The One About M - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

OMG!  This might be one of my most favorite books of all-time.  I know I say that a lot, but seriously.  Seriously.

Have you read this book?  If not, stop reading it now and go buy the digital version.  I'll wait. . . . 

Ok, good.  So this book was given to me several years ago by a student.  Clearly above a 1st Grade reading level, but that just means it was destined to be a read aloud.  The first time I read it, by myself, prior to reading it to my kiddos I was mesmerized.  It was awesome.  I cried.  I got goosebumps.  I fell in love.  When I read it to my kids they were enthralled.  I cried again.  I got goosebumps again.  I fell deeper in love.  It has become a staple in my classroom ever since.  It is always the first read aloud chapter book I share with my kiddos.  Every class adores it.  Every time I cry, get goosebumps, and reaffirm my love of this book.  It is seriously that good.

Kate DiCamillo has written a timeless tale.  The main character is a china rabbit with a serious lesson to learn.  The story spans decades and touches on such heartfelt topics such as love, loyalty, life, death, destiny, selfishness, pride, the list goes on.  It never ceases to amaze me how into the story the kids get, despite the fact that it is such a serious and higher leveled read.

Now, I will pause here to say that I know of one person who is not a fan of the book.  Amy.  My own dear wife.  I gushed over it to her as I have here with you.  She read it.  She hated it.  What?!  I still don't see how, but she does.  Maybe hate is too strong a word.  Maybe she'll grow to love it.  Although probably not.  Regardless, it remains, in my opinion, as one of the best books in the world.  Read.  It.  Now.

Thanks for hopping by.      

The One About Dr. Seuss

Yes, I know.

I know this post is terribly late.  Horribly Late.  No good, very bad late.  I'm sorry.  But, remember the break?  Well, it happened but the teaching continued.

Do you celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday?  I mean, what's First Grade without this momentous occasion?  The Father of Children's Literature.  Did I just coin that?  Probably not, not my luck.  But it's true.  I'm a huge Dr. Seuss fan and, as it turns out, so are my kiddos this year.  They tore his books up.  In fact, I still have all of my Dr, Seuss books up on top of our library's shelves where we keep the books that relate to what we're studying or interested in.  The kids just keep going back and I don't have the heart to put them away yet.  But I will soon.  Oh, that reminds me, I have to put out my Easter books!  I can't believe I forgot.  Sorry for my squirrel moment there (you know, like the dog in Up).  Anywho.  

Dr. Seuss, yeah, that's where I was.  I have a whole day of fun activities planned.  Dr. Seuss Day is what I call it actually.  It's always the Friday closest to his birthday because, let's face it, only a Friday can support such craziness and fun right?  I do many different activities throughout the day but sadly I did not get a picture of them all here.  Even though my iPhone is never more than a few feet inches away from me, we still got so busy I couldn't capture it all fast enough.  I'll detail the big things here for you and show you some of my favorite pictures.

Now, I am by no means claiming to be totally original in these ideas.  In fact, you likely do most of them yourself.  I just wanted to share what I love about the day.  Maybe you'll relate.]?  Maybe you'll get a new idea?  Maybe you'll just read along with me?  Who knows.  I'll list my resources at the end in case you want to hunt them down for yourself.

This year Dr. Seuss Day coincided, completely by accident, with our Science unit on Earth's Resources/Recycling.  It was totally random, but I think I'll orchestrate this from now on because it worked out so well.  After learning all about resources and the 3 R's, we read The Lorax.  The movie, although they have all seen it a gobzillion times, is still quite relevant so they were pumped.  I was surprised at the number of kids who had not actually read the book!  Gasp!  We read the book and related it to recycling and caring for the planet.  This led to a discussion about what we can do since, maybe just maybe, the Lorax was referring to us at the end of his book.  Each student then chose one thing they could do to help the Earth and wrote it on a little Truffula tree.  We hung these up on our door.  Sorry no pictures :(  But the kiddos loved it and came up with some great ideas.  We also did some comparing and contrasting with my beloved Venn Diagram as we worked on comparing the book to the movie.  

On Dr. Seuss Day we started off around morning snack by reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  I then gave them each a handful of the multicolored goldfish crackers and they sorted and graphed them.  Eating was off limits until their final count had been tallied and recorded.  We then shared our results.  Turns out that the usual color, orange, is by and large the most common color.

One of the other activities we read was I Can Read with My Eyes Shut.  The kids thought this was hilarious and it led us into a discussion about gifts and talents, whether or not they're done with eyes open or shut.  We each then created our own sheet stating what we could do with our eyes shut.  I collected these all and made a book out of them, giving each student a copy.  They loved having everyone else's page to read.  It was fun

No celebration in my class would be complete without a hat, so of course we made a Cat in the Hat hat.  It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with copy paper and a sentence strip!  

We also read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  This is one of my favorite books and I always try to read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins prior to it, if I have time and remember, since he is the main character in both.  Of course, we then make our own oobleck out of water and cornstarch, with green food coloring.  This is so simple but it never fails to impress them.  I got applause with it this year.  Seriously, applause.  I mean I couldn't take all the credit, I found the idea long ago on the Internet.  But I did let them clap, my adoring fans.  I mean, who am I to deny them that?  So we made this and talked about solids and liquids.  We haven't covered this yet in Science so I'll be able to use this when we do to connect it all.  I explained the basic idea of a non-Newtonian fluid and then let the kids get their hands in it.  The expressions on their faces was priceless and I with I could show them all to you.  They LOVED it I tell you.  I'll show you Braeden's picture, it's a good example of the general population's.

The final activity of the day came with Green Eggs and Ham.  They've all read this before and when I pulled it out, they instantly knew what our activity would be!  As it turns out they do like it Sam!  I went easy with the ham part this year, opting for ham lunch meat as I haven't found a great way to get green meat?  The eggs though?  That's easy.  Those little guys tore it all up.  All 18 of them.  I only had one container of lunch meat and one dozen eggs.  What was I thinking?  I could have easily used triple that amount.  You'd have thought they had never eaten eggs or ham before.  That or it is just their all-time favorite meal.  Regardless, I've made a mental note to up the count for next year's activities!

The day ended, along with out green eggs and ham snack, with watching the first half of The Lorax.  I mean, after a day like this I needed a little bit of down time and they had been amazing.  They deserved a little movie time.  Plus, it did tie in with our Venn diagram and discussion from the morning!

All in all it was a very successful day.  Nothing too fancy or extraordinary, I told you that before.  Just great opportunities for learning fun!  I did other small things throughout the day with some other books, but these were the biggest.  How about you?  How did you celebrate?  Did you celebrate?  Any tips, tricks, or ideas you'd like to share?  I've already created a board on Pinterest for Dr. Seuss activities for next year.  I got it started this year but did so too late to incorporate much.  There are so many awesome teachers out there with amazing ideas!  I can't wait until March 2014 to do it all over again!  

Thanks for hopping by!  

- Oh the Places You'll Go - Jodi Southard: fun-in-first.blogspot.com

- Dr. Seuss Noun Sort - Mrs. Saoud: primarygraffiti.blogspot.com

- Dr. Seuss Rhyming Memory Match - Michelle Tomaszewski: thecolorfulclassroom.blogspot.com

- Oh the Punctuation You Will Use! - Annie Minor: awesomein1st.blogspot.com

- Oh the Thinks We Can Think - Abby Mullins: theinspiredapple.blogspot.com

- Seussy Synonyms - Christie Berlener: first-grade-fever.blogspot.com

- The Lorax - Rachel Friedrich: subhubonline.blogspot.com

- A Unit for March 2nd - Rachelle: whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com

  

  

The One About Valentine's Day

Hey!

Ok, so I know by now Valentine's Day is a memory.  But I wanted to recap my day.  As you know I was off the day before that with Stella.  Luckily Amy took Thursday and I headed to work and got to celebrate Valentine's Day with my kiddos.  Poor Amy though had to miss her first Valentine's Day with her kiddos and stay with Stella.  But she got to celebrate Friday when I stayed home since I had the day off.  Anywho.

So, not only was it Valentine's Day, but it was also our Friday since we didn't have school on Friday for staff development.  Plus it was the day before a 4-day weekend.  I was geared up for all kinds of crazy antics and wild behavior from my kiddos.  I had, once again, missed a day.  It wasn't looking good for me.

But, I put on my heart antennae (see above) and braced myself.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  My kiddos were angels, or cupids as it were.  They'd missed me.  I'm not going to toot my own horn or anything (TOOT TOOT) but there is a cute story.  One of my kiddos came into the classroom with his eyes covered chanting, "Please be Mr. Drosche. Please be Mr. Drosche."  When he saw that I was, in fact, back he yelled, "YES!" and raced to give me a hug.  Awesome huh?  :)  So the day went off without a hitch.  

Sadly, as you may have guessed from the previous post, I had to forgo some of my plans and fun thematic things.  My apologies to Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, and a full-on Valentine's Day.  We'll meet again next year.  So, I scrapped some things and we did Valentine's Day activities.  I also took some of the time the kiddos were working on their crafts to sort through and organize absent work and the general disarray of a classroom when a Sub is present.  

But it was a great day!  The icing on the cupcake was the party at the end of the day, after a Pep Rally.  The kids were amazing.  We watched A Charlie Brown Valentine (thanks Netflix for streaming ALL of the Charlie Brown movies, what up!) ate party food, and exchanged valentines.  Peacefully.  Without anyone running around.  No screaming.  No sugar-induced chaos.  It was heaven I tell you, heaven.  Ahhhhh.

So, all in all it was a great day.  It was also the first day in 11, yes 11, school days that all of my kiddos and I were present.  Can you believe that?  For 11 days straight at least one or two kiddos were absent, sometimes with me out to boot!  I hope the illnesses have finally left my classroom for good because I've had about all I can take.  Yuck!

So, finally I'll leave you with some pictures of the cute craftivities we did for Valentine's Day.  The first one is from Cara Carroll's (she is awesome, follow her here) Be Swine (A Valentine Craftivity).  It's free y'all, get it here!  Awesome!  Now, we didn't have time to do all of the activities but I definitely will next year.  This year we did the writing part and they turned out great!  The other pictures show our Love Bug Glyphs.  This is something I made for Valentine's Day and you can get it here.  I love gyphs (a topic for another post) and this one was super fun and easy.  The kids loved it and they made for great decorations for Valentine's Day!  I need to think of a St. Patrick's Day one now!

How did your Valentine's Day go?  Peacefully?  Too much sugar?  What was your favorite craft or activity?  I hope you had an awesome time and are ready for Presidents' Day!

Thanks for hopping by!  :)

Justin Bieber.  HA!  Apparently she's got big plans for him!

Braeden's.  I texted Amy this picture and he melted her heart!

All of our Valenswines!

Even pets can get some love this time of year!

She is a great friend!

Sibling love!

Heart-shaped lips on this one!

Cute!

Heart-shaped eyes.  They really got into the theme!

All of our love bugs hanging out together.

The One About Groundhog Day

Yeah, I know what you're thinking.  "What are you doing posting during the middle of the day?  On a school day?"  Well, truth is I am home with Braeden.  He has the flu.  Yep, it hit us finally.  Amy stayed home with him on Monday and I was out yesterday and again today with him.  Luckily he seems to be on the mend and, fingers crossed, might return tomorrow!  So I've been out and now will deal with the aftermath of having a Sub for 2 days.  Now don't get me wrong, the sub I have is great.  I love her.  But a Sub is still not me.  The kids will still be crazy when I return.  Things still may not get done or, gasp, done the way I would do them.  I bumped some of the fun things I was looking forward to for when I return so that all awaits me tomorrow (I'll return even if Braeden doesn't, Amy will stay home again).  So tomorrow will be a blur of busyness.  Luckily I did take Jackson and Stella in so I was able to set out and prep the room a bit and get the papers from yesterday to grade.  At least I won't get behind in that.  I have grandiose plans of doing my lesson plans today, or at least most of them, so Friday (my usual lesson planning day) is easier.  We'll see if that happens.  I do apologize for not posting yesterday.  I totally meant to but got caught up with laundry, dishes, a sick kid, and creating for TPT of course (I posted 3 new items!).  But here I am today.  The grading is done and laundry and dishes are caught up.  So, time for blogging and more TPT has arrived.  Oh, I just realized I have strayed, surprise, from the title of this post!

So, Groundhog day was Saturday.  This is one of my most favorite days to celebrate in the classroom and it is highly underrated!  I go all-out really and we have a mini unit on groundhogs.  Usually I try to do a lot of it in one day, Groundhog Day, but since it fell on a Saturday this year I decided to spread it out over the course of a week.  Then I ended up missing part of this week so I'll still be cramming it in when I return.  But I'm still looking forward to it!  What do I do?  Funny you should ask, I was just about to tell you!

Well, for starters, last year I found this neat online site called Project Groundhog.  If you have never heard about it before you should totally check it out!  It pairs you up with classrooms across the country to track the weather and communicate for the 6 weeks following Groundhog Day.  It all culminates with the kids deciding if Punxsutawney Phil is a reliable source when it comes to predicting the weather.  Like I said, last year was my first year to do it and I, and the kids, loved it.  So I had to do it again this year.  It is fun and gets the kids involved in a hands-on way.  I highly recommend it for you next year.  

So, that's how it starts.  We have a class Groundhog and her name this year is Rosalinda, totally chosen by the kids when they voted.  We will spend at least this week, and maybe some of next week, studying groundhogs, their way of life, and all about them.  I created a Groundhog Fun Book that you can find here in my TPT store and we will do that as a culmination of our studies.  Also, on this Friday, as part of my Thematic Study, we will make hats, of course, and create a huge burrow (butcher paper over chairs.  The kids will take turns crawling in the burrow and then crawling out to see if they see their shadow.  Said shadow will be caused by another student standing on top of a chair (the sun) shining a flashlight down on them.  I love this part and the kids do too!  They get into it and make cute little groundhogs.  I'll try and post some pictures of all of this once I get them uploaded and edited to hide faces!

Groundhog Day is also special for me because it marks the 1-year anniversary of my TPT store!  It all started a year ago with this FREE resource, an I Have Who Has: Groundhog Day game!  We will of course play this on Friday as well and I'll leave it out for a week or so because the kids love to play it themselves when they finish their work.

So, what about you?  Do you celebrate Groundhog Day?  If so, what do your activities include?  If not, start planning for next year now!  Maybe I'll meet up with you on Project Groundhog!  Are there any special days that you feel are neglected and love to celebrate in your classroom?  What are they?  Well, regardless, enjoy the early spring that Phil has predicted.  Also, head on over to my TPT store to check out my first ever product and play it with your students!  Enjoy!

Thanks for hopping by!  

The One About the Superbowl Sunday Sale

Hey!   Well, as you can tell I am also participating in the TPT Sunday Super Sale!  Starting tomorrow, February 2, through Monday, February 4, everything in my store will be 10% off!  Stack that with TPT's 10% and you can save 10% on everything I have to offer!

I Have Who Has games, Groundhog Day stuff, February Math Journals, and much more!  It's all on sale!  So, head on over and check it out.  I know I'll be spending quite a bit of time with Amy this weekend scouring TPT and my favorite sellers for some great deals!

Enjoy!  :)

The One About 100 Day - with Pictures

The big day!

Well, last Thursday was 100 Day.  I'm sure you're busy planning your own 100 Day as you read this as I doubt there are that many people who started as early as we did.  One of the perks of being in a private school.  Sure, we may start earlier than everyone else.  But that also means we get out earlier!  No school in June for me!  It also means that 100 Day falls toward the end of January.

So, what are your plans for 100 Day?  As mentioned in the previous post, (sorry it's been a week again) I spend the entire day celebrating the big day.  The kids had a great time and it just so happens that this week we are studying number patterns in Math.  You know, counting on a hundred cart, skip counting, etc.  So last week's festivities were the perfect introduction to that.  They loved making the Froot Loop necklaces, as always, and the little book I made for them too!  Another hit was the 100 Day snack.  Although it came with its own frustrations.  For the first time ever, after 9 years of doing this, I didn't have everyone bring in what their parents signed up for!  I was 3 items short!  This wasn't 70 Day!  Luckily, after some rummaging through the Early Childhood snack supplies and a re-purposing of a bag of Lays potato chips (hey, I was desperate), we had our 100 items!  You've got to roll with the punches people, you know what I mean!  

I took some pictures of it all but I'm only going to show Braeden's face since he's mine.  I'm going to have to get creative next year when I don't have my own kid in my class.  I've blurred the faces of some friends out below but it kind of creeps me out.  Maybe a cute smiley face?  Anywho, I'll figure that out later.  On with the pictures:

Some friends working on their necklaces.

Another friend with his 100 year-old self

Two students reading our 100 Day books: The Night Before the 100th Day of School & 100 Hungry Ants!

Braeden making his Froot Loop necklace

Braeden and his 100 year-old self!

Braeden showing his 100 Day Project - a Lego car made of 100 pieces!

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Another 100 Day project: 100 buttons on a shirt!

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B

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100 heart stickers, in the shape of a heart!

So, it was a ton of fun and by the end of the day I was exhausted and felt 100 years-old myself.  But the kids had a blast and we learned a lot.  100 Day is one of my favorites!  The other, Groundhog Day, is coming up!  But that's a post for another, hopefully soon, time. What are your plans for 100 Day?  Dressing up?  Projects?  Snacks?  Froot Loop necklaces?  Whatever your plans, I hope they're great!  100 kinds of fun!  :)

The One About 100 Day

So, I'm still here.  Yeah, I've been MIA for a little while.  Sorry about that.  You know how it goes.  Things get busy and all.  So again I'll promise to post more frequently, this time I mean it!  I promise

Tomorrow is one of my all-time favorite days in 1st Grade - 100 Day!  Now, I'm sure you're the same way, I'm always up for a fun celebration of any sort.  An excuse to do fun thematic learning.  Crafts.  Make silly hats (a total other post I've been meaning to write).  You know, the usual fun stuff that makes this job totally awesome!  I pretty much plan the entire day to center around the number 100.  

Now, I'm not claiming to be totally revolutionary or anything in my celebration.  I'm sure you do some similar things on 100 Day.  How many ways can you count to 100.  What does 100 _____ look like?  What would you do with $100 (always one of my favorite writing assignments).  What would you look like if you were 100 (always one of my favorite crafts).  Then there is the 100 Day project that each student completes at home and brings in to share.  Obligatory, but always fun.  Then there's the 100 Day snack, made from 10 each of 10 different items.  Oh and who can forget 100 day necklaces made of Froot Loops!  And while I'm on it, there's a race to fill in a 100 chart the fastest, first boy and first girl win a prize!  I think you get the picture.  

I always enjoy the 100 day project as a teacher.  Seeing what the kids want to collect and how they want to present it.  However, being a parent of a 1st Grader, I was able to be on the other side if it all this year.  Yikes.  I felt a little bad for all of my former parents.  Just a little though, it's still a great project!  Braeden chose to make a Lego car with 100 Lego pieces.  Not too bad right?  Well, not until you factor in his indecisiveness and perfectionist qualities.  I thought I was going to pull my hair out in frustration at times, but it got finished and he enjoys it.  It will be fun to see him present it tomorrow to his friends.  I know he's proud of it.

I was going to do the whole "Dress Like You're 100 Years Old" idea, but I didn't get it together.  I couldn't make up my mind about it so I just put it off for another year.  However, I did come across a neat photo shoot on Facebook the other day that I think I will share with my students tomorrow prior to their craft of what they will look like when they're 100 years old.  It is a photo shoot a photography set up of men and women who are 100 years or more older.  From a photography standpoint (a little side hobby of mine) they are beautifully done.  They are awesome pictures and it is so amazing to think that these people have been alive for 100 years.  The things they have seen, done, experienced.  It's awesomely mind-boggling.  But I digress.  You can find the pictures here.  I'm going to try an impress the awesomeness of this upon my students but I'm sure there will be giggles and silliness, but I think they will enjoy it.  I mean, what is the likelihood that they have ever seen someone who is 100 years old?  I'm stoked about it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, one last thing I have planned for tomorrow is a fun little book I created for my students to work on throughout the day.  It has some writing prompts (some I've mentioned above), some math work (how many sets of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 are in 100), a some fill-in-the blank page, and a word search.  My kids (and I if truth be told) love these kinds of little booklets with work with so I try to make them when I can.  If you're interested head on over to my TPT store here and check it out!

So, what are your plans for 100 Day?  Do you go all out like I do or do you stick to just a few activities?  Any neat plans/thoughts/ideas you love doing?  My 100 Day is early, earlier than most of yours I'm sure, since we start in mid-August.  I'll try to make it back tomorrow or Friday to share the 100 Day fun with you and hopefully have some cute pictures of the writing and crafts my kids complete!  Until then, hoppy teaching!  

The One About the Christmas Gift

So, I haven't been teaching for decades, although next year I'll be wrapping up my first one.  Yikes, where has the time gone?  But I digress.  Anywho.  9 Christmas seasons into my teaching career and I have had my share of gifts as I'm sure you have.  There are your usual ones: candy, gift cards (Starbucks being my favorite!), and ornaments.  Then there are the thoughtful handmade ones.  Then there are the random ones.  You know what I'm talking about.  The ones that make you think, "Huh?!"

Now, don't get me wrong.  I truly to love and cherish everything my kids give me.  I always believe it is given in love.  Even if I can't for the life of me figure out what would have possessed someone to purchase it.  Like my first year teaching when, I kid you not, I received a nose hair trimmer.  Seriously.  You can't make that stuff up.  I of course hightailed it to the nearest mirror to see if they were trying to hint at something.  Thankfully that was not the case.  But still, huh?  

As random as that is, it is not the gift I mention in this post's title.  Nope.  This gift is far more random than a nose hair trimmer.  See, it was a few years ago, 4 or 5.  I still remember the little girl, Marcia.  Sweet.  Great parents.  Good student.  So Christmas came around and I have never been a fan of opening presents in front of the kids.  Too intimidating.  Plus there's always so much going on at the Christmas party that sitting down for any extended period of time seems pointless.  So, I always open my presents after the day is over when I'm enjoying the quiet of a classroom and as many leftover sweets as I can consume.  Anywho.  I opened up the present from Marcia.  I was dumbfounded.  It was a giant ostrich egg.  But folks, this was no ordinary ostrich egg.  No sir.  This one was painted with a charging elephant.  But wait!  There's more!  It also came with a stand that was carved to look like, you guess it, an elephant.  I didn't know what to think.  It isn't a horrible gift by any means.  Just random.  A giant painted egg.  An elephant.  I wrote my thank you note and brought it home.

But what do you do with a giant ostrich egg with a painted elephant?  It was not really in keeping with our decor.  So it stayed in its box in the garage.  I guess in a way it's fascinating and I'm drawn to it.  I think about it every Christmas and have occasionally taken it out to look at it.  In a way I guess it has served a purpose.  I remember it.  I remember Marcia.  I'm blogging about it.  It just got me thinking.  What random gift(s) have you received.  Anything better than a nose hair trimmer or painted ostrich egg?  

This post wouldn't be complete without pictures of said egg.  Now, I have to warn you that the pictures do not do it justice at all.  It's extremely glossy so it reflects any kind of light.  But I did my best and I think you get the picture.  Thanks for hopping by!  :)

The egg, in all its glory

Close-up of the stand

It's huge!

It's an elephant.  Painted on an ostrich egg.  How random and awesome is that?!

     

The One About Google Maps

Well hello! By now everyone should have returned to school and should be getting back into the swing of things. How is the new year treating you? I hope all is going well. I've been back for a week today and so far things are good. The 3-day week last week was good. A 3-day week like that after a long vacation is a catch-22. On one hand it's a bummer to return for only 3 days. I mean, you can't really start anything new and the kids are still all wired and hopped up on Christmas. But, on the other hand, it does give you a brief transition time for them, and you, to ease back into routines and schedules. So I guess it's all in how you look at it. I'm a glass half full kind of person so I'll go with the latter. By the time this Monday rolled around we were fully ready to begin everything and didn't need many reminders or reviews. Anywho.

So, this week I started a new unit in Social Studies. You know the one. regardless of your curriculum or what you teach, it's all pretty similar at this level. Fun and exciting, but similar. This is the unit where we study where we live. You know, like neighborhoods, communities, cities, states, country. You get the drift. Well, I decided to try something new this year. Keeping it fresh and all. In addition to learning the general information and definitions, I decided to have the kids work with Google maps. Oh my.
Now, I am by no means claiming to be the first to have this idea or try it out. I know that is far from the truth. But if you have not done so yet, I highly suggest you try it. Today, after reviewing the terms and defining them again, I introduced Google maps via the SMART Board. I showed them how they can type in the name of our state and see it from a satellite view. Then, how you can do the same with a city and neighborhood. Then it was time to totally wow them and type in an address. I did mine as the example and they were stunned. Clearly they had never used Google maps at all. That or they had no clue of its capabilities.

We zoomed into my house and looked at it from the street view. The kids were thrilled. Having Braeden in my class only made it even more hilarious as he was over the moon about seeing his house on the SMART Board. They quickly jumped ahead and guessed at the next part of the lesson - finding their own house.

We have what we call a COW (Computer On Wheels) that has 24 MacBooks. They each got their computer from the COW and were given the instructions to: log on, open Safari, go to Google, and find Google maps. While they were doing this I wrote their addresses on index cards and gave everyone theirs. The next part of the assignment included typing in their address, finding their house, zooming in, and printing the picture. I blew their little First Grade minds. It was amazing to watch them. Out of 17 kids there wasn't one who wasn't fully engaged and enthralled in the lesson. A few needed some assistance along the way, but most were fully independent. I had a blast watching them and seeing the pure joy on their faces. It was one of those teaching moments. You know the one. You're strutting around and proud of yourself. Best. Teacher. Ever. All 17 finished the assignment. Lucky me, it doubles as a Social Studies grade and a Technology grade! Bonus!

Possibly the best part of this all was that Braeden immediately told Amy about it when we got home and cited it as the "best part" of his day. Later he even insisted Amy sit down so he could show her what he learned. What up!

So, maybe you've used Google maps in the classroom before or maybe you haven't. If you have, do you have any suggestions/hints/secrets to share? If you haven't then what are you waiting for? Do it tomorrow or now if you're reading this at school! I don't know why I waited this long to try it. It is definitely something I will be using in the future. I'm already brainstorming ways in which I can use it more! I think it will be the hot topic in the classroom for a while. I foresee the kids spending a lot of time on Google maps on our classroom computers! What fun!



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