Graphing Galore

Lately we have been doing lots of fun things with graphing! I LOVED this week because the students get so focused in on what we are doing! To introduce this lesson, I taught students what a graph was and the various types of graphs. Then we went around the room and graphed our favorite type of weather!

Of course with it being Dr. Suess' birthday, we graphed our favorite Dr. Seuss book!

 

We have also been learning about non-fiction books in reading (I'll be sharing ll of those ideas soon).. I love that this graphing lesson was totally common core!!

 

After the students had a week to practice graphs all together, I then gave them a chance to create a graph of their own. They had to figure out a subject and then walk around the classroom to conduct a survey. After that they had to use their data and turn it into a graph to share with the class. They LOVED this activity and still spend a good part of the day trying to figure out a way to make up a new survey!

Aren't they having a BLAST!

We have also been working on contractions. We began our learning by making the contractions alligator. (Not sure who to give credit to for this, but thank you! It was adorable)

The next day we turned into surgeons for one of my favorite activities of all times. CONTRACTION DOCTOR! I gave each student a card with two words on it and it was there job to take their scapula's (scissors) and cut out the bad parts of the words out and then bandage them back together with a band-aid (which is their apostrophe!) Thank you First Grade Parade for this fun idea!

 

We have also been learning the -or and -ore sounds, which if you haven't noticed, there are hardly any resources on this skill. So, I created my own! Click on the image below for your copy!

 

 

Hope that you are enjoying your week! Only 3 days till spring break for us! Whoop whoop!

Rookie Teacher of the Year for the Number 1 district in Florida!

Hello from "Cloud 9"..haha.... I am so excited because just a few weeks ago, I was honored with being titled, St. Johns County "Rookie Teacher of the Year!"hip-hip-hooray! Just to give you a bit of detail, every school in our district (38 of us) selects 1 TOY and ROY for the year. Once those are selected we interview with the district to then possible be selected as the county wide TOY and ROY which is announced at an annual banquet put on by our amazing Education Foundation. The banquet was beautiful and I was joined by my wonderful administration, team, husband and in-laws. Being surrounded by such an amazing support group that night was so precious and humbling. I could not have asked for a better group of people to spend my life with. If you are like me and stay at school all hours of the day, your team becomes your family. It feels great to be able to represent our school and  to make them each so proud! I think that every teacher hopes to win a title such as this, but when I walked into the banquet room and saw teachers that were fellow classmates at Flagler College and peers who were selects for various job interviews after graduation, I knew that there would be no way that I would win.  Despite every one's advice about taking a job at a title one school, my heart had been called to these students since the first day that I volunteered. Back to the evening, our superintendent began reading off the bio of the winner and it didn't even register that I fit all of the pieces to what he was saying. Realization hit when I heard my name called and my table stood up in an uproar of cheering and celebration. After being nudged by my husband to get up, my knee trembling self made it up to the front of the room, somehow! I can say that I should have listened to every ones advice when they told me to have something prepared to say to everyone just in case. Of course I didn't prepare and lucky enough for me, my wonderful husband recorded it for me to see later! Who knew that those few minutes could be such a blur afterwards? 

Check out the video below!

 Video of Rookie Teacher Announcement
Flagler College Article

Here are some pictures from the night!

After shock!

Thank you sweet Sam for all of your love, support and continually listening to me talk about school! Those of you with non-teacher husbands know what I mean! :)

My wonderful administration for giving me a job and chance as a "rookie" teacher!

This team is a blessing. Love them!

I will forever remember that moment because I knew that I had made my school, team and family proud! As if the night of the banquet wasn't enough, I was showered with beautiful flowers, cards, balloons and my very own parking spot at the school!

Needless to say, all of this excitement has been so much fun and a huge honor. To God be the glory for the great things that He has done! Please remember that the Lord can do immeasurably more than you can ever ask or hope for if you just seek after His will and plan for your life!

Blessings to you all,

Kelly Thigpen