{FREE} Animal ABC Order Activity

Hi kids!  I'm gonna keep this short and sweet today because after having the whole week off, I now feel like I've contracted the plague right before we head back tomorrow...YUCK!  I'm going to get some much needed rest, but I found the cutest clip art this week and had to make something cute for you guys :)  We'll be using these Animal ABC Order cards this week during Daily Five.  Click the pics below to get your free cards and recording sheet :)

Have a great week bloggy buddies!!!

"Array" of Sunshine {FREEBIES} :)

Happy Friday!  Today is the last day of mid winter break for us so it's time to get ready for March next week!  We'll be doing a lot in math, especially working on arrays and multiplication...and I can't wait!  {I puffy heart arrays!}  We made these FAB "array" of sunshine (I LOVE a good play on words) projects last year and this whole class display for the hallway.

Each student made their own "array" of sunshine rainbow with sunshine and clouds.  I gave each student a sheet of grid paper, two cotton balls, a sheet of blue construction paper, and a sunshine template to trace on yellow or gold construction paper.  I let each student draw out their arrays with any equation they want so all of the projects were differentiated by ability level.  Above grade level students could draw more complex arrays while other students could work on more basic arrays.  Each student then labeled the backs of their arrays with a pencil before gluing them down.

The end result...a super cute rainbow spring craftivity display that matches up to the common core!  Gotta love that right?!?! 

Click the pic below for some other fabulous array activities to work on with your kiddos and enjoy your weekend friends :)

Core Democratic Values: Booklet Freebie!!

It’s Thursday..... Which means I have a few more hours before I have to get my head back in the teaching game. So, until then I figured I'd hit you with some oldies but goodies for today!

Our social studies curriculum calls for us to be teaching the “Core Democratic Values.” Luckily for me, the state of Michigan breaks these down HERE.

I always start with The Pursuit of Happiness. I love it because kids can easily connect with this idea, it helps us jump into classroom rules AND most importantly it connects well to my favorite children’s book…. FANCY NANCY! 

While we discuss the Pursuit of Happiness we keep oodles of Anchor Charts (that of course I tossed into recycling…..) and we record our thinking in these books….

It’s only one piece of paper and has the fancy dotted handwriting lines… Think September.

We also jam out to this little diddy compliments of School House Rock!

I also put together a list of books we read to help us uncover The Pursuit of Happiness. They’re some of my favorites! 

Alright! I am off to finish this break off strong! I'm sure you're off to finish this week off strong! Good luck!!

How To Organize All Your Reading Workshop Goodies {and FREEBIES!}

Last summer as I was going through all of my amazing resources that I have collected over the past six years I came to a bit of a revelation...I am a hoarder of teaching items!  {GASP!}  I strive to be the uber organized Jodi from Clutter-Free Classroom, but I am not.  So undertaking all of my reading resources and organizing them into one spot was going to be quite a summer project for me.  It all started with a 3" binder that I could take everywhere with me...

 
First of all, our district put together this wonderful pacing guide (that I would love to share - but is still in draft form with the district) to align all of our reading comprehension strategies, phonics lessons, and all things speaking and listening into one common core friendly document.  {I heart it!}  After we were given this document, I went through and typed all of my mini-lessons (57 pages worth) and then broke them into sub-categories by comprehension strategy.  A lot of my mini-lesson ideas came from The Learning Pad and I edited them to make them work in my own classroom, so because the ideas aren't originally mine I won't share this crazy document with you.  But, {HERE} is the original website if you would like to check out her amazing reading workshop mini lessons!

I then went through and gave an individual tab to each comprehension strategy for graphic organizers (ex. schema and all activities schema related - all in one place).  We also developed these graphic organizers that you can download here for {FREE} or by clicking the pic below!  There are 50 different graphic organizers that help review making connections, visualizing, schema, summarizing, retelling, and predicting/inferring.

After that, I spoke to our AUH-MAZING Interventionist, Louann, who was able to provide me with a book list that the district created that matches up to all the strategies.  Awesome, right?!?!  Click the pic below to download five pages of books and the strategies they match up to :)

Sadly, there was still organizing all my amazing finds from Beth Newingham, Michelle Oakes, Lesson Plan SOS, and Amanda Nickerson!  All of these ideas about Reader's Notebooks, Non-fiction Text Features, fairy tale units, etc. all received their own tab for resources in the 3" binder too!  But, my FAV part of this fab binder...you flip it over and {BAZINGA!} all of my writer's workshop resources too! 

But, that's a tale for another day :)

No Leprechauns On My Watch! {Traps!}

My first grade team has a really fun tradition they’ve been carrying on well before I joined the ranks – Leprechaun Traps!

Before we go any further: This post is going to share some info that’s Not Safe For Kiddy Ears (NSFKE). So if your sweet peas are peeking send them away! Maybe I'll share a super cute picture of my dog while you send them away....

OK. Now that the kiddos are gone… I’ll let you in on a secret. Leprechauns are not real. Upsetting and earth shattering, I know. But each year we convince even our non-believers that they DO exist and they LOVE first graders.

About two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day we send a home a note explaining the Leprechaun Traps and challenging students to be creative and out-smart those tricky Leprechauns.

On St. Patrick’s Day students bring in their projects. Last year I had a cutie pie bring in one that looked like this:

Apparently, it was from a website. BUT, SUPER CUTE nonetheless.

Each student shares his/her trap and explains how it works to the class. We also snap a picture of the kiddo and the trap. We set the traps each time we leave the room – because everyone knows a leprechaun would NEVER come in while were actually there!

While we’re out together  (library or recess) one of my sweet teammates comes through and completely trashes our room and puts a chocolate coin in each trap. We’ve had the leprechaun leave little green footprints around the room, he’s flipped chairs, he’s hid some book bins, and he has even thrown GLITTER on the floor. But, they knew it wasn’t me because I was with them the whole time!

After we get our room all cleaned up we write about the events and our reactions to our visitor.

Our hallway display for March is the student's writing and picture.

Here is a link to all these documents if you're interested!

This download includes:

* Parent Letter 

* At Home Writing Component (Lucy Calkins "How To")

* Classroom Response / Hand drawn 

* Student Response: Tricked (Space for student photograph)

P.S. Sorry there are no real photographs of these! I didn't know I was going to be a blogger so I really didn't document the events well! Additionally, we are on break ALL WEEK (I'd hate me too) and Mr. Frank is sealing the floors (this means NO ONE IN!) so the pictures I do have are stuck at school. 

Out of This World Activities!

Happy Monday all!  Hope you've had a FAB weekend!  Hopefully you are enjoying today off or this week off like we are...I promise that's the only time you'll hear about it this week...hehe :)  We've been busy making a ton of fun stuff, of course, with a few freebies!  These are some of the activities we'll be working on when we head back next week.

We have a ton of district wide testing continuing when we head back, so the kiddos are gonna need some fun to supplement!  We'll be making these fact family rocket ships.

We'll also be using this alien craft to do some descriptive writing while also drawing a diagram of our aliens.

This packet is 94 pages long! And is only $1 on TpT.

This activity pack includes:  

Addition Flashcards: pgs. 4-18
Subtraction Flashcards: pgs. 19-28
Alien Addition: pg. 29
Time to Blast Off!: pgs. 30-31
Space Race to 100: pg. 32
Moon Money: pgs. 33-34
Saturn Sums: pg. 35
Earth Even or Odd?: pg. 36
Galaxy Geometry: pg. 37
Fact Family Rocket Ship Craftivity and Directions: pgs. 38-41
Alien craftivity and writing: pgs. 42-48
How to get to space flow map and writing: pgs. 49 - 50
Alien at school multi flow map: pg. 51
Aliens and humans compare/contrast double bubble map: pg. 52
Exploring space multi flow map: pg. 53
Friendly letter to an alien: pgs. 54-55
Rocket Ship Bubble Map: pg. 56
Astronaut Thinking Maps: pg. 57 - 61
Alien Thinking Maps: pgs. 62-66
Out of this World words! - a vocab map: pg. 67
I have, who has?: A spacey contraction Conundrum: PGS. 68-74
The Great Space Race - A Dolch Sight Word Game: Pgs. 75-92
Great Picture Books to Use With This Unit: Pg. 93
THANK YOU AND CREDITS: PG. 94

And we, of course, have some cute freebies for you!  Click the pics below to download them from Google Docs.

We will also be giving the first FIVE friends who leave a comment with their email address a copy of the whole packet for {FREE}!  On a side note, we had the chance to meet up with some other FAB Michigan bloggy buddies yesterday and had soooo much fun!

Here's who was there!

Christina from Mrs. Bainbridge's Class

Amy from The Resource(ful) Room

Holly from Crisscross Applesauce in First Grade

Rachel from Ms. Rachel's Room

Kara from Spedventures

Jessica from Apples and Papers

Andrea from Stepping into First Grade

We had such a nice time meeting everyone!  We spent three hours just laughing, talking YA books, horror stories, and Target finds.  We can't wait to do it again!  Have a FABULOUS start to your week friends!!!

Winners!!!

YEAH!  We had so much fun doing this giveaway with the fabulous Randi at Teach it with Class!  Here's our winners!

Congratulations to...

Jennifer at The First Grade Dream!  You've won a CD from Have Fun Teaching and an item from Randi's TpT Store :)

Lacey at Wild About Teaching!   You've won a CD from Have Fun Teaching and an item from Randi's TpT Store :)

HCarpenter@ebrschools.org!  You've won a $10 Amazon gift card and our Out of This World Math and Literacy Activities :)

Miss T at Journey of a Substitute Teacher! You've won a $10 Amazon gift card and our Out of This World Math and Literacy Activities :)

Congratulations to all of our winners!  We will be emailing you your prizes.  Have a WONDERFUL rest of your Saturday!