Hey everyone! Just wanted to share a quick activity that I am doing this week! You know how we have "THOSE IDEAS" that just hit us either in the shower, on the toilet, in traffic, or me.. early in the morning when I've woken up and can't go back to sleep?? So, yeah, that SO happened this morning!
This week our phonics pattern is short /o/ and I was thinking of a fun and engaging way for my students to learn this pattern and it hit me! I'll get a big pot and have them scoop up words! I don't know about you, but I am always thinking of ways to incorporate everyday items or props to make learning fun! But then I took it even further, and this year, I am lucky to have a class that celebrates a certain October holiday so I decided to create a cauldron of words!
It is super simple and I used what I already had.
This cauldron or a large pot, if you cannot use this prop can be used, was one I had wayyyyy back in my play room. You can't see it but it's slightly warped. Ok, a lot warped.
Then I bought some ping-pong balls. I found mine at Target. 36 ping pong balls for $10.
Write whatever word pattern you are working on. I wrote short /o/ words and the HFW words we are working on and added ones that are repeat offenders for being read and spelled incorrectly. I colour coded them. I wrote the phonics words in black and HFW in green.
For extra fun, I threw in some plastic spider rings and bugs, eye ball candy (all Dollar Tree items) and purchased some cheap spoon ladles from the Dollar Tree and my insomnia filled idea has come to life!
Both my boys (my 3rd grader and 1st grader) were SO EXCITED to play with my center! They love Halloween as much as I do and couldn't wait to "try out"my center to make sure my class would like it! I *think* they did!
The center is what you make of it! I made response sheets for you. There are 2 versions. Click on any image to download both!
Hope this creates a fun and engaging activity for you!
Last week was Halloween-- as some of you were painfully aware if you had children. I actually like Halloween and so do my kids! They had a blast! Here are my cuties:
The brave Robo-Knight and Ironman! Felt totally safe except for the mosquitoes because yes, people, in Florida it was like 90 degree weather for trick or treating! My kids were so sweaty and the mosquitoes were awful every time I opened the door! They had fun, got some candy and hopefully they will like those same costumes next year (they were expensive even on sale!!!) but a mom can wish!
We also did pumpkins last week and they had a blast! On our last day we cut open our pumpkins and counted seeds.
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After the initial ewws and yucks (a few still refused to touch the seeds!).. our final count for our pumpkins was 190 and 432 (not sure about the last one-- I know it was 400 something!). A great book to go along with this activity is
It's a great book and all the kids in my class wanted to be a part of the Tens Club!!! At the end, the kids got to choose 3 seeds to glue into their Pumpkin Math and Science Journals. They get to take their booklets home tomorrow.
Click here to to take you to my store if you're working on pumpkins!
The fun didn't stop there-- I actually got some adult time with other adults! As you all know, my hubby is a pilot so most of the time it is just me and the kids. If Brian is home and we spend 2 hours of quality time together that is a miracle! So, my sweet friend and bloggy sister, Leigh from The Applicious Teacher and I went out for a bloggy meet up with some other fabulous bloggers!
Can I just say, starstruck? It really takes a lot to impress me and I was scared at first but really did have a great time. There is Tammy from The Resourceful Apple, Kimberly Geswein from KG Fonts, Deanna Jump from Mrs. Jump's Class, me, Leigh from The Applicious Teacher and Sabra from Teaching with a Touch Twang. Such sweet ladies and am so glad to have met them! And exciting for Deanna to have met another milestone-- 2 million dollars in TpT earnings! She really is sweet and down to earth. It was just nice to go out and talk with other teachers and spend some time with adults! Enough said! LOL!
This week we will be focusing on turkeys! How fun! I love to teach about turkeys and I always learn something new, too! I will be working out of my newest pack:
Click me to take you to my TpT store!
Our focus skill is re-telling (again! LOL) and point of view (who is telling the story at various points in the story and how do you know?) So, we will be reading
and doing some opinion writing from my pack " Oh, I'm Glad I'm Not a Turkey" writing.
Here is a graphic organizer that I will be using. Click on the pic above to grab this FREEBIE. This is a page from my turkey pack. We will also be working with lots of non-fiction as well! I have also been working on a new Native Americans literacy pack. This is my favourite time of year as I love to create centers that enhance the season with hard hitting skills for their learning.
Here is a preview of (warning-- it is a hot jumbled mess but kinda artistic, too! LOL!) I am just needing to make a few finishing touches and it will be done. I love this one as this has has a lot of creativity and fun with the activities.
I hope to get some proof readers soon to help me edit and then it will be up and ready to go along with my turkey pack! I can only stare at the words so many times before I feel my eyeballs start to roll! haha!
Oh, and my collaboration board also has some fabulous Thanks-givings going on this month! Please stop by and see what each of us is up to! Jessica from The First Grade Nest is hosting tonight! Come on over and check out her blog post and some election day freebies and activity ideas!
I'm so excited! This is the week of Halloween! I love it! I have said it many a time but I really do! I am so glad to have my own class this week as I get to enjoy this time with them. We have our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch tomorrow and then the rest of the week is dedicated to the holiday I love!
This week, our focus skill is retelling (RL 1.2 Retell stories including key details, and demonstrate understanding of the central message)! Retelling is one of those hit or miss skills for first graders. Sometimes they can tell you the beginning or the end of the story and completely miss the middle; some could tell bits and pieces but not with sequential flow; and some will just stare at you as if you have 2 heads!!
I usually start out with posting some anchor charts for this skill: Here are some I found! I tried to link you back to the original author but sometimes on Pinterest, it is hard to follow that trail. If I make a mistake and that anchor chart is yours, please let me know so I can give you proper credit for your hard work!
From Jen Jones at Hello Literacy
These next two resources are from First Grade WOW! And that blog is a really WOW site! Please click on the bottom picture to take you to Nancy's post about re-telling ropes!
(Click on pic to take you to post on how to make one!)
In our county, we do have a curriculum that does guide our instruction. We have a basal reader that I use but the majority of my lessons come from trade books and I intermingle the theme and focus skill into my lessons every week. I feel very fortunate to do that as I know some counties are more strict that others.
This week, I will be using:
and
Two of my all time favourite books!
The re-telling writing that my kiddos will be doing this week is a re-telling flip book:
Just something cute I whipped up to help them retell and even sequence the events in the story. If you'd like to use this in your class, click on the picture of "The Little Old Lady Who was Not Afraid of Anything" book above to grab yours! It is a lot of cutting and the making the flip book can be cumbersome, but I think it's a great tool for them to remember how to retell. The only thing is that I doubled up on the "gloves and hat" on one page as those events happened together. You could choose to separate it and if you did, you'd have more pages. Also, I wouldn't normally use coloured paper but it was a visual to show the different steps in the book. It's your class, your book-- you decide!
As for Room on My Broom, I will be using Life in First Grade's Book Companion Pack! It is so cute!
There is a great re-telling craftivity in there that we will be using this week as well! Click on the link to take you to her store!
I am also excited to finally be doing my Pumpkin Investigations this week. The pumpkin patch we go to always gives our class a pumpkin so I wait until this week to do it. I can't wait to discover pumpkins with my class! I will be using the anchor charts and student book from my pack:
It is student friendly and the kids love it! It includes topics such as estimation, weight, height, circumference, and counting as well as sink and float! You can still pick it up! I will be putting it on sale this week along with my other Halloween units so grab it! Again, click on the pic!
Wow! That's a lot so to leave you with some love, I have a new freebie that I posted just in time for this week:
A great little activity to remind our littles to be safe and to come back to us tired as all tired on Friday!!! LOL! Not so much! You know what to do to grab it! Click the picture!
And... I just finished up my turkey pack! I must say I am pretty proud of it!
I will be starting my unit on turkeys after this week. I am giving away 2 copies. Just go onto my FB page, leave me your e-mail, and tell me what your favourite part of Thanksgiving dinner is. I will pick 2 entries Monday night! Click my button to direct you to my FB page.
It's Hump- Day!!! Just imagine the camel walking thru my classroom making such a ruckus!! LOL! We have been so very busy (as I am sure you all have been!). We just finished our 1st grading period and it was report card crunch time. I had to hurry and get last minute grades into our online grading system. Do you all have that? I have a love/hate relationship with it. It's nice because it calculates your grades for you BUT like all computer systems it gets glitchy! I'd love to know how you all keep track of your grades and how are you required to enter grades (formatives/summatives, how many of each, weights, do you do a total points system or do you have standards based grading?? I am sure I could open up a big can-o-worms with this one!) So, yeah... that kept my panties in a bunch last week.
This week we worked on some fun and cute projects. I finally got my "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" bulletin board up! Too cute!
We started by reading the story and then brainstormed ways to grow the biggest pumpkin ever.
My sweet friend and room mom, Shawna, did this for me! She had it perfectly set up for me and I was a dolt and didn't realize that she put the numbers ON THE BACK-- I had them write on the back! So she improvised my dumb mistake. I think it came out beautifully and I am eternally grateful for her!!!
And to keep my biggest pumpkin ever, my bloggy friend, Laura from Peace, Love, and First Grade had this adorable craft idea for a Jack-o-Lantern lantern! It is the cutest! Click on her name to get the directions on how to make this festive craft!
We also finished up our studies on nocturnal animals. We made our Owls in the moon and dissected our owl pellets. The looks on their faces were priceless when they saw and heard what they were but once they started digging in, they were totally engaged and in love! They couldn't wait to get home and share their bone findings with their families!
If you'd like to learn more about owl pellets, click on the pic above to see where I got them!
Too cool! I love doing this project with them.
We are learning about Pumpkins this week to celebrate our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch next week. I plan on using my
next week when we start my pumpkin math and science unit. It is always so much fun! If you downloaded it already, please go back and re-download it-- I added a circumference page to it! Just click on the picture to grab it at my store!
We are also working on digraphs this week /sh/ and /th/ and I know that they will need extra practice with it, so I created a fun, pumpkin themed phonics game for this week to help them practice
If your kids like pick up sticks then they will LOVE this game. I just wrote /sh/ and /th/ words on Popsicle sticks and they had to drop them down and sort them for /sh/ or /th/ at the beginning or end of a word.
Click on the graphic above to grab your FREEBIE today!
And that's not all! I just couldn't let the creativity stop there! I guess I am just not a fan of phonics practice where you have to rainbow write words/write them 3 times each, bubble write your words-- sometimes those are great but it's fun to play a game and learn, too! I like to create phonics games for them and I was so tickled when my brain concocted this one:
The kids all flocked to this center! They were like ants all over my room looking and reading for clues:
I haven't quite polished it up yet-- I just had it classroom ready but as soon as its ready I will post it up! So as you can see, we have been pretty busy! We are working on Key Ideas as well in reading. I always theme my week and tie in the Common Core standard for the week. If you are working on Key Ideas, please check out my Key Ideas Pumpkins freebie as well (click on the pic)! It has helped my guided reading groups tremendously this week.
Hope you all have a great rest of the week! Don't forget about the giveaway that ends Friday!! Click here to enter!
