Rocks, rocks, rocks!

Geologist: One who studies rocks, knows a lot about rocks, loves rocks, considers rocks pets, and stuffs her pockets full of rocks.

I've just described my 5-year-old daughter and soon-to-be Kindergartener.  Nothing quite entertains her and holds her attention like rocks.  So when we couldn't get in to see Monsters University at 3:30p.m. last Sunday (because it was sold out), I quickly ran through the possibilities of a plan B.  Throwing rocks! We're on vacation in Northern Minnesota, so most of the beaches here are beautifully rocky.  An even more brilliant idea then popped into my head: we'll collect a few to take home and paint them!

We had a blast painting rocks at the kitchen table...which got me to thinking about 2 things: a book and my classroom.  

 This is a neat book about the 10 rules you must consider when looking for the perfect rock.  This would be a fun beginning of the school year read and activity. Considering the rules and bringing in a rock could be the homework, painting your rock could be the schoolwork.  Kids could keep them on their desks or in a basket and use them as reading buddies (saw that idea somewhere).  I'm sure there are lots of other ideas as well.

It's a turtle...can't see the legs or head though.

Once I finished painting my rock, I started playing around with the plastic plate that was my palette and had a blast mixing the colors, making designs and writing words for my daughter to sound out.  

Then a lightbulb lit UP: this could be a fun way to practice handwriting (whole group or small group).

 

Once we both were finished I had yet another idea: we would take our painted rocks back down to the beach and leave them there for someone else to find so we could bring a smile to someone's face.  And of course if we leave rocks, we'll also have to take some more...

P.S. I wrote this post yesterday and today we went down to the beach to leave our rocks...and get more to paint! Here's mine.  Can you guess what it's supposed to be?

Pomegranates

I can thank one of my students from this past year for introducing me to this:

It was storytime & snack and I was in the middle of reading a book to my students when I noticed that one of my girls was eating something I had never seen before.  So after I finished the story and we transitioned to the next activity on our schedule, I asked her about it and she happily filled me in about pomegranates.  That weekend I bought one at the grocery store and my daughter and I had messy fun trying to get all the deliciously juicy little seeds out! 

That was March.  It's now almost July and we have not been able to find pomegranates in Anchorage ever since!  So I gave up trying to find them again...until last week when I spotted one out of the corner of my eye at Target (of all places) in my hometown in Minnesota.  I was SO excited about my find and even more excited to open it up and extract the seeds!  The inside of a pomegranate is so COOL and my daughter and I have so much messy fun digging in!

 I bought yet another one this week and was determined to find a way to get those seeds out with a lot LESS mess.  I had heard something on NPR about Martha Stewart having a neat and tidy way of doing it, so I looked it up on Youtube and watched a quick video.  Her way is SO simple!

1) Slightly score the skin in quarters and pull it apart into 4 separate pieces.

2) Take a piece and put it in your palm, seed side DOWN.

3) Take a wooden or metal spoon and hit it over and over in your hand.  

4) The ruby red seeds fall like raindrops into your hand and you simply put them into a container or your mouth!

 

What does this have to do with teaching? 
I thought this could be a fun team building activity at the start of the year.  The first day I would give teams a pomegranate, butter knife and wooden spoon and ask them to extract as many seeds as possible, being as neat as they can.  I would take pictures and we'd look at them up on the SmartBoard and discuss what each team did and how they worked together. 

The next day I would teach them the Martha Stewart method and then we would talk about the pomegranate (history, nutrition) and that could lead me into a "healthy morning snack" talk.

Did you know that 1 pomegranate has as much potassium as 10 bananas?  I'm a runner who just did a half marathon and I'd rather eat a pomegranate before running, to avoid leg cramps, than 10 bananas!

  Now I'm hungry!

1 Year Anniversary!

Last June I started this blog as a way to connect with other teachers and share ideas.

It all began with a walk through my mom's garden while thinking about the school year I had just wrapped up.  I think 1st grade is such an important grade because of the growth we see, especially in reading.  Students are really like flowers in many ways, one of which is that they all bloom but not all at the same time.  Most kiddos I get in the fall are like the flower shown above and my job is to feed these flowers with what they need (love, attention, caring, academics, respect, humor) to grow and bloom.

Well today I was at the beach with my daughter.  She LOVES rocks and will probably be a geologist someday. As she was throwing rocks, I started looking around and snapping pictures...  Again it occurred to me: students are also like rocks.  They come in all shapes, sizes and colors and we need to love and teach them all.

     

So if you've been with me from the start, a sincere heartfelt thank you!  If you're just stumbling upon my little blog for the first time today, welcome!  I'd be thrilled to have you follow the First Grade Bloom :)

 

Saturday Apps #2

Welcome to

 This is my 2nd Saturday Apps posting and I ran a half marathon this morning, so I've been doing a lot of resting today and spaced my blog post--almost!  It's now 10:30p.m. but it's still Saturday :)

   

Apps make the world go round....well not quite, but they do make our mobile devices go.  I stumble upon apps, I find apps on Pinterest and Facebook and seek out FREE apps on AppsGoneFree.  Some of these apps are so awesomely useful to me as a teacher that I wanted to start a weekly Linky Party to share the love and encourage others to do the same!

I will share an app or two with you and include pictures or even a video.  I would love it if you would either:  share an app with us (either by linking up -or- leaving a comment with info.) or try out the app I've recommended and let us know what you think.  Apps can be free or cost money.

If you link up, please tell us:

* the name

* the price

* what devices it works on (iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.)

* how you use it

* why it's worth downloading

TinyVox

This week's iPod & iPhone app is FREE and helps me multitask while I run!  I love to listen to Podcasts while I do my long runs so if I get good ideas or if there are things I want to remember, I switch over to this app and record my oral notes so I can listen to them later.

  

You can label each tape, write notes about each tape and listen to the tapes again and again.  You are also able to "share" your tapes via e-mail, Facebook, etc.  The only thing I haven't figured out is how to add on to a tape that is already finished (in case you get ideas later).

You could use this app in the classroom as well, like for having students record themselves for fluency assessment or progress monitoring.  The possibilities are endless really.

Manic Monday

I held my first ever blog giveaway this past weekend, to celebrate the completion of my Writing Dude SmartBoard series.  I'm happy to announce that

Amber L. was the winner and has received the entire 13-lesson MEGA pack as her prize!  I'd like to do another giveaway this summer and am thinking about my Readers' Theater Partner Play packs as prizes...

It's Monday again and I'm still on vacation in Minnesota, where I'm from.

Yesterday we went to a neat festival in Virginia, MN called the Land of the Loons Festival and I bought a very cute handmade bag.  Tomorrow I need to run 12 miles as my last long run before next Saturday's half marathon.  All this while Anchorage is experiencing lots of sun and hot temperatures....rare for that place we call home!

So enough babbling and let's link up with Charity over at 

where I'm sharing an Alphabetical Order SmartBoard file.  One of my goals this summer is to get more of my SmartBoard stuff ready for TPT.  I use my SmartBoard for EVERYTHING and LOVE making games, activities and lessons with it.  I do my entire year of math lessons with it!

But or Butt?

I came across and bought THE funniest, but informative, book yesterday:

I grabbed it off the shelf because:

#1)  Did I just see what I think I saw?

#2) I have a 5-year-old who thinks butts and poop are hilarious.

#3  I was curious...

Not only is this book funny, but it's actually a great non-fiction read!  The whole premise is that the author, a photographer, doesn't always get the perfect animal photograph because they often turn away from him....showing him their butts!  So he decided to make a book about it, ingenious if you ask me!

I started thinking about how I could use this book and when I could read it to my students.  I start non-fiction in January, after winter vacation, so I could do it then.  But I really don't want to wait so long!  So I thought about reading at the beginning of the school year, a month in.  We could do a writing extension called Whose Shoe? where I take a photograph of everyone's shoe and then we do shared writing to come up with a riddle for each student, just like the book.

And lastly, I have to laugh at the author's last name....I read it as tequila, which I think is awesome and, in a margarita, delicious!

Saturday Apps

Welcome to

Apps make the world go round....well not quite, but they do make your mobile devices go.  I stumble upon apps, I find apps on Pinterest and Facebook and seek out FREE apps on AppsGoneFree.  Some of these apps are so awesomely useful to me as a teacher that I wanted to start a weekly Linky Party to share the love and encourage others to do the same!

I will share an app or two with you and include pictures or even a video.  I would love it if you would either:  share an app with us (either by linking up -or- leaving a comment with info.) or try out the app I've recommended and let us know what you think.  Apps can be free or cost money.

If you link up, please tell us:

* the name

* the price

* what devices it works on (iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.)

* how you use it

* why it's worth downloading

I will start with the app, on my iPhone, that I use MOST in my classroom: iTalk.

It's free but there's a $1.99 upgrade to iTalk Premium if you want more features.  I mainly use this app to record and time my students when they are doing their AIMSWeb formal assessments and progress monitoring passages. 

                  

Here's the main screen

You can name it whatever you want.

Here's my kiddo reading.

The list of all the recordings you have.
You replay recordings from here.



You can e-mail these recordings to anyone you'd like and you can play them right from your phone for conferences with parents.

I've also used this app to record myself reading a book that I don't have on CD for my group Listening Center.  I plug my iPhone into a headset station and it becomes my group Listening Center.

You could also use it to record directions for an independent group activity that you're not able to be part of because you're leading another group.

If you're going to let students use an iPhone, it should be an old one you've gotten ahold of and set back to original settings.