I Teach First: 1st Grade Teaching Resources: Pajama Day Fun

Welcome to our new first grade blog and to SAMPLE Sunday. Since this is my first post, I will be providing a SAMPLE of my life and my teaching so you can get to know me too!

A Little SAMPLE of First Grade Roars Megan Mitchell…

S is for seven!

Yes I have seven children. We are a blended family. I have triplets, two girls and one boy that are 11. My husband has 15 and 13-year daughters and a son who is 11. Together we have a daughter who is 18 months old. She is the glue to our family. A little piece of all of us!

A is for amazing!

I have the most amazing husband a girl could ask for. He is so loving and wonderful with all of our children. He is also a teacher but he teaches at the junior high, 6^th grade. I don’t know how he does it!!! He is so passionate about teaching math to children and that is something I just adore about him. Seeing him with our little girl melts my heart. I am so thankful and privileged to be his wife.

M is for mind.

I wish I could turn mine off sometimes. My mind is constantly going with loads of ideas and I don’t have the time to do it all. Sometimes I find myself making list after list knowing full well they will never get checked off! Does anyone else suffer from a mind that won’t stop?

P is for Passionate.

I am a very passionate person in every aspect of my life. Family is number one! Having a big family has been so much fun! We are so busy all of the time but we make time to sit down and have family meals together. I love to cook for them and share time with them altogether. I am also extremely passionate about my job. It may even edge on OBSESSION, if I’m being honest. I put one hundred percent into each day at school and at home. I never leave school with less than two bags full of things I don’t have time to do at home. I strive to show growth in my students, and first graders are the perfect age to do so!

L is for love.

I love my family, friends, and “firsties.” I feel surrounded by love in my life and I try to show love in any way that I can. My hope is that anyone close to me knows how much I care for him or her and truly value him or her in my life.

E is for Extra.

My little baby girl Charlie is extra-special because she was born with an extra chromosome. She has Down Syndrome. I’m not going to lie; it was a scary shocking diagnosis. I was never fearful of the Down Syndrome, I was fearful of all the health factors that can come with the diagnosis. We were fortunate enough to avoid the heart problems and we delivered a perfectly healthy baby girl. She has changed all of our lives in so many ways. Our entire family is all more aware, accepting, and drawn to children who have disabilities. We are on a continuous learning journey and we wouldn’t change it for the world. Our friends and family have been undeniable amazing through this journey. Charlie is beautiful, funny, determined, stubborn, and extremely loving. She LOVES her sisters and brothers to pieces. She just lights up when they walk in a room. She is our little sunshine.

A Little SAMPLE of First Grade Roars as a Teacher…

Today's Sample comes from our pajama day.

Who doesn't want to go to work in their pajamas?

A fun day filled with lots of learning!

Pajama Day Fun Packet

S is for sleepy!

This week we had a fun day wearing our pajamas to school. I decided to spend the day doing a lot of collaborative work making the focus of our learning reviewing key ideas that the class needed more work on. As that mind of mine kept going... I ended up creating a packet to go with this themed day. I have to say I’m very proud of the end result. We had an amazing day and the children were completely engaged the entire time.

A is for art!

We couldn’t have a sleepy pajama party without making some sleepy children. Check out these cuties and their creativity. I loved watching them add their finishing details! I love to incorporate art any way that I can. It is hard to find the time with everything we have to cover in a day but the children do love it!

M is for movement.

I think children can only sustain attention the same amount of time as their age. We are constantly moving in my room. On our pajama day I made 10 sleepy stations. Children were able to move around the room and do different kinds of activities. We moved every 8 minutes. In my packet I provide about 80% no prep but I do like to add a few colorful activities. My synonym and compound word packets are the prep activities.

Station signs

Synonym Station

Compound Word Station

Math Game Up and Back

Data Collecting and Graphing Activity

P is for partners.

We do partner work everyday in my class. I use sticks with numbers on them or my SMART board to randomly draw partners. My goal is to create a family and community of learners where we can all get to know each other and work together. On our sleepy pajama day we had did a lot of partner work. One of my favorite activities was our partner pajama comparison. I printed pictures of my students in their pajamas that morning. Then I put their pictures on the paper with the comparison sheet. The children then worked with their partner to compare and contrast their pajamas. They LOVED this activity and did a great job. I did have to select partners this time to make sure there were some commonalities between what they were wearing.

Children working together on the project!

An example of a finished piece!

L is for learning.

We are learning new things everyday in first grade. My favorite way to teach children is to sing. Unfortunately for them, I have a terrible voice. They don't seem to mind though. I am such a visual and auditory learner. I try to offer opportunities that provide multiple ways of learning. On pajama day, we sang two different songs, our synonym song and our compound words song. Both of these songs helped refresh our mind to the activities we would be doing at our sleepy stations.

E is for expectations.

I have very high expectations for every student that walks into my classroom. I have children at many different levels in my room. I work hard to make sure that all children are working towards their goal. In many of my packets I create, you will see a modification section. I have 3 children on Individualized Educational Plans. I create different activities for them so they can remain in my room and work on similar activities. Below is a book that I made for them on pajama day. They read the book and then they had to sequence the story using picture clues. I also have high expectations for behavior. Having a child with special needs, I know I want her to be expected to sit and listen to a story just like the other students. I have learned after many years of teaching that if you expect good behavior and the children know your expectations, then they will succeed.

This is the modified activity I created. The children had the book read to them and then they practiced reading the story. Next, they used the book to glue the pictures into the correct sequence of how it happened in the story. I love creating these little mini books!

This is the activity most of the children did in class. I un-stapled this one to show you. I provided pictures for the children that they could just glue into the book. I also told them they could draw their own. This student did a combination!

That is a little SAMPLE of my teaching and myself! Thanks for checking out iTeach First! As a special treat I am going to add a "sample" of my Pajama Day packet! Enjoy!