Mouse O'Clock

My firsties and I spent last week learning about and perfecting our knowledge of telling time. In first grade, they only have to be able to tell time to the half hour. This blew my mind after teaching second grade where I taught five minute intervals. (I'm not going to lie - after my firsties mastered the half hour, we moved onto discussing the five minute intervals as well. Never hurts to give them extra knowledge!)

I love doing crafts, especially towards the end of the week when things get a bit hectic and I need a break from the mundane. Last week, we took all of our clock knowledge and used it to create our own sentences about a mouse running up the clock. I started the week by reading the nursery rhyme of "Hickory Dickory Dock," so the kids really enjoyed this ending activity.  Here are a few of their cute mice.

This will eventually be part of the time unit I'm working on, but for now, I'm sharing it as a FREEBIE. To get the clock sheet, just click on the last picture (the one featuring the work hanging in the hallway). 

I explained to the students how they were going to do this craft and then I showed them my mouse. I cut an example body out of paper, but I didn't give them detailed instructions or a template to trace. This is how they all turned out unique! I love the fact that each mouse is it's own unique creation.

Happy Wednesday! I hope you're having a good week. :)

Happy Fall Y'all & A Fall Linky Party

It's the first day of fall finally! The weather today is 78 degrees, which is a lot cooler than our 80-90 degree weather that we've had lately.

With fall starting, I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to introduce my lovely kiddos to a few of my favorite fall books. We're working on fiction and nonfiction currently, so the topic of fall is perfect for this!

The first book is Fall Changes by Ellen B. Senisi. We will be using this as our nonfiction text to look at how a nonfiction text is set up. This book goes through some of the changes and activities that come with fall.

The next book I want to share is Leaves by David Ezra Stein. This is an adorable book about a little bear that notices the leaves falling off a tree. He tries to figure out how to put the leaves back on the tree. Eventually, he ends up hibernating (by mistake of course) for winter and wakes when spring comes to the leaves growing on the trees again.  It is a fun fiction read.

The last book we'll be looking at this week is Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall. This is a realistic fiction book that looks at fall. I felt it would be an interesting one to talk about as we explore the properties of fiction and nonfiction. (I found this book in the August/September crate of books that my teaching buddy K and I created last year. When I went to Amazon to find a picture and link for y'all, I was disappointed to see that this book is apparently hard to find making the price incredibly high. I had no idea!)

I know there are a lot more fall books out there, I simply chose the three that I'm reading this week to highlight. We'll also be doing leaf writing, leaf word problems, and more with fall this week.  Keep an eye out for more about these activities!

Do you have a great fall lesson or favorite book list to share? Grab the button and link up below to share your great ideas!