WIN A TEN...TPT GIFTCARD!!!

Hey y'all!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I sure did.  I ate too much, and I laughed too much.  I was thrilled to be with my family and friends!  BUT now I am happy for YOU!  A large group of TPT stores are joining together in a giant blog hop to give away a $10.00 TPT gift card from each store!!  That means me, too!  I am so excited to be part of this awesome giveaway! 

So...buh-lieve it or not...we start our unit “Holidays Around the World” this week.  It's hard for me to believe...we are still eating leftovers from our Thanksgiving dinner.  I will be pulling everything out on Monday after our introduction to the unit.  Luckily, I have these little guys to help me out.  These are PowerPoint presentations (I like to call them ebooks now) on countries that we do for our “Holidays Around the World” unit.  

For each country that we visit, we do a craftivity, a food or drink from that country, and these little PowerPoint presentations.  Of course, you gotta have your passport, too.  Have you ever grabbed my free PowerPoint about Italy?  You can grab it here!  

There are 6 others, too, that you can try as well.  Jolly jingles!!!  This is a great time to grab them since we are having our Cyber-Monday sale at TPT!  By the way…you can just click on each picture to take you to that particular country’s PowerPoint presentation in my store.  They will be on sale this Monday!    

And remember...you have to write to Santa!!  You can find this adorable letter writing kit in my store.  What better time to practice writing letters than at Christmas time? Santa loves to get letters and the kids LOVE to tell what they want...it's a win-win! 

Of course, you could be a winner in my giveaway below!  To enter, just follow me on Facebook and on my Instagram account!  I would love to connect with you.  Plus, it’s a great way to grab ideas, and freebies from me!  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Speaking of freebies…I have an ebook that I think that you will Ab-soil-utely LOVE!  In fact, that is what this little ebook is about…soil! We have a rock unit coming up soon and we use this ebook to introduce and review our unit on soil. Inside you will find useful photos, clear definitions, and fun graphics to help you explain the different types and sizes of soil and rocks.   It will only be free until November 30, 2016…so kick up the dust and head on over to my store!  Let me know what you think!!  It means a lot to me to hear what you have to say because it helps me grow as a TPT author and as a teacher! 

 

As you know, we are having a CYBER MONDAY SALE over at TPT.  I just love TPT sales!!! They make this girl jolly!!!  J  I love all of the sales in the stores and I love entering my code to get the extra percentage off…woohoo!  (Don’t forget your code: CYBER2016 by the way!) My cart is full already and so every penny helps this girl!!! It makes my bells do a jingle!  Is you cart full, too?

To top it off…I was one of the lucky stores that won a gift card to give away!! I am so excited to be giving it to one of my friends… YOU!!  To enter...just fill out the information for the rafflecopter below.  Winners will be notified Monday at 12:00 am. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope your Sunday is wonderful.  Have a great time at the Cyber-Monday sale and I will see you at TPT!!!   Remember to click on the button below to go to the next giveaway at the awesome Daisy Designs! :) 

Lights and Shadows Again with Mrs. Grooms' Room

Hello sweet friends!

I hope that everyone has been keeping warm!!  We had TWO snow days!!  I am so proud because snow days are just not common down here.  Give us a snowflake though and we got a snow day, and you know that is true if you live in the South!

We started our Light and Shadows Unit a weeks ago before the snow and so now we are teaching at the speed of light to catch up. 

We have been talking about how light travels in a straight line and my students actually got to practice.  Seriously, it feels like magic in my room!  They are like "OOOH AAAH!" when the flashlights are on!   My students used a flashlight to shine on each object.  This experiment was so easy to do. Seriously, the hardest part was cutting out the holes in the cardboard pieces. Invest in some really good laser/flashlights because it will give you the direct ray of light that you need in your experiments.

Here they are practicing! 

Jennifer over at Rowdy in First Grade does a CUTE flashlight that says just that!  "Light travels in a straight line!"  You should totally check it out and it's FREE! 


We also looked at objects that were made from materials that allowed light to pass through (transparent), we looked at some materials that allowed some light to travel through (translucent), and then we looked at some materials that would not allow any light to pass through (opaque).   

I was so proud because most of them did a fantastic job sorting all the materials! Here are some of their sorts...

Remember to give them a variety of objects but don't overwhelm them. Sometimes too much is just waaaay too much. 

My firsties really had a good discussion about objects like tubes and washers.  Some of my students felt like the washer and tube might be transparent because of the hole in the washer and the opening of the inside of the tube. This is fair because the hole is seemly part of the object. BUT they finally concluded that the hole and opening were not part of the material and that the material was opaque.  YEAH for my kiddies!  

My students then had to draw three objects in each column that were transparent, translucent, and opaque.  You can get your own copy free by just clicking on the photo! 

We are headed back into our light and shadow bins because we are going to be looking at what materials reflect light and what materials absorb light.  Again my students will get to use flashlights!! (They will be shouting WOO-HOO!) 

They will shine the light on materials to see if the light reflects or absorbs. 

 Materials that are shiny are great to use for reflective objects...anything metallic, shiny plastics, glass-like objects, or ceramics (small shiny tiles).  Materials that absorb light may be things like cardboard, wood, brick materials, or cloth.  We will be looking at most of these things and writing them down.

If you would like a copy of our record sheet, you can click on the picture below.

  

Now that's not all.  Seriously, I could talk for days on lights and shadows and about all the fun things that you can do with this unit. But for Groundhog's Day we will be talking about shadows!  I found this cute little activity over at Owls and Owls of Fun!!  Seriously, it is adorable and we will drawing this little guy's shadow! Thanks Owls and Owls of Fun!  We will also be predicting whether or not this little guy will see his shadow for 6 more weeks of winter. 

We will be using our own groundhog template to create a shadow. You can find it here or by clicking on the photo below. Just color and cut out and attache the groundhog to your construction paper.  

My students are going to cast a shadow with a flashlight of the paper groundhog onto white construction paper and color the shadow black.  The photo above shows they used black construction paper instead.   (I can't wait to see how they do!  I will definitely keep you updated!) 

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Hoping you have a lovely February!!

Remember to stop by my store to grab some  free Valentines...they are a joke! 

 Literally.  : )

Just Follow Me by just clicking on the little star by my name!! 

An InLinkz Link-up

I TEACH FIRST LINKY: LIGHT AND SHADOWS

Hey everyone!!!  I hope everyone is having a great start to the NEW YEAR!  It's always great to have a fresh start and a clean slate.  (Although, is it just me or does your new year always begin in August?)  : ) 

One of the things that I have been working on during my winter break is our lesson plans in science.  By the way, we have a brand new standard this year in science!!  (AND new standards are always exciting!) 

Drum roll...our new standard is...

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS!! 

I know...so fun...kind of...except...I have never taught light and shadows, EVER!!!   (Confession is good for the soul.)  I mean, I have always taught first grade standards, AND light and shadows have never been one of our standards until now.  

So I definitely had to share what I learned with my first grade friends!! YOU!  I have a lot of ideas, freebies, and links that you might be able to use, too.  This blog post is part one of two...so hang tight...shadows will be coming next week!!  

We are going to launch our unit with Oscar and the Moth by Geoff Waring.  He has a great collection of easy to understand books on science.  This particular book is about light and shadows.  Oscar the cat and his new friend the moth set out on a little journey to learn about shadows and light.  Isn't Oscar a cutie?  

Light is energy and it makes objects visible and without it, we cannot see anything! So we are going to first discuss the kinds of light that we find in our world and list them by two categories:  natural light and artificial light!  We are going to use an anchor chart just like The Lesson Plan Diva's chart.  Perfect! 

(You can check out her anchor chart by clicking on the photo above.)

We are also going to be looking at all the different types of lights in real life.  Would you include matches or a lighter? I am still debating. 

Since we don't have a real darkroom we are going to be using the restroom in our classroom.  Hysterical! Just the thought of being in the restroom is going to crack my little firsties up!  I am going to take them into the darkroom in groups cause my darkroom is tiny!  My students who are not in the darkroom group will be working on the activity sheet below.  You can find it free here!  

In the darkroom, I am hanging pictures of objects around the room.  I want my students to see them when we shine the flashlight around the darkroom to make them visible because of light.  We will discuss how light makes it possible for them to see the objects.  And when I turn the flashlight off, the objects are no longer visible.  (Yes...I totally expect some shrieks!!  Eesh...but in the name of science, right?)  In their science journals, they are going to record what they observed by drawing or writing what was visible in the darkroom.

If you would like a copy of the pictures that I am going to use in my bathroom darkroom, you can find them here!

We are also going to be looking at peep boxes.  Have you ever used peep boxes?  Kindergarten-Lessons.com is where I learned about peep boxes!!  You should totally check out the website because they have some great suggestions and ideas for light and shadows!  You can click here! 

They are not hard to make and you can easily make one for your students to see. Here is an example of one I made: 

Without light you can't see anything inside...

But with light, you can see lots of things on the inside!  I can't believe this box already had a peep hole!!!!!  

My students are going to record what they see inside the peep boxes in their science journals.  You can find the scene that I used for my peep box here.  It's so fun and exciting to look inside!!!  I will be working on another one this week and I will let you know how it goes!!  

What kind of activities do you do for light and shadows?  I am dying to know!!  

For the second part of our light and shadow unit, we will be talking about shadows and shadows will go along perfectly with Groundhog's Day.  

Yeah!! 
So come on back! 

I can't wait to show you what we are doing with shadows!

Hoping you have a great week back!!  

An InLinkz Link-up