Mrs. Jackman's Class

This week was mostly a review week. On Monday we celebrated Columbus Day, had review days, and then Friday was Pirate Day. We were a week ahead in reading, so I decided to have a review so we could be on the same page as the other teachers. I love being a teacher because I also learn things every day! When we were learning about Christopher Columbus, I learned some things that I either forgot about or never knew. And today, some of the kiddos taught me some things about pirates that I didn't even know. :) It was pretty cute. We all had a fun week. I've been sick (for kind of a while now...it all started when I got hit in the nose with a volleyball) and was hoping to feel better before the end of the week. Now I am hoping that I will feel better by Monday...but the kids have been SO helpful with me being sick, and they have been so accommodating for me as well. :) Thank goodness it's just a sinus infection and not contagious...I've never had to get a substitute and I don't want to start unless I HAVE to. So here is to hoping that I will feel better come Monday.

This week FLEW by! On Wednesday, I thought it was Tuesday. Then before I knew it I had to prepare for pirate day. Where did the time go?! We were just having too much fun learning at school.

So remember the beans that were growing in our classroom? Well I sent those home on Tuesday after school, and there was one that I still had in my classroom until today. The plant was growing BEANS! I was excited and didn't want to get rid of it, but he wanted to take it home so I decided I should probably let him. :)

This is what the plants looked like when I got back from our long weekend.

This was the one that was left until Friday.

I was surprised at how tall all of them grew! How fun!

So on to pirate day! Like I said, the other days were review days and nothing new! So I only took pictures of pirate day. So here is what our day about pirates consisted of:

We read some books. I highly recommend these books. They are all so much fun to read and the kids really enjoy them! I JUST got Pirates Go to School, and I loved it!

We read Pie Rats Ahoy! during our reading centers. I had a book for each kid.

We also got to name our ships! I moved their desks into groups of 4 or 5, and put a pirate flag in the middle of their tables. They had to name their ships and I put a flag with their name on it. We always refered to their desks as ships, instead of their desks. They had to constantly remind me. :) We also talked and walked like pirates all day. It was kind of hard to remember to do that...but it was fun and they were good reminders!

So keep in mind that we learned about Christopher Columbus on Monday. So what they named their ships made me laugh and I thought it was cute.

1: The Attacking Ship

2: Pinta (one of Christopher Columbus's ships)

3: The Gold Crusher

4: The Santa Maria

We also got to make our very own pirate book! We made the story together, then the kids had to draw pictures to the story. I paired them off and they got to work together to make the pictures. I couldn't believe that there was no arguing or tattling going on. They all worked SO well together! I couldn't have been a happier teacher about how the day went with all of the group and partner work!

We also did some pirate centers today.

1: Language Arts center. Pirate Vowels. They had to cut out the pictures and play a matching game. On the pirates hat it has the vowels, and the students had to put the picture on the correct vowel that is in the word.

2: Reading center. Pie Rats. That was the book that I posted a picture of earlier in the post.

3: Art center. They had to put the clothes on the pirate!

4: Math Center. Cold From The Spanish Main. I think this center was my favorite. It really challenged most of the students and they really wanted to finish the worksheet. They had to figure out the answers for the pieces of gold (the yellow pieces of paper) and write the answers on the paper. They all did a pretty good job! Also in math today, we learned how to make a subtraction sentence, and we used "pieces of gold" to help us.

Finally, we went on a treasure hunt around the school. It was a nice break for us to get out and walk around the school. The treasure ended up being in our very own classroom! Who knew?! ;)

And this is what was inside. I wish I could have recorded their reaction. I don't think I have ever seen 19 little 6 and 7 year olds so excited!

But wait...there was more treasure! They got these little gift bags with pirate things in them.

There was an eye patch a sucker, a pencil, an eraser, a compass ring, a ping pong paddle, some candies, and a couple of fake tattoos.

It was a fun day, and we still learned a lot! This proves that you can have fun and learn at the same time.

Every day at the end of the day we have some carpet time and I ask them what they learned that day. I was surprised by their answers today. They really learned a lot about pirates! And they remembered everything!

My favorite responses were:

"I learned that pirates eat raw fish." That came from a book that we read today.

"I learned that pirates smell bad." Again, from a book.

"I learned that pirates are really gross."

There were some other things that they mentioned that we learned today, but those made me chuckle.