This year has been going so wonderful!! So much so, that I seem to have neglected my blog for long periods of time. Every year, I say to myself that I’m going to devote time to blog at least once a week, and then that turns into once after several months! LOL! I really will attempt to do much better.
I was so fortunate to be given an opportunity to try some products from the amazing company Creative Teaching Press with my kiddos! This is after several, and I do mean SEVERAL snow days this winter! I cannot wait for this dreadful season to be over and I don’t want to hear the word SNOW for the rest of this year!
Once I received all of my goodies from CTP, I had to really think about how I wanted to utilize them in my classroom. After seeing the weather icons, I knew that I instantly wanted to change how we were recording our daily weather. Prior to the new fun method, we were recording the weather in a laminated book that was being held together by binder rings, and then several pages had to be reinforced with clear hole punch reinforcements. This is what happens when you’ve been using the same book for several years and many first graders have been taking such great care of the book!
The pending arrival of spring, prompted me to create a weather tracker that was not only going to be easy to manage, but cute as well! Let’s face it, if it doesn’t look good, especially in first grade, the kids are not going to be as engaged. At least that’s what I’ve learned with my class this year! They are all about things looking fun, bright, and cute!
I used the CTP Chevron Solids to create little pockets. I used fonts from KG Fonts, frames from Lovin Lit and the weather clipart is from the amazingly talented Melonheadz Illustrating.
To create the weather sticks I used the 1” Weather Mini Designer Cuts. Each stick contains one icon.
Each day, students will put a weather stick into the correct pocket and then use tally marks to record what the weather was like for that day. At the end of the month, we will be able to quickly see which form of weather we experienced the most.
This is our first week formally using this new system and I can already tell you that my students are LOVING it! They were excited to watch me put all of the components together and they were even more excited when they finally had a chance to use it. I loved how easy it was to assemble and make the products fit the needs of my classroom. I’m so glad that I decided to utilize the products in the manner that I have, because they were just the right size to fit in the space that I have on my board without being overbearing.
Now I have some leftovers, because I didn’t use it all, so I’m thinking of other creative ways to put the products to use!
If you are interested in adding these wonderful products to your classroom be sure to head on over to Creative Teaching Press to grab them up! 
Until Next Time….
Remember to Have Fun Learning!!
