Successful Observation Plus a Freebie!

Whew! We survived the dreaded observation! Thanks so much for all the encouragement! We were remarkably well behaved, considering that our principal was over 10 minutes late, so we were waiting in limbo - during that time we did some exercising including lots of crossover moves to activate both hemispheres of the brain, we also got some of our chatter and wiggles out with a quick bear hunt:

Then I calmed them down again with our favorite sign language song:

We were on the 2nd verse when our principal walked in so she got to see us perform the last little bit, which she enjoyed, for some reason people are always impressed when you throw in a little sign language!

I then proceeded to teach my big lesson on comparative endings - which I'm trying to develop an activity for by the way, since I found zilch already made online. I did have a very nice powerpoint and a smartboard activity, complete with a 10 question closure after which I sent my kiddos back to their seat with a worksheet. I know, I know, but our principal is old school and likes to see all the kids doing the same thing at the same time.

There were no major disruptions, I had let my kiddos know in advance that we were going to have visitors (there was a curriculum walk through by some district bigwigs today too!) and that their behavior was going to determine whether they stayed in 1st or went on to 2nd grade next year lol. I also promised them a goodie if they all behaved, so maybe that helped too! I did have one child fall asleep in the middle of the Smartboard lesson, but I noticed before the principal did and managed to wake her up while playing it off to look like she was just daydreaming. The poor kid had just told me about how she doesn't have a proper bed at home right now and can't sleep at night and asked if she could take a nap in our classroom rather than have recess, so I totally understood why she fell asleep, I'm just glad no one caught her but me!

Once the observation went over we let out all our tension with some construction paper and glitter! We made our Valentines for our friends in Florida from the Be My Valentine Exchange coordinated by Caitlin and Sarah! It is amazing how well they matched us up! We both teach 1st grade and have 20 students - ten boys and ten girls in each class! My students are so excited and they used a ton of glitter on their cards! Tomorrow we finish up the letters we are writing and then I will pop it all in the mail after school! 

In thanks for all your support, here is a freebie that goes along with one of my favorite Valentine's Day books (and I got such a kick today when a student asked me where the "m" was when I wrote Happy Valentine's Day on the board - she was pronouncing it "Valentime's Day!") Love, Splat and Splat the Cat: Funny Valentine are fun read alouds,

Splat the cat is one of our favorite friends - and I am dying to order the little plush Splat and Kitten to go with the book!

Aren't the adorable?? So, with the help of my super-talented daughter (luckily she got the artsy gene from her daddy!) I made this little "craftivity. I plan to have my kiddos write a poem in the heart - but feel free to improvise with whatever writing you feel is appropriate for your kiddos!

You can download the template to make him for FREE in my TPT store! Just click here!