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! 

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.

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.

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!

June Tic-Tac-Toe

Although I am officially out for the summer, last Thursday was our last day... I realize that some teachers are not. So here is the June Tic-Tac-Toe for those of you have been asking about it and are still teaching away! Click HERE to grab your free copy.

Enjoy!

Mother's Day Breakfast in Bed

Two years ago I created a Mother's Day Breakfast in Bed shape book for my 1st graders to give their moms. Although they took several days to put together, they turned out so stinkin' cute that I have continued the project each year since. The moms absolutely love them... and many have shed tears of joy over the sweet comments their children have included in their books.  I've been told that these treasured gifts will be kept forever!

However, because they do take prep work and are time consuming, I thought many teachers might prefer a FREE folded paper version of the booklet. So I tweaked one I created a few years back with updated graphics from my favorite artists: Nikki at MelonHeadz Illustrating and Krista Wallden.

You can grab a copy of the "quick and easy" book HERE.

If you have the time and are daring enough, you might want to check out the SHAPE  book version HERE which my students began in class today. They are very excited about this project - and I know the mom's are going to love them!

Open House and a Few Freebies

Tonight was our annual OPEN HOUSE. It is always a fun event!  I soooooo love seeing the children take their families on a tour of the classroom and proudly "show off" their work. It is a celebration of the year - but that also means many hours getting ready for the night. Here are a few pictures of our ocean-themed open house.

One of the favorite items the children left with for the night was a camera-shaped photo album filled with 4x6 photographs that I had taken of them during the year.

To make these, I simply printed the page below. Then, cut out the lens of the camera and laminated. Finally, I cut out the 2 laminated camera covers and used our school binding machine to punch and attach the 6-ring combs.

They were a hit! Grab a copy of the photo album covers HERE.

My students also left with a packet of poetry they had written. They loved their poetry unit! You can grab a copy of the Diving Into Poetry cover HERE.

Last but NOT least - the FREEBIE several of you have been waiting for...

the May spelling tic-tac-toe is finally available. 

Grab yours HERE. 

Enjoy!

/er/ spelled ear and long e spelled ey

This week we will be working with /er/ spelled EAR and long e spelled Y and EY.  I didn't have any word work packs to go along with these specific sound spellings...So,  I created 2 new word work packs over the weekend.

Here's a peek at a few pages of each.

Chim chimney, Chim Chimney, 

Chim  Chim Long E

is what I called the first pack. 

Since Mary and nanny end with long e spelled y and chimney sweep ends in the ey spelling... I thought I would go with a Mary Poppins theme.

We are Yearning to Learn /er/ spelled EAR is the title of the second.

Since researcher is one of the words I used... along with other forms of the word, I went with a scientific - learning theme.

Each pack includes:
SCOOT game
READ and WRITE the ROOM
I HAVE... YOU HAVE
WORD SEARCH
24-30 WORD CARDS of each sound spelling and an ABC order page.

Both packs are now available in my TPT store... but you can grab some freebies from each by clicking on the pictures above.

Slowing Down

Time to SLOW DOWN! With 2 four-day weeks in a row and so many holidays to celebrate, our first grade team decided to slow it down and only cover one week's language lessons in the eight days. Whew!!!

I felt like I was in over-drive... and trying to push my firsties just a little too hard to keep up.  

Can you imagine trying to cover the sound spellings for oi, oy, ph, wr, and possessive pronouns, read 2 stories in your anthology, and 4 decodable books in 3 days - so you can assess on Friday? And if that wasn't enough...just try to throw in Presidents' Day and Valentine's Day into the mix! Yikes!!!

So, we took on oi and oy last week and will cover ph and wr this week.

Note: For my Imagine It followers that's Unit 7.11-7.15.

In preparation for the week, I created a new wr word work pack and 2 PowerPoint Shows to use to practice decoding wh and ph words. Grab your freebie page HERE. To grab the PowerPoint shows click on the pictures below.



In addition to the word work materials, I also created a new geometry foldable pack to go along with chapters 20 and 21 in our math book. You can grab a freebie foldable HERE. The rest of the booklets are available in my TPT store.

Happy President's Day!

oi and oy word work

This week we will be working with the oi and oy sound spellings.

Since our classroom Valentine's Day celebration on Friday is a 1950's theme... I created a a word work pack to go along with the theme.

The pack includes:

20- oi word cards
20 - oy word cards
Read and Write the Room (oi/oy sort)
Scoot (fill in the missing letters)
2 Word Searches
I Have.. Who Has (2 sets of 20 cards)
Game Board

You can grab the word searches HERE for free.

If you are interested in the entire pack, you can find it in my TPT store.

The Little Engine That Could

This week we will be reading The Little Engine That Could in our reading textbook.

Since we are working on writing summaries, I thought it might be fun to create a summary template that formed a train - beginning with the little engine pulling a bunch of train cars behind it.

This is what I came up with.

I think my students are really going to enjoy creating this one!

Grab a copy for yourself here.

OU and OW Word Work

This week my students will be introduced to the spelling patterns /ow/ and /ou/ as we head into Unit 7 of our Reading and Language Arts program.


Each day we do one or more word work activities related to the weekly spelling pattern(s). Most, if not all of the word work activities we will cover this week are from my "Out and Around with Little Brown Mouse" pack which is available in my TPT store. The word cards from the packet will be used for Move it Monday, Trade It Tuesday, and Walk and Write Wednesday. Click HERE to grab the word cards for FREE.

We will also be busy with 100's Day activities this Thursday and Groundhog's Day and Chinese New Year fun on Friday. It is going to be a jam-packed week. I can hardly wait!

"How To" Instructional Writing

My 1st grade CREW are currently working on writing "How To" instructional paragraphs using the transitions First, Next, Then, and Finally. Of course these are sandwiched between and introductory and closing sentence to complete a six or more sentence paragraph.

FIRST, we began with the ever popular: "How to Build a Snowman" - which we finished up last week.

Here's a sample from one of my youngest students.

NEXT, we wrote "How to Make a Sandwich" paragraphs.

THEN, it was on to "How to Play___________  (basketball, checkers, four corners, Old Maid, etc).

FINALLY, we will write a "How to Get Ready for Bed" paragraph that will be used as our unit assessment.

To help my students through the writing process and publish attractive pieces, I created the templates shown here.

Click on each picture to grab a copy for yourself.