A VERY BIG UPDATE!!!

Well, I think it's probably best for me to start by apologizing for taking so long to update all of you on my latest news. There is definitely a good reason I haven't been blogging for the past few months.  Right around the time school started, I received some news that has been pretty darn hard to keep a secret for so long!
I'm going to have a BABY!! My husband and I are so excited!  It's been so fun sharing it in all different ways with our very large and loving community. 
We told our families pretty soon after we found out, but decided to wait a little while before sharing with our school and church communities. This gave me plenty of time to go on pinterest and find some cute ways to break the news.
Here is how we decided to share with our co-workers:

I strategically placed this by the entrance of our staff meeting. You know teachers can't resist deep fried sugar at the end of a long day so it was a pretty safe bet everyone was gonna make a stop by the baked goods before getting settled in for our meeting. It was so much fun to sit and watch everyones reactions!
A few weeks later I shared the news with my students. I decided to "dress up" for halloween and chose a costume idea that would be slightly hard for them to recognize.  The idea was totally lost on them! Which was kinda funny. 

Then to break the news, I had them sit on the carpet and told them we were going to play a game of telephone. I put dashes on the board and left them blank. After I gave the class each word, I wrote it on the board and let them try and decipher the code.  It wasn't until the final word (baby) that they started to get really excited!

I was able to film their reactions to the last word and it's pretty cute to see how quickly they figure it out!

*I mention my "unspoken" in the video.  Basically, my class and I have prayer requests that we write on the board and pray for each week. I told my class around the time I found out I was pregnant that I had an unspoken prayer request, which means it's important but to private to share the details. They were really curious what it could be, but I told them we had to wait and keep praying. About a week before I was planning to tell them the news, I mentioned that I would share what my unspoken prayer request was-which actually built the suspense a little bit more. It was a fun segway into making my announcement.

Finally (after a few more weeks) we decided make it public and put it on Facebook. I waited until we had called family and friends so we could tell them personally.
Here is our announcement:

*My first names Abbie and my husband's name is Brian so I thought this was a fun idea.

It's not my original idea (you can guess where I found it!), but I hadn't seen any of our friend use it so it felt original to me.

We decided to do the photoshoot at an old one room school house (where we took our engagement pics) and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!
Now that I'm heading into my second trimester (next week), I should be feeling a lot more energy and be able to re-join the blogosphere.
Thanks for stopping by!

Five For Friday~First Week of School!

Wow! Can you believe it's been so long since I posted anything?  Sorry to leave you hanging all summer.  I decided to go on a break and fully enjoy my vacation.  Now we are back in business and I am SO EXCITED about this new school year.
Well my first big update is that I no longer teach Kindergarten/First Grade. This year I am teaching a First, Second and Third Grade class. Yep, you read that right- 3 grades!!!!
I don't have a very large class this year so it feels like a manageable challenge.
I'm very pumped to link up for Five for Friday! It's been so long, and it feels incredible to link back up with this wonderful online community of educators.

doodlebugsteaching HERE WE GO:

First Day Selfie- #firstday

This was such a fun way to start our school year!

I was inspired by an idea I found on Pinterest. 

You're Finally Here!

This story was such a huge hit- I can't emphasize enough how much my kiddos loved it. I chose to show the youtube version of the story being read aloud by Arwen Sharp.

Some people have a serious gift for reading children's books aloud with animated expression on tone (I don't feel particularly amazing at this) and this lady is one of the best I've ever heard.

Check out her rendition of this book

After listening to the story, we discussed as a class reasons it took us so long to finally arrive at school…i.e. what we did during summer vacation.

Then we did this cute little follow up craftivity to write about some things we are looking forward to this year. *when you lift the bunny, students' writing is displayed underneath.

 This is only 2 parts of an amazing unit I found on TPT created by Linda Kamp. It was the best way to start the new school year and I'm so thankful I stumbled upon it! (the night before school started, which led to me rewriting my whole weeks worth of lesson plans, but it was definitely worth it. My kids were thoroughly engaged in all the mini lessons it provided)

Check it out HERE

The Marshmallow Challenge

This was another amazing pinterest find! Seriously what did teachers do before pinterest and the internet?? I'm sure glad I can teach with the help of technology.

This FREEBIE was created by A Learning Affair was so much fun!

This activity was a great way to encourage team building and problem solving. In retrospect, I think I should have put the students into teams of four instead of groups of two.

All About Einstein

I always like to kick off science for the year by sharing an inspiring scientist with my students.

Last year I read Meet Einstein and it is one of my favorites, but this year I stumbled upon On A Beam Of Light, and I think it's even better.

It illustrates the way Einstein was different than others, but how that difference set him apart in a wonderful way. It also beautifully describes his life story and accomplishments.

My kids were mesmerized and inspired.

We then drew ourselves as scientists. I encouraged the kids to draw themselves with all the "tools" they might need and the uniform they might want to wear.

They blew me away with their creativity!

*I decided to do a directed drawing to show them what was expected, and let me tell ya- they did not disappoint! :)

Not sure if you can see that little light bulb, but it says "idea"- just way to cute, right?

And finally- Friendship Advertisements

I read this awesome post on iTeachThird featuring Jillian from the Starrspangledplanner.

She created the coolest back to school unit. The activity I implemented this week is called the Friend Wanted activity.

 After the students wrote their friendship advertisements, I typed them up and posted them on the bulletin board. As instructed, I covered each student's name with a post it and let the kids read each others ads and try and guess who wrote it.

This was a big hit!

I could keep going, but I'll just save some fun updates for next time.

Stay Tunned….


Happy Friday Everyone!

Our Chicks have FINALLY Arrived!

The chicks have finally arrived! It has been a busy and wonderful 2 weeks around here and boy do we want to share with you!

This was my first time successfully hatching and I gotta say it was such a rewarding experience.  I highly recommend doing this in your classroom. It is such a great way to teach kids about patience, animal life cycles, the scientific method i.e. making observations and predictions, caring for animals and so much more!
Here are a few things I learned (the hard way, following directions with precision and accuracy is  not really my forte :p ).
1. Research thoroughly before committing to a huge project that involves living things a.k.a. living animals. 2. Follow directions daily (the first time we tried hatching, there were several mistakes we made which caused the hatch to be unsuccessful (unfortunately, none of the chicks made it) *I learned that it is extremely important to have the temperature regulated well before putting the eggs in the incubator. 3. Before you even get the eggs, have a plan for where the chicks will go once they are ready to "graduate" from your classroom. Then have a back up plans and a back up-back up plan (because the last thing you want is to not have a good home secured when they are too big for the classroom and need to move on). It never hurts to have more than one contingency plan in place.
The Big Moment! So the little chicks started hatching on Mother's Day. I checked on them on Sunday morning and they had just started pipping. This is what greeted me when I checked on them Monday morning.

Isn't that so amazing? I felt so giddy when I saw that. I think I was more excited than my students!

This was right after one of our chicks had hatched. We had to keep them in the incubator for several hours so they could dry off before transporting them to their new home.

This is what the shells looked like right after the chicks hatched. Pretty amazing huh?

You can tell the chick on the far right is still drying.

The kids were SO excited to finally get to hold the chicks.

Before holding the chicks, I sent a permission slip home with each of my students and asked their parents to give permission. 

You can download a free copy 

HERE

And finally, this is what the chicks looked like this past Friday. They grew so much in the last 2 weeks. This past week they developed tail and wing feathers. They started getting really rambunctious. By the end of the week they were running around, jumping off their feeder, dumping over their water container and acting really wild. 

It's amazing how fast they grow!

Here are some fun ways we explored chick life cycles and incorporated our new schema into our classwork. 

Our chicken life cycle input chart

 Chicken glyphs and chick craftivities

Check out this fabulous unit created by 

Stacy Johnson

 Incubation Station Math and Literacy Unit

I used it to teach my students everything they needed to know about chicks and it also included some cute craftivities and literacy centers.

 

I hope if you are thinking of hatching chicks your kiddos that this post helps make your hatch easier and more enjoyable.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend Ya'll!

Now it's time for me to go out and enjoy the sunshine :)

April Currently!

http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com

Well I can't believe this month has gone by so quickly and I am just now posting this! 

I'm linking up with Farley (just in the nick of time) to share what's been going on in my world currently in April.

~Listening~

To the Kid President.

This kid is just too much! Such a hilarious little guy. I could listen to him all day :)

(he makes me chuckle)

~Loving~

Our Weather Unit

We learned all about cloud facts.

And we discussed cloud adjectives:

These ideas came from this awesome unit:

Happy Clouds

And our literature study:

We focused on Author's Purpose as we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

 

I absolutely LOVED using this mini unit and my kids were able to grasp the concept really quickly thanks to these awesome learning posters.

Feel free to grab yourself a copy HERE

We also had an absolute BLAST reading Thunder Cake written by Patricia Polocco then making it together.

It was so tasty!

~Thinking~

About the April Fool's prank I played on my kiddos.

I told them I brought them brownies, and then I showed them the tray with some brown "E" 's

They were pretty good sports and put up with my corny sense humor.

(thank you pinterest!)

~Wanting~

Our Chicks to hatch!

We tried hatching eggs in March and I'm sad to say not a single egg hatched! 

It was so sad, but we decided to try it again. 

We definitely learned some important things from the last time and I have a good feeling about this batch. Fingers crossed they should start hatching on May 10th (Mother's Day, wouldn't that be cool!)

So we are on round 2

~Needing~

A NAP…enough said!

~EGGsplain Your Name~

So there are two reasons I named my blog Steppin' Up To First Grade.

Reason #1: I teach a combined Kindergarten/First grade class and my kindlers always get to step up to First Grade with me (pretty fun)

Reason #2: Every year our school has a "Step Up" day where students get to "step up" to the next grade and test it out. They always love it!

And with that I'm signing off...