Summer Is Here!

     Summer has arrived!  It's hard to believe, but I was so ready for it at the end of the school year.  I finished packing the classroom on Friday.  Things have been so busy lately that I haven't written anything.  I'll update what's happened most recently.

     Author Study

  We had been reading lots of Tomie dePaola books lately.  The kids weren't familiar with his books.  His books are some of my favorites.  I just love teaching about Tomie and his books.  About 13 years ago, I took a class on our State Inservice Day taught by a local teacher about Tomie's books.  She had met him and had permission to write materials about his books.  I received materials such as posters, a video, and even a rubber stamp of Strega Nona.  Since then I just love to teach about him.  We spent a couple weeks reading and learning about his personal narrative stories.  We read Tom, The Art Lesson, and The Baby Sister.  While I was teaching about Tomie and his books, I actually found a blogger who had just written a unit on Tomie's books and put it on TpT.  I was in the midst of writing one.  I bought her unit, but may still write and finish my own.  Her name is Linda Kamp and her blog is called Around the Kampfire.  You should check out her blog and store on TpT.

Here's a chart I used from her unit about Author's Point of View.  We did this chart while reading the book The Art Lesson.  Tomie's books are wonderful for teaching about point of view.

We spent another two weeks on Tomie dePaola's fiction books.  We specifically read and learned from his Strega Nona books.  I read Strega Nona, Strega Nona:  Her Story, and Strega Nona Takes a Vacation.  I made a chart by drawing Strega Nona.  The kids gave adjectives to describe her.  (They were so impressed with my drawing telling me that I'm an artist!  I am not very good at drawing.  I have a video where Tomie gives directions on how to draw her.  About 3 years ago I watched the video over and over and drew out steps on how to draw her.  I'm even impressed with myself since I usually can't draw very well!)  I usually end the unit by teaching the students how to draw Strega Nona and then having them write a little bit about the Strega Nona books or character.

We watched two videos.  The first was Tomie speaking to a group of children and their parents.  He read two books on the video to the students:  Tom and Strega Nona.  This is the one where he teaches the children how to draw Strega Nona and a lamb.  The second video was Tomie giving a tour of his home and art and writing studio.  He gives some very good lessons for the students.  This author study was a fun way to end our reading lessons for the year.  If we had more time, I would have taught much more. 

Penguin  Reports

     We were busy finishing up our penguin reports.  Due to time and that the students are only in first grade, I put the students in groups of four.  Each group wrote about one type of penguin.  Each student wrote only about one topic such as Body, Food and Eating, Babies and Young, and Interesting Information.  It took a long time to write because I wanted them to use all of the steps in the Writing Process.  I met with all of the students to edit their writing with them before they published.  At another time, I'll show pictures of the forms we used in the research and the students' writing.

Thoughts About Summer

     Since it was Father's Day only on my second day of vacation, I went to visit my dad on Sunday and stayed until today.  I'm actually needing to load my car and leave soon.

Here is a family picture from when I was only 2-1/2 with Dad.

Later one more brother was added to the family.

         What are my summer plans?  First, I want to relax and get rid of the stress in my life.  It's been a difficult year and I just need to enjoy a stress-free life.  I want to read some books:  some books about teaching and some books that are just fun.  I plan on spending time with family and friends.  I like to make crafts but I don't find much time during the school year.  I do like to rubber stamp and make cards.  I hope to find time to do that some.  Maybe a little vacation -- definitely to the Oregon coast and possibly somewhere else.  No plans yet, though.

        I've thought of dabbing into selling on TpT.  I do like all of the things I see there and would like to see if my creations are things that others would like.  I think summer would be a time I could find time to work on things.  I also want to explore more in the blogging world.  I've had this little blog and only have 26 followers.  I know I don't have exciting things on here.  There is still so much I don't know how to do.  I hope I can do some research as I read other blogs to learn more about how to post things that would interest others, participate in a link (something I don't have the slightest idea how to do), or offer freebies (I did two last summer, but I don't remember how to do it).  Somehow I'll figure things out.

        Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll be back soon!

I Made It! Summer is Here!

     Last Friday was my last official day at school.  Yeah!  I finally made it!  We had two days with the kids that week.  They were busy days!  Tuesday was field day.  Half of the school had field day in the morning.  The other half had it in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we had some rain, so the kids participated in field day under the covered area and in the gym.  They still had fun, though.  They sure enjoyed the bouncy houses!  In the afternoon, we had an End of the Year/ Summer Birthday Party in our classroom.  It was a fun way to end the day and year.  We had ice cream sundaes, cookies, cupcakes, and drinks.  There were 3 parents who volunteered to help.  I really appreciated them dishing up the ice cream while I slowly called kids to go get their ice cream.


     In the last week, the students were learning about Tomie de Paola's Strega Nona stories. The kids had never heard them before.  They really enjoyed it!  We have been doing an author study using Tomie's books about himself as we studied realistic fiction.  It was fun to add some of his fiction books.  I noticed the kids were reading all of the books during Read to Self.  We made a chart that we used as a story map to chart out the characters, setting, problem, and solution.  I saw something like this when I did a search online.  I don't remember what blog it was from because I had ever read this blog before and didn't write it down.

The kids enjoyed repeating the words Strega Nona said when using her magic pasta pot:  

Bubble, bubble pasta pot, Boil me some pasta nice and hot, 

I'm hungry and it's time to sup, Boil enough pasta to fill me up.  

We watched a video that I have of Tomie dePaola speaking to an audience of kids and their parents.  He demonstrated how to draw Strega Nona.  I watched the video over and over at home and drew her in steps so that I could teach the kids.  We ran out of time to draw her, but the kids liked my picture. I did this last year with my third graders. Next year, I will teach this earlier so that we have time.   

 My drawing following Tomie's instructions.

Drawing and writing about Strega Nona by a

third grade student from a year ago.

I also created a binder about Tomie de Paola and his books for the students.  The kids enjoyed reading this during Read to Self.  I'm considering adding more to the binder and writing up an entire unit.  I took a class about 12 years ago on our state inservice day about Tomie de Paola.  It was taught by an Oregon teacher who met Tomie and had permission to write a book about him.  I have enjoyed teaching about his books since then.

It has been fun to see how the kids have started to read Tomie's books.  I'm sure they will continue to look for them next year.

     The teachers worked 3 days after the kids got out.  Because we had 2 snow days and a flood day (very unusual to have a flood day), the superintendent decided that the teachers would need to make it up at the end of the year.  On Thursday we had to work 12 hours.  That was so difficult at the end of the year!  We spent 4 hours in professional development and the rest was used to do as we needed.  Four hours were for finishing grades.  I worked on the grades on Thursday and Friday and barely got them done in time.  There has been a lot of paper work that needed to be turned in to my principal that I also was working on.  I didn't get to work on my room until the weekend.

     I'm still at work busy cleaning and organizing my room.  Why do I let it get so messy?  I have things scattered around the room, but I promised the principal and custodian that I would finish on Monday.  I do want to get out of there and onto my vacation.  I've been going to school around noon and staying until 8:00 p.m.  I am exhausted.  I was going to go today, but I think I need a little break.  Maybe I'll just go for two hours since I am meeting a couple of friends this evening for dinner.  I've known one since 3rd grade and the other since 8th grade.  We haven't seen each other in a long time.  It should be fun!

     I'll work hard to posting more often this summer.  I'm hoping I can learn how to put on here things that I create to share with everyone.  That's something I still need to learn how to do.  I have created some great things this year now that I discovered and know how to use clip art that I'd love to share.  

     Enjoy your weekend!