Mac's Munchkins

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For the past several years, I have been able to help my munchkins build their own at home libraries with the help of our incredible community. If you’d like to help me make this possible again this year, just click the link below to make a donation. The funds will go directly in my scholastic book account to spend on books for my students. Each month, we study one read aloud as a class. Then each student gets to keep their book to add to their very own home libraries. My goal is to create a life long love for reading at a very young age. Thank you

One Book One Class One Family As a first grade teacher, I have the incredible honor of teaching tiny people the gift of reading. My goal is to not only teach my munchkins to read but for them to develop a lifelong love for reading. Each month we will do a book study. Together we will read, discuss, and make text connections to t...

Truly wonderful the mind of a child is. My younglings spent the day at Jedi training camp with Master Jedi Mac.

We had snow much fun today! ⛄️❄️⛄️❄️

Today we learned all about Cupid and Loveland. Then we all applied to be his personal assistants. Guess what? He hired us! The munchkins had a blast helping Cupid with all of his jobs.

Today we read a story called “Snowmen at Work”. We wondered what do snowmen do at work. Well, we found out. The munchkins spent the day at our snowman ⛄️ village. They participated in different jobs around our village. I say it was a pretty perfect day with my little snow munchkins.

Our little Pilgrims loved experiencing life at their little village in Plymouth. They had 8 chores to complete. We hunted, fished, made clothing and quilts, practiced letter writing with quills and ink, designed homes for shelter, and researched about life long ago. It was such a happy day with the munchkins. 🥰❤️💙

Today was our Native American appreciation day. The munchkins have been learning and researching all about the Wampanoag tribe. Our firsties participated in different activities to help us understand our learning.

Ahoy Thar matey! We had our pirate 🏴‍☠️ adventure day! We wrapped up our 2 week theme with costumes, a math bomb 💣 diffusing class, a treasure hunt, and pirate story time! Days like this are a true blessing. May I never ever take moments like this for granted.

If there was ever a perk about teaching during a pandemic, it’s that my creativity is through the roof. Anything to keep these munchkins engaged, happy and learning. It’s pirate week! Treasure hunts, letter fishing, eye patch experiments and treasure math activities make our days at school fly by. 🏴‍☠️

Happy New Year! 🥰

Yesterday was Camp Cottonwood!!! Our first graders made s’mores and did an expository writing assignment, made a camp craft, learned how to build a fire, and create a safe campsite! Then to involve our community, we had some special guest come and share their expertise in camping! We had my daddy teaching the kids how to cast a fishing line! And we had a team from Cal State San Bernardino come and teach the kids, camping and hiking safety! It’s never a boring day here in First Grade! Huge thank you to my incredible team and all of our volunteers!!! I say it all the time...we have it all here at Cottonwood!!!

This year, instead of having my munchkins make their Box Cars at home, we decided to make it a in class project! The kids collected their decorating items all month, and brought them to school for building day! It was a hot insane mess, but look at my precious babies!!! Oh my goodness! The look of pure enjoyment was worth all the crazy!!! Huge thank you to our car building daddy Mauricio Mateo!!! Check out our little adventure.

I am so in love with our little class. Talk about a balanced day. Two of my girls from our Readers Theater Club were inspired to write their own Play today. We also have opened up our classroom to some snuggle learning friends. I mean, who am I to turn down an education to a stuffed friend willing to learn? They are learning that their friends are more than welcome to learn with us as long as they follow the same rules we do. Fortnight lama only had one warning today 😂. Meanwhile in other news, 3 of my boys have opened their own office named the “The J squad”. And my other friends are finishing up their independent research projects on insects. I would say life in first grade is pretty perfect right now.

Today was very bitter sweet. Our precious munchkins finished our last chapter in our last book of the Junie B series today. Each and everyday since the very first day of school, I have read them 1 chapter after they come in from lunch. It’s their quiet relaxing time where the lights are off, they are sipping their water bottles and just listening to the chapter. Through the months we have laughed and cried over these books. We learned how to make inferences, and text connections. We learned right from wrong and most importantly, we learned to develop a love for reading! Thank you Junie B!!!

I am beyond proud of these incredible kiddos today! I watched these kids beam with pride as they showed community members the cool things they do here at Cottonwood Elementary School! Why do we do what we do? I’ll tell you....for these incredible kiddos! I’m honored to work with them! I love them, and I love our little school! 🥰

My sweet munchkins had a blast creating their Emeraldicious Parks yesterday for their stem challenge. They brought in recyclables and had to create a park with their team!!! It’s Pinkalicious fun all week!!!!

We loved learning about weather with Miss Dorothy and Toto! From rain clouds, to tornados, to rainbows to building storm shelters, this unit is one of my favorites (I think it’s Miss Dorothy ‘s favorite too.)

I am so proud of these incredible first graders!!!! In honor of Dr. Seuss week and through the inspirational text 🤪 (aka my life) ,”If I ran a zoo” our precious munchkins created their own zoos. Our goals this year, are to incorporate more technology with a purpose, as well as creating more opportunities for the students to make choices. So, with that, they chose teams
And materials, and created their own little zoos. We could not believe what they came up with!!!! Each zoo was so unique. Some of them chose blocks, while others chose play dough. I even had my two tech boys create their’s on google slides!!! One group created their zoo from scraps of paper...they even made their animals!!!! After reading over their blueprints and their brochures, Savannah and I about died of cuteness overload.
Also, huge shout out to my student teacher!!!! She facilitated this event while I was out on walk throughs! It was even her idea for early finishing groups to create brochures!!!! She makes me proud.

Today, I taught my student teacher the importance of teachable moments. It hasn’t snowed in Hesperia in years, so we had to stop and enjoy our beautiful scenery. We played and played and played! I taught my kids how to make a snowball and how to turn them into a snowman. We named him, Frosty the Leprechaun. Then I snuggled them all up with warm hot chocolate. Such an incredible day with my precious munchkins.

My little Readers Theater Club took their show...on the road today! This is their 3rd show this year. Huge thank you to my student teacher, Savannah, for writing this script! The munchkins are so proud of their accomplishments. Way to go coyotes!

To hopefully inspire some snow tonight ....we decided to write a book. We titled it , “How to Build a Snowman ☃️ “. Even if it doesn’t work, we had a blast doing it. And our classroom looked like snow ❄️ when we finished.

Friday was our 100th day of school! Mrs. Mac was a bit under the weather but as they say in show business, the show must go on! And did it ever! We had a blast! My precious munchkins brightened my whole day!

Now that we can read and write, reading, analyzing and solving word problems are now Totally Possible!!!

Poor Sparkle had an eventful day. All week she protested against Gingerbread week. She tried to warn us about them, but we didn’t listen! Sure enough, we walked into this scene. The kids were so upset! After a brief search, we are proud to say that we found them making a ruckus in the LGP. My kids felt the gingerbread kids deserved a referral for tying up sparkle. With Mauger and Singer out today, they took matters in their own hands!
At the end of the day I asked the kids what we can learn from this tragedy. The response was golden, “We don’t tie up our friends, or we will eat you....legs first.” And there you have it folks! We’re just handing out life lessons here in First grade.

We had the most amazing day. Our munchkins got to experience some activities (slightly modified) that the Native Americans did long ago. We made beaded necklaces, deerskin blankets, planted and ground corn, made a rattle instrument, and created a sand painting. Our littles had so much fun. Thank you to our amazing mommies who helped us out. Without you guys, days like this couldn’t happen. Xoxo Have an amazing weekend!!! 🤗😘❤️