"Goodbye forever Ms. Carlberg...it was nice knowin' ya!"

I am sitting in my bare, empty, and oddly quiet classroom still in shock that the year is over. It has been a wild, at times crazy, fun, musical, inspiring, hilarious, and wonderful year. The kids of Room F have kept me on my toes and have worked hard with humor and grace. They have all made incredible progress not only academically but socially. I am so thankful to have been their teacher because they have helped me grow as an educator. I absolutely can not wait to see what these kiddos do next year, but in the many years to come because they are going to change this world. Thank you for sharing this year with me and more importantly sharing you child with me.

PS. Something is still amiss with uploading pictures...if I figure it out (because I'm sure it's an operator error) I will definitely post them.

"Where has the time gone, Ms. Carlberg?!"

I am asking myself the same question!(And you probably are also, in regards to no posts for 2 weeks!) The last month of school has absolutely flown by and now, here we are with only 5 days left. I have been documenting many of the exciting things we have been doing, even if I have been extremely slow in posting them. As of right now, Google isn't allowing me to upload pictures (let's be honest here, it's probably something I'm doing...) so I'll give you an update about our activities and then when I can solve the picture issue, I'll post the pictures.

Track and Field day was scorching hot and a riot to be a part of! The kids get so serious about the events and are really doing their absolute everything to win. They jumped hurdles, did the long jump, jumped rope, ran relays and races, threw softballs, and so much more. When they came back into our classroom the last 30 minutes of the day was spent drinking water and laying on the carpet. They really worked their hardest!

We spent a morning at Kordiak Park exploring and searching for signs of spring. We saw a mother goose with her goslings (We had a long discussion about staying far away from those geese...they can be mean!), a next, turtles, and birds. We saw all kinds of different plants blooming and even saw some poop. Can you guess, of all those things, which the kids thought was the most fascinating?

Cookie Day was one of our favorite days in May. Obviously, I think it's because we got to eat many cookies...but I think also because our entire day was focused around cookies! We played games, read books, and even made our own cookie books.

The Minnesota Zoo field trip was absolutely exceptional! It was 96 degrees and sunny that day so we came armed with sunscreen and water. The animals were completely lethargic and hardly as interesting as the water that was bubbling up from the playground area. We got soaking wet, then dried off, then got soaking wet, and dried off again. Either way, we had a great day!

The Children's Theater was equally as wonderful! Pippi Longstocking is a wild, loud, musical, colorful explosion of giggles and humor. Pippi is a loud, silly girl who is always outsmarting adults...the kids were completely engaged in the play for the entire 2 hours it ran. It was heart warming to listen to the giggle of our kiddos and listen to them respond to the play. For example, at one point two clumsy burglars were sneaking into Pippi's house and so the kids were shouting, completely wholeheartedly I might add, "LOOK OUT PIPPI!"

We are enjoying the last couple days of school and are even being put to work organizing tools, cleaning up our working spaces, and taking down the posters we've made all year. Only 5 days left!

More pictures to follow asap, I promise!

"This is the worst day ever...my ice cream isn't creamy, it's salty... wait, that's the just the ice, ooops!"

Ice Cream Day is one of my favorite days of the entire year. It's messy, chaotic, loud, and crazy, and absolutely delicious. To make our ice cream we put whole milk, sugar, and vanilla in a small plastic bag. Then, we put that small plastic bag in a gallon Ziploc bag filled with ice and rock salt. Then, we shake, toss, roll, and do whatever we can to mix the milk and turn it to ice cream. It's a cold, sloppy process as the ice melts and the ice cream is made. But, the end result is absolutely wonderful! What's not to like right? Milk, sugar, and vanilla! Check us out!

We put gloves on our hands to keep them warm while we
shook our bags.

Our gloves became soaked, so Wesley resorted
to using his socks! Genius!

Connor apparently has hands of steel; that's a cold bag!

Nekon used his sleeves...genius!

Abby would slide the bag down the table and Kasey would catch it
and then send it back. What a smart way to not have to touch the
cold bag. Genius!

This was after Josiah ate a salt covered ice cube
and shrieked the above quote. The ice cream tasted
much better!

"Heyyyy! Silly socks rhymes with billy blocks!"

We have been working on rhyming this year...can you tell by the above title? Seriously people, these kids are getting so incredibly smart, independent, and proactive! I'm not implying that they were not before, but they have grown so much this year and it's showing! I can't believe there are only 21 days of this year left!

We have been learning about geometry in math these past two weeks. We explored 2-D shapes and then moved on to 3-D shapes such as: sphere (pronounced by the kiddos "spear"), rectangular prism, cylinder, cone, cube, and triangular prism). We observed each shape, listed it's characteristics, and then thought about where we see that shape in our lives. When I asked about sphere's this is what one kiddo replied: "Ms. Carlberg!! When your baby grows, your belly will be a giant sphere!" Now, I AM NOT pregnant, rather a teacher next door is, so all of the kids just think everyone is pregnant. That made me laugh to the point of tears. After exploring shapes we learned about polygons and can now determine what is and what is not a polygon. Here we are sorting some potential polygons:

We are thoroughly enjoying Everyday in May is Special! One of our favorite days was Silly Sock day in which we did everything based around socks. Our morning meeting had a greeting, sharing, and activity with socks, we learned songs about them, and we made our own silly socks on paper (and, I might add, we smelled them too! Man our room was stinky that day!) Each student was given a pair of socks and decorated them as they pleased. Then, they had to use adjectives to describe them. Here are a few:

In addition to silly sock day, we also celebrated May Day by making baskets to secretly put on the desks of 5th graders. We decorated baskets and flowers, and then glued Hershey's kisses in the middle.



Stay tuned for more pictures of our Everyday in May celebration! This Thursday, we are making our own ice cream and it's going to be a blast!

"Hey I found a connection! The sunshine and these oranges are both warm and juicy...JUST LIKE OUR EARTH!"

I think I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that quote means, but this kiddo was so excited that she made a connection to all of the facts we learned about earth, I had to chuckle. Today we had oranges for snack, but we are still getting new fruits and vegetables. We had sweet potatoes last week and I was so proud that every kiddo tried at least one! (Not many ate more than that, but it's the trying that counts!)

We have been learning about our earth in order to properly celebrate Earth Day. After reading books we learned many facts:

  From space Earth looks green and blue. 

  Earth is mostly water but has land too!

  Trees give us shade and air to breathe.

 Earth is a planet in outer space. 

 Earth has many things that we need to live. 

After learning about earth, we read the book The Lorax and then brainstormed ideas about how we could help our earth. After writing our own lists of what we are going to do, we used paint to create our earth. Then, I took a picture of the "Room F Loraxes". Check out our hard work, and enjoy us with our mustaches!

Look at how diligently all of these kids are working!

Wesley actually looks like the Lorax!

 We have also been studying There Was An Old Lady Who... books. We have had a blast reading them, and singing them (did you know there was a tune?!) and comparing them. We have noticed that all of the books have an old lady, rhyme, and use animals. But not all of the books have the same animals, all have different illustrations and rhyming words. Once we read all of the books, the students had a chance to make their own rhyme. We had a blast imagining what it would be like if an old lady really swallowed all of the things we thought of!

How can you not laugh when you see these?!

We have two more surprises that we are celebrating! First, many of our mealworms have changed into pupas and some have even turned into Darkling Beetles! They are squirmy, and red, and creepy (as the students say) and we are completely enthralled. Second, look who surprised us yesterday after lunch...

WE MISS YOU KAYDEN!

There were literally tears of joy streaming
from these kiddos' faces.

Seriously, we were excited!

Ahh, life is good in first grade!

"One love means that everyone uses peace and takes care of each other"

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've posted! You must be wondering what we've been up to. Well, let me tell you, as spring progresses and the end of the year approaches things get a bit crazier everyday! Here's what we've been working on:

We have been trying many new fruits and vegetables during snack. It seems like a minuscule detail, however there are many of these healthy, delicious foods we have never tried before. We have eaten honeydew, green beans, grapefruit (I wish you could have seen the faces after we tried these!) broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and watermelon.



We have been working very hard to use our C.A.R.E.S. values throughout our day. (Our values are cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self control) When I see students using these important values I add a fuzzy to our Warm Fuzzy Jar. When it is full, we reward ourselves for our hard work by having free play. This not only gives us a chance to celebrate each other, but also allows us time to develop problem solving skills as well as communication skills, and of course fun!



Corresponding with our Warm Fuzzy Jar we completed a very special project last week that required a whole lot of cooperation. Each student chose a color paint they wanted to use. I mixed paint so that each student would have their own unique color. Then, we worked together to use our paint and thumbprints to make a piece of artwork together. Here it is!



This project really helped us see that when we all work together not only do we create beautiful things, but also that every person is important in our classroom family. The students noticed that even though each person had their own color, you could still see where everyone worked. One student said, "Wow, I never could have done that alone!" Once again, like always, I couldn't have said it better myself. You may notice that there is a Bob Marley quote on our poster and that's because we read a book called "One Love" by Cedella Marley (Bob Marley's daughter). It is based on the song One Love and focuses on the importance to loving each other, working together, and using peace. Once we finished reading the book we each had the opportunity to write about what "one love" means to us. Then we decorated it with our very own paint color. Here we are painting.

Of course, we have been working hard to continue to learn about reading, math, and writing. We just started Unit 6 and are working very hard on mastering our addition facts. We are learning about Fact Families as well as how to measure in centimeters. We will continue to work hard for the next 36 days. (Yes, that's it! Only  36 days of school left, but let's keep that a secret for a few more days...)