Constitution Day

Our school is a big believer in Constitution Day.  On Monday we had an Army National Guard soldier come and speak to us and then we sang patriot songs as a whole school in the auditorium.  It was really neat to hear 520+ students all singing the Star Spangled Banner and This Land is Your Land, among others.  It really makes you proud to be an American where we are free to express ourselves and our country.

We have 5th grade buddies which we do art projects and read with.  Our buddies came down and helped us to complete a patriotic heart, complete with a sentence that says why we love America.  I thought that they turned out darling!

My silly camera would not take a good picture without the glare of what her sentence says so I will just tell you.  "I love America because I get to go to school and learn."  How precious is that?!?!  Sorry I couldn't post pictures of us making them, but our buddies were in all of the pictures.  Go Red, White, and Blue!

Apple Time!

I am going to start posting twice a week (hopefully!) on the happenings within our classroom.  Last Monday, the 10th, we had our first Art Image class.  That is where one fabulous parent comes into the classroom once a month to teach art to our kiddos.  I am so thankful that I have Cori's mom to do mine this year!  Since it is September, we decided to do apple prints.  Here are some of my students creating their apple prints:

 

 

 Here is one of our finished products:

 

 I loved how they were all different and unique.  Some students put lots of apples on their paper, covering it, while one student did one apple of each color and called it good.  I love Fall and Fall themed art.  They had lots of fun with this art project and some even asked if they could eat their apple afterwards :)  Yuck!!!  I, of course, told them no and they smirked at their joke.  A big thanks to Jennifer for setting this up and we are looking forward to next month's project!

Classroom Library

 

This is a little late coming, but this year has been a whirlwind of activity since school started over a month ago.  Along with switching from preschool to first grade, I am also expecting my first child in April.  I am so tickled!  This is another organizational post, along with ideas for setting up your classroom library.  So far, this system is working great with my firsties.  Here is a look:

 The numbered bins on the top shelves are my student's browsing boxes.  Now that school has started, they have 2 books of their choosing from my library along with the monthly theme reader for our Language Arts curriculum and books that we have read in their group during guided reading for the current theme.  As you can see, I have lots of choices for the students to pick from to find a book. I  was just holing them up in the cabinet and thought that I would put them all out this year, except for a few that I don't want handled.  The books are sorted by Author or topic.  The big crate houses my Beanie Babies, which we use as quiet reading buddies.  The two empty bins will hold the seasonal books that I change out monthly.  The book bin labels are courtesy of my TPT store.  You can get those by clicking on the picture below.

 

 I also sell these sets in Primary Polka Dots and Plain borders.  I also have a second set of labels in all three themes to expand your library selection.  Here is a close up view of my bins.  Each bin is labeled with the large label, which matches a smaller label that is placed on the inside front cover of each book.  This allows the students to put the books back into the correct bin.