Vertical Number Sentences

Hi all!  This is a short and SWEET one!  We were working on writing vertical addition number sentences this week.  I wanted to share what I used last year that really worked with getting them to write it correctly!  (plus, it was fun!)

SWEET part--candy corn!  {Now, of course, at my school no food is allowed, but everyone knows about candy corn this time of year!}  I drew these candy corn templates, colored in orange and yellow.  Then I laminated and cut out.  Then---we used wipe off markers to practice writing our sentences!

{After I showed them horizontal number sentences and they wrote the vertical, we moved to using dominoes and practiced writing the number sentences}


After practicing, they made their own.  I gave them all another domino.  They had to figure out their number sentence that can be made from the domino and had to write the vertical number sentence on their candy corn.  They colored and cut out.  I displayed it on this eye-popping bulletin board that got lots of compliments!

Click {HERE} to grab yourself the template!





Have a sweet week/weekend!

FALLing behind--catching up with an Owl Glyph

I can't believe that Fall is here already!  I honestly feel like it was just yesterday when I was looking forward to summer vacation (or maybe it was yesterday?!) ;)

First, I just wanted to let you know that I have everything October related up and posted at my TPT store.  Check out the pics below to see what I have!  (click to read more about them on TPT)

I also have them bundled here

I wanted to share with you a glyph that I made and had my firsties make 2 weeks ago.  They turned out OWLdorable! :)  I searched online to see if I could find one already made, but I didn't have much luck finding just what I wanted. 

Click on the picture to grab yourself a copy of the questions. 

CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR THE BODY TEMPLATES...  (I'm having difficulty with my new computer on combining PDF's.....)

This past week and this coming week we've been working with all of the "If You Give a...." books by Laura Numeroff.  (another reason I've been MIA)  I've been creating activities to go with each book as we read them.  I'm planning on putting it up on TPT as well, as I have bought MANY graphics for it that I cannot give away free, plus so far it's over 125 pages!  {I forgot how much time it takes to design units to teach, rather than following a teacher's manual.  Since we group, and our reading series is older, I haven't been able to use much of it this past week.  Next year will be great though with time to breathe since it will all be done!} 

I thought for sure that I would be back to blogging sooner than I have.  I seriously think September is a month that I purposely forget about each year.  The good news is that I'm actually DONE planning this weekend BEFORE Sunday night!  It was nice to have a day off of thinking and stressing.  Here's hoping that this week I'll have enough planning time to get it done before Friday.  (We had our Back To School Night last week---so I was busy preparing for that.  Now it's home free till November conferences!) 

Hopefully I'll be back more often!  I need to share with you what I found at Target this weekend, but I need to get my camera and make my lil' math idea first so I can share it with you ;)  Have a great week!

Hello out there?!?!

Wow!  I totally have lost track of time.  Guess the beginning of the year does that to you.  We've been busy, busy, busy...  testing, testing, testing, no less, but it's OVER!  Now the fun begins for us as we start to switch our kiddos.

I have 22 lovely littles in my class this year that are just FULL of energy and personality!  Ha!  :)  Really, they are great, but by Friday, I'm spent!  whew!  I'm ready for the routines to kick in and have some "quiet" time in the room.  ;)

Here's some pics from our last 8 days of school!

Cut and paste activity for what a Good Learner looks like.  {It's part of my Back to School Bonanza packet on TPT}

Find someone who....  They LOVED this!  {also part of my Back to School Packet}

Finished page!  HOW adorable!  We completed 4 pages and I am putting it together as a book for them to have.

This week we did a fun activity getting to use Venn Diagrams.  We read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and talked about our  names.  We usually graph the letters in our names and talk about why we like our names.  Then we compared our names to each other and completed a Venn Diagram!

First, cut out the names.  I had them typed up in boxes so that all they needed to do was cut it out.

Then they spelled their names on their desks.

Then they found the letters they had in common and placed them in the middle of the diagram.  I had them pile the same letters on top of each other to keep them from having a million a's or i's in the middle.  It also helped them find those common letters.

 (I did allow them to have double or triple letters on the outside of the circle if they would like.)  

Click on the picture below to grab yourself a copy of this activity to use in your room!  You'll need powerpoint to change the letters in the boxes.  I used Hello Literacy's Hello Font, Hello Ali  (free and adorable!!!)  I enlarged the Venn Diagram part to 11X17 (I think that's the size on the copier)

Have a great weekend friends!  I'll be back soon with an adorOWLble Owl Glyph that we did today!  I need to get them up on a bulletin board and take a picture to share!