Teacher Appreciation Sale

Stop by my store for big savings! I have put EVERYTHING in my store on sale for 20% off and you can save even more by entering the promo code. Happy shopping and have a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week, you so deserve it! 

Student Treasures

Wow! We finished in time for our publishing date, whew! 

Our class just mailed our Student Treasures Class Book! We based our book on Todd Parr's book "The Peace Book" (I LOVE TODD PARR!!) 

I read Todd's book to the kids and asked them to think of what peace is to them and they came up with such inspiring and cute ideas. Each child then gets their own page to draw a picture on and their own writing page. I took a couple pictures of some of their pages to share with you. 

The cover of our book, I drew this.

"Peace is thinking about someone you love."

"Peace is taking a nap."

"Peace is giving your mom and dad a hug."

"Peace is helping someone who needs help."

"Peace is living in the United States."

"Peace is being happy being me."

"Peace is riding bikes with my brother."

My page..."Peace is watching your first graders
blossom like beautiful flowers."

Too cute, right! My students amaze me! 

(Sorry I had to blur their picture in the bottom left hand corner.) 

Once every child has finished their page, you send an order form home and if every parent returns the order form the class gets their book bound FOR FREE! Parents do not have to purchase a book to get a free book for the class, parents just need to check "yes" and include payment or "no" and sign it and return it. (The books cost parents about $19 but they are amazing, they are beautiful hardbound full color books, so worth it!)

ALSO...Student Treasures chooses a few books each year and gives teachers scholarships! Two years ago our class won a $100 scholarship! It was so exciting! 

When I taught kindergarten we did Todd Parr's book "It's Okay to Be Different". I will dig that out and post some pictures of what my kinder kiddos did. That book is AMAZING too! 

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Its BACK to Work I Go...

Its official Spring Break is OVER :( Time to return for the last quarter of school and I am so looking forward to keeping my little firsties super busy. 

We are jumping right into a math unit on measurement and the finale of this ten day unit will be the Measurement Olympics! I am so excited, I will be sure to post pictures soon. This measurement unit is part of my Unit 13 CORE Math Standards for First Grade. 

 Next we will be learning all about fractions. I just posted a Fun with Fractions Unit on TpT! I love food so I themed the entire 2 week unit on PIZZA, so we can have a pizza party after finishing the unit! I am sure I will somehow tie good behavior into earning this pizza party because lets face it, fourth quarter gets a little hairy. 

Here is a little sneak peak at some of the activities in the unit. 

Stop by my store to find out more.

 If you purchase my Math Units, 

these activities will be part of Unit 14 that is COMING SOON!!!

Busy Buzzy Bee

I LOVE BEES! 

The theme of our classroom is bees, so I had a great time creating a Literacy Packet to go with our next Harcourt Trophies story "Busy Buzzy Bees"

The packet includes lots of great stuff so stop by my store and check it out! 

I don't ever want to leave out those of you who don't have Harcourt so I also posted a FREE"BEE" activity with tree map. 

Little Bear's Friend

 I just posted a Harcourt Trophies Literacy Packet for "Little Bear's Friend". The packet has a reading response sheet for each of the four level readers, seven literacy stations, a sight word/spelling word memory game and this cute bear craftivity with blank writing page. 

These packets include everything you need for the Harcourt story of the week. I even threw in a math graphing activity since Gummy Bear graphing would go so great with this story.

Click here to check it out! 

Don't use Harcourt but like the bear craft? Get it here FREE!

Coming soon.....Busy Buzzy Bees!

Animal Reports

I promised in my last post that I would post some information about the Animal Reports we just completed so...here goes!

Our reports took about two weeks to complete and we had them on display for our student-led conference night. The kids were so excited to share with their parents there wonderful reports so I thought I would share with you! 

While shopping I found some amazing ZooPals plates made by Hefty, they came in a pack of 20 and were super cheap. There were 10 different animals in each pack and there were a TON of animals to choose from. 

I picked the plates that I was able to find easy-read nonfiction books for and made a list on the board so the kids could choose which animal they wanted. I had them write me a letter to tell me their top three choices. I put the kids in groups of 2 and we got busy. I have provided step-by-step instructions and all black lines in my Animal Research Report Packet on TpT. Here is a couple pictures of what one students report looked like. 

My Robot Literacy Packet

Yeah! It is the last week before SPRING BREAK! I could not be more excited! This week our Harcourt Trophies story is "My Robot". I uploaded a Literacy Packet to go with this story and the fun activity pictured above is included! 

The literacy packet includes:

- a readers response sheet for each of the four guided reading books

- an anticipation guide to complete before reading the story

- several literacy station activities

- black lines for students to create their own robot and a tree map to prompt a writing activity

AND

- a sight word/spelling word game 

I will post a new literacy packet each week so be sure to follow my TpT store so you don't miss out on some great activities to supplement the Harcourt reading program.

Don't have Harcourt Trophies but would like to use the robot art activity and tree map?
Click here to download it for FREE!!!! 

We are also working on animal reports this week so I will post some pics and information about that very soon! 

Be a Reading Detective!

I just posted this fun Little Detectives Reading Strategies poster pack to TpT and Teachers Notebook! This packet includes the 7 decoding and 7 comprehension strategies I teach my first graders. They really relate to these characters and reference them ALL the time when reading. These have become one of my favorite tools for students! 

I have also created the matching bookmarks. I give students a bookmark to take home and one bookmark to keep in their book box for use during Readers Workshop. We use these bookmarks during our daily guided reading lesson and I have these posters hanging right behind our guided reading table. My teammate had a genius idea and has taped these bookmarks to her guided reading table! 

ALSO I wanted to share our fun Tree Maps we did today for "Nouns I Love". We have been working on what a noun is and so I created this fun little tree map so students could write 5 people they love, 5 places they love, and 5 things they love. 

Here is my list: 

5 People I LOVE - Ellie (my beautiful daughter), Mr. Neal, Mom, Dad and My Class

5 Places I LOVE - Starbucks, Cheesecake Factory, Pizza Hut, the gym, and Weinberg Elementary

5 Things I LOVE - Bella and Marley (our 2 boxer puppies), candy, books and boardgames

After completing their tree map students used a tracer to create a heart shape and then divided their heart into sections to write all of their nouns in. This was a perfect Friday activity because like I have said before, my kiddos are paint deprived! You could seriously hear a pin drop while they were painting this afternoon! IT WAS AWESOME!!!!  The kids art turned out great! 

I learned so much about my students through this activity. I posted a couple pics. Sorry I had to blur out the name in the middle. You can download the Nouns I LOVE treemap here for FREE! 

Happy Valentines Day! 

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Well it was yesterday BUT I wanted to share our adorable Groundhog's! This cute activity came from The First Grade Fever's Groundhog's Day Fun packet! So cute, thanks Christie for the cute activity!

AND

I am having a SALE!  

I just opened a Teacher's Notebook store so I am throwing a sale to celebrate! Everything in the store is now 20% off! Click on the image to the right labeled "Teachers Notebook" to visit my store! The sale will last until midnight on Monday!

Harcourt Trophies FREEBIE!

Freebie anyone?! I just posted a FREE Harcourt Trophies "A Bed Full of Cats" literacy packet on TpT. The packet includes a literacy response sheet for the four leveled readers, a sight word and spelling word game and SIX literacy stations! 

Follow my blog and TpT store so you don't miss out on other great freebies. I am going to begin working on a literacy packet for "Me On the Map" this weekend. I will let you know as soon as it is posted! Click here to enjoy the freebie!

Unit 11 - CORE Math Standards

Yeah! My Unit 11 CORE Math is posted. We are just finishing Unit 10 this week and my kids are having so much fun learning about 3D Shapes! I have been creating these math units because of the lack of curriculum we have been given when switching to the CORE standards. Unfortunately, because of the budget we may not be getting curriculum that aligns with the new standards for several years! 

These units have a lesson plan for each day, a guided practice page and a spiraled review page. I am AMAZED at my students math abilities and I truly believe it is because the concepts are reviewed again and again. I have recieved so many positive comments from teachers who have been using these units in their class. Here are a few from TpT.

• "My teaching partner and I love your units. We have received many compliments from parents and don't have any complaints!"
• "This packet is awesome, Angie! I will be purchasing the other Common Core packets you have made available."
• "My students really love the lessons and enjoy the fun activities that reinforce the skills. I am thrilled that it is spiraled to ensure that I am hitting all the standards. Thanks for your continuous hard work in developing these!"
• "I am a 1st grade teacher that is using the Common Core State Standards. I LOVE your math units!! They are exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you SO much for all of the work you have done!! I look forward to your reply!! Your work is awesome!!"
• "I wanted to let you know how much I LOVE your core math units! It has really allowed me to focus on the new common core standards and feel like I am actually covering all of them!"

THANK YOU for all of the positive comments! I had MANY request for Units 1-4 for first quarter and I am excited to announce I have Units 1 and 2 posted for 20% off. I will have Units 3 and 4 soon!

Science Night:Dental Health Style

Last Thursday night was our annual Science Night and I took a couple pictures to share. First we had the giant toothbrush to walk through. The kids LOVED this!

On the back wall students had their tooth fairies displayed and their science EGGsperiments. Students were responsible for knowing about each groups experiment and results. I loved listening to the first graders lecturing their parents about their bad dental habits (coffee drinkers and soda drinkers). 

  On their tables students had their "Guess Who - Tooth Edition" Game and their Totally Teeth Book. I had such a great time listening to the kids tell their parents about all the things they learned.

The Tooth Fairy

What does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth she collects? That is exactly what we plan to answer with this fun art/writing activity. Download the FREE file here to get all the black lines to create the tooth fairy.

After students hear the story "What Do the Fairies Do with All Those Teeth?" students will answer the question "What do the fairies do with all those teeth?"

Do they make them into necklaces? Do they use them for magic potions? Or do they collect them just for fun? What do you think?

Guess Who? Tooth Edition

With Science Night quickly approaching, I have come up with a plan to be sure my students are motivated to attend. Our theme for Science Night is "Dental Health" so we practiced doing some toothy smiles and I took each students pictures. Then I cropped the pictures so only their toothy grin is showing. I created the page pictured below and will give each student a copy. They will write their guess of who each smile is below the picture and then when they attend Science Night I will have the answer key so they can check their answer.

  My students have been having such a great time working on their Totally Teeth book. I am so excited to hear students share their learning with their parents during Science Night.

3D Space Shapes

I have just posted a 3D Space Shapes Unit based on Stuart J. Murphy's book Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes. This quarter a major math focus will be geometry, so of course all of these activites are included in my CORE Math Standards Units but I thought I would also post them separately as well.

Here is a little sneak peak of what the packet has to offer! 

Happy New Year FREEBIE!

Our first Writers Workshop topic in 2012 was our New Year's Resolutions! First we made this fun project in which we trace 2012 with markers then we wrote about our resolutions! I asked the kids to write one school resolution and one resolution for home. They turned out AMAZING! Each one was so different because the kids picked such different colored patterns. They were oohing and aaahing over each others artwork, it was so cute.   

To get this page and the writing page for FREE click here! I included black lines for 2012, 2013 and 2014 (Gotta plan ahead right!) Don't forget to follow my blog so you don't miss out on other great freebies!

Snowman Mallows!

Edible Snowmen! Does it get any better! I LOVE these marshmallows and when I bought four bags of them I decided I had better quickly come up with an activity at school to avoid eating them all myself. 

We have spent a lot of time working on number lines this last quarter and so we practiced some addition with number lines and edible snowmen. The kids had a blast! They jumped their snowman across the numberline and loved every minute of it! To make it slightly more challenging some of the problems are missing an addend. 

You can get this activity as a FREEBIE here. I also created a Snowman Subtraction and that is available in my "Let It Snow" packet on TpT.

Dental Health FREEBIE!!!

As part of our Dental Health Unit students will become little scientist to discover what happens to our teeth when we eat different types of food/drinks. Students will conduct the experiment and document their discoveries along the way. There "EGGsperiment" will be displayed on a display board, two file folders glued together. Here is a sample of what the display will look like.

To begin the EGGspirement students will be told that we are going to use an egg as a pretend tooth and we will talk about why an egg makes a good tooth substitute (outer shell is like the enamel of our tooth). We will then brainstorm different types of food/juices that might stain or have an affect on our teeth. Each "team" (a group of 4 students) will choose which food/drink they would like to complete the experiment with. They will then write their question ex: Is soda bad for teeth? or Will soda stain my teeth? Each students will write their own hypothesis in step 2 ex: Mark thinks that soda is bad for teeth and can stain them. Sarah thinks that soda is good for teeth and will not stain them etc... Students will then get a hard boiled egg (1/team) and a cup with the liquid of their choice (1/team). Students will submerse their egg in the liquid overnight. The next day students will document their findings and attempt to clean their egg by brushing it with a toothbrush and toothpaste. (Don't forget to take a picture of this for the display board) Students will put their egg back into their liquid for one more night and return tomorrow to document their experiment. As a team, students will write a conclusion to their experiment detailing their findings.
(I will have one group choose to experiment with vinegar. The kids are amazed by what happens with this liquid!)
 If you think this is something you can use download it here for FREE! Don't forget to follow my blog so you don't miss out on other great freebies!

Dental Health Unit for Science Night

  We have our annual Science Night coming up in January at our school. Our first grade team has decided to do a Dental Health Unit! I have created a Totally Teeth Book for each student to have displayed at their desk and each table will also have a science "Eggsperiment" displayed. After learning all about teeth, students will discover the effects that different types of foods/drinks have on their teeth.

In the totally teeth unit students will discover the parts of the tooth and create a diagram of a tooth, students will learn about which types of foods are good/bad for teeth, students will make a toothbrush with "Tips for Teeth", students will learn all about the different types of teeth and where they are located in their mouth and finally after reading "Throw Your Tooth on the Roof- Tooth Traditions from Around the World" students will write about the diverse tooth traditions around the globe.

Third Quarter Math

It has been awhile since I have posted but what an amazing Christmas we had here! Now I am back to work creating math resources for the CORE Math Standards. I just uploaded Unit 9 to TpT! This unit is meant for the beginning of 3rd Quarter and contains a 3rd Quarter Pre Assessment. I am excited about teaching 3D shapes this quarter but thought it appropriate to review 2D shapes and geometry vocabulary before we jump into 3D shapes. This unit also works more on comparing numbers and my favorite, word problems. Each math unit includes everything you need for 10 days of instruction including a daily lesson plan, worksheet for students (one side is guided practice and the other is review of prior concepts), math facts flashcards, game templates, assessments, a problem of the day sheets. 

I am also available with any questions just email me at angielneal@gmail.com and I will get back to you ASAP. Here is a sample lesson from Unit 9 so you can get a look at it.