March 2nd Birthday Hat

Celebrating the great doctor's birthday this week? If so you might like this party hat! 

Just print and staple to a construction paper strip or bulletin board boarder to fit student heads.

Option 1:  print in full color on white card stock

Option 2: Print in B and W on colored construction paper

Option 3: Print on white card stock or white construction paper and have student color.

Click here to download

Classroom Photos

Each summer, before setting up and decorating my classroom for the next group of students that I will have the privilege to teach, I look back at photos of my past classrooms. Why do I do this? Simply to help inspire and motivate me for the hours and hours of work that lay ahead - in order to be ready for that all important first day of school.

Here are a few photos of my classroom spaces ... they include the first day of school, open house, and the last day of school. Hopefully, one or more of the photographs will inspire you too, as you prepare for the upcoming 2015-2016 school year.

Click HERE to grab a few freebies!

Whta's included? ...Tthe poetry book cover, the front and back cover of the photograph book, the portfolio label that is next to the pirate face (but not shone here because it is hiding beneath the poetry book) and a first day of school (pirate face template). 

The directions for the paper plate pirate on the portfolio cover can be found at:

http://www.iheartcraftythings.com/2011/06/story-time-tuesday-w-paper-plate-pirate.html

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The traps are set!  Now ALL my wonderful 1st graders have to do is cross their fingers and wait to see if they caught a wee little leprechaun.

I can hardly wait to see their faces and excitement as they enter the classroom tomorrow morning and see this mess!

We will be playing detective to infer all we can about leprechauns based on what they did to our classroom. We will also be playing all sorts of games, learning about St. Patrick's Day, listening to Irish music and attempting to do a jig.

We will of course be graphing and eating Lucky Charms and doing a simple rainbow experiment too. There will also be plenty of word work activities - including those in my FREEBIE pack below.

Grab a copy HERE before it disappears just like those little mischievous leprechauns!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Perfect Paragraphs for President's Day

This week we will be reading and writing about Abraham Lincoln. Then next week, on to George Washington. I can hardly wait to see my kiddos finished products. Especially after the successful pieces they wrote about Martin Luther King, Jr. a couple of weeks ago. Just take a peek at a few of them. I could have shown them ALL! Each child's was different, yet all very impressive - especially for only being 1/2 way through first grade. I am so proud of my wonderful students!

Ok... time to get back on track. In preparation for the next two weeks of writing, I modified some old writing templates I had created a few years ago. 

The 16-page pdf file includes:

Word Banks

Was, Had, Did pages for recording research

Drafting Templates for a 7 sentence paragraph

An Informational Writing Checklist 

and a ...Report Cover and Publishing Paper

The entire packet is absolutely FREE 
and is available now in my TpT store. 

Click HERE or the colored graphic above to grab it. 

Happy Writing! 

Make Your Own Font

Yesterday I purchased a new app for my ipad called ifontmaker. It allows you to easily create your very own fonts in minutes without scanning or paying anything other than the $6.99 app price. And...It is super easy to use. 

Once you create your font, it sends you a link to download, email, post, or share it publicly. I must warn you however... It is totally ADDICTING!

Check it out. 

Look at the fonts I created in just a couple of hours...

 

100 Addition and Subtraction With 10 Quizzes

I finally finished the Flash Facts: Addition and Subtraction Fluency Quizzes to 10 that I was working on and mentioned in my earlier post.

The PDF file which is now available in my TpT store includes:

100 addition and subtraction fluency quizzes for addressing the first grade common core standard:  1.OA.C.6 Add/Subtract within 10

Each quiz contains 20 problems for easy scoring and a place for the teacher or student to circle the time allotted for the quiz: 1, 2, or 3 minutes.

The 100 pages consist of...

25 Addition to 10 quizzes
25 Subtraction within 10 quizzes
25 Mixed problems with addition and subtraction
25 Solve for the Unknown (12 addition and 13 subtraction pages)

In addition to the 100 quizzes, there is also a Congratulations certificate to distribute to students once they have mastered their facts in FLASH.

Each page includes a cute border and a superhero character.

These of course, could also be used for homework.

Check out the entire 104 page pack HERE. While you are there, make sure to grab a few freebie pages from the final version by downloading the PREVIEW.

Have a great week.

Addition and Subtraction Fluency

Now that we are half way through the year... and my students have mastered their addition and subtraction concepts ... it is time to focus on SPEED. I need to make sure they really have those math facts down! So...it is time for lots and lots of facts fluency quizzes.

Since the textbooks we are piloting don't have nearly enough facts fluency pages, and the websites that allow me to generate them aren't as visually appealing as I would like, I decided to create my own template and start generating my own FLASH FACTS quizzes.

I decided on 20 problems per page - which makes it easy to score. Then, I added in a few of the Melonheadz superheroes. FLASH seemed to be the perfect character for the regular addition and subtraction quizzes and the other masked superhero characters were perfect for the pages I created for solving the UNKNOWN.

Here is a sample of what I have come up with.  I am hoping to have a huge pack available soon on TPT.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement.

Click on the picture above or click HERE to grab your freebie.

My Place in the Universe

This week we will be reading Me On The Map.

Like so many other 1st grade classrooms, we too will be completing a Me on the Map activity. There are sooo many cute packets out there created by super creative primary teachers for this story-several of which I have purchased.

However, we will be using the one I created last year - I really like having guidelines for writing and who doesn't love Melonheadz clip art?

If you are interested, you can grab a freebie of it below.

Enjoy!

Starting the New Year with some FREEBIES

Time to start the NEW YEAR. And... what better way... than with a few FREEBIES.

Just click on the graphics below to grab a copy of each mini pack.

Enjoy... and Happy New Year!

Word Work for _NK and _NG

Next week our word work will focus on the digraphs _nk and _ng. Although I had already created a word sort for these digraphs, the word work pack I had created was in desperate need of updating and needed MORE activities to keep my kiddos engaged and provide them with more practice. So, I did some tweaking, and added our weekly regulars: SCOOT recording sheet (for Move It Monday), I Have, Who Has?, Read and Write the Room (for Walk and Write Wednesday), Word Searches, and ABC Order (for Fix It Friday). I also added a board game to use with the 48 word cards - which are also used for Trade It Tuesday, Sorting, and the Monday and Wednesday activites.

You can Grab your FREE copy HERE. Enjoy!

For my fellow Imagine It 1st grade teachers - this goes along with Unit 3.11-3.15.

Talk Like a Pirate Day FREEBIES

As always, it's another busy week in my classroom with so much I want to cram in! Tomorrow we will be celebrating Constitution Day and on Friday, National Talk Like a Pirate Day. I am certain I won't be able to complete  all I have planned with the kiddos but I'd rather be over prepared than under prepared.

In any case, I just completed a couple of quick activities for Pirate Day and I wanted to share them with you before I catch a few winks.

So here you go. Just click on the image to grab your FREEBIES. Enjoy me hearties!

Back to School Word Work FREEBIE

My students are loving their weekly word work... Scoot, Read and Write the Room, and I Have, Who Has are among their favorites. We began the year with this "Getting Started" Back to School Mini pack featuring our favorite cat.

You can grab a FREEBIE copy HERE.

Imagine It! Sounds in Sequence Dictation Practice

This post is especially for my SRA Imagine It!  followers...

Last night, as I was reviewing for this week's lessons (unit 1.6-1.10), I had the idea to create a page-a-day dictation support using the sound spelling cards. I thought the children would enjoying cutting and manipulating the cards as they practiced spelling and blending. It would also be something they could take home each night to practice.

I only completed 5 pages last night (enough for the entire week) - as I thought it best to test it out on the kiddos before spending more time on something that might be a flop.  Luckily they loved it, and did an amazing job. They are really blending those sounds together and working on getting the sequence just right... and better yet, they are really learning their sound spelling cards.

I would be really interested to see what your kiddos think of it and to hear any suggestions you have for improvements. If you do choose to try one of the pages out in your classroom, please make sure to comment below and let me know how it went. Click on the picture above to download your copy.

Short U Word Work

I just completed another word work pack this morning. This one is called, "Fun In The Sun". It includes numerous activities to help my students decode, read, and spell words with short u.

We will be using this pack week 5 while covering Unit 2.6-2.10 in our SRA Imagine It program.


The pack is 34 pages long and includes:

70 Short U word cards
I Have, Who Has
Scoot
Read and Write the Room
ABC Order
3 Word Searches
Foldable Book
(students read sentences, find and underline the short u words, then sort and record the words they found under the 3 flaps (3 letter words, 4 letter words 5 or more letters)
I Can Read Short U Words list
2 answer keys (for foldable book, and word sort)
Game Board
5 sort cards
(2 letter words 3 letter words, 4 letter words, 5 letter words, 6 or more letters)



There certainly are enough activities to keep my kiddos busy all week... even for my fast finishers!

Check it out in my TPT store.


You may also grab some freebie pages from the pack HERE.

My Short E pack will coming in the next few days.  Watch for it!

Short A, Short I, and Short O Word Work and Some Freebies

Over the past 2 years, I have created a number of word work packs to go along with the phonics/sound spellings we cover each week in class. Usually these packs include 40-80 word cards, game boards, word searches, read and write the room and scoot recording sheets, I have... who has, sort cards, ABC order, etc. Some have more pages and activities than others, but my students always love them, and they reinforce the skills we need to learn in a fun and engaging way.

However,  I never got around to creating activities for the first unit in our SRA Imagine It program. So, this past week, I sat myself down and developed 3 packs to go along with Unit 1.  Each of these packs focuses on a different short vowel: Short a, Short i, and Short o.
The first 2 word work packs are already available in my TPT store and the third should be posted sometime tomorrow.

My students absolutely love these activities... and there is enough to keep us busy all week in each pack... even for those fast finishers.

I can't wait to get started and share these with my new class.

Click on each picture to grab your FREEBIE page(s) from each pack.

Enjoy!