What does Easter mean to you? Thoughts from first graders

I wanted to post a few of my students' thoughts concerning what Easter means. They were really deep and meaningful, and they blessed me with their thoughts today.

Easter means to me that Jesus is risen from the tomb. He died on the cross and the people got Jesus' body and put it in a tomb and put the rock in front of it. And then he was risen. The rock moved!

It means to me... that God loves all of his children, every single one of them. It also means that God died for our sins and rose on the third day.

Easter is the day of Jesus' resurrection. 3 days after he died on the cross. He did it all for sin. When you go to heaven you can see his scars. Jesus did nothing wrong to be crucified. But he paid for our sins so we could go to heaven. He saved the world.

Easter means that Jesus died for us. And because he died for us is because he loves us so so so so much. And he will never ever stop loving us. That's what Easter means. Easter is not for candy. It's for God.

Can we skip the bad part?

As Easter is approaching the Bible lessons get closer and closer to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Today's lesson was the story of the woman who washed Jesus feet with her hair. At the end of this beautiful story, the book that I was reading accentuated that the men sitting in the room didn't just get angry with Jesus; instead they started to plan how they were going to kill him.
After I read that part, many of the students responded with a quick intake of their breaths. One of them so sweetly raised their hand and voiced a sincere question. It was this- 
"Can we just skip the bad part and find out the good ending?" Clearly my students have come from Christian homes. They know their stuff. Jesus is going to go to the cross soon, and he will bear the burden of the sins of the world.
I was so theological in my reply-
"Well no, we can't skip that part because Jesus has to die for God to forgive us for our sins. Someone has to be punished for our sins." And that was that.

However, driving home today I got quite a chuckle out of how my students really want me to skip the death of Jesus. They want the good news that He is alive.

But then I got to thinking... 
How often do I ask God to skip the hard parts/trials in life and tell me the good ending?

I've lived through 27 Easters. I know that Jesus has to die on the cross for me to have the freedom from sin that I dwell in with my life. I wouldn't ask God to skip the cross. But I do often ask the Lord to skip the hard trials and seasons in life and just take me to the good ending. I want to know constantly what do I have to learn from a trial when I'm still in the middle of it. How blessed am I to teach with little ones who teach me even more about the lessons I need to learn myself!

James 1:2-3- "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds."

Deep and Meaningful Literature

I discovered two great books by Kathryn Otoshi this year. Both resulted in deep meaningful conversations concerning bullying and friendships.

Today I shared another deep book. The main character feels insignificant because she's small, and this book follows her journey to discover what she can do to play an important role somewhere. Cloudette was so relatable because at one time or another, each of us has felt insignificant. Each page included quirky illustrations that made my students laugh, and it was one of those moments when my teacher heart pitter-pattered with utter happiness. 

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld

What is a stagecoach?

What do you do when your students ask you what is a stagecoach?
They have never watched Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman or Bonanza. So I drew a picture for them.

Clearly I need to take horse drawing lessons. This picture had my students and me laughing quite a bit.

Fairy Tales

We've been doing so many fun things in first grade these past few weeks, that I wasn't sure where to start...

Recently, we compared different versions of fairy tales. It was lots of fun.
Here are a few of our favorite stories:

Both Mañana Iguana and Tortuga in Trouble mix
in some Spanish words, so they are great tools
to teach students a few words in another language.

This book had the children laughing hysterically. 

Inferring

Recently in first grade we've been inferring. To teach the students how to infer, I tell them that more goes on in a book than the things that we read in the words on the page. There are other conversations that can occur between characters, there are feelings to perceive, and there are hidden clues to figure out. Then I find that what it really comes down to is practicing inferring and using the word "infer" in its real context. Two great books for inferring are:

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith. This book was so fun to infer with that we read it through 2 times so that we could get a grasp as to the story that it was trying to tell. What a beautiful tribute to a Grandpa! The students absolutely loved this story!

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart. This book was such a beautiful story about a little girl during the Great Depression. The illustrations by David Small were profound and loaded! It opened up the opportunity to explain to students what went on in many American homes after the stock market crashed. I think it is so important to tell these kinds of stories because it is easy to forget that there is a world outside of our own or that life in America wasn't always everything it is now. Be careful with this story. It just may bring a tear to your eye.

Character Voices

One of my favorite student made birthday cards given to me a few years ago said the following:
"Dear Mrs. MacLeod,
I love when you read to us using special voices!"

Reading aloud to my students is one of my favorite things, and using special voices for each character has been something I have worked hard to develop over the years. 

Today one of my students pointed out that my special voices are what makes listening to stories so much fun. She loves it. And I was about to read a book by one of my favorite authors: Mo Willems.
There is a Bird on Your Head!

The Elephant and Piggie books are especially fun to read out loud because in most books they are the only two characters (so I only have to master two voices), and there are lots of engaging emotions in these books. 
As I read today, this same student who mentioned my special voices pointed out the two times when I made a mistake in the inflection. It was the funniest thing! My students are clearly spoiled as I reread the line that she told me I said incorrectly. 

We read another great book today during which there were howls of laughter as the main character, Beatrice, outsmarted the Giant. I highly recommend it!