Weather!

Wow what a day, we had some really bad weather here today. We spent most of our day in the hall, but my students did really well. I took some time this morning to let my students know that we would be having some storms (because most of their parents had already told them this). We talked about what we should do if we had a tornado drill. 
We were sent to the halls at around 9:00 this morning due to tornado warnings. When we were able to go back to our room it was almost time for our lunch so we got our math lesson in and went to lunch. When we returned from lunch I let my students listen to Storm Is Coming. I have this on CD an I like to let the students listen to a story before I read it to them and show them the pictures. I will read it to them later and show them the pictures.

 

This was a perfect book for today! We compared how the farmer put all of the animals in the barn and how we were put in the hall. We also compared the farmer to our principal and how our principal was taking care of us just like the farmer took care of the animals. 

The students drew a picture about their favorite part of the story. I had planned on letting the students share these with the class. I had planned to let the students compare how they felt  in the hall to how the animal they drew felt in the barn. Well I was not able to do this because we were sent back to the hall again while another set of storms came through.

I am so glad that we were sent to the hall because when I got home and watched the news someone had lost their life in the storms today, homes were destroyed and pictures of a tornado were shown. 

I hope everyone has a safe week and hopefully the bad weather will be past us for a while.

Penny 

Another snow day

Today is yet another snow day. I really needed this day because my son had to have surgery yesterday so it was nice to be able to be home with him.
All these snow days have been nice but I really need to have my students in class for a full week at some point. Between the snow days and flu I haven't seen all of my students for a full week since before Christmas.
I have tried to move ahead without doing so much that my students that are out will get behind but at some point we are going to have to move much faster. It seems just when we are ready to start something new we have a snow day, oh bother. 
Well that's enough complaining.
We have been making some valentines for the Veterans. We made Christmas cards and when I delivered them and ask if it would be ok for us to make some more things in the future the nurse was so nice and almost cried. She told me that they were overwhelmed around the Christmas holidays and then after that it was as if they were forgotten about. 
Veterans are the reason we have the freedoms we do and so I always want to remember them even if it is just with a construction paper card that says 'Thank You'. 

My student understand that the cards are going to the men and women who made / make sure we are able to come to school. I have been keeping hearts and construction paper at a table in our room and each day we take some time to make a card. I have asked other teachers to help if they can and I have had lots of participation.

If your class or school is able to do something like this I would encourage you to do this or something like it.

Here are some pictures of my students making cards to send to the Veterans.

Grondhog day project

Here are some of the books we read for groundhog day . . . 

I found this cute art project at about.com - I'm just posting the pictures because there was a great tutorial already posted here.

My students really enjoyed doing this project.
**I am not allowed to post student pictures, that's why you will see hand only in my post.