It's Winter Time!

Hi everyone, it is Teresa from Fun in K/1!  It is definitely Winter tine, even down here in Florida!  I am sure hoping that furry little groundhog doesn't see his shadow a week from now and Spring time is on it's way!  I can not wait for it to warm up and the time to "Spring Ahead"!

Speaking of the time springing ahead, I have a great freebie "Winter TIME" packet to share with you.  Click here to grab it.

This unit just covers time to the hour and half hour.  When I begin teaching time, I have the kiddos circle the number the hour-hand is pointing to or just passed.  I have found this helps them quite a bit.

The unit also has a few beginning elapsed time problems.  Very simple ones.  This is such a hard skill for the kids to get, I figure it can't hurt to introduce it to them now.  I casually cover this in class with comments like "I'm hungry and it is 10:40. Our lunch is at 11:40, how long until I can eat?"  I find that this helps with the "How much longer until lunch/ PE/ dismissal?" questions.  When the children ask, I make them figure it out with me.  So eventually the kids learn to do it themselves and the lazy kids who don't want to figure it out, don't ask because they know I will make them do it with me!

On a completely different tangent about time, you would not believe how long it has taken me to finish this simple post.  Let's just say I know where my daughter gets her ADHD.  (Although I could use a little more of her "H" (hyperactive) to help with my desire to exercise!)  At one point I had 8 windows open on my desktop and my laptop next to me with 2 windows open.  I am so easily distracted!!!!!!!!

Well now that I have rambled on, I will wish you a wonderful week!  We celebrate the big 100th day Friday and then the jam packed February begins!

Going for the Gold!

Anyone who knows me, knows I am CRAZY obsessed with the Olympics.  As in, I probably should be embarrassed that I have a whole section of my closest dedicated to Olympic gear.  Including {but not limited to} sweatshirts, t-shirts, socks, Swatch watches and water bottles.  So, now that the games are just 12 days, I'm gearing up to get my kids just as excited!

I created Going for the Gold to get the "team" ready! 

This unit is chock full of goodies! 

There are 5 Math & 5 Language Arts Centers/Activities. 

And, 12 different worksheets! 

Check it out on TpT or win a copy by entering my BBF Deirdre's giveaway

Want to get your kids excited about the upcoming games, too?
Head over to TpT to snag my Going for the Gold Winter Games Worksheet FREEBIE.

 

 

Please be kind and leave feedback if you can use it in your classroom.
You'll make my day :)

Have a fabulous weekend!

Slainte!

Groundhog Day and a Freebie

Hello there, Renee here from Fantastic First Grade Froggies.  Groundhog Day is coming up.  Do you celebrate it or somehow tie it into a weather unit?  Our 100th Day of School falls on the Friday before Groundhog's Day so I probable won't do much for it, but I wanted to share some of my favorite books and a freebie I had made last year.  This was also posted on my blog earlier this month.

Here are some fun books I enjoy to share with my class for Groundhog's Day.

1.  Mr. Groundhog Want the Day Off
2.  Groundhog Day!
3.  It's Groundhog Day!
4.  Go to Sleep, Groundhog!
5.  Punxsutawney Phyllis
6.  Who Will See Their Shadows This Year?
7.  Geoffrey Groundhog Predicts the Weather
8.  Substitute Groundhog

Don't forget to pick up my Groundhog's Day Freebie.  It is an open game board, meaning you can make it fit to your needs.  Click below to grab your copy.

What's your prediction?  Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow or not?

A Ton of Fun! 100 Day Activities to Help You Celebrate

                                                                            98, 99, 100!
Hi everyone.   It's Diane over at TeachWithMe.com hoping you are not buried under an avalanche of snow like we are, here in Michigan.  Since I blog on the 19th I'm smack in the middle, and not sure what everyone is studying at this point in time.

Here in the Midwest, we don't start school 'til after Labor Day, so our 100th Day of school always falls in February, but for those of you who will be hitting that milestone in January, I thought I'd post some super-fun and interesting FREEBIES to help you celebrate 100 Day.

Click on whatever links are of interest to you, to pop on over to grab the FREE printables.

Are you looking for a 100-Day certificate to give your kiddo's?  I taped a pack of Smarties for the number 1 here.  This certificate can be found in the free Hip-Hippo-Ray! packet. 

Do you need a few 100 Day bookmarks to tuck inside desks or backpacks? 

Would you like a list of great 100 Day books to read ?  I have a collection of 35 of my all-time favorites.

Need some 100 Day bulletin board ideas?  I have 10.

How about writing prompts? Here are 5 that include the prompt page for your kiddo's to write on + covers so you can turn them into class books.  100 Day Writing Prompt Class Books. 

Making a 100-Day Writing Prompt Poster, or a 100-Day Writing Prompt Quilt are also interesting options. 

These make wonderful class books or bulletin boards too.

My Y5's loved doing "craftivities" at independent centers.  Even tho' these are crafts,  they still cover a variety of standards.

A personal favorite of mine, is the 100-Day Sunshine.  Counting to 100 can be tedious, but doing it together while pointing to the 10 numbers on 10 sunshine rays, makes it interesting.

To make skip counting simple, the count by 5's numbers as well as the count by 10's numbers are in a different color.

If you want a few more ways to skip count by 5's and 10's you might also enjoy the "Spot and Dot" mini booklets.  They were my Y5's favorite "just-the-right-size" books.

Students  put 10 dots on 10 things, count by 10's to 100, and then color my hand drawn pictures, or they can draw 5 dots on 20 small pictures and count by 5's.

Another fun way for your kiddo's to count to 100 is by having them count and color the 100 stars on this star student badge.

A few of these ideas you can do ahead of time.  Challenge your students to read 100 books as a class.

Simply divide the number of students by 100, to see how many books each student is responsible to read by 100 Day.  Click on the link to view/download the 100 Books By 100 Day challenge. 

To complete the 100 Words By 100 Day challenge, students write 10 words each day for 10 days in their booklets.

If you need a list of CVC words (338) compound words (2,756), contractions (72) or Dolch words (PP-3rd) for your students to choose from, click on those links.

Do you have your students sort and count things into 10 piles of 10?  Make that easier and neater with these counting mats.  I laminated mine, so that I could re-use them each year. 

Finally, I have all sorts of themed ways to count to 100 with Pigs, or Hippo's,  Apples,  Ants,  Caterpillars, or Owls or Monsters and even a 100-topping pizza.  

I hope there's something here that you'll find fresh and fun to help you celebrate in a grand way! 

Happy 100 Day everyone from TeachWithMe.com 

2014 Calendars FREEBIE

Hi Everyone!  It's Jennie from JD's Rockin' Readers.  It's been crazy here in Ohio lately.  With all of the snow last week, we didn't have school at all which gave us 3 weeks off for Christmas.  I have to say, I was REALLY ready to get back to the bump and grind!  I made some Calendars last year and had some requests for some new ones this year- so- YOU GOT IT!  I feel like I have Calendars all over the place- I try to keep most things on Google so that it is one place but I do use these Calendars to help me plan my lessons.  I can then cross off and change as needed.  

So, whatever you decide to use them for, I hope they can help you stay a little more organized!

And can you believe January is half way over?? Where does time go?

Working on Sight Words

Hi everyone! It's Angie here from The First Grade Scoop! It's been FOREVER since I've blogged... Holidays get crazy, don't they? Anyways, I'm back here to share a little bit about our class word wall with you!

Over the years, I've tried many different ways to organize our sight words on our word wall... And I think I've finally hit on a way that I love!

I have an old chalkboard on one side of the room, which I split into sections with colored masking tape. I put X, Y, and Z together... Not like we really have any X or Z words (except zero) to display!

I used to type, cut, laminate, then cut again each word, and I changed them for different color themes or when the masking tape I'd hang them with ruined the backs... That took me FOREVER! This time, I used bright cardstock, cut it into two inch strips, then wrote the words by hand, cutting between each.

Since they are on a chalkboard, I used peel-and-stick magnetic dots from Lakeshore to hang them. My letter cards are laminated, and the dots don't stick well to those, but they stick to the plain cardstock just fine. The beautiful thing is that the kids can come pick a word off the board if they need it, then return it. And the lack of glossiness makes it easier for all my students to see.

Why all the colors? When I teach word wall words each week (students are tested for spelling of five of them weekly), I go off my Sight Word Practice Book lists. This means my students get the most common words first. Each list of words is on a different color, in order of the rainbow, so List 1 is in red, List 2 in orange, etc. We're finishing List 4 now, so I've used lime green. This helps the kids (and me!) know how long the word has been up there... Helping them to visually distinguish between old words they should be spelling correctly and newer words they might still need to reference.

I keep the words we're studying this week in a pocket chart near my calendar area, and we practice these each day between calendar and word study. (This is just a cheap $1 Target chart I stapled to make fewer slots.)

At the end of the year, my words go into coupon accordion folders by week they'll be used, and voila! Easy organization.

Have a great week!

Flintstone or Jetson {plus a FREEBIE!}

When I first started teaching, I scooped up a couple of Walkmans and went to the freebie table in our staff lounge (a cemetery where old teacher crap goes to die until the custodian has a proper dumpster funeral) to score some books on tape. I think I found 6 tapes and maybe 3 had the books to go with them. Fast forward 5 years later and after patiently teaching 7 year olds how to use a Walkman (apparently it's a generational thing) year after year, I decided to update the listening center.  I brought in my own iPod touch daily already (to listen to the Storytown weekly text every Tuesday), so I figured that would work. I bought some earphones with individual volume adjusters (yay!) from Lakeshore,

  a headphone splitter (if you don't already own one of these bad boys...run to the store and get one for about $10),

and about 15 iTunes audio books that I already had at least 5 copies of. Ta-da! Modern listening center.

After students have listened to/read their book, they complete a journal entry in their Reading Journal (I have 4 different versions of Reading Journal packets for the various levels you would find in a 2nd grade class--DRA A-28).  You can find these in my store by clicking below (this first one is a FREEBIE!).

What does your listening center consist of? Do you have a Fred Flintstone (old) or a George Jetson (new) center?

Before I go, I just updated my Iditarod activities and even added a huge Alaska clipart bundle to my store. Click below to check them out!

Celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day With Children

Hey Everyone,
The winter days are quickly passing by here in North Carolina. Soon it will be time to teach my children about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the hopes he had for each of us. Over the years I have encouraged my children to think more about Dr. King and how he would want us to treat each other. I have blended this in with learning about bullying because the simple truth of the matter is that we all want to be treated kindly and be respected. I feel like this is a part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy that children can learn about and internalize.
Children at the elementary level have a deep sense of fairness and what it means to be treated fairly. As teachers we often hear, "It's not fair!" in response to many problems in the classroom and on the playground. We each do our own version of the mini-lecture of how would that make you feel and encourage them to get back to work or play and command them to, "Be Nice to Each Other!" Over the years I have created activities to get children to think deeper about fairness, kindness and how we treat each other. I connected these activities with our study of Martin Luther King Jr. My hope it that we can create children who are thinkers rather than reactors. I want them to learn about compassion and caring. I want the children to help each other. I feel like this is a meaningful way to help children learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his hopes and dreams for our world.


You can grab some freebies that are focused on anti-bullying by heading over to my blog Teaching Resources for the Classroom.

My unit Peace, Love, Learning Activities for Martin Luther King Jr.Day with a Focus on Anti-Bullying is on sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. There are writing activities, art activities, science, poetry and visualization activities for writing. This is an extensive unit with bonus math activities.

I want to leave you with a poem I wrote for this unit! I use this poem with a book called The Colors of Us. The poem recognizes that each child is unique and each child brings something special to a friendship. The poem is open-ended so the children can write about what they like to do with a friend. They can decorate the ice cream cone with drawings of friends and what they like to do with their friends. This is included in the unit but you are welcome to copy the poem. Please give me credit as the author! Thanks so much.

May all your hopes and dreams come true.
All the best,
Sarah