Heeeellllllooooooo!! Man, It's already December?? What happened??? I have been having some technical issues with my computers at home and at school so I've been a little long in posting updates but I'm back with a new activity on balancing facts!

As I'm sure you are aware, I LOVE Penguins!!!!!!!!!!! They are so stinkin' adorable!! Can't get enough. So I made Penguin Pals!


The kiddos LOVED this activity. I made a giant penguin for use on the floor as a whole group lesson: 
I then made numbers and plus signs on construction paper.
Each child received a recording page:

and we began!





Everyone got a chance to choose a fact and try to balance it. We kept track on our recording pages and used our personal workmats later on to reinforce the whole group activity. 


They had a blast. 

I also placed a smaller version in the centers. 


Like this activity? Think your class would benefit? Then check it out in my TpT store {HERE} and happy balancing!!





Wow!! The Journeys Interactive Notebook for first grade has been unbelievably popular!!! Not only on my TpT store but also in my classroom! We have been working hard on creating our notebooks. The students are doing wonderful. I wanted to share a bit how I do them in the classroom.

I mostly use the activities as an exit ticket after teaching the mini lesson, before the students move into Daily 5. I've also added an extra center to the Daily 5 as the Interactive Notebook Center. This is used as an early finisher activity - for when they finish their work.

We are currently finishing up Lesson 10 in Unit 2 and planning on doing a review week next week along with From Seed to Pumpkin! I've been super busy at school so I've not been able to work as much on the INBs for Unit 3 as I would have liked but they are on their way!

So that being said, here is Lesson 11 for Unit 3!!

So many fun activities to work on! 
Lesson 11 focuses on: 

High frequency words (8 this unit)
Digraph th and spelling words with th
Base words and –s, -es, -ed, -ing endings
Proper nouns
Classify and categorize words
Author’s purpose
Informative writing




You can grab your copy of Lesson 11 {HERE} on sale for $1!! 

Thanks!!


Geometry is fun!!! We've go so many good activities that go along with learning about shapes! Normally we wait until the spring to teach about geometry, but our new math series has it as Chapter 5. No worries! We just go with the flow - next yeaar we are designing our own Math curriculum, so stay tuned!!!

I found this{{totes adorbs activity}} from Around the Kampfire and totally immediately purchased it from TpT. It was amazingly easy to teach and the kids loved it.

Here are our finished projects:


Just in time for our Magnet Open House tours. How do you feel about Geometry? Anything special you teach?

Thanks!


I am so excited to share this one with you!!! My kiddos love when I pull out the 120 board because they know that we are about to get up and moving and having fun, all while learning!!


Recently, I found some adorable fall leaves and miniature fall squash at the Dollar Tree. I immediately started thinking about what we could do with these things. I already created and posted my Spin and Subtract game that you can grab for FREE for a limited time and the kids loved it!! 

Now, I've come up with some different activities to do wiht my giant 120 board. 
I bought a Dollar Tree white shower curtain and cut it in half and divided it up into 12 rows of ten. I wrote the numbers 1-120 in black sharpie marker. I first used it last year during Easter time with some wind up chicks and we did Greater Than and Less Than. 


 SEE:

But now that it's Fall and I found all that cute stuff at Dollar Tree, I've created a new packet: 


With lots of ready made ideas for you to use: 

I've got you covered with some generic recording pages for accountability: 


And some Fun Fall themed manipulatives in case your Dollar Tree is sold out: 



I just know my firsties are gonna love playing with these math games. Grab your free packet right {{HERE}}!!

Thanks!





How's y'alls Fall coming around?? Ours is quite slow if I do say so myself. High temperatures are still keeping in check but the pumpkin flavored everything is everywhere!!

I just wanted to share with you a quick little math game we played this week - Fall themed of course!!

I just love freebies!!!!!!!! And spelling practice!! I love coming up with new ways to practice working with our building words.  And here's my newest freebie: 

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Hello all!! I know it has been an unbelievable amount of time since my last post and I have an excellent excuse:

I hurt my neck. :(
I don't know how or when but about two weeks ago it just started hurting like crazy. I've been to the doctor twice and I am now on a strict regimen of doing nothing - I'm not supposed to walk or drive or go to work but I'm supposed to rest, to medicate, and to not be on the computer (oops) or text, email, browse, play games on the phone (yeah, oops for that too!) either. And I've done really well the past two weeks!!! But I'm going a little crazy with cabin fever. Anyway, my newest round of medicine and home therapy should have me all healthy and healed by Monday, fingers crossed!

I wanted to share a simple activity that we did last year to finish off our Me on the Map unit!! We are currently planning it right now.
It's our Map Walk Treasure Hunt!
At the end of the unit, we get together with the music teacher, cafeteria, library teacher, computer teacher, and principal and give our kiddos clues about where to go in the school. They use the clues and the school map to go about collecting items from each station. They end up on the playground with the principal who is there to give them popsicles as their end of hunt treat!

The clues are as follows: 
Computer room

Library

Music room

Cafeteria

Playground

Office

Playground where Principal is

Each destination gives the students a little treat: 
Computer: Bubbles
Music: Kazoo
Cafeteria: Water 
Library: Gummy Worms
Office: fun, colorful bandaids
Playground: Popsicle

We divide the children into five groups of 5 or 6 children each. 
Each group is given a different clue to begin and they are off!! At each destination students get a new clue until they all end up on the playground. 

When we are done, we write about what we did and make a map using the items as symbols for our map key. 
We invite parents to come and walk around with us. 

We allow the children to play for about 10 minutes on the playground at the end. 

It's a great way to finish off our map unit. 

Please feel free to download your own copies of my clues and rotation chart and letter below: 
I've made them editable through Google drive for you to change if you wish! 

Thanks for reading and happy teaching!!

Happy Labor Day friends!! So far I am loving my first day off (weekends don't count!!)!!! I've got cookie dough chilling in the fridge and I'm about to start on a Red Velvet Cake. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Here is a quick look at my class newsletter, The Weekly Ozmopolitan. 
Obviously, since my theme is Wizard of Oz, I've duly named it. 
The front page has a note from me, our WOW, and some information for parents about what we will be doing in the classroom on things they may not exactly know about like the Daily Cafe. 

I plan on posting one every Friday via email to my parents and here on the blog. I've never done a class newsletter this way. We send home our {Weekly Assignment Sheets} in the {OZ binder} every week but this year I thought I would try this as well. We shall see! I've heard back from one parent about how much she loved it!! 

In the middle pages I included some pictures from the first couple of weeks. 


On the back page I put some fun trivia and our class wish list. There is upcoming news and events listed and some helpful learning websites. 

I hope my parents find this newsletter useful!! 

If you click {HERE} you can grab a template for yourself. 

Thanks for reading!!!

Whew! The first weeks of school are SOOOOOOO BUSY!!! But would we have it any other way??? Of course not!

I just wanted to show you a quick little part of my morning math routine. Morning Math is starting off with a bang! Now it does take the kiddos quite a little while to get it going reeeeaaaaal good, but for the most part they are doing great! I will be posting more on that real soon - the truth is I'm waiting for some stuff I ordered from Really Good Stuff to help us out. Then I'll go on a picture takin' frenzy with my littles and their soon-to-be super charged math brains!!!
Oh my goodness this has been the BEST first week of school!! I was so excited to meet all my new firsties and begin our adventures together! We got through A LOT of rules and routines and procedures this past week and are ready to do even more next week. One of the best things this week was our interactive notebooking (INB) using Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys reading curriculum. This series is completely Common Core aligned and is an excellent way to introduce to students the love of learning to read. We've had so much fun with the back to school week and are excited to keep learning! The kids loved putting their books together and beginning activities to help them study in the future.

I have finished lessons 1, 2, and 3 (working on 4 and 5!) but I couldn't wait to share them with you!

All notebooks are Common Core aligned and feature interactive components.

Lesson 1 - summarizing, main ideas, nouns, sight words, short a words, Daily Edits,

Main Idea sort!




Daily Edits! 






Short a Words - pocket to keep words in to study!



NOUNS!




Labeling




 



Lesson 2 - making inferences, sight words, short i words, ABC Order, understanding characters, possessive nouns, captions, Daily Edits.




Understanding Characters




Possessive Nouns



Captions



Making Inferences!!! What's in the Bag?









The Daily Edits will all follow the same format, but with increasing difficulty through the year. 

Lesson 3 - sequence of events, beginning sounds, short o words, author's word choice, verbs.
I decided to print out on my Astrobrights paper to help #colorize my classroom!! Not to sound too egotistical, but this was a BRILLIANT idea! The paper is slightly thicker than regular copy paper and it brightens up the place!!! 

#colorizeyourclassroom





Spelling Word Slide I thoroughly enjoyed making and playing with as I'm sure the children will, too!!




Totally gonna have to help them cut until they learn to do it themselves.








Working on sentence order. 






Sequencing, allowing the children to write under the flaps. Always ready to practice handwriting!


And verbs!! 



The story in the book for Lesson 3 is Curious George Goes to School. The target skill includes Author's Word Choice so I created a little graphic for practicing. I included a graphic organizer for George and a blank one in case we use another book and we can continue character study with a different character. 


I am loving the Daily Edits!!


Well that's it!! Please click on the Covers below to get your own INB lessons from my TpT store. 



You can also find the Back to School Interactive Notebook for FREE {HERE} on my blog. 

Thanks for reading!! And happy teaching!


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