Today In First Grade: Who Am I?

Happy Monday!

Welcome to my blog! My name is Melissa!

I am a first grade teacher in Northern California. I am starting my sixth year in first grade this fall.

I am married to the Mr. And he is a teacher too! No kids or pets... Yet!

I love teaching, helping teachers, and enjoying my days off!

So for this link up I thought I'd share a few things about me!

5 of my favorite topics to teach:

1. America!! This standard is my all time favorite! I even have my kiddos do a musical to go along with the symbols!

2. Homophones! The kids just get such a kick out of these. They talk about them all year long ;)

3. Clouds! Their retention of this concept is astounding. Plus they can use their cloud knowledge daily!

4. Jump rope! So many if my kiddos have no idea how to jump rope. It's a good long PE unit and everyone has to work hard.

5. Fact Families! This one is hard too, but worth the weeks and weeks of number composition and decomposition. When they get it, their little faces just light up!

4 of my favorite read alouds:

1. Heckedy Peg

2. The Day Jimmy's Boa ate the Wash

3. The One and Only Ivan

4. Aliens Love Underpants

3 of my favorite classroom tools:

1. Dice! Seriously a game changer. I can take any activity (small group or whole class) to a new level with dice.

2. Brain Breaks! We have Just Dance for kids on our campus and I just signed up for Go Noodle. Everyone needs a break (even me!) so why not dance?! I love the added exercise bonus.

3. This is going to sound super lame, but... Tri-write pencils! They DON'T roll off their desks!!!

2 of my weekend relaxation favorites:

1. Shopping! I love it! Clothes, shoes, books, oh my!

2. Being outside! Running, hiking, etc... I know it doesn't seem like it's relaxing, but I love it; especially weekend races with the Mr.!

The Neon Run!! Anyone done this?