :)

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