Sunday, September 29, 2013

Creatures of the Night and a FREEBIE

October is one of my favorite months!  I can't wait to use this unit with my students!

 Below are a few of the activities included in the unit.
The students will sort nouns and verbs to use in a bat list poem.

The students will roll dice and compare numbers.

The students will measure a bat with non-standard and standard units of measurement.

Students will say the word and clap the syllables.

The students will practice counting on from 10.

Students will make a monster while practicing number words.

Students will make a circle map of nocturnal animals.
And much more!

Thanks for hopping by!

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Simply Science Saturday

We have been studying leaves!

We labeled the parts of a leaf while practicing letter formation, handwriting, and phonics.
We did an experiment with celery.  We discovered that water travels in the veins of a leaf!


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

WONDERFUL WORDY WEDNESDAY and a FREEBIE!

CHICKA, CHICKA BOOM BOOM
 WE ARE LEARNING LETTERS IN OUR ROOM!
. Most of the activities are from my Chicka, Chicka Thematic Unit and from my new Chicka, Chicka Alphabet Activities.  Click the image to go to my store.

We had fun with phoneme substitution using the Chicka, Chicka pocket chart.  We learned our vowels with this cute ditty!
We discovered what's in a name!
We followed directions to paint a Chicka, Chicka tree.

Fun ways to learn our letters!

We made an anchor chart to help us when writing letters.

The kids absolutely loved this activity - such a fun way to practice handwriting!!!
Click here enjoy your FREEBIE!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Marvelous Math Monday and a FREEBIE

Have you heard of this book?  It's a great and fun way to introduce even and odd numbers.
After reading the book, we made these anchor charts to use as a resource.  I created these songs to help us remember odd and even numbers - sing to the tune of BINGO.
Click here to enjoy this FREEBIE.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Fall Fun!

We had fun learning about FALL!
We are nuts about FALL!  See us cutting out our squirrels and marble painting leaves for our deciduous tree.

We read lots of books about squirrels (fiction and non-fiction) then worked on our squirrel circle map.

We labeled a leaf while practicing handwriting and phonics skills.  We read a leaf poem and will complete our leaf circle map next week.
Writing our color words!

We practiced counting on from 5.

Comparing numbers.

Measuring with non-standard units of measurement.

Making patterns using fall colors.

Happy Fall Y'all!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Partner Reading and a FREEBIE

One way to practice reading skills is with PARTNER READING!


The students learn this poem about how to sit during partner reading time.  On the right are stirring sticks I purchased at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago.  They are perfect for highlighting words while reading.

I use these signs for partner reading and partner games.  I think they were made by Heidi from Swamp Frog First Graders.  Each student has a number according to their place in line.  Each week I turn the card over to show which number (big or small) read first or who is first for partner games.  This system limits disagreements over who is first.  It works great!

The picture on top shows our job sticks for partner reading and our number sticks used to pick partners.  The picture below shows a close up of the job sticks.  These are great cues for partner reading.  When each partner finishes with their job, they switch sticks.  These sticks have made partner reading a productive time in my classroom!
Click here for FREEBIE

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Where in the World?

The froggy friends will be traveling with the Gingerbread Man to his many adventures in other countries.  The GBM will share books, videos, songs, foods, crafts, etc. to make the learning meaningful.  Sometimes we even have a guest visitor!  The students will have the opportunity to journal about the GBM's travels.  This is an exciting way to learn about countries and cultures.

The GBM always starts his travels in the United States while we make our passports and suitcases for the journeys abroad.  We are looking forward to visiting many wonderful countries and learning about their customs and cultures.

 On the left is the globe we use to locate the continents.  On the right is a map we use to locate the countries.  This is a view from the floor looking up - the map (shower curtain) is hanging on our ceiling!
Here are some of the flags displayed in the classroom.  The GBM is clipped to the flag of the country he is visiting at the time.  In this picture the GBM is visiting Germany.  The GBM sends us a letter with clues to where he is and we have to guess what country he is in.  One of the clues describes the flag.
Here's a pocket chart of all the countries we will be visiting this year!  We learn to recognize the country's flag, what continent the country is located, and how to say hello.

 This is a sample of a book the GBM sends to us.  He has one for each country that highlights a few interesting things about the country.  This helps us when we write in our travel journals.

If you are interested in this year long geography unit, it will be in my store in the near future.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Zero My Hero and a FREEBIE

We had a special visitor...
Zero the Hero!
He came to visit us on day 10.  He will visit every 10 days!  He will bring us something shaped like a zero.  He will help us with counting, place value, skip counting, and more!  
We love Zero the Hero!!!
   We enjoyed watching this video. It's an oldie but a goodie!

 Click the image for your
Zero the Hero FREEBIE!

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Froggy Fun

We are FROGGY FRIENDS!
Friday was Froggy Fun Day in our class.  We read froggy stories, sang songs, cut & put together a frog puzzle, participated in a frog graph, made a frog face using a party blower, and ate a frog!  "FROG" tastic!!! 
Look how cute we are wearing our froggy visors!

"FROG"ilicous!!!
 We painted frogs using step by step directions.

Too cute!
We created the life cycle of a frog using the ipad, show me app, and projector.  With this science activity, the children did directed drawing, practiced letter formation, and applied phonics skills - the wonders of integrated learning!