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

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!