And the nominee is.....

I am still soooo thrilled about my Liebster Blog award, but even more thrilled to pass it on.  I am presenting the next Liebster to Pamela at First Class Teacher.

She has some really cute ideas.  Check her out!

-Beth

Plants, Plants, Plants, AWARD!!

Tomorrow is a really big day for my little class.  Our school is hosting an open house/project learning extravaganza, and community members come in to check out projects all of our kiddos have been working on.  Some of those community members even volunteer to judge the projects.  It's a pretty big deal, and we've been working our little fingers to the bone.  Our theme in first grade this year is plants.  I am used to going home covered in marker, glue, and the like, but this week it's been potting soil...definitely different!  Well we are finally finished!  We've got a few different projects all revolving around our plant theme, and they are so stinkin' cute!

My bulletin board is in bloom!  Here are some close ups.

This sweet little flower was a pinterest find.  Love it! 

 And some lovely fact family flowers are sprouting across the bottom of the board.

These beauties are our seed mosaics, and they are my fave!  Every bit of that is some type of bean or seed.  They look amazing, but I will be finding beans in my room from now until next December!

 Then of course, our actual plants, accompanied by a plant life cycle.

And last, but not least, our wonderful art teacher even got in on the act with these huge color wheel flowers.  They are lining the hall leading down to my room and make me smile every morning!

NOW, drumroll please..........can you all hear it?  Okay, good.  I have been nominated for a blog award!!  For real!!

  

Thank you SO much to Marie at The Hands-On Teacher!!  She nominated me for this awesome award and I am super thrilled!

What? Oh, you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Well, "The Liebster Award is awarded to blogs with less than 200 followers. The award is passed along from blogger to blogger and highlights up and coming blogs. Liebe is the word for love in Germany, which is where the award originated."

 Here are the rules:  Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog. Present the Liebster Blog Award to blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

Soooo, now for my choice.  There are so many amazing blogs out there that inspire me every day.  I've got to narrow them down to only blogs with less than 200 followers and then make my choice.  I promise to announce it here tonight.  

Oh, and obviously that little Mardi Gras unit didn't make it!! AH!  Fat Tuesday really jumped up on me and it wasn't quite ready in time.  I'll finish it up and remind you all about it next year. :)  

-Beth 

Hooray and Oops!

Note to self: do not try what are simple tasks on my trusty laptop with my very not-so-trusty school computer.  That little document in the last post that you could have for free?  The formatting went all screwy when I uploaded it.  Sorry!!!! I'm home now and it's all fixed.  If you got the wonky one, try it again here.

And note to everyone else:  I started this little 'ol blog not that long ago and haven't made that many posts.  I've sold a handful of items on TeachersPayTeachers, and am pretty proud of that.  But let me tell ya', logging on to the blog tonight and seeing 5, yes that's 5, F-I-V-E followers on my blog wowed me for sure.  And then, to see that my new follower is neither family member nor co-worker?  Floored, I tell you!! So dear, sweet Fern, thank you so much for making me feel like an official member of the blogosphere!

And oh, for those sweet family members following, trip for a check-up at the doctor today to renew Madi's allergy meds.  Easy right?  Apparently Brady's got a sprained ankle and Madi has mild scoliosis.  Seriously??  They're both fine, but certainly a very random visit with Dr. Hanson.

...contemplating a Mardi Gras mini-unit to correspond with Scott Foresman and enVision Math...stay tuned!

-Beth

Punxsutawney Phil and Madi!

Thursday was Groundhog Day, such an overlooked little holiday.  Not in our household though, since my sweet firstborn arrived on Groundhog Day exactly 11 years ago!  She still has grandparents call to ask if she saw her shadow.  Of course, now she's very mature and rolls her eyes at such silliness.  But in honor of the two most famous groundhogs I've ever heard of, my little group of sweeties and I did some lovely groundhog activities last week.

We did some nonfiction fact gathering and writing.  Did you know a groundhog and a woodchuck were the same thing?  I did NOT!  Ya' learn something new every day.  Or at least once a week. :)

We also read a cute little fiction story "Geoffrey Groundhog Predicts the Weather." 

It was a hit, and just perfect for our skill this week:  character, setting, and plot.  We made these cute little burrows with Phil's or Geoffrey's (or Madi's) head popping up to look around.  They worked quite nicely to display our information from our story.

  The template I made for our character/setting/plot headings would be great to use for any story when you need to find those three biggies.

You can grab it for free right here!

Have a great week ya'll!!

-Beth