I LOVE Whales! (and my first freebie!)

Summer makes me think of the ocean since we spend so much time at the beach - especially since my children are at prime beach age. I'm so blessed to live here in Honolulu, where basically it is beach weather all year long. *Yay!*

When I think of the ocean, I think of whales. I LOVE WHALES! I love going to look for the humpbacks and their calves each winter season.  This week, a pod of Orca were spotted off on the west coast. This was the first time Orca have been seen in Hawaiian waters in several years, so naturally it got everyone excited.  It made me think of my ocean/whale unit that I do with my students each year.

One of the activities in the unit is to look up the sizes of a variety of whales and chart their measurements on a graph.  Then, so the children can actually SEE how long that is, we go out and use yarn to measure how long that would be on our playground or in our courtyard.

We compare our actual life size graph to see just how big the whales are.  Then, as a bonus activity, we try to find out how many first graders long a blue whale is!  (Here's a hint: You're going to need a class of over 20 kids, unless you have some pretty tall kids in your class!)

As much as they complain about laying on the grass, the first graders really love this activity and I do to!  I'm including the graph here as my gift to you. It's nothing fancy, but I'm working on it! =)

Click here to download.

Have a wonderful weekend and God Bless!

Aloha,
-Jenn-

Throwback Thursday & Linky Party Fun!

Hi Friends!

Happy 4th of July!  I'm joining my first "Linky Party" today from Cara, the author of The First Grade Parade. Check it out, by clicking the button below.

While I'm still relatively new to blogging, here's a blog from the past (before I took my hiatus) that might help any of you looking forward to setting up your classrooms real soon! Enjoy!

Aloha!

-Jenn-

Originally Posted on August 2, 2009

I've got one more day of prep left before the troops arrive on Tuesday.  I've added some pictures of what the room looks like now.  Keep in mind I've got about 4-5 hours or so of work to put in, so  bulletin boards and library should look better afterward.  I have yet to put up my CAFE board, but I'm playing around with the idea of changing it to FACE instead.  I love the idea of a CAFE and the word itself sounds more beautiful, but I like that FACE is a word that the kids will have an easier time with since it "follows the rules".   I'd put it up on the board as "The FACE of a Reader".

Do you think I should go with CAFE or FACE?

I'll let you know my decision tomorrow!

From the front looking back.

Read aloud, sharing area.

Games on shelf, looking toward the front of the room.

Science/ Discovery Area.  Student portfolios housed below.

Project Based Learning

This summer, many of our faculty members are reading about and researching ways to incorporate Project Based Learning in our classrooms. Of course, just as many other teachers out there, many of the activities and projects we do in our classrooms are already similar to a project based learning approach. So it's thankfully more of a fine-tuning rather than a curriculum overhaul!

So where to begin?  Well, in my research so far this summer, I've come across some really great websites to help any and all get started with Project Based Learning.

The best website I visited was

I am an Addict!

So here it is the summer of 2013 and I realized I hadn't touched this blog in over a year.  I apologize to my faithful subscribers of 15.  I have to admit, my absence is most in part to an addictive entity that can be summed up in pretty much one word: Pinterest.  Boy, does that website have its hooks in me pretty bad!!

Not only have I been spending most of my free moments perusing the site for great teaching ideas, but I get so self-conscious about the massive amounts of wonderfully written, creatively decorated and nearly professionally produced OTHER first grade websites out there.  I can't really compare with mine.  (Yet!)

The competitor in me yells at me for wasting time LOOKING at those sites when I could be using my time to be working on sprucing up my own and raking in the traffic.  (Aw, but they've got such great ideas! I just have to look a little bit more at their lit centers. Oh, wait, what's this website about? And a linky party??)

The hoarder in me has posted over 1000 pins on teaching alone.  Not to mention the hundreds of others based on cooking, working out, going paleo, kids stuff, home decore, etc.  It goes on and on - literally.  I don't know how and if I can even implement all of these ideas in the school year!  (Oh, but I teach with Dr. Seuss books and this is such a cute Dr. Seuss crafting activity. Oh! And this pinner has a whole board dedicated to Dr. Seuss.  I like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one....)

The organizer in me has realized at the 500th pin on the board titled "Classroom" that perhaps I should have separated categories for each subject area to make searching easier.  That took up a huge chunk of hours as well.

The entrepreneur in me is dying every time I see a Deanna Jump pin linking to her million dollar TPT website.  Can't we all just become millionaires??  Sigh.  DJ Inkers must be making a fortune too, because - is it me or does all of those graphics on TPT look the same? Still have hope that I can create something original.

The realist in me is wondering why I'm even getting back on my blog.  I've got pins to explore, a new PBL curriculum to create for next year, 10+ books I splurged on from Amazon to nerd out to on my first summer off in YEARS!  Not to mention, my own 3 kids are still vying for my attention, my husband is studying for his promotion exam/interview, and I had surgery on my wrist about 3 weeks ago.

So there it is.  Pinterest has become my addiction (in addition to Facebook, Instagram, and Candy Crush).  Again, I apologize to all my faithful subscribers - hopefully there are still some of you left!  I am thrilled that my site has been visited over 3000 times, so there's still hope that I can pick up a few more readers along the way.  Take a look at the past years, but get ready for a new one!  I've got exciting things in store this year as our school jumps head into first into our PBL mindset.  Leave a comment if there is anything you want to see, or just to give me some inspiration to keep going!

Have a wonderful Wednesday! God Bless!

-Jenn-

De-segregating Fraction Circles

A funny thing happened today when we were began our unit on fractions.  Our discussion started off simple: equal parts and what are they.  They are the same size, shape, and they match.  Okay, simple.  Then I brought out the fraction circles and had the kids explore them.

The kids noticed right away that they had to match the colored pieces to make a full circle.  They were especially pleased with themselves because we had just been talking about equal parts and they discovered that each piece was equal.