Are you looking for fresh ideas and freebies for the rest of December and the long winter days still ahead? Don't miss the very first I Teach First Grade Blog Hop!
From ten frames to gingerbread houses, from Kwanzaa to Christmas crafts, you'll find lots of fun ideas that we're thrilled to be sharing with all of our first grade friends like YOU!!
Head on over to my Primary Inspiration blog to find some new ways to put foam snowflakes and dice together for some frosty math games! Then just follow the links right at the bottom of the post to discover lots of other great new ideas you'll want to try in your own classroom.
Just for fun, we'd love it if you'd vote for your two favorite posts by clicking on the little heart you'll see in the upper right corner of each link. Thanks!
I have SNOWMENon the brain so let's do some blog hoppin' and see what I've found.
HINT...even if you don't live where it snows these activities just might bring a bit of excitement to your classroom and a look at experiences, due to climate, other children have in other parts of the world.
First here is a look at some of my favorite class read aloud stories.
I am definitely adding 100 Snowmen to my 100 Days of School list.
It is delightful with some fancy adding taking place to find 100!
In my class we made adorable snowmen for the parents and snowmen for the kiddos.
Look at these adorable treat bags from Club...Where crafty is contagious. I especially love the marshmallow one! There is even a free pattern for the head!
I tried these for treats for my class only instead of the nose they used I put an orange M&M. I saw another post where they used mini chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth. What fun to make!
Do you ever feel like you live your teaching life in the future? Sometimes it feels like one foot is in today and the other is already dashing ahead to the next month!
In that spirit, here's a quick freebie that you can print today to have ready for the busy December days ahead. Your firsties will have loads of opinions about these graphing topics, and you'll know that, in the midst of the fun, you'll still be addressing standards in data collection.
The graphs in this set are also a great starting point for some writing activities about ...
* favorite holiday cookies
* the perfect gift for mom
* favorite holiday colors
* comical snowmen
* pretty snowflakes
* favorite holiday characters ... elves? Rudolph? Frosty?
There's even a cover included, to turn this collection of graphs into a class math book your little readers will return to again and again. You can find this set in the winter resources category at my TpT store ... click here to download your free set!
Last week, I finished up this new Thanksgiving resource. I developed it to use with my students because we've been working on writing complete sentences. I wanted them to practice deciding if a sentence was complete by identifying the who part and the what part of a sentence.
I finally got to use this activity with my children today. We did it first as a whole group activity, and then I put it into our literacy center rotation for this month. It really is perfect because there are so many different combinations of sentences the children can make.
So I ran off the color saving option in totally black and white. I put each sheet into a wipe off pocket.
We used the paperclip spinners to find a word or phrase on each spinner. Then we put the words together in the order of the spinners. The first time we spun, we came up with "sailed hunted corn and stuffing." The kids decided that was not a sentence because it didn't tell us who.
The second spin, we got the words "the pilgrims ate corn and stuffing" The kids agreed that was a sentence because it told us who -- the Pilgrims and what ate corn and stuffing. All right. Now to write it correctly on the recording sheet! After everyone finished writing the sentence, I showed them how to check it using the check boxes and fix the sentence if necessary.
After a few more non-sentence spins, we spun "the mayflower cooked in the forest." At first, some of the children said it wasn't a sentence, and some said it was. So we applied the test. Does it tell us who? Yes - The Mayflower. Does it tell us what it does? Yes -- cooks in the forest. So it's a sentence, albeit a silly sentence! Don't you just love the picture of the Mayflower cooking in the forest? Again, the children wrote the sentence and used the check boxes to check for capitalization and ending punctuation. We continued on in this manner until we had four sentences written and proofread for capitalization and end marks. The favorite silly sentence was "Turkeys cooked the spider." Then the children illustrated the sentences.
I was so pleased with the way this activity turned out. The children were engaged and attentive the whole time. They loved the novel approach of spinning a sentence and deciding if what they spun was really a sentence. Now that they know how to use it, I'm anxious to put the activity into centers for November and hear them working through the process themselves!
In addition to the center work, there are 8 pages of follow-up black and white activities that practice and reinforce complete sentences.
If you would like to try out these activities with your students, click on the picture above and visit my TpT store. There is a FREE SAMPLE included in the preview!
Hello Everyone!
It's Megan from First Grade Roars. Today I want to share with you how I implement math in my classroom! Three years ago our district adopted a new math program. It has many wonderful components but it was missing some key factors I felt my students needed. I began to play around with the program and decided I liked teaching it best with small group & rotations. Three years later, I have even named my new math and we are going strong! So today I will share our math: MASTER MATH!
Each letter stands for 1 important piece of our math rotation.
First up..
M-manipulatives
I love to use any manipulatives that pertain to what we are learning but sometimes just moving and matching laminated game cards is what we manipulate! I am a huge fan of Kristen Smith's Math Bins for this station! She makes wonderful cards to match and manipulate.
A: Apply Skills
Who doesn't love games! We apply what we have learned and play games. This is a great time for children to interact, learn, and work on sharing winning and losing! To get you started I have included a few free games! Make sure to download these freebies!
During this time we use the curriculum given to us to teach. Teaching in small group is so effective and you get daily feedback on each child to see how they are doing. I group my students with mixed levels separating out the lower children into different groups. That allows me to provide more support to each student in every session.
(This is my student teacher teaching small group)
T: Technology
Technology is a win-win situation. Children are engaged and they are learning!! We use our desktop computers to play old games from Everyday Math! They are amazing games!!!
We have 5 iPads that we use daily with many fun Math Apps.
Chrome books are our new thing! We do X-tra Math and Splash math on these each day!
E: Enrichment
This station is OPEN and NOT one of the 5 rotations. It is used as a go to if children finish early. I love The Moffatt Girls and I buy all of her 2nd grade materials for my 1st graders! This is definitely a favorite!
R: Review
Since our program is not a spiral program we do a lot of review! This is also a favorite of my students as they love to build their confidence in math and practice old skills! One more plug for someone else, I love the product I bought from Missing Tooth Grins. I use this for my review center!
I made these signs and put them in Playdough Containers. They are set out for the children to see at each table!
This is my cart and how I organize my materials.
I make a binder for each chapter in our math series. I include a lesson plan for each day and the papers I used for each day. It keeps me organized and I love how easy it is to prep each year!
One last tip! I have a tray for the work that is being used and a RED tray to put finished work in at each station. Red means Finished or STOP. This has been a great housekeeping detail and saved a lot of time sorting through papers and collecting papers.
Check out what my students think of MASTER MATH!
I hope you can take away something from our math! We just love it!!!
