The Perfect Hamburger!

9 days left!!!!!!! 

We can't believe it! Sorry we've been so busy doing/creating/managing/planning/teaching...that we have put off our crazy little blog. So much has happened in the past couple of weeks that we don't know where to begin! We have promised ourselves to sit down and write a more extensive post about the happenings in first grade at some point this week!

Let's just do ANOTHER little recap!

A could of weeks ago we were focusing on, yet again, how to write a "How-To." Our previous How-To we wrote about making ice cream sundaes and the students were able to create their own after that. This time, we decided to write about making the perfect hamburger! As we were planning out our activities, we decided it would be totally crazy-awesome to make little hamburgers as our teacher time activity! We were then inspired by A Cupcake for The Teacher's craftivity called burgerlicious! We used her shapes and added our own "How-To" template to the end of our writing packet and WALL-LA - it was brilliant! It was such a fun activity!

Our school year is coming to and end and it will be bittersweet to say goodbye to our little first graders...oh how they've grown! Our theme this school year is "Rooted in Christ" and we have studied a different fruit of the spirit each month to keep us growing in Christ. It has been amazing year. 

 

"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:17-19

Crazy Re-Cap and FREEBIE!!!

So sorry for the delay in posting on our blog...we've been swamped with preparations for our school's art show and classroom showcase...which is tonight! We are so excited to see all the students artwork all over campus! Let's do a little recap of what's been going on in the Crazy Daisy World...

Last week we celebrated Earth Day...with a little inspiration from some wonderful bloggers/teachers/lovelyladies from The First Grade Parade and A Cupcake for the Teacher . We absolutely love everything that you ladies do! Thank you for the ideas :) Visit their blogs if you are ready to be inspired!

We also had a wonderful visit from the fire department and learned all about fire safety and their cool fire truck! It was so nice of them to take do our field trip at our school instead of us going to them! The kids L-O-V-E-D it!

 This week so far we have been doing some last minute art projects for the art show...we learned about perspective and what things look like up close and far away. We studied how even though objects may look smaller far away, the features are still the same! Our students had a such a blast making these little Space Monsters!

In Math we have been learning about position words and shapes. We made up this little worksheet for the kiddos to do when they finished with their test. It was so cute and they were so quiet and intensely working, I couldn't believe it! They loved tracing their shapes, then of course making fabulous designs on the back with them as well. 

Download our "Tracing Plane Figures" worksheet/activity here! Enjoy!

Have a great week!

Thoughtful Thursday

This week for writing we wrote a How-To. To inspire and engage our students we decided to go a little crazy daisy on them and open up an ice cream shop. The whole group activity was to write a how-to about making an ice cream sundae! We worked through our whole group and interactive writing time, then surprised them at recess with a little make your own sundae and brought our How-To to life!

We make all of our writing packets, inspired by our California Treasurers curriculum. We definitely thought it could use a little sprucing up in the writing department! Our summer goal is to make our writing packets into a workbook for our students to go along with each unit/chapter. And we hope to offer it to all of our wonderful teachers out there in the future! 

Our Sundae Making Shop!

It's amazing to see the growth in their writing since we introduced How-To writing back in November.  Just had to share one of the How-To's one of our students wrote this week...priceless!

Lovin' this!

Have a great rest of the week! 

All About Us!

Welcome to The Crazy Daisy Teacher Ladies Blog!  We are so excited to start blogging and get even more inspired from all the wonderful blogger out there! Happy Reading!

  Crazy Daisy Teacher Ladies, Arlene and Katie 

Hi! I’m Crazy Daisy, Arlene, and I have been teaching for seven years and this is my fifth year teaching first grade. I absolutely love teaching first grade and I feel so blessed to be part of a wonderful church and school. I have a Bachelor’s in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise and Nutrition and I recently earned a Masters degree in Elementary Teacher Education and have plans to further my education in the near future. My hobbies include; being a “crazy daisy teacher “with my crazy daisy partner who is an amazing teacher and sister in Christ!  She is filled with creativity and passion which is sooo evident in her work! Wait until you see her stuff! Truly…it’s awesome….amazing…spectacular… I feel so blessed to be her teaching partner,…and I have already taken the title of being her Biggest Fan!! Go Katie!!!    Okay………back to the hobbies….I enjoy jogging with my dog Rocky, reading the bible , crocheting, and spending time with my wonderful family. My husband Bob is an incredible person, a supportive husband and a loving father and I admire him greatly. Many people call him “Bob the Builder” as he is an amazing craftsman! Joseph, my oldest son is 9 years old, and is a big fourth grader this year. He loves flag football, bowling and enjoys playing the guitar. Joshua, my youngest, is eight and is in second grade, yikes! (I don’t know about this…..he is my baby.)  He loves jamming on the drums, bowling, and any kind of sports. As a family, we like boating, ice skating, taking long walks, geocaching, camping, and taking road trips in our RV!

     My personal teaching philosophy is T.I.M.E. I am committed to using my time in the classroom to teach, inspire, motivate, educate, engage and, equip my students.  I will teach my students the TRUTH through the Word of God; I will inspire them to strive for excellence.  I will motivate them to learn and actively participate.  I will educate them in the core academic subjects, I will engage them with several “Crazy Daisy” strategies, and I will equip them with the tools necessary to further their academic, spiritual, social and emotional growth to ultimately help them (and meJ) be steadfast Disciples of ChristJ

     If you walked into my Crazy Daisy classroom, you’ll find a coach and a cheerleader leading the class in a jingle or a chant and the class actively engaged and participating while learning and having fun!  (…….  well most of the time t-hee!). You’ll also find the students working independently, while the coach observes and guides each student in their individual benchmark task. You might also see a group of students collaborating about the current lesson, students working at centers, and students reading independently while the coach is encouraging and guiding a leveled reading group. If you’re lucky enough you might see the entire class dancing, stretching, and being silly to upbeat music.(yes even the crazy daisy). Kind of goofy, I know… but a lot of fun and needed time to release the wiggles and take a brain a break!

     I am committed to doing my best for every student God has placed in my care. I look forward to sharing, learning and growing from all of you who visit our Crazy Daisy Teacher Ladies blog!......  ¹⁷ As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

 Crazy Daisy Arlene's Classroom

Hi All! I’m Crazy Daisy, Katie, and this is my second year teaching and second year teaching first grade! I currently have my Bachelors in Elementary Education and I am hoping to go back to graduate school sometime in the near future to get my Masters in Education as well. My teaching journey is just beginning and I have been so blessed with opportunities to grow, learn, and develop from in the past two years. I love my job and the ministry I am apart of at my Christian school. I am so excited to finally start blogging about all the ideas I find and even create myself (along with my fabulous crazy daisy teaching partner J). It’s so funny thinking back over the past 2 years about my teaching and how I have grown. I have an amazing CrAzyDaiSy first grade, teaching partner and we will be sharing this blog together. We figured since all of our ideas are shared together anyway and are made better by each other - that we should do this together. It’s such a blessing to work with someone that teaches me to be a better teacher everyday.

As you get to know me, you’ll find out that I have a crazyJ obsession with trees. In fact my fabulous husband and I made a 3D tree this past summer for my classroom. I love everything about trees. I love the way they look and add such beauty to our creation. I sometimes step back and just stand amazed because it’s like, I CANNOT DO THAT! I cannot create something like that. I can make all the math stations and worksheets and crafts that I want but I cannot create something so beautiful and unique in every way like a tree. There is no tree alike - they may be the same type - but not the same. From the bark to the core, to the branches and leaves, to the budding blossoms in the spring - I love to think of teaching as I do about trees. Sounds funny, I know - but it is my job to help my students grow in Christ and as well as their academics and social capabilities. I have to step back and be humbled by their beauty and uniqueness. I have to also create the environment that is best for their development so that they can grow. Sure they might have to solve some problems along the way and lose some leaves, but in time the flowers do bloom and they learn from those experiences. It is my job to inspire, motivate, encourage, energize, differentiate, accommodate, make them laugh, help them solve and work out problems, and grow as Children of God.

I am married to a fabulous man and I am so lucky to have his support as I am very passionate about my job. I love the color orange and anything bright and cheerful! I LOVE trees. I love working at a place that is such a strong knit community and family. I love to play guitar, rollerblade, be outside, and create things! I am so inspired by all the teacher bloggers out there - you have given me so much inspiration this year and encourage me to be a better teacher even if you don’t know it yet!

I hope ya’ll enjoy our blog!

 Crazy Daisy Katie's Classroom!

Our First Post!

This is our first blog post! Just trying to get the settings just right! We sure are CrAzY!