The Pieces of our Hearts

Apparently it is the new thing for me to get sick around all of my favorite holidays--the most recent being Valentine's Day.  I woke up with the flu, {yuck!} and was very sad to miss the class Valentine exchange!  Luckily, the kids completed the pieces of our hearts project the week before Valentine's Day, so I was able to see all the sweet things that fill their hearts up with love!  Cute things:  Godzilla (yes, a little friend of mine loves Godzilla very, very much), Nick Saban, family, friends, Mrs. Cooley, school, and, of course, Hannah Montana.

We also talked about how to describe love!  Here is our "Love is..." anchor chart:

Introducing the WOW Binder! It's WOW.

I can't take credit for it, I didn't invent it, but whoever did is a genius.  There are many variations of a take home folder/binder out there, but this is by far my favorite.  Let me introduce you to...THE WOW BINDER!  WOW= We Organize Work.  The kids take home this binder every night, and they leave it on my small group table as soon as they walk in the door in the morning.  I check through the binder for lunch money, notes from home, homework, and to see if they have completed their reading log. 

Start with a 1.5'' white binder.  Insert adorable paper of your choice labeled with the child's name and class name.  I found the cute stick kid paper at Wal-Mart! 

When you open the WOW binder, the first thing you will see is the directions page.  I put it in a clear page protector.  The directions page tells the parents about each part of the binder.

On the backside of the directions page, I have a nine weeks skills checklist.  It lists all the skills we will cover for that nine weeks.  I will highlight any skills that parents need to work on at home. 

The front inside cover of the binder holds our weekly newsletter.

After the directions page and skills checklist, there is a zippered pencil pouch (see through).  This pouch is for money--lunch money, field trips, book orders, etc. 

Next is the parent communication notebook.  I will write notes to parents here, and they can write to me!

This is a terrible picture, but next in the binder are 5 pocket dividers.  They are:  Important Papers from School, Class Work, Homework, Graded Work, and Reading Log.

Here is a reading log!  Oooh, and it's all filled out!  Good job!

To end our tour, the last item in the WOW binder is The Reading Briefcase.  It is a poly envelope that stays in the binder, and the kids put any book we have read during guided reading in the briefcase, along with poems, fluency builder cards, etc.  I love that The Reading Briefcase is in the binder, because I know books are getting home, and most likely, they won't be lost! 

So, that's the WOW binder!  I think it's pretty WOW.  What type of take home folder do you use in your classrooms?  What do you put in your take home folders?  {Let's make this a share and tell!} 

A Pair of Pears...

.
First graders can be busy bees...which is perfect, because this week the kids were very busy learning all about homophones!  After using our fancy new Smartboard {LOVE it} to introduce this exciting and tricky new skill--we made pairs of homophone pears!  Each child was given a homophone pair, and they had to write each word correctly in a sentence, then draw a small picture to go with each word.  I was so proud of the work they did on these!  {Sugar cookie with icing and sprinkles awards for everyone--I think so!}

Potato Groundhogs

Ever since I was a student teacher, I have had each of my classes make potato groundhogs--so I was very excited for this year's class to join in the silly tradition!  They are very simple, but the kids just get a kick out of having their very own "groundhog" to take outside to find out if it will see it's shadow!  Our little guys did see their shadows...so we aren't sure who to believe:  Punxatawney Phil or our own groundhogs?!

Super /ir/ /er/ /ur/ Girl!

This super girl (I think I'll name her Fern) is flying into our classroom this week to teach r-controlled vowels!  She is going to be one of the choices at word work station--the kids will use the magnetic words to label her with super words.  I also made an identical workpage (just much, much smaller!) for the kids to practice spelling the words on the labels!

"Qu" Quints Baby Shower!

On Monday, I introduced five new little friends to the class--the quints:  Queenie, Quintin, Quigley, Quinn, and Quincy.  While a few of my students rocked the babies (so cute!), I explained that these little ones were here to help us learn to read and write /qu/ words.  {And, since our reading series said so, I also had to teach /wh/ this week.  Just a little confusing for my kiddos.}  Anyway, we practiced reading our giant baby shower invitation that had many /wh/ words, then each student took home a baby shower invitation to share with their families!  The quints stayed in our room all week long, and today we threw a /qu/ {and /wh/}  baby shower for them!  The kids brought in /qu/ and /wh/ gifts like white blankies/booties/hats, quarters, hot wheels cars, white quilts, squeaky books, and quacking ducks!  After the gifts were all set up on a table, and most of the quints were wrapped up in new quilts, the kids visited baby-themed reading stations! 

The Giant Invitation!

Baby bottled up words:  The kids had to unscramble the letter beads to figure out which /wh/ and /qu/ word was inside each bottle!  (This was a little tricky, so we had a word bank to help!)

Rattle toss:  The kids were given two soft baby rattles, and were to toss them onto a large word mat (just a Dollar Tree table cloth).  If the rattle landed on a word, they would read it, then get a point for their team!  They really loved this game!

Descriptive writing--baby clothes edition!  I left a bag of baby clothes at the writing table.  The kids chose an outfit, then used descriptive words to describe the outfit.  When stations were over, they took turns reading their descriptive writing and having their friends guess which outfit they were describing!  It was so much fun, and many realized that a few more details could have made it easier for others to guess!

PowerPoint Download and SMART Board!

Here is an "Animal Fun" PowerPoint I made for teaching inflections -er and -est!  Just thought I'd share with my teacher friends out there!  {I wish I could figure out how to attach a picture of the first slide...anyone know how to do this?}  Anyway, I hope you will enjoy it!

Download Animal Fun!

In other news...my class is getting a SMART BOARD!  Hooray, hooray!  I am BEYOND excited!  When we found out, the whole class did a WOW cheer, a sprinkler dance, and jumped for joy!  I can't wait to use this incredible resource, and see all the wonderful learning that will take place!!!

Have you ever seen a pink penguin?

I know you want to hear all about this pink penguin, but first, let me just tell you, my class has had an absolute BLAST learning about penguins this week!  During independent reading, the kids have used our penguin research tub of books to discover new learning!  They have been busy writing down fun facts on sticky notes and adding them to our fat little penguin anchor chart!  {It has crazy big eyes, of course!}

We used rulers to find out exactly how tall a 4 foot Emperor Penguin is, and everyone had fun standing next to a life sized Emperor Penguin chart to see how they would measure up!  We even started adding some facts we learned about Emperor Penguins!

During buddy reading, the performer was brought out in many of my little friends as they practiced plays like "Tacky the Penguin" and "Winter Friends"!  One of my favorite activities of the week has been reading the picture book Pink!  After we read about Patrick the pink penguin, we decided to create our own little guys using pink scrapbook paper.  Then the kids had a writing activity called, "Meet my Pink Penguin!"  I love that one of the penguins is named Michael and takes karate lessons.  First graders are creative...and funny!

Our Fact Family Album

Fact families can  be pretty tricky for first graders, but there are so many great visuals to help reinforce this concept--building fact family houses, using number triangles, and even making actual fact "families" with cute little kid-drawn people!  I gave each student a different set of numbers, and they were to draw a family of four with the 4 number sentences for the fact family displayed on each person. The kids glued their family "photos" to scrapbook paper, and we compiled them into a class fact family album!  I think they turned out pretty cute!

The Crunchy Munchies Party

Teachers First graders love snacks, and for some reason, this teacher kept thinking of all the delicious treats that begin with /ch/ as we practiced reading and spelling with /ch/ last week! We sampled chewy chocolate chip cookies, Chocolate Cheerios, Cheetos, Cheez-its, and my absolute favorite snack of all time: Cheddar Chex Mix! Yum. I think the kids enjoyed it too...

Other ideas to add to any fantastic /ch/ Crunchy Munchies Party:

*Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets! The BEST!

*Chips and cheese/nachos

*Cherries

*Chocolate {anything.}

*Enchiladas

*Chili

*Cheddar cheese cubes

ROCKin' Penguin Counters!

These penguin counters make me smile. I can't wait to use them the week after next when we begin our penguin unit! I have a few ideas for how to use these little guys:

1. Use them as counters to help with penguin addition and subtraction word problems.
2. Use them to "push" the sounds in words with Elkonin Boxes {or Elkonin ice cubes!}
3. Write small numbers on the flat side (or back side) of each penguin. Have the kids draw 2 out of a bag, then write addition sentences with the numbers.
4. Use them for game pieces!


How to make your very own ROCKin' Penguins:

1. Go to Hobby Lobby. {Tip: Go ONLY to the section with the vase fillers. If you go anywhere else, you'll spend ridiculous amounts of money, like me.}
2. Find the vase fillers, or glass gems/marbles. They have a many different and fun colors, but of course, you'll want black ones for your penguins.
3. You will need 3 fine-tip paint markers in white, orange, and black.
4. Draw on the eyes and belly using the white marker. Let them dry.
5. Draw on the beak and feet using the orange marker. You should also be able to add the black dots for the middle of each eye.

Enjoy your adorable baby ROCKin' penguins! {Teacher friends, please fill me in on how you use these guys or plan to use them in your room! I'd love some more ideas!}

Contraction Cupcakes

For as long as I have been teaching, I've wanted to send home take home activity bags, and this is the first year I have tried it! I want the activities in each bag to be a meaningful and fun way to practice and review skills we are learning in first grade! One of the first activities I put in a take home bag this year was the Contraction Cupcake puzzle. The kids had to match the two words found on the icing to the correct contraction found on the bottom part of the cupcake!

"Must be Santa, Santa Claus!"

T'was the week before Christmas, and all that was on the minds of my first graders was...SANTA! Since Santa was on their minds anyway, I thought it might be fun to create a descriptive word poster of Santa and all the things that are important about him. And as if the Santa excitement wasn't enough, we were very happy to also find out that Santa dropped off a special elf for our class named Scout. I was a little worried he'd make too much mischief, but he turned out to be a very nice little elf who liked to play with pattern blocks and write with our letter magnets! Since elves are pretty important little guys too, every first grade class at our school made these adorable elf glyphs found on mathwire.com:

Roll a Christmas Tree

There are so many versions of this fun dice game, but I am loving this cute Christmas Tree graphic I found at Lettering Delights! To play the game, each player will need the Christmas Tree mat, 2 dice, and see through counters or small Christmas erasers to use as markers. The first player rolls the dice and adds them together, then they cover that number on the mat with a marker. If they roll the same number again, they lose a turn. The players continue to take turns until someone has all the "ornaments" on their Christmas Tree!

Download Roll a Christmas Tree!

How do you like your hot chocolate?

We enjoyed a wonderful Polar Express Day! We watched the movie in our P.J.'s and snuggled with our favorite stuffed toys, we even enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate! After enjoying our chocolately treat, the kids decorated a mug to show how they like their hot chocolate. Some like it without any toppings, but others liked it with just marshmallows, and some liked it with just chocolate chips. Most of us liked our hot chocolate with marshmallows and chocolate chips! (I'm not surprised!) Yum.

Christmas Trees For Sale!

Christmas Trees for Sale! This creative writing activity is one of my favorites. The kids imagine a special and magical Christmas tree that they will try to get others to buy. They have to describe what is unique about their tree and how much they would charge for it. The tree ideas this year were very imaginative! We had a Rock and Roll Tree, a Candy Cane Making Tree, a Drilling Tree (to drill holes in your yard), a Decorating Tree that decorates the house for Christmas, a Wishing Tree that grants wishes, an Elf Tree (comes with FREE elves!), a Flying and Disappearing Tree, and even a Protecting Tree (tells on those bad guys trying to take the presents!). Most of the first graders charged about a dollar for their trees, while some were $28.99. One tree was pretty expensive--9 trillion dollars!

Christmas Around the World

Last week our class "traveled" the world to learn about Christmas traditions in other countries! As we traveled, we took in some of the sights, and we created a scrapbook page to remind us of all that we learned along the way. We began our trip by going to Hawaii! We read this adorable book (that just so happened to be written and illustrated by a first grader--very cool):



We thought it was pretty funny that Santa decided to vacation in Hawaii, and we decided to pretend to be Santa and write postcards back to the North Pole. Here is a fun one:





Feliz Navidad! We also visited Mexico and learned the Legend of the Poinsettia:


Buon Natale! We loved touring Italy! We learned about La Bafana and we took "photos" at some of the famous landmarks!

Dasher's Reindeer Sort

A reindeer literacy game I have planned for this upcoming week is called "Dasher's Reindeer Sort". {The phonics skill this week is /sh/!} The kids pull one ornament out of a box at a time. They read the /sh/ word on the ornament, then place the ornament into the correct reindeer bucket--"Begins with /sh/" or "Ends with /sh/". They will record their words on a little reindeer sort work mat. *I would love for my teacher friends out there to share any fun and "Christmasy" ideas for teaching /sh/!

Candy Land: Sight Word Edition!

There are so many fun games out there to teach sight words, but this might just be my new favorite! I mean, who doesn't love Candy Land? As soon as I put this game out in the classroom, the kids instantly seemed excited! To make Candy Land: Sight Word Edition, I found the game on sale at Target for super cheap (only $5!) then typed up a list of Dolch words, cut them apart, and taped the words to the color cards with clear packing tape! The game is played just like regular old Candy Land, but instead of just moving to the color pictured on the card, the kids will have to read the word on the card before moving to the color space on the board. If they read the word incorrectly, they would not be able to move to the color pictured on the card. Easy! I can't wait to put the game in stations this week! {Parents...this would also be a great game for home practice. If you notice your child is missing several words on the sight word assessments, you can use the list sent home and make your own version especially for your child!}