Valentine's Day Shelf Work

I wanted to post a few pictures of some of the shelf work that the kids did during the month of February.  This is work that they do independently or in a small group while I am either working one-on-one with a student or with a small group.

For this activity the students had to draw three "love monsters" and then add those three numbers together.  This also helped the students practice writing out addition sentences.

This work was called "Roll and Draw a Love Bug".  I did this with my students last year and they loved it.  You and a partner each get a sheet of paper and take turns rolling the die.  For each number on the die you are told to draw a particular part of your "love bug".  The first person to complete their "love bug" wins!

This wasn't exactly a "Valentine" shelf work activity, but it was something my kids needed practice with in math and since it was pink I just went with it.  The kids had to make pink gum drops out of Play-Doh to complete the ten frames.

This was another shelf work activity that was a game for two people.  Each person would roll the die and then add ten to whatever number they rolled.  Then the person would find that number and cover it with one of their colored tiles.  The first person to get all of their colored tiles on the board wins!

This shelf work activity required the students to use red and pink colored pencils to color a heart picture.  The heart had numbers written around it and every section that had an even number you colored pink and every odd section you colored it red.

This shelf work had students fill in the missing numbers out of this 100s chart.  Since there were hearts on the chart instead of simple squares the kids were much more excited about doing it!

This is a game that I have several different versions of (depending on what time of year it is).  It is a two player game.  Each student rolls three dice and adds the three numbers.  Then they cover the corresponding heart with their color tile piece.  The part about this game that the kids love is that you can "bump" your opponent off if you roll the same number.

Since Valentine's Day is on the 14th we practiced tracing, writing, and spelling the number 14.

This shelf work was a simple color by number.  My girls really liked this one.

For this shelf work activity the students had to color certain numbers different colors to make a heart.

Since I have students for two years my goal is to get 2 rotations of shelf work for each Holiday so each student will get to do new shelf work each year.

Christmas Lights

I know it is embarrassing that it is the 10th of May and I am going to do a blog post about something we did for Christmas, but I really wanted to write about a cute craft we did so here we go!


Since our building is the oldest wooden structure in our county we often get visitors on the weekends that are doing local tours and things like that.  So for a local Christmas tour I wanted to decorate our room, but I wanted it to have a personal feel to it.  I found the idea at the blog here.  I didn't have a template or anything so I basically just came up with it as I went.

First I took black construction paper and cut it into rectangles. to make the top of the light.  After cutting out all the rectangles I folded them in half.

Then I attached the black rectangles to the light bulbs that I had made out of several different colors of construction paper. I tried using glue at first, but it wouldn't stick well so I used tape.  I taped only one side of the rectangle to the light.

Then I used a pen to write the children's names on the lights (one letter per light).  I wrote their names in pen and then had them trace over it with glue and then add glitter to it.  The kids were SO excited about getting to use glitter because we NEVER use glitter (I have 31 kids!).  

After the glue/glitter dried I took some yarn and cut a piece long enough to where it covered the length of the name with a little extra on each side.

Then I folded the top part of the black paper over the string and taped it down.  

We hung these from the ceiling all around the room.  They looked so cute and I could just kick myself for not taking a picture of them all hanging up!  Oh well the kids got to enjoy them hanging in our room for several weeks and then I let them take their names home when we got out for Christmas break.

Police Department Visit

Today our local police department came to the school to teach the children about what all the police department does.  The entire school got to participate (except for the preschool as this was during their nap time!) and it was so interesting!!!

This board had several pictures of the different types of police officers as well as the different vehicles.

One of the police helicopters landed on Capitol Park.

This kids thought this was amazing!  It was so cute to see how excited they got!

We got to meet one of the dogs from the k9 unit.

This is a robot that is used on the bomb task force.

A detective had the students touch a piece of paper and then showed them how he could see their finger prints.

We learned that the police department has several helicopters used to be army helicopters.  I believe he said this one flew in the Gulf War.

I am so thankful for our police officers not only for keeping us all safe, but for taking the time out of their busy schedules to come and teach my students.  It was a day that my students won't soon forget!

Hill/Box 2012-2013 School Year

This year brought about several changes for the Hill/Box Cluster.  Probably the biggest change (and one that I am so thankful for!) is that we are a growing group!  This year, as of the first day of school, we have 26 precious 5-7 year olds.  So since our bunch keeps growing we were blessed to have the opportunity to use both classrooms in the downstairs part of our building.  The 9-12 year olds that have been our next door neighbors for the past several years have moved across the street (I cannot tell them thank you enough for giving up their room!!!!) and so we now have both rooms.  During the summer Margaret and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the best thing for the students would be for this school year.....did we want to stay as one class?.....did we want to totally separate?  Since we had such a large number I was hired full time (my dream come true!!!)....so we had a lot of options!

 What we decided (and I think it is the best!) is that we would still be one class, but we would divide the kids up at times.  Margaret is teaching science, journal writing, and life skills and I'm teaching math, handwriting and spelling and then we both teach reading.  Think of it as when you were in high school and you had a homeroom, but then had other teachers the rest of the day.  Both of us get to teach all the students (which we both wanted) and we still get to be one class.  Since The Capitol School is opened from 7:30-5:30 Monday-Thursday and 7:30-2:30 on Friday we have worked out a schedule to where we alternate days that we have to arrive at 7:30......basically which ever one of us gets to school at 7:30 leaves at 3:30 and whichever one comes at 8:30 or 9:30 (depending on the day) stays until 5:30.  The two main groups we have the children divided into this year are the "moons" and "stars" (we are covering the solar system later on in the year).  The moons eat lunch in Margaret's room and go to swimming with her......and the stars eat lunch with me in my room and go to swimming with me.  We tried to not have the rooms called "Mrs. Hill's room" and "Ms. Box's room" because we wanted everyone to understand that we were all one class, but before we even started school we realized that just wouldn't work......not only did the rest of the faculty refer to the rooms as "Margaret's room" and "Hannah's room", but Margaret and I did as well.  So we're one class, but we have Mrs. Hill's room and Ms. Box's room!

Since both of us are at school for the majority of the day I feel as if we are able to do so much more for the children!  I really have loved the first 8 days of school and I can already tell what a wonderful year it is going to be!  I will create a blog later on that deals with our topics for the year in each subject area. Since we have so many students this year our "expert teachers" (Spanish, German, Chinese, art, music, P.E, Swimming) are with our class for a longer period of time each day.  This allows them to have a small group of students at a time and therefore can teach more to the individual than to the group (which is what is most important to us!)

Here are some "after" pictures of what my room looks like......I had taken some before pictures, but then my phone "updated itself" and I have no idea where those pictures went.......I did put them on Instagram, but I'm not really sure how to move pictures from Instagram to this blog so I'm just not going to worry about it!  So here are the "after" pictures:

This is our world rug.....it is where we meet for calendar and any other time we need to all meet together.  I LOVE having all of this open room!

This is our calendar area.  Here we keep track of the weather, seasons, days of the week, schedule and how many days we have been in school.

This is our reading corner.  This year to help keep our books organized I created a sticker system.  For example books about animals all have an orange circle sticker on them.  The bin where animal books go also has an orange sticker on it.  So far this method has worked really well. (Oh and before anyone asks that isn't my guitar......I can't play the guitar to save my life!  Margaret is a wonderful musician and she plays the guitar when we sing songs and during calendar time.)

This is one wall of the room....below the windows are shelves with work on them.

I am standing on the world rug looking at the other half of the room.  This is where we do any work that would require a table.

This is the back door that leads out to the park.  The curtain on the right hides a nice big closet that I use for storage.

This is a close up of the curtains in my room.  I love them so much.  The blue fabric has "hello" written in several different languages.  I love that it not only says hello in the different languages, but it also says what language it is in.  My mom made these curtains for me!

This bench was in the classroom before me.  It was covered in some sort of black material.  I found this laminated fabric at Hancock and then my mom (I couldn't have gotten my room ready without her!) used her staple gun to recover it.  The kids love being able to sit here and read!

Well that was the grand tour of our new room.  It is wonderful and full of space!!!!  I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful space to work!