St. Patty's Poetry & FREE Measurement Printables

Well.....I suppose I'll do just one last blog post before I throw in the towel! 

Because we won't be in school for St. Patty's day (hello spring break!!), we "celebrated" it for the past two weeks with some simple themed activities, literacy centers, and poems:

You may remember the above poem that I used last year as well.

I put each of my firsties' names on a sticky note and each time we read the poem throughout the week, a new set of students got to be "in" our poem.

We also finished up our short-and-sweet linear measurement unit with a couple simple activities. My firsties worked hard while I pulled them for some one-on-one assessments.

For this first activity, the students used little cubes to measure and record the length of each ice cream:

Download this freebie HERE!

Next, they could draw any object/picture they wanted and then they measured the length and width of their drawing with snap cubes:

Download this freebie HERE!

After seeing my kiddies *flip* for my (FREE!) Dr. Seuss flip book, I knew I wanted to create some more. So over the week, I worked on putting together a little bundle of 7 different fiction & non-fiction reading response and comprehension flip books:

I have so many plans of how to use these with my firsties: from simple follow-up activities to various shared and guided-reading texts, to comprehension and story element assessments.

(As seen in the two pictures above, the books can be printed on either coloured or plain white paper)

If you think your kiddies would enjoy flip books as much as mine do, check out my new obsession in more detail :P

And now I am *officially* on spring break!!! Here's to a slightly productive and excessively lazy week ahead ;)

The 100th Day of School!

Well it's official, my firsties are 100 days smarter!!

 

We spent yesterday celebrating our brilliance with tons of fun activities and a few treats too :)

We started off with a 100 Day classic:

We made our usual 100 Day hats with 100 things on them (10 strips with 10 stickers/drawings on each). Check out how adorable:

Next we finger-painted 100 dots in groups of 10:

I've seriously never seen them work so quietly:

Their dot art turned out super cute:

Pssst...download this FREEBIE by clicking the pic below ;)

In addition to repeating another 100 Day classic (making 100 fruit loop necklaces), we also tried something new and built the number 100 with some delicious treats:

Last but not least, I didn't get a snapshot of the kiddies working away, but we also wrote a list of 5 things we want to accomplish before we turn 100 (you can grab this freebie below too!):

Click the pic above to download this FREE worksheet!

And that about wraps up our fun-filled day! I hope you enjoy the rest of your week :)

Let's be friends!

Get teaching tips, ideas, and FREEBIES every now and then.

Built with Kit

Happy Halloween 2014!

First of all, HI!!! If you haven't noticed, have been MIA for over half a year (sorry, ya'll!!), but I am officially BACK and ready to jump right back into my bloggy routine.

So I won't waste any more time and get right into some Halloween fun! Now for the record, I hate strongly dislike Halloween and do not think it should be a holiday...yes, I am one of those. But my kiddies love it so, naturally, I pretend like I do to! 

We read the same poem that we read last year, but this time we did some "I Spy" for sight words (the, out, and on):

We also did a little "pumpkin investigation" (see worksheet below) by observing, touching, and smelling a funny-looking pumpkin. We split into groups and practiced counting by 5s to figure out how many seeds were in our little pumpkin. The answer sure surprised us!

Grab your FREE copy of our investigation worksheet by clicking the photo below:

Throughout the week the kiddies also created some awesome Halloween crafts (thank you, Pinterest!). They turned out beyond adorable:

Last but not least, we had some fun in math and rotated through 4 math practice centres that I whipped up for this festive holiday. My firsties knocked.my.socks.off. with how well they worked through these centres. They were totally engaged. 

Learning - 1

Sugar Rush - 0

P.S. how stink in' cute are they in their costumes?! Between the fire fighter and the police officer it was like a little Village People reunion. HA!

And here are the four centre activities they're working away on:

You can grab them all and a BONUS writing activity HERE.

And that about wraps up our crazy week. Happy Halloween from Grade One!

St. Patty's Centers & Activities: Week 1

Top 'o the mornin' to ya all! We began our Irish celebrations early this year with lots of fun at St. Patty's literacy centers.

At our Write the Room center, the kiddies reviewed colour words by searching around the room for shamrock cards (see under this little firsties' arm):

(This activity is available HERE)

They used the letter boxes on the worksheet to correctly write the colour of each shamrock they found. If they needed a little reminder of how to spell some colour words correctly, they could look at our classroom word wall or their double-sided Literacy Reference Posters that we keep in our Literacy Center work folders.

At Word Work 1, we began learning about antonyms with this fun Pot 'o Gold antonym matching activity:

At Word Work 2, the kiddies put together CVC word puzzles

and recorded their letter sounds on the worksheet:

At the Reading Center, the kids got to practice reading the shared reading poem that we read and sang (to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot") throughout the week:

It was so great seeing them taking turns reading different lines and playing "I Spy" by hunting for words.

The kids totally surprised me by how nuts they went for this "mad lib style" activity that allowed them to change the words of our shared reading poem and create their own silly poem. It was too funny hearing them giggle as they read their concoctions to each other (sorry for the picture quality, I really need to stop taking pictures with my phone!):

("I'm a farty leprechaun, soft and hairy...")

Finally, at Pocket Chart center, the kids used a word bank poster (no pictured) to select and spell sight words by finding the correct letters and arranging them correctly like a puzzle. Once they built a word, they recorded it on their blank worksheet:

(Sight word puzzle activity found HERE)

At the end of the week, we thought about all the things that make us feel as lucky as a leprechaun! We drew a picture of one thing that makes us feel lucky and made these adorable chains:

It was a great way to show our knowledge of the colours of the rainbow (cue: ROY-G-BIV!) and talk about the different traditions and stories behind the holiday...such as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as depicted by this craft!

And with that, my March Break begins! 

Goodbye!!!

Happy New Year! (Hot Chocolate & Symmetry)

Happy New Year!!!

...she says on the18th, about half way through January...

So yes I'm a little late, but you know what they say: better late than never! 

Our first week back was a jumble of melancholy, excitement, reviewing rules & procedures, and...HOT CHOCOLATE! 

Yes, it was once again our hot chocolate week. Each morning we read Snowman Soup:

This week, we also learned about ABC order. Pocket Chart centre and Word Work 1 had kiddies practicing their knowledge of ABC order:

(from my Hot Chocolate mini-unit)

(from Cara's Back to School pack)

At Word Work 2, the kids took all of the letters from "hot chocolate" and mixed them up to see how many words they could make:

(also from my Hot Chocolate mini-unit)

Of course, at the end of the week we enjoyed describing and drinking some delicious hot chocolate with marshmallows. For a few more hot chocolatey activities you can check out the pack in more detail by clicking the pic below:

*2016: THIS PRODUCT HAS SINCE BEEN UPDATED*

(pictures in this post do not reflect the updates)

Lastly, we have been cruising through our 2D Geometry math unit, and we had some fun creating our own symmetrical paintings:

(I was just quickly and "abstractly" throwing paint on the paper when creating my example with the kids, and they ended up totally convinced that I made an outstanding African statue! ...I totally see it, though. What a bunch of smarties!)

To make our symmetrical paintings, all we did was fold a big piece of paper in half to create a crease (we also talked lots about the concept of half throughout this unit), loaded lots of paint on to one half, and then folded and pressed both sides together to transfer the paint to the opposite side. *I say you have to load on lots of paint on since tempra paint dries quite quickly, and otherwise the paint will not transfer as effectively*

All of their symmetrical designs turned out so neat and are now hanging brightly on our hallway walls!

And that's all for now, folks! Stay tuned for our week of consonant blends, 5 Senses Frankie, and an engaging "northern style" descriptive writing activity.