What's Happening?

So the school year has began and I've been working away with the new crew.  My new friends are lovely and sweet as can be.  I'm very lucky this year so far!  To even prove it, my Little Bells even were awarded with the outstanding behavior award in Gym by earning the "Golden Shoe Award" and within the same week earning the "Golden Paint Brush Award" in art class. AMAZING! (This has never happened before.)

I don't want to jinx it so I will say no more about it!

 

This year to start Writer's Workshop we have been focusing on punctuation like crazy.  The perfect unit PunctuationPeople to get us started and recognizing the end marks. The puppets were so much fun to make.  My Little Bells were enjoying writing and remembering to add the characters to the end of their sentences by name.  In fact, when they would make a period, they would say "Let's make a meatball period to feed Period Pete."  Crazy I know, but tons of fun!  Oh yeah, the headbands?  Well we were practicing our word works center by creating headbands that we rainbow spelled our sight words on and decorated.

 

 

 I wish everyone a great start to the school year and thank all my parents for a fantastic start! 

It's Been A Long Time!

Hello friends!  Sorry I have been MIA since my last post.  Its been a very crazy summer and I feel like I was running non-stop.  Now that my classroom is set up and I have the first two days with my new cuties under my belt, I finally feel like I can breathe.  Before I can show some shots of classroom, I want to show off some pictures from the summer.

These are pictures of the South Jersey coast line taken from the jetti in Brigantine, New Jersey.  This is where I spent most of my summer.  It's great because we drive on, dump every thing from the back of the truck (all of our beach gear) and play for the day.  I have to admit though, this is where I did most of my summer reading. My girls just love it here!  Across the jetti you can see the Atlantic City casinos.  In this shot the you can see the Show Boat, The Taj Mahal Casino and part of the new Revel. 

   My daughter also got her first WET kiss at six Flags Great Adventure!  It was love at first sight.  LOL!

 

This is Sarah.  I hired my friend's daugher as a teacher's assistant this summer to help me with all of the over whelming materials I laminated that needed to be cut.  She was great and also let my daughter talk her ear off.  I got a little bit behind at the end of the school year and took it all home so I could get it ready for the next school year.  Now I still have to file all of it. Uggg!  I think it will get done after our Back To School Night.  (I hope!)

 

 

 

And finally, my family and I spent some time in Disney World.  That place is the best!  It was our second time going and we had so much fun.  We did and saw so much more this time.  I highly recommend a couple of date nights!  The hubby and I got to spend our anniversary eating at the Califonia Grill and Narcooses. Let me just say....... YUM!  The food was outrageously delicious! 

We also played the night away at the parks going on rides I could never get my kids on. 

 

Oh yeah, I have to mention that my little one found her long lost sister there too.  Merida from BRAVE was so excited to meet her and so were we!  She was so lovely and took her time talking to us.  Her accent was great!

 

 

Well friends I'm so happy that I finally posted and now I vow to get on the ball with blogging.  I'm still new and have a lot to learn, but I'm so excited to share and hear from you!

 

I wish everyone a very peaceful and fun school year with very little drama!

 

 

The Great Out Doors and Surf City

Its been too long since my last post.  School was a little over whelming with DRA testing, report cards, crazy highly motivated students, and packing up the room.  In fact I spent too many hours packing up the room.  Next year I will have to do some things differently! 

May was a lot of fun trying out a camping theme and I absolutely loved every minute of it.  Next year will be even better!  All the centers, stories we read, and writing projects were all about camping.
Thanks to units from The First Grade Parade (Camping unit is Good and Cara's classroom examples really helped!) and First Grade Fever (Woodland Animal unit).   It was a real success thanks to these marvelous women and their amazing ideas they share!

I didn't have time to get too fancy so the students and I cut some pine trees and made owls from First Grade Fever's Woodland animal unit and did owl reports too.

Of course we had to find out who has or has not gone camping before.

Then we wrote about what we would love to do if we went camping. Carson Dellosa had a bulletin board sets and animal cut outs to write spelling words on to add to the fun.

This friend can't wait to roast weenies over an open fire.  LOL!

We also pretendend we went on the hunt with some jars to catch something in the woods.  So much fun to to use our imaginations.  This also became a great writing prompt  "How To Catch A ____"  They caught every thing from frogs, lizzards, butterflies, dragonflies to snakes and snails. 

Of course we concluded are unit with a good old campout day in the classroom.  The kids brought in their sleeping bags and we even had lunch in the classroom.  The chef -that's me - made hotdogs, baked beans and I brought in a variety of chips.  Yes, it was a challenge to serve the children baked beans and let's just say the rhyme is true.  "Beans, beans, the more you eat, the more you ....."  You get what I'm trying to say saying. The afternoon was all about rooting and tooting. 

Then by the end of the day we went on a long hike to the teacher's room (around the corner) and baked up some extra large marshmallows in the oven.  They were the best I had ever made and enjoyed some delicious s'mores.

This was the first time my friend here ever had a s'more.  He was delighted with it!

Then suddenly June was here and for the last two weeks we surfed through the rest of the school year.  We did all things beach and ocean related.  The coolest project we did by far was with a surf board I stole borrowed from my hubby.  I took the student's pictures standing on it in the hallway on two crates.  Then I very carefully cut each kid and surfboard out.  Then we drew a rip curl and beach scene and then glued them on it.  It was such a great writing activity.  "Surfing into Second Grade"

I wish everyone a relaxing and super summer.  Enjoy!



 



Swinging Into Summer!

Happy Teacher Appreciation week to all.  All I can think about is prepping for the next center rotation, DRA testing, and looking forward to end of the year activities!  So here's a peek at our swing kids outside our classroom. They are so much fun to make.  The firsties totally do the background and all the small details like adding bugs, birds, etc.. to really give the feeling (we hope) of being at a park. Of course  I wish I had more room to show the whole display.  This is something I will be working on.  Here they are!

Swinging away in the hallway!

Trying to fit it all in.

I don't know why this is on the side - still learning!

Pirates and good byes

Okay, I swear I'm not being lazy.  I am trying to find the time to do some uploading of pictures, but  something always comes up  or I need to get some where immediately after school like physical therapy. (bad back with a pinched nerve - OUCH!)  

So here are some of the pictures from our pirate week.  It was a blast!   At the end of the week we also said good bye to Miss Dougherty our student teacher. It was a fun and sad day. We celebrated with a cupcake theme and wished her well.


First we brainstormed our AR words.  Then reviewed them.



We played some pirate games site word games.



Made some really cute pirates.



Here's the Bellettini Crew

And finally said good bye!

First offical Blog!

Hi everyone!  I'm so excited to be a new blogger.  I am a huge fan of first grade blogs and now I want to give it a try.  I love the idea of sharing with other teachers and  having a virtual window for parents to see their cuties hard at work. 

So for my official first post (Forget the other one, I had no idea what I was doing.) I want to share about this week's theme.  My firsties have been very busy with every thing pirate.  Thanks to all the great ladies who created pirate units we have been having a blast!  Thank you Babbaling Abby, Anna Brantley, Deanna Jump, First Grade ABCS, and Christie Lamb!  Stay tuned for pictures to come.  Apparently my u drive is down. 

And I also need to give a great big SHOUT OUT to Diana of Custom Blog Designs for her amazing work on my blog.  I LOVE IT!  Thank you again Diana.  So if you need a blog make over or want to start  your own blog and want it to look great, check her out.