Morning Message

One of the things I have come to love is Morning Message.  It's a 20 minutes block of time in the morning where we come together on the carpet to read, review, and enjoy a message.  It contains so many skills that we revisit and reinforce.   Morning Message has become an essential to my teaching day.  I believe it brings so much together for each learner.  Here's how it looks...

Marvelous Monday...Editing capitals and punctuation
Tangled Tuesday...unscrambling spelling and high frequency words or sentences
Wacky Wednesday...crazy mispellings, homophones, mistakes, grammar skills, etc
Thinking Thursday...math skills
Fun Friday...jokes, closure questions from Social Studies/Science

There are so many resources about Morning Message.  I have borrowed and stolen so many to make something that fits our first grade classroom.  My favorite part of each message is the ending special saying for our "Deputy of the Day" or student of the day.  I send the messages home each day with that student.  I've been told by former students and their parents that those messages stay up for months and months.  That makes it all worth it!!!

A Sneak Peak...

I wanted to show you the finished product of my crate seats in my classroom.  Here is also a picture of the rocking sofa that matches.  I've had the sofa for about 15 years.  I bought it at a yard sale for $25.  My grandma and I recovered it once and just last summer a wonderful parent of a former student recovered it again.  I love it and so do the kids!  All the first grade blogs and Pinterest postings have inspired me so much.  Check out the lamp!  A Target lamp embellished with felt flowers.  I just used my Sizzix machine to cute some felt and used a felting tool to fuse the flowers together and BAM...a cute lamp!  I am all about cute!  Well, I think these things make my home away from home feel more like a home!

Copy Cat

Well after reading many blogs and Pinterest posts about crate seats, I made my own.  My first graders are loving them and so am I.  Not only are they terrific for partner reading, centers, or just sitting upon, they store things...books, center tasks, art projects, and so much more!  Not only have I loved them, but so do all the teacheres that come in my room.  They are contagious at my school and now there will be more copy cats!!!  They were simple to make too...Home Depot will cut the plywood for you to fit the top of the crate.  Sand the sides.   Cut foam from the fabric store to fit the plywood and adhere it with spray adhesive.  Cover it with fabric and staple gun it to the underside of the plywood.  I added a ribbon pull to make it easier to open the crates.  I finished it with some scotch guard to protect the fabric.  Now, these crate seats have a home in my classroom.  They even match my rocking sofa for reading time!  Love it!!!

Three Down...Many to Go!

Well we made it through the first few weeks.  It's been exhausting, entertaining, and exciting.  I am so pleased with my new class of firsties...all 31 of them!  The more the merrier, right?!  I will post pictures of my classroom soon.  I'm trying to enter the world of blogging, one step at a time.  Happy fall y'all!