Dear Santa,

Happy December! (Well, almost!)

One of my favorite December activities is to have my students write letters to Santa. But not just any letter will do, they must write friendly letters. The students may give Santa compliments and they may ask questions, but they may not ask for anything. We write the letters and then send them. The friendly letter strategy must work because my students ALWAYS get return letters. Santa is so very busy in December that he assigns his elves to respond. So each of my students receives a letter from a different elf. Typically these letters arrive just before our winter break and just as I finish reading Polar Express. The amazing thing is that when the envelope arrives it is ICE COLD - really!!!! Hmmm... since it is coming from the North Pole, that makes sense, right? When we open the envelope, we find a letter for each child AND ...drumroll please ... A BELL!!!! Just like in the Polar Express!!!! Don't you just love Santa?!?!


Okay, for those of you who don't believe Santa is real (I hope that is NONE of you!!!) ... here is what you can do:
Find an upper grade teacher willing to have her class respond to your letters. Her students will have great fun choosing elf names and thinking of funny answers to the younger children's questions! Once the "elves" write the letters, place the letters and the bells all in a big envelope and put the envelope in the freezer overnight. The next day ask someone you trust to give the envelope to the secretary at the appointed time. Then the very excited secretary calls the room to tell you that a VERY cold package has arrived for your class! Be prepared for screams!!

Love to you all,

Camille Johnson

Trading Day

I love, love, love trying new things and for November my kinder team is trying out "Trading Day". I am especially excited because the firsties in my K/1 combo have never done this before so it will be new, new, new for all of my students! (I really try to not repeat things that my kinders may have done last year - not completely humanly possible, but I try!)

I have to credit a WONDERFUL kindergarten teacher named Kim for many most ALL of the ideas I am about to share. KIM, YOU ARE AMAZING!

So what is Trading Day?
Trading Day is based on the bartering system that the Native Americans used. Students bring in items to trade with one another. The items they bring in must be natural items and not manmade. Examples include: acorns, rocks, raisins. Students have to barter with one another over their trades. (Example: How many rocks does a child trade for one acorn?) We sent home a letter explaining Trading Day to parents. Here is the letter.

The students are going to be making several projects next week to prepare for Trading Day. Since this is my first time to do these things, I don't have photos yet. The activities include:

Choosing a Native American name
Wonderful Kim gave us a list of Native American names. One of my teammates had students pick a name from a bag. Smart!
But being me, I had to make it more complex. I wanted to reinforce the parts of speech with my firsties so we brainstormed a list of animals (nouns) and then a list of adjectives to describe the animals. Sounds great, right? Hmmm... in doing this we got away from true Native American names. Hopping Kangaroo? Jumping Jaguar? Whoops! I did explain that those animals were not native to the United States, but by then my students had their hearts set on certain names so I let them keep those names.

Trading Mats
We will make these from 12X18 pieces of light brown paper. Students will draw Native American symbols on these and then fringe two of the edges. On Friday the students will place all of the items they want to trade on these mats.

Necklaces
Many,many ways to go with these! My class is going to use a Sharpie to make Native American designs on a brown foam circle. (I have precut the circles, punched two holes in each and strung a piece of yarn through the two holes.) A teammate bought some stick-on jewels from Lakeshore, so I am going to have the students make a pattern around the perimeter of the circle using the jewels. (Another way to sneak in academic vocabulary: perimeter.)

Headbands
I cut these out of sentence strips. Then I wrote the chosen Native American names on each strip. Next week the students will use construction paper squares to create patterns. (My plan is to give them 2"X2" squares of many colors. Students may use the squares or create circles or triangles from them.) Then, of course, I will staple the ends together and -voila- a headband! I am thinking of giving the students one feather at each station on Friday, but somehow that doesn't feel authentic. (I really want to be respectful of the Native American cultures and sometimes I cross the line in order to be "cute", but I am really trying not to!)

Vests
Kim (have I already told you she is BRILLIANT?!?) showed me a much easier way to make vests. (Years I made them out of grocery sacks and that was a lot of work.) Instead they will be made out of brown packing paper. Just fold a large piece in half and cut out a hole for the head. Then the students will make designs on the paper. (Sure wish I had a photo!!! They will come, I promise!)

Whew! Lots to do next week! My students are sooo excited and I am sooo, sooo, sooo excited!
Love to all, Camille

A Pinterest Discovery!

Like all of you I love Pinterest and I just discovered something NEW and EXCITING at Pinterest! The wonderful Charity has created Pinterest boards for each grade level. That's right ... Charity has a board just for kinder and a board just for first grade and so on.

Here are the links:
Kindergarten Pinterest Board
First Grade Pinterest Board

Since I only (ONLY?!?) teach kinder and first those are the only two boards that I care about! Sorry! But if you teach a different grade level, there is help for you.

In addition to the Pinterest boards, Charity also created blog rolls for each grade level. (Does this woman sleep?) These operate out of a site called Teaching Blog Central. If you are interested in other Pinterest sites or blog roll sites, Teaching Blog Central contains ALL of the links.

But for my special kinder and first grade friends, here are the links:
Kindergarten Club
First Grade Faculty

So now the question is: Will we ever sleep?

Camille

Let the Children Speak

Hi all! I am now in the midst of parent conferences and thought I would share a technique I use. Although I conference with parents only, I want each child's voice to be heard at their conference. So I send home a list of five questions that parents are to ask their children ahead of time. For example: What is your favorite part of first grade? I also include three questions for the parents to think about ahead of time.

I begin each conference by going over the form with the parents. The comments from the students serves as a reminder that they are the focus of the conference. The comments from the parents give me a heads up as to any special direction the conference should take.

Here is the form I use. It is simple, but powerful.
First Grade Questionnaire

I hope this is helpful!
Camille

Want a treat? Try DonorsChoose!

What treat are you wishing for? More math manipulatives? Leveled readers? Digital cameras?

Today's post is all about DonorsChoose. Don't panic, this is NOT a request for donations, instead I am going to encourage all of you to write up a project for DonorsChoose.

When DonorsChoose first started, I tried it out but wasn't impressed. I wrote up a project, but nobody (and I mean NOBODY) made a donation. After three l.o.n.g months, the project expired and I felt foolish for wasting my time. (I also felt very unloved!) It also bothered me that the fees for shipping, handling and overhead seemed so high. (Later, I came to realize the unbelievable time and effort that goes into running the nonprofit called DonorsChoose. Now I believe that every extra penny they tack on is reasonable and WELL worth it!)

Then ... I ran into some teachers who had their projects fully funded and I decided to give it another go. Brilliant idea! I have now had five projects funded (four of those in the last two months)!!! What types of materials did I receive? So glad you asked!! Digital cameras, a Bamboo tablet, watercolors, and lots and lots of leveled readers.

There are certain stipulations but in general, teachers who teach at a public school in the United States qualify.

I don't like to ask people for things, so I have never posted my projects on Facebook or Twittered about them. (But you could.) I have also never told classroom parents, coworkers or friends about my projects. (I really, really am shy about that type of thing!!) So, just think, if I am getting my projects funded, all of you outgoing bloggets are likely to get your projects funded much, much faster than I do!!!!


My hints:
**Start by looking at projects that are already posted. Get ideas from these about the types of materials you can request.
**Make your projects worth less than $400. People like to donate to projects that look like they may be funded soon.
**Have a catchy title. (Okay, this is hit or miss for me. But it really does help!)
**Take advantage of any special funding. One of my leveled reader projects was 75% funded by a publisher because I followed their rules and mentioned their product in my proposal. (I LOVE their books so it was easy!) Then my second leveled reader project was 75% funded by NEA because they were funding literacy projects. Check the list of special funding available and write your projects accordingly.

Feel free to ask me questions. I HEART DonorsChoose!

Happy, happy birthday ideas

How much do you love Dr. Jean? I think maybe she is wonderful times a gazillion!

I was just reading Dr. Jean's blog. In this post she shares the idea of acting out a birthday cake with children as candles and as the cake. Meanwhile everyone is chanting about the birthday. How cute is that? (Do all primary teachers love, love, love cute? I think so!) Since I have had quite a few birthdays already this year (I mean the kiddos, not me: I only have one a year.) I will have to wait and try this idea next year. But in the meantime, here is what I do ...

Each child begins the day with a birthday bag on their desk. (See my previous post for an explanation of the birthday bags.) Then later in the day my class sits on the floor in a birthday circle. (Or as my kiddos this year call it: "birthday square" since we sit on the perimeter of our square carpet.) I pass around a stuffed bear and each child turns to the birthday child and says something - I aim for a compliment, but at the beginning of the year, "Happy birthday" will suffice. The birthday child says "Thank you" and the other child says "You're welcome". (I try to fit in manners whenever I can!!!) Then the bear is passed to the next child. Next we sing "Happy birthday" and then we sing "Happy birthday" using sign language. The birthday child tells us one thing she/he really likes to do and we create a "birthday sign" by "signing" the first letter of the child's name performing that action.

I love the compliment time. It is so precious to hear what the children have to say. The birthday children are always beaming throughout this event.

Camille

We are family! (... fact families that is)

"We are family! Brothers and sisters are we. We are family; get up everybody and sing!" Don't you just love that song by the Pointer Sisters? If I was brilliant I would turn it into a song about fact families. But, alas, I am not brilliant, so instead I have a few fact family games to share with you.

In math my firsties are learning about the relationship between addition and subtraction. Even though my math program (Envision) doesn't teach fact families for awhile, I like to introduce them now. It just makes sense to me.

So I made up a simple game called "Fact Family Toss". To play this game you need two dice and a piece of paper for each child. The child tosses both dice, adds the number together and then writes out four equations (a fact family) using the three numbers (both dice numbers and the sum). I have students start out with the typical dice with numbers 1-6, but later add in a variety of dice: ten sided dice, twelve sided dice, dice made from wooden cubes that I have written numbers on ...

Then there is also, "Domino Fact Families". Same idea. The child chooses a domino, adds the two numbers together and then creates a fact family using those three numbers.

For a much cuter fact family game, go to the First Grade Fever blog. Christie has posted French Fry Fact Families. Yes, it is as cute as it sounds and it is free!

"We are fact families! Sums and differences are we! We are fact families; get up everybody and sing!" Hmmm ... just doesn't work!