Friday, April 12, 2013

Baseball Hat Freebie!

We ended our baseball unit today! The students had a blast this week and were SUPER into this unit!! If you have not done a baseball unit with your class, DO IT! You will not regret it and the kiddos will love it!! Head over to Katie's blog at Little Kinder Warriors and her TPT store to check out her Baseball Unit!! This has everything you could possibly want in a baseball unit!!! She has SO many fun ideas that your students will enjoy!!! :)


She also has a math and literacy centers pack to go with it!! Check it out!!! - Baseball Centers


I don't know about you but my students are definitely ready for spring, warm weather and being outside! I think this unit reminded them that warm days are ahead! I even had a student bring in baseball donuts!!

YUM!!!
For those of you who enjoyed my cardinal hat - from my last post, I created another adorable baseball hat to go with it!!


Since not everyone is a Cardinals fan, I have made an alternative (equally awesome) ;) baseball hat for you!!
Front view of baseball hat
Side view of baseball hat
 This hat can be run on any color that you wish! You could run it on your school's colors or any team of your choice! I have added this as my first product on Teachers Pay Teachers!!! Please click on any of the pictures above or the link below to head over to TPT and download both patterns!

Baseball Hat Patterns

I hope you enjoy! Please leave me a comment below if you were able to use this in your classroom! I love to hear feedback!! :)

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Baseball Season!

It is hard to believe that it is already April!!! :) Since Monday was the St. Louis Cardinals Home Opener we started our baseball unit!! The kids are already in love with the activities!!! Katie Mense from Little Warriors  is one of my co-workers from last year and also a great friend!! She LOVES baseball!!!  She created an AMAZING baseball unit that has TONS of activities in it!! My firsties are having a blast and it is only Tuesday!! :) You can check out this unit by clicking the link! Little Warriors - Baseball Math and Literacy Unit

One of the activities that we worked on today was the "Baseball or Ballet?" craft and writing activity. The students loved this!! First we listened to the story Baseball Ballerina by Kathryn Cristaldi.




Then we talked about how you can choose which hobbies you enjoy based on what you love to do, rather than if you are a boy or a girl. My kiddos were really in to this! About half of the boys and girls chose baseball,
and the other half chose ballet! :)

This student chose baseball

and this student chose ballet!





 Thank you Katie for this awesome idea!!!! Click on one of the pictures to head to her TPT store and check it out!! 


Since we are also Cardinals fans at my school (super close to St. Louis) I created a Fred bird hat for the students to make and wear!
Front of the hat
Side view of the hat- check out the tail feathers! :)


To make this hat I started by giving each student the hat and the hat bill run on red construction paper. I had the students cut these pieces out and we folded on the dotted line on the hat bill. This makes a flat tab that can be glued onto the base of the hat to make the bill stick out. I had my students put the dotted line underneath so it wasn't showing on the hat, but you can do however you like! :) Then I gave each student the STL circle to cut out and glue to the middle of the hat. I had them set the hat aside and then I gave them the black piece for the head and the white for the two eyes. We cut out the pieces and glued down the eyes. We also then attached the hat just above the eyes. When that was finished, I gave each student the top and bottom pieces of the yellow beak to cut out. We again folded on the dotted line to make the tabs to glue down. We glued down the bottom piece of the beak first and then glued the top part of the beak right on top of the bottom tab (bottom tab was hidden under the top tab). While the students were cutting out their feather for the back of the hat, I walked around stapling the hat (red strips of construction paper) to fit their head, and stapling the bird on the front of the hat. The feather also has a fold line to make a tab, and I stapled this tab to the back as I was walking around. If you would like the masters to make the hat click on the pictures or click the link here- Baseball Hats I hope you enjoy!! Happy baseball season!!!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Easter Bunny Hats and more Easter Fun!

Since Friday was our last day before Spring Break we had to finish up our Easter activities! One of the activities was our egg hunt! With the help from several parents we had enough plastic eggs for each student to find 9 eggs! :) I have some amazing and helpful parents!! Each student was given a number on their Easter bag and all of the eggs had a number written on the outside with a black Sharpie. The students could only pick up an egg if it had their number on it.This way everyone got the same goodies! :)

Our giant stash of Easter eggs! :)








We also made these Easter Bunny hats!! The students loved these!! They especially loved the cotton ball tail on the back of the hat! :)

Front of the bunny hat


Back of the bunny hat


I drew the bunny head, front paws and back paws. Then I copied them onto white construction paper and had the students cut out the pieces. They colored the inside of the ears, nose and inside of the back paws pink. Then I went around to each student with a long white strip of paper and sized it to fit their head. I had the students glue the bunny head and the front paws next to each other and on the back I stapled the two back paws with a space in the middle for the cotton ball. You can attach the cotton ball with white Elmer's glue or you can staple that on too. :) I also stapled another white strip of paper from the back of the bunnies head to the back of the hat. (You can see this strip in the photo showing the back of the bunny hat.) And there you have it! An adorable Easter Bunny hat! The kids LOVED these! Almost as much as the egg hunt. ;) If you love the bunny hats as much as I do, click on the link or on one of the two pictures above to download! Easter Bunny Hats

I hope your students get a kick out of them! Please leave me a comment if you are able to use these in your classroom! :) Happy Easter!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

First Post Ever and Some Easter Fun!

Hello blog land! :) I am super excited because this is my very first post EVER! I am looking forward to sharing ideas and classroom activities with all of the FABULOUS teachers out there! This week my first grade class has been working on an Easter unit, and I have a few Easter goodies to share with all of you! On Wednesday our class listened to the story Flop-Ear by Guido Van Genechten.



In the story Flop-Ear realizes he is different from the other bunnies, because one of his ears stands up while the other flops down. The other bunnies laugh at him, and make jokes about Flop-Ear. After reading the story our class discussed ways that we could show kindness to Flop-Ear. We made a bunny craft and the students wrote down ways that they would be kind to him. I drew a bunny and copied the pieces onto white construction paper. The students cut out and colored in their pieces. Then they glued them to their writing prompt. If you would like a copy of the project click the following link: Bunny Craft and Writing Prompts

Included is a copy of the craft, and two writing prompts (in case you do not have the book I included an Easter bunny prompt that can be used as an alternative!) If you can use this activity in your classroom please leave a comment! :) I would love to hear your feedback!


Here is a boy example (the bow is under his chin)
Here is a girl example (the bow is in her ear)



We also learned about oviparous animals this week! We read stories about animals that lay eggs, and we sorted pictures of oviparous animals onto a class chart. Students picked one oviparous animal that they would like to see pop out of their Easter egg!


If you would like a copy of this activity please click the link below:
The Day My Easter Egg Grew Legs Writing Prompts

The students enjoyed playing a "scrambled egg" spelling game. Students had to find an Easter egg and inside were scrambled spelling words. Students had to figure out the spelling word and rewrite the word correctly on the line.




We also did a step by step Easter Bunny drawing and wrote a short story about our Easter Bunny.


We have been very busy working on our Easter fun this week!! Tomorrow is our last day before Spring Break, so we will be having our Easter egg hunt and some other fun activities to wrap up our unit! I plan to post some more pictures tomorrow! Thank you for stopping by! If you liked any of the ideas please leave a comment below! I am looking forward to posting more soon!! :)