Have you re-downloaded the REVISED first grade CORE math units?! I am so excited about how they turned out! I had several teachers ask me to change the font from D'Nealian to a more traditional font AND... I got a little carried away making a few improvements. These units have been totally revamped and renewed!

These first grade CORE math units include:

A daily math journal with word problems (perfect for math warm-up time)

 A daily lesson plans with all printables (flashcards, math mats, gamecards,etc...)

A daily guided practice page and independent practice page

Vocabulary Cards for your math word wall

 and unit ASSESSMENTS! 

For the first grade units, I have also created a quarterly pre-assessment so parents, students, administrators and teachers are able to see the amazing growth that students are making!

Not sure if this product will work in your class? Here are a few comments from teachers who use these CORE math units in their class: (quotes taken from TpT)

"Angie, you are spot on with the common core! Thank you for sharing all of your activities!"

"Thank you for putting the lessons together to match up with the CCS. Your time and efforts are so appreciated."

"My kids and parents love it- thank you!"

"Have purchased all the first grade units and couldn't be more pleased! Loving that our expectations are higher and that curriculum mapping is a breeze!"

"I have purchased all of the Common Core packets that are posted and they have been wonderful. These packets are WELL worth the price!"

"My MAP test scores were through the roof - thanks!:

"My kids are really enjoying your units. The hands on activities are perfect and I love the review on the practice pages."

"You make me smile! Thank you!"

"Super thanks for working hard so I can reap the rewards!"

"Excellent! Professional quality! You are very talented! Thanks!"

Read more comments by visiting my TpT store. Download the preview to see a yearly Scope and Sequence.  If your school is interested in purchasing multiple licenses please contact me (fallintofirst@gmail.com), I offer discounts on large purchases!

Teacher Appreciation Sale

It is time to shop! I have my wishlist ready and I am so excited for the Teacher Appreciation Sale on TpT. Everything in my store will be 20% off + 10% off from TpT! 

In totally unrelated news, my daughter is in kinder and she brought home her Writing Journal this weekend. I almost DIED when I saw this last journal entry about what she wants to be when she grows up!

"When I grow up I want to be a dentist because if you are a teacher you don't get that much money."

Oh babe, how true that is!! After sending her kinder teacher an apology email I died laughing. I am always telling my daughter she should become a dentist and take over my father in-laws dental practice! I guess she was listening...who knew?!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Kindergarten CORE Math Units

 

YEAH I AM FINISHED!

I just finished uploading Unit 16 Kindergarten CORE math to TpT! These 16 units cover ALL the kindergarten CORE math standards. Creating these units has taken me all year and has been a huge task and I am so happy they are finished!

The only thing that kept me motivated to create these units was the positive feedback I kept receiving from all you amazing kinder teachers out there! Here is a few comments from TpT:

"Thanks for taking the time to create something so much better than any company could ever! :)"

"Absolutely love this my school has no curriculum and I have an hour and 15 minutes a week for a break. This is a life saver. I just found it so I will be starting it in the middle of the year. No more staying up until 3am. And no more 10hrs of weekend time at school."

 "I love this program! My kids are doing better than ever this year!"

"A++++++ Excellent product!"

"I am so thrilled to have yet another math unit that is incredibly organized and age appropriate and useful!" 

"These are great, it is amazing the difference I have seen in my students since starting to use these. I will continue to buy them all, thanks for all the hard work:)"

"This is such an outstanding addition to my core math curriculum. Truth be told, I actually rely on it more than my out-dated curriculum. This meets the common core better. Thank you for all your hard work!!!"

"Thank you so much! I would be floundering without your help!"

  Wanna know what all the fuss is about? 

Each unit has a Math Journal with 10 days of word problems. (Sample from Unit 15) The word problems address addition, subtraction, comparing numbers, measurement and decomposing numbers.

Each unit has 10 days of lesson plans with materials and printables. 

(Sample lesson from unit 16)

Each unit has 10 days of guided practice and independent practice pages. 

(Sample page from Unit 16) The independent practice is a spiral review so students are continuously reviewing all the kinder CORE standards.

 Finally, each unit has an assessment! 

I have created a Scope and Sequence for all 16 units, just download the preview on TpT to have a look. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask! I also have first grade units and I am now going to begin working on SECOND GRADE!

Mother's Day!

IT IS ALMOST MAY! The end of the school year is quickly approaching and I am trying to cram in every last writing activity that I possibly can!

Over the last week we have been working on our Mother's Day books and Treat bags. I had MANY laughs reading what they wrote about their moms! I know that moms treasure these books forever, and I was so proud of what my students created for them. 

Here is a little peek at what our Mother's Day book looks like!

We did a guided drawing lesson to create the art for the front cover of our book. Here are a few samples of what that looks like.

The first page is titled "Meet My Mom"

 I put four blank writing pages in our book this year and we wrote the following prompts:

1. My mom likes to....

2. The best thing about my mom is...

3. My mom is happy when... My mom gets mad when...

4. My mom and I like to...

Then we finished our book up with a coupon page and a treat bag full of Hershey Kisses!

 

Do you have an instagram account? 
You can find me on instagram using user name fallintofirst

More Marzano Student Rubrics

I posted a picture of my BEE themed Marzano student rubric a few days ago and several people asked me to create some other themes.

Here is a thumbs up/thumbs down one. Click on the picture to get it!

Here is a Circus theme one! Click on the picture to get it! 

If there is any other theme you would like, please don't hesitate to ask!

ZooPals Animal Reports

We finished our ZooPals Animal Reports today! These are my favorite reports to write because my kids do ALL of the work and they are so proud when they are finished. 

 Let me tell you there was a lot of training involved. We spent a week writing an animal report together our the desert tortoise. Click here to read all about it.

Here is a outline of how our Animal Reports went:

DAY 1

I made groups with 2-3 kids per group, I tried to mix ability levels so the groups would be more successful. To determine which animal each group got, we used these "Grow Capsules" that I found in the dollar bins at Target! 

(I gave one capsule to each group)

 Simply place the capsule in hot water and watch as the magic begins! 

(We only have access to cold water in our classroom so it took slightly longer for the magic to begin, but they kids were mesmerized and SILENT as they were watching and waiting...AHHH quiet time) 

Then...

So cute right?!

Then we wrote our planning page for our animal report. We did this whole group and students just changed the animal name to fit their report.

Page 1: What a __ looks like

Page 2: What a ___ eats

Page 3: Where a ___ lives

Page 4: Cool facts about ____.

DAY 2

Let the research begin! We began whole-group by reviewing the topic we choose on our planning sheet.

Each group was given 2 non-fiction books about their animal. They had to work together to write 3 facts about what their animal looks like. They did an amazing job of working together! 

Here is a sample of what the lion group wrote for page 1 (What a lion looks like)

DAYS 3 - 5

Research and writing days. Each day we began by reviewing the topic on the planning sheet and the kids got to work scouring their books for facts that fit the topic. 

 

 DAY 6

We spent day 6 editing and revising our reports. I met with each group that day to read and help them revise their reports. 

Day 7

Publishing and Presenting! 

I am a techie teacher and I try to get my students really excited about using technology. We went to the computer lab and typed our reports. It took a little time but the kids were so proud of themselves!

(WARNING: THIS IS NOT OUR FIRST TIME TYPING and this may set you over the edge if you don't have helpers). Having students work in their groups to type is also a great way to publish these reports. 

To be sure kids are engaged during their peers presentations, I have created a little Wild About Animal Reports Book that students complete while their peers are presenting. This just revised my ZooPals Packet on TpT to include this book. Please re-download if you already own this packet.  

The kids were little animal experts reporting their information to the class. It was AWESOME! Click on the picture below to get this packet! 

2014 Update: We took our projects one step further this year and created a large diagram for each animal. Here is the diagram and report that the giraffe, cheetah and elephant groups created. LOVE!  

Give the EARTH a Helping Hand!

Have you read this book?!

I LOVE Todd Parr! His books are incredible! This is one of my all time favorite books for Earth Day. In this book, Todd writes about some of the small things that we can do to make a big difference for our EARTH. 

His kid-friendly language and art is so engaging to first grade students. One of the pages in the book says:

 "I remember to turn off the lights and shut the refrigerator to save energy because....I love the polar bears and I want the snowmen to stay cool."

We had an amazing discussion about global warming today in our first grade class! 

WOW, thank you Todd Parr! 

After reading the book, I challenged the kids to give the earth a helping hand and make their own Earth Day Pledge. Here is what they came up with! 

(So sorry about the picture quality, I only had my iphone camera today)

 

I pledge to plant more trees because if there are no trees we won't have oxygen. If there was no oxygen we would die. 

I pledge to plant new trees because I want to have paper. And I want to respect the earth.

I pledge to recycle and turn off the lights because I don't want to make the earth a disaster.  

To make the art project we used coffee filters and markers. After students drew the continents and oceans with their washable markers we sprayed the coffee filters with water to blend the colors together. Here is our Earth Day bulletin board! 

   If you would like to download the writing page click here to get it! 

Marzano Student Rubric

Our school district has adopted a new teacher evaluation tool this year. I just had my formal lesson observation and a HUGE part of the new evaluation tool emphasizes the idea of having students use a rubric to assess their learning throughout a lesson. 

This is not something new in my classroom, I am always asking students to show me their understanding of our learning goal on a scale of 1-4 but I wanted to create a visual for the students to reference and I wanted my administrator to have an idea of what we were referring to when the kids showed me their level of understanding. 

  I kept the rubric super simple with kid-friendly language. 

Click on the picture above to get these posters for your class! 

Of course I have the BEE theme going on in my classroom but I am going to be making a circus theme one soon for my teaching neighbor next door. Any other theme I need to make?

Animal Research Reports

Hey All! 

We are working on Informative Writing and we are about to begin writing our Animal Research Reports! Before I let my students begin their report, we write an animal research report together from beginning to end so that I can model the steps to informative writing. 

Our whole-group research report is about desert tortoises because we have a desert tortoise as a class pet! 

Meet Shelldon! 

(For the record he has had that name long before the TV show The Big Bang started)

Shelldon became part of my class about four years ago. A former family called and asked if I was interested in adopting him because they were moving and needed to find him a new home. FYI a tortoise is a GREAT classroom pet, they are super low maintenance,  and the kids LOVE him! 

I went to the library and found several easy-read non-fiction book about Desert Tortoises.

(Desert Tortoises by Christopher Blomquist, Desert Tortoises by Sophia Lockwood and Desert Tortoises by Elizabeth Thomas)

We brainstormed the topics we would like to research and wrote them on our planning sheet. We decided to write about:

• what a tortoise looks like
• what a tortoise eats
• where a tortoise lives
• cool facts about the desert tortoise

Each day we read through our non-fiction text looking for facts that fit our topic. The kids did a great job. We tackled one page a day so we spent about one week researching and writing. 

 

Page 1 - A desert tortoise has a hard shell that covers its body. Their back legs look like little elephant feel. An adult tortoise is nine to fifteen inches long. 

Page 2 - A desert tortoise is a herbivore. They eat cactus, wildflowers and dried plants. They get water from the plants they eat.

 Page 3 - A tortoise lives on land. They dig burrows to stay cool. Desert tortoises live in Arizona, California and Mexico.

Page 4 - Desert tortoises live up to 100 years. They are in danger of dying out so laws protect them. A hatchling is about 2 inches long.

I wanted my students to get the FULL report writing experience so we did revisions then "published" our report by typing it in the computer lab! 

(I love technology and try to incorporate it whenever possible, this was NOT my students first experience using Microsoft Word) It took a little time and patience when they typed their report but they were so incredibly proud of themselves when they finished.

 

We made this cute little tortoise art project by painting a bowl brown and gluing on tissue paper.

 

Next week, my students are going to work with a partner to write their own Animal Research Report! We are going to use my Animal Research Report with Hefty ZooPals packet! I will be back to let you know how it goes! 

I shared this post at Critters In the Classroom! What a cute blog!