This week was a great week in first grade! Of course we did have to complete all of our end-of-year testing, which ate up a lot of our time, but I made sure we also had plenty of fun learning opportunities as well. We started the week by celebrating May the Fourth, Star Wars day!
I find each year that about half of my class usually knows what Star Wars is and the other half…not so much. With that in mind we leaned into some space-themed learning as well and my class absolutely loved it.
A good theme day is great, but I don’t love the stress that often comes with them. I’ve learned that simple really can be best. A themed curriculum review packet, some glow sticks, and interstellar ambience video, and some “wookie cookies” was all we really needed to make the day a fun one.
I have made A LOT of write-the-room packets in my day, but somehow I never added a space-themed set to my library. I remedied that this week and it was a hit. Write-the-room is one of our daily literacy centers and I honestly think it is one of my students’ favorites. I just use masking tape to post the little word cards all around the room for student to find. I have my first graders get a clipboard and a recording sheet and they get right to work. And I always put a themed coloring sheet on the back of the write-the-room recording sheet in case they need a fast finisher.
We also got ready for Mother’s Day this week. I realized I also didn’t have a write-the-room set for Mother’s Day so I remedied that. Two write-the-room sets in one week? I’m on a roll!
For the student gift I had everyone color and decorate a blank puzzle with crayons and sharpies. They LOVED this and the puzzles turned out to be darling. When finished I had my students break up the pieces, put them in a little baggy, and create their own “I love you to pieces” tag. I thought about creating a tag with cute fonts, but student handwriting means way more to mamas and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!
One last fun thing that happened this week was our school-wide cereal domino topple! The school collected boxes of cereal for our local food pantry. The PTA lined them up in the hallways and the entire school lined the halls to watch them topple. So fun!
This next week I am going to be catching up on some science and social studies content. Oh, and I need to start packing up my classroom for summer. The school year is wrapping up and there is so much to do before that last day of school! Have a great week, friends!
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