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

Check out the updated version of this post by clicking here!

 

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! 

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

Hey All! Time to prepare for Science Night! Science Night is a big deal at our school and we spend so much time preparing for it. I thought I would share some ideas and information so you can take a look at this fun event.

I just finished and posted my newest Totally Teeth Printables packet and I am so excited to share it with you. I created this packet to go with my Totally Teeth Student book pictured below.

On Science Night, I hang a giant toothbrush for students and their parent to walk through. The kids LOVE this!

To make sure my students are motivated to attend Science Night, and I am not spending the evening alone, I created this fun Guess Who??? Tooth Edition activity. We practiced doing some toothy smiles and I took each students picture. I crop the picture so only their tooth grin is showing. I open the template in Powerpoint, insert a table and randomly put each toothy grin into a cell. I copy one page for each students and they write their guess of who each smile is below the picture. Here is the catch: Students can only find out if their predictions are right when they come to Science Night. I hang the "key" on the board and the first thing they do when they walk in their room is run to the board to see how many they got right. So fun! The best part, most of them don't even correctly identify their own smile. HA! 

This activity is highly pinned on Pinterest and so many teachers have asked for the template so....I have included it in my Totally Teeth Printables packet :) 

Students display their Totally Teeth Student book on their desk. They share this book with their parents and discuss: Parts of a Tooth, Dental Do's and Don'ts, Tooth Traditions for Around the World and Tips for keeping their teeth healthy. 

On the back bulletin board, we display their Tooth Fairy craftivity and writing prompt. 

They tell their parents all about Dental Health Vocabulary with their Vocab book. 

They tell their parents all about our January Math Tubs with Dental Health Measurement, Graphing and Data Analysis, Roll, Add and Color and Build-A-Word Scrabble. They also share our class graphs: How Many Teeth Have You Lost? Have You Had a Cavity? 

  

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.

Add caption

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.

Super Sale!

 Okay Thanksgiving is (almost) over so let the shopping begin! To kick off the holiday shopping season, I am having a sale! EVERYTHING in my TPT store is 20% off! The sale begins tonight at midnight and last until Monday so stop by and check it out! 

I just added a Snowman Unit with TONS of great math and literacy activities for December and January.

The Story of the Pilgrims!

It is really November?! Time for our study of the Pilgrims and Native Americans! We make this book every year to go along with our study. This book takes us about a week to complete and my kids learn so much when we are finished.

This 24 page packet includes:
- front cover for student book (pictured above)
- direction page with pictures and activity suggestions
- mayflower art page with black lines for ALL shapes and labels for the parts of the boat
- mayflower facts writing page
- Mayflower suitcase black line with suitcase label
- Mayflower suitcase writing page
- Black lines to create pilgrim boy and girl
- Life as a Pilgrim sorting activity
- Black lines to create Squanto. Labels to describe his important role helping the pilgrims
- Letter to Squanto page
- Black lines to create Thanksgiving Turkey
- Venn Diagram to compare current Thanksgiving traditions to those of the past.

Click here to get it!

Here are a few of my favorite books that help us with our study of Pilgrims and Native Americans. My favorite of all is If You Sailed on The Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern!

Harcourt Literacy Station for "Where Do Frogs Come From?"

Visit my TPT store to get the literacy stations I will be doing next week. These station align with the Harcourt Trophies story "Where Do Frogs Come From?"

Station 1: Spelling Word Search
Station 2: ing family (color king crown and glue ing words onto it) Write one sentence for each _ing word.
Station 3: Frog Life Cycle Wheel
Station 4: Life Cycle of a Frog cut and paste mini-book
Station 5: Scrabble Spelling
Station 6: Froggy Racing Sight Word Game
Station 7: Frog Art with life cycle of a frog poem on tongue (pictured above)

It's Turkey Time!

 Thanksgiving is here! 

I just finished my "It's Turkey Time" thematic unit. Check it out. It includes a nonfiction book for students, activities for: spelling, ABC order, sentence revisions, graphing and data analysis, word problems, addition, place value, true and false statements, tally marks, skip counting and art!!! This packet has TONS of literacy station and math tub activities for the month of November.