Let's Talk About My Week (NOT)!

This week we had school for a whole 2 and a half days... Meaning... snow days on Monday and Tuesday with a 2 hour delay on Wednesday. I feel like I am so far behind in everything--especially math! But, that isn't what this post is about. It is about the randomness that I somehow compiled into our "week." I also think it will make due for a 5 for Friday. :)

This week we studied a tiny bit about the Arctic. We began our study with a quick video on you tube about the Arctic ocean and then broke out a shared reading passage from Arctic Adventures by: Stephanie Stewart. We focused a lot of the vocabulary from the passage and completed some reading detective questions. I had the students work with their reading buddies to complete the questions--let's just say we need more work with answering open ended reading questions & using complete sentences!

We also made a vocabulary poster to refer to when answer questions. (Silly me tore it down today after school so no picture).

Today, we wrote down things we learned about the Arctic on an anchor chart and made them into complete sentences. Then, students worked on their fact flip books and an Arctic craft!! 

Ready for a picture overload?

Basically, what I had the kids do is choose two new facts to write about on their flip books. They wrote two facts from the passage or the video we watched and wrote the facts on the outside of the flap book. Then, on the inside students drew a picture to show that they could understand the fact. They turned out great!!

I love how this little guy totally grasped the concept of how the sun needs to face the earth for day light and vise versa! I LOVE his picture!

Sorry for the blurriness of this one but I just loved the 'wind.'

I swear to get a good camera soon and stop using my I-phone one!

This week in math we learned some new games (all we had time for) and I introduced double digit addition.

 I took some base ten blocks, a tens and ones mat and made a worksheet to help us learn this ever so important concept. I even took it so far to tell students that this is a very important thing to learn... If we don't know double digit addition then it makes it hard to grocery shop! Where did that come from you ask? I have no clue... first thing that came to mind and out my mouth... you heard first grade gasps though and... ohh... we better pay attention so we can go grocery shopping!! ha ha!...life connection right there folks!!

We began the lesson in a circle on the rug. We do have a smart board in this classroom but sometimes I really think they learn this stuff best when they get to actually manipulate materials instead of  watching me drag stuff around on a board. 

I gave students a double digit addition problem and we identified which numbers were in the tens in ones place. We practiced noticing how the numbers were lined up in the addition problem. When we were practicing the tens and ones place the students were using base ten blocks to help them with that. (Mainly for my struggling kids) I showed the students two different strategies to complete double digit addition

I showed students how to complete addition problems by simply adding down the ones and tens place. We practiced circling them together so they knew which two numbers to add together. This worked very well for some. Folks, we had a LOT of light bulbs going off in math today!! Aren't those the best days? It was hard to teach but so rewarding. :)

I also taught students how to make both numbers separately with their base ten blocks in order to find the sum to a double digit addition problem. For example, if the addition problem was 22+12 then students would first take 22 base ten blocks and place it on their tens and ones mat. Then, they would move them to the top and add 12 more onto their mat. Students combined their base ten blocks and they had their answer to the double digit addition problem. This was great for my students who really struggle with addition period! 

Next, week I am going to pull students in guided math and work on this more because it was a tough! They even said, "My brain is tired."! That's when you know you had a good day in math! :)

Here is the double digit addition problem worksheet if you would like! Yes, FREE! :)

Just click below to grab this stuff!

Something else I have been doing in math is the interactive math journals.

I love the 'real' interactive math journal stuff and all the cute fold here and fold there stuff ... but, let's face it-

-1. their confusing, 2. they take a lot of time and... 3. yeah, I don't have time for that !!

So, I created some simple and easy to complete interactive math journal activities for my kids. This was first meant just to be a few activities and then it turned into a huge packet and now I am doing monthly ones. I just can't get enough and they LOVE it! Here is some of their work!

The activities are basically mini-stations that the students cut, glue and sort! I love it because it is just so interactive and really concrete for them! They are also able to complete these totally independently which is perfect for guided math time!

You can grab a total of 54 activities below!

Be on the look out for the February version! I hope to have it posted soon!

Hopefully, I will see you Sunday with my visual plans... that is if this new and upcoming Ohio storm doesn't hit us. Someone said 10-18 inches?!!! UGH!!!! Is it possible to say that I am tired of snow days?!!!!

Now, head over to doodle bugs for some more fun reads!

2

Martin Luther King + 4 More on Friday!!

Hey! Guess what!? I have time for a five for Friday!! Yayy!!

 So here we go!

Today, we had a two hour delay so we didn't get much done but I wanted to make sure we definitely got to some Martin Luther King Jr. fun! It's always my favorite thing to teach because we really have good talk about thinking about 'everyone.' I'm just going to give you a little overview of our lesson. :)

Throughout the week we read some non-fiction MLK stories and completed some non-fiction activities (no pictures). Today, we read the story, "White Socks Only"

You can get this right off of storylineonline.net

Here are the kiddos totally engaged in this story! I love Storyline! Just popped it onto the smart-board and let it play!

We had some discussion about the moral of this story which they got after a lot of conversation. Then, we started on 'dream' writing. Their homework last night was to come up with a dream that they had to help make our community or the world a better place. They came in with their ideas and we jotted a few of them down on the board.

These ideas are all theirs... my heart was melting while I was writing all of this for them!

Then, the kiddos got started on their dream writing. I took their writing a step further -- rather than just stating their dream and I asked them to write about how they could make it possible. What could you do to really make this dream come true? It took a lot of thought on their part--but, they were very creative and did amazing. Here are a few of them!

"I have a dream for no more wars. Make a robot that makes notes in a snap and get it all over the world in one hour in one day." (love)

"I have a dream to have no more wars so that every body makes friends with others. I'll so it by making signs that say no more wars."

This one really got me...

"I have a dream to be strong everyday to help people and I wish I could be a super hero because I want to save people all the time."

So, there is some our MLK fun (I swear we did more but I just didn't take pictures)

I got the cute craft here (because I am not good at coming up with these things ha):

I am making this one of my five for Friday updates because I am so excited. You might want to take a seat first... I left school ON A FRIDAY at 4:00! I am more than proud of myself for this accomplishment! ha ha... you might think it sounds silly but Friday's are normally my 'late' days. I normally stay until 7 or 8 getting stuff prepped, cut and ready to go for next week. This week I planned early, got my stuff ready and someone else made all of my copies! At our school we have these volunteers that we call Eagle Angels and they come in and copy/cut stuff for us. Well, I've never been able to take advantage of this because I'm never ready and I don't plan early enough (or at least good enough--I take a while to finalize my lessons)--I'm picky! So, yeah... I'm excited!

This week my fiance and I went to my favorite store ever! Hobby Lobby! We are getting our engagements pictures done soon (after rescheduling three times). Look at these cute pillows we got--plus some other ideas for wedding decor. I just had to show you!

You might think I'm weird when I say this but this week was the first time I had ever been to a laundry mat. Not even sure if that is spelled right but we'll go with it. Our pipes in our rental house burst over the cold winter week that we had--- and they're the ones that go to our washing machine... so, the fiance and I had to do a little laundry else where. It wasn't as bad as it seems. :) But, I hope I don't have to do it again! I got lucky in college and had an apartment that had a washer and dryer so that is the reasoning behind all of this. 

I've got lots of stuff done this past week (tpt wise) and here it is if you interested. One of them is FREE!!

Next week (like not this one coming -- but the next one) we will be introducing long I and here is the Long I unit! All done and ready to go!

Here is a mini-unit (freebie) I made last week that I will be using this upcoming week! Snatch it if you'd like!! It's all about homophones and introducing them to your students. There are lesson and station ideas inside!! :)

I am also ready for some Valentines Day fun! So, here are the math and literacy stations for that (even though its a ways away)!!

Have a great weekend and MLK day!!

1

Antonyms and some other stuff!*

This past week we went to school a whopping two days! --(I literally had an almost three week winter vacation!*Sorry* )  Need I say that we also had two, two hour delay days! I uploaded my 'peek at my week' on Sunday thinking, "Oh, we just will miss Monday so these plans will be fine--just may need to adjust one day." Bahaha---what was I thinking? We missed three full days and like I said had two, two hour delay days... So, needless to say I didn't do anything on the plans except for a few math lessons. So, I took some of what we were supposed to do the preview week but didn't (due to delays and cancellations) and squeezed it in this week! So, enough of me--here is some of what we did this week!!

We began our little antonym lesson I introduced a beanie turtle and our reading strategy was, "Tuning into interesting words." I got a cute Beanie Baby Reading Strategy Posters from First Grade Critter Cafe and they're a hit! We began by discussing the meaning of opposites and giving examples. I told the students the meaning of antonyms and then we then began reading, "The Foot Book" by Dr. Seuss. Students listened for antonyms in the story (they're on like every page) and each time they heard one they said, "screech!" I would stop, call on a kiddo and they would tell me which antonym they heard. I recorded them on this not so creative anchor chart. (I just did not have the time to make a cute one--oops)

After a lot of talk about antonyms and making sure they understood what it was they set off to complete this cute foot activity I found at The First Grade Parade. The kids got with a partner and they had three choices. They could use an antonym from the anchor chart--they could come up with one together--or they could read a book to tune into words that had an antonym (differentiation)!! ;)--A lot of them actually researched!

Then, partners traced one another feet and put the antonyms onto each foot. (I forgot to take a close up picture-sorry)

Here they are up on the bulletin board!

After that I gave students a book to work on from Cara (of course) and this time they all had to read a good fit book and tune into interesting words -- they had to focus on finding words that have an opposite meaning. When they found one they wrote both words down (ex. today - tomorrow), used both in a sentence and illustrated.

This little guy was HARD at work here! (I always know when this one is working hard--he twists his hair) :)

Here is a student hard at work and re-reading her sentences. :)  

 There you have my antonym lesson--It took my whole reading block but it was so worth it! I even had to make extra copies for the kids because they want to keep searching!! I let them do this at read to self or partner time.  

On Friday we did a lot of Long A review. We focused a lot on it the previous two weeks before winter break and I wanted to make sure we retained what we learned (which we didn't) so -- needless to say we did a lot of work together. 

First, we sorted long A and short A words together--practiced spelling them on our I-pads (screen chomp).

Then, I whipped out our Magic E Mix up with long A and taught students how to unscramble words.

The kids wrote the room and completed a the rest of the recording form for our review.

I love the mix up because it really takes some critical thinking skills to unscramble those words!

You can find this activity and a whole bunch more here.

I just have to share this because I got so excited when we finally got to dig into some interactive math journal activities this week!! OH-MG the kids loved it!! To begin one of our lessons on how to make 10 I whipped this sucker out for some review of addition sentences that equal and do not equal 10! Loved it and so did the kids!

You can find my interactive math journal here.

That's all for today! Hopefully, we will have a full week this week!

3

Enter to Win!!!--Long O Printable Fun!

I did it! I broke into the Phonics Printable Packets! I just created an awesome Long O unit and I am so excited about it!! My kids and I are digging into Long O... on Wednesday (hopefully)--another snow day tomorrow. Anywho.... I've got stuff printed and ready to go! Here the the pictures!!

1. Here are materials I will be using to *teach* my kiddos about Long O!

Making words, fluency sentences, picture matching and Long O lists.

**Perfect for guided reading too**

2. More fluency sentences with identification of Long O in the sentence.

Also, a short story is a reading response page!

3. Sentences scrambles (My kids <3 these!!)

4. Just some printables that cover various concepts! 

5. Word recognition pages, long vowel vs. short vowel, spelling and reading!

5. Fill in the blank booklet!

I will use this for my higher students who finish work early and need a bit more of a challenge. I also will use this in guided reading. It works perfectly for sentence 'sense'- comprehension - and visualization!!

Now, onto the important stuff. 

Do you want this?!--I mean like do you really want it?! I will give it to you...maybe... if you get picked!

 I will be picking a lucky person to send this to by tomorrow night!

All you have to do is follow my blog and leave a comment with your e-mail address below!

8