Sale! and a storm...

Hi all!  I'm currently preparing for the "storm of the century" or "count stormula" or "Frankenstorm" otherwise known as Sandy.  I was blowing if off in my mind till this evening when we got the call that we'll have no school Monday AND Tuesday.  When electric companies have already started reporting that we'll be without power for 7-10 days....  when I got out of the house cause I'm going to be stuck with a 2 and 6 year old boys for 2 days----and saw how Target was completely bare.  (I had all my essentials already after sending hubby out on Friday)  We've had little rain and a little wind, but nothing bad yet.  The worst is expected tomorrow afternoon evening till who knows when. 

Anyway, you may not hear from me for a few days------so I wanted to let you know that I'm having a sale that ends tonight!

Thank you for all your support!  After this storm blows by, I will be coming up with a fabulous celebration for passing 500 (finally!!!) ;)  Please be safe, all my friends in PA and surrounding states... and also my second "home" the beaches in Delaware and OCMD!  (that I would just LOVE to live at for the summer.... which is now 2 days shorter already!)

Halloween Math Freebie

I just whipped up 2 freebie games for ya that I'll be using next week.  The first one is a dice roll, which after printing and laminating, I realized that I should have done a little more to the looks of it---but I have to tell you, not only am I planning for school, but I'm planning a 6 year old (and 2 year old's!) Halloween party that is happening on SATURDAY!  I'm going to have a bunch of little BOYS running around all crazy.... and I have just decided on some "structured" activities, but that means I need to get my tush in gear and get it done!  {Not to mention there is this massive weather maker coming right up to us here in PA and possibly rain and SNOW us out this coming week... the HORROR!  My 6 year old was literally CRYING tonight because there might not be a Trick or Treat night!!}

I digress.  The first one is a dice roll game, but we are working on subtraction.  SO the rules I have typed on have students roll 2 dice.  Find the bigger number and subtract the smaller number to find out how many spaces to move.  (so if they roll a 6 and a 2---they would do 6-2 in their head and move 4 spaces).  Click on the picture to grab yourself a copy!

The second is just a set of number cards.  I plan on copying 3-4 sets per game on card stock.  They will play compare {or back in the day "war"} with it.  I'm trying to keep things simple next week-cause we ALL know what it's going to be like!  PLUS--don't forget there's that full moon in there on the 29th for us!  How lucky can we be?!  lol  Click on the picture to grab yourself the card game!

{Graphics are from Melonheadz Illustrating and From the Pond}

By the way, my friends.... do you see that number over there on the side of my page??  The one that is by the "Followers" tab?!?  I'm usually not one to pay attention to numbers, but I have been "stuck" between 490 and 500 for like 2 weeks now!!!  I told myself I wasn't going to worry about numbers and things, but geez....  can someone out there help a girl out?!  :P 

Owls, Bats and Spiders?!

If you are a reader out here in blog land---almost everyone, it seems, is talking about bats and spiders!  What better month than October to talk about these creatures?!

This is the first year in MANY years that I am not required to use our Reading series!  (well, last year too---but I only strayed from what I knew for like 8 years... about mid year)  I have been having the time of my life teaching with actual literature about things that kids are SO incredibly excited about!  This past week we tackled owls.  I started with owls, cause well.... my room is filled with owls!  Naturally the kids were excited to learn about it.

We read fiction and informational books---hitting the CCSS's hard!  We discussed informational text features along the way----and we actually did RESEARCH!  (another CCSS covered!)   I broke it up and had the kiddos work in small groups to find information 1 page at a time.  It was SO neat to see them using the INDEX to find pages that they need!  (and I will add---most cannot read all that well-but they were able to take the ABC ordering skills we learned a few weeks ago-which I just realized I never posted about..  I'll try to post about that soon!) and could narrow down their choices to find what they needed!  I couldn't have been prouder!

Check out these cute "research" papers!!!!

(even my messier, more challenged students did really well and were SO engaged!)

We will be redoing the whole thing next week-but with BATS!  Then on to spiders! Speaking of spiders----look who visited our classroom last week as a little "preview"!!!!!!

O.M.G.  Notice how I decided to take a picture of it instead of immediately run for the hills like I would at home?!  So, after taking its picture, I tried various ways in attempt to capture this thing..  Luckily one of my windows does not have a screen (before this day, I thought it was dumb that one of my windows didn't have the screen.... now-not so much!!!)  After getting it into a paper tray, it immediately FLEW out the window!  He was WAAAAAYYYYY too big to step on!  NO WAY did I want to feel that bone chilling "crunch" under my shoe!  EEEEEKKKKK!  I'm SO not a spider person.

Last-I want to leave you with a fun freebie---Click on the picture to grab yourself a copy of the OWL KWL page we used last week.  It is included in my Owl and Bat Research Packet that I just uploaded last night.  I included the pages above that you saw as well as some of the other worksheets I created to use during the week as we read stories and compared them---and used lots of informational books that I checked out of our school library.  You can click on the picture to see more about the packet at TPT!

{Sorry for the sideways picture---I started working with the packet in landscape---so it has a lot of sideways pages!  Luckily when you print it out-it doesn't make a difference!!!}  

Product Swap!

I recently signed up for the Magical Product Swap that Jessica coordinated over at Mrs. Stanford's Class.  My swap was with adorable Marie from The Hands on Teacher in First.


She has SO many wonderful packets at her TPT store.  The product I chose was a cute little pack called Verbs at the Zoo.  (It was one that I could use right away!  However, the best laid plans......  anyway-I didn't get to it yet, BUT, I'm still going to share with you the wonderful things this packet has to offer---and how I plan on using them)

 There are TONS of great activities to reinforce verbs in a first grade classroom---all focused around ZOO ANIMALS!  (What child doesn't LOVE that?!)  :)

 This is a great sort where students need to cut and paste verbs by whether they are present tense or past tense (which is a Common Core Standard!)  This will be going into my literacy "Working With Words" station to be completed independently after we discuss verb tenses a little more in detail.

This is another great activity where kids need to look at the words and decide whether it is a verb or not.  I was working with my kiddos just last week with this concept, and they had trouble.  This will be a great "review" or reinforcement activity in the next week.  I like how the words are related to the zoo and also pretty easy to read.  :)

This is going to be another word work station for the kids.  Students need to cut out the verbs and decide which animal does the action.  It is also a good reinforcement/teaching tool for verbs that end with -s- for singular nouns.  

 I love this little story about going to the zoo.  Students are searching in the sentences for the verbs and underlining them. 

This next one is a great word work station activity.  Students cut out animal cards and verb cards (or you can)  They flip over an animal and a verb and need to create a sentence using the 2 words.  We use the Step Up To Writing program at our school, and this fits perfectly into our "3 Part Sentences" that we teach.  (Who?  Action   Finish the thought)  The animal card will be the who and the verb card is obviously the action.  Students will just need to finish the thought.)  I am having them glue their 2 cards onto a sentence strip and then writing the sentence they created onto the strip next to it.  This activity could also be used as a fun "charades" type activity where a student needs to act out a verb by being one of the animals (could get a little crazy!) or even an activity where kids are in groups turning over the cards and practicing speaking in complete sentences (another CCSS!)

The packet also has a writing activity having the kids write a story about a picture she has and using the words found, ran and gave within the story.  There is also a cloze activity where students need to fill in the missing verbs.  And, also another page where students need to choose their own verb to go with 3 animals (and then also draw their own animal on the back and write a verb to go with it).

Make sure to check out Marie's blog and TPT store and show her some love! 

Making Number Combinations

Hi all!  I seem to be having more math related posts lately than anything else.  I think it's because I have more of a handle on Math this year than LA.  We also switch our kids for LA and Math--and LA just started a few weeks ago versus Math before that.

Here's a little activity that I did with my kids this past week when we were working with number combinations.  Now, I know that many of you may be past this stage now because you start well before me!  But, maybe it can be something you can use next year or for additional work with those little ones that may need more practice! :)

Read Make Way for Ducklings----the ducks have 8 ducklings in the story.

My students used this book to create duck ponds for the 8 ducks.  Ducks can be on the pond or off the pond---but there always had to be 8 ducks!

First, I had them find the different combinations for 8 using their red and yellow chips. 

After I checked to make sure they didn't have any repeats-I gave them the book.  (you'll want to copy 9 pages of the "word" pages since there are 9 ways to make 8)  Then they used their table to draw their duck ponds, filling in the data as they worked.

The kids had a great time with this, and it got them away from using the chips and addition signs for the entire hour of math.  Adding the book, was a bonus too :)   {I always tell my math kids that "math is everywhere!"}

Click on the picture below to grab yourself a copy!

Compound Word Headbands

Hi friends!  I hope you had a wonderful fall weekend :)  I was sick.  I knew last Tuesday that I was coming down with something... Friday I made it to my doctor, who gave me some antibiodics for my sinus infection and a much stronger cough syrup for the constant cough that had come on so quickly too...  But, we had a great weekend filled with picking pumpkins and getting lost in a maze for HOURS!!!!  :)

I want to share with you another little activity I did with my firsties last week.  (We were spending the past 3 weeks with "If You Give A..." books and this was one activity out of the packet.)  CLICK {HERE} TO SEE MY PACKET!!! 

After having the kiddos write their name on a sentence strip and a number 1 or 2, I stapled it as a headband and gave them a word.  {IMPORTANT!  The first word of the compound word got stapled onto a 1 and the second got stapled onto a 2----you can thank me later for that tip!}  ;)

Students got clipboards and a worksheet that I typed up with their names on---and they had to write the word that the student had as well as draw a line to its match {butter and fly would have been a match}

I cannot believe how well this worked out in my classroom!  Now, I wanted to share it with you, but can't share the graphics.  I deleted the graphics so that you can use it if you'd like.  The activity went with If You Give A Pig A Party, hence the party hats on the word cards in the picture!    PLEASE NOTE: I have this as an editable file so that you can type in student names on the worksheet as well as change the compound word pairs, if you so choose.  You will need powerpoint to edit.  The font I used was HelloChalkTalk from Hello Literacy blog.  The font for the worksheet is HelloAli.  Click {HERE} or on the picture below to grab yourself a copy.  If you'd like to see what else we did, keep reading!  =)

This year I am going sans teacher manual.  It was difficult to let go of what we had "thought" we had to follow religiously for years-and actually create my own literacy lessons that I had once done, many... many... years ago.  Lots of work-but LOTS of fun!  Thank you CCSSs!!!

Here's some pictures of our few weeks of If You Give A.... books!

 Decorating our "donuts" with sprinkles

creating short o words with our "donuts"  {and yes, they had 12---a dozen!}

Matching compound word partners from If You Give A Cat A Cupcake

Noun sorting----Scavenger Hunt style.  Each card had 3 words where students had to sort whether it's a person, place or thing

If You Give A Cat A Cupcake Math!

(part-part-whole style!)

We are still working on our very own circle stories.  Here's a small peek of the entire unit:

We had a fabulous time learning with the books, but this teacher is EXHAUSTED now!  This week we are going "low key" with pumpkin books, however I do have a cute little math activity that I will be sharing with you soon!!!   I hope you have a great week!