Rake Up Fall Freebies: October Blog Hop

Heya'll! I am SUPER excited to be one of the 11 teacher bloggers in this fabulous fall freebies blog hop! The very talented Jayne over at Smart Kids has arranged an amazing little virtual trip for you all, where you will be hopping from blog to blog and "raking up" fall freebies along the way! 

All you have to do is float through all ELEVEN blogs to score ELEVEN fall items...and, um, did I mention you can download all ELEVEN items for FREE??!! 

And the goodie-collecting doesn't end there. 

Every time you "FALL-ow" a blog, you can enter to win the grand prize: each of the 11 bloggers, myself included, has contributed a TpT product to one gigantic fall-themed mega-pack, which we will be giving away for FREE! (check out the links below to see what you could win!). 

That totals up to OVER $60 worth of products that you could win for FREE! 

The winner of the grand prize will be announced next Friday, October 18.

You'll have to visit each blog to view and download the free products, but here's a sneak peek at the items in the grand prize. And, if you simply can't wait to see what you'll win, just click each pic to go straight to TpT and get a better look at each item:

Without further adieu, here is my *25-page* fall FREEBIE just for you :)

(click the pic to get a better look at what's included and to download your FREEBIE!)

*2016 UPDATE: THIS PRODUCT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE AS A FREE DOWNLOAD*

Now, all you have to do is FOLLOW my blog and enter below to win the grand prize!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

To keep collecting your free fall goodies, hop on over to the next blog:

Happy Fall Ya'll!

Ohmyword the leaves around are BE.U.TIFUL here! I *love* fall...if only it would last all year! Check this out:

I wish I had a picture of some of the red trees around here...they're so bright they look like they're glowing. Amazing!

So needless to say, this week was the absolute perfect week for a fall literacy theme:

Every morning we read this poem:

We "I spied" colour words, clapped, tapped, winked, and jumped in place of number words, and found sight words in this poem. I love finding poems that hold so many learning possibilities!

In addition to our poem, we also focused on beginning and ending sounds this week (a key concept when it comes to emergent reading strategies). Throughout the week we built a list of fall vocabulary words, concentrating on just the beginning and ending sounds. Completing this simple group activity helped the kiddies decode the fall words that they would be encountering throughout our week's literacy centres.

Anyways, after our poem and fall vocabulary brainstorm, we moved to literacy centres. Here's a peek at some of our literacy centres this week:

At Word Work 1, the kiddies focused on stretching out each of their letter sounds in order to correctly spell fall vocabulary words. They had to pick out all of the cards with one specific picture and use their sounds to correctly arrange all of the letters and spell a word (ex: students find all of the letter cards with an apple in the corner, and arrange them to spell the word "apples").

Word Work 2 focused on ending sounds. The kiddies matched pictures to their correct ending sounds and recorded their answers on the worksheet.

Pocket Chart centre focused on beginning sounds. Students used the pictures on each leaf to help them read the unfinished words (words missing their beginning sounds) and match them to the correct beginning sound tree branch.

At the end of one day, we happened to read this sweet book:

The little squirrel is so confused by the leaves falling off the trees that he tries to gather them up and "fix" the trees. Throughout the week, the kiddies had a blast pretending to be the squirrel from our story while matching the leaves on to the trees. I *love* that they made that connection!

(How stinkin' cute is this little dude's hair?! I wish I could pull that off...haha!)

Next up, at Write the Room, the kids hunted around the room to match the fall pictures on their worksheet to those stuck on the walls around the classroom:

The above activities are from my Everything Autumn Write the Room Companion Pack. It features 5 different write the room activities for 5 different fall themes.

(you can click the pic below to see details of what's included) 

This product is featured on Teaching Blog Addict. Click the button below to visit the website and to check out tons of other fabulous fall freebies!

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Anyways, back to centres! My kiddies are still working hard on "writing the WHOLE time" at the Writing Centre. This a *very* tough skill for firsties to learn, especially coming out of the new play-based learning that significantly lacks the structure of first grade literacy centres. Anyways, I am so impressed with how far my kiddies have come just in this past week. We focused on the Writing Centre option of writing a letter this week. They got to write a letter to Mother Nature describing either a real or fictional fall story.

Last but not least, my kiddies are still using our Sight Word Wands to hunt for sight words in their guided reading books and other books they choose to read throughout their time at the Reading Centre. They get so excited when a sight word pops up. LOVE it!

And that about wraps it up...I hope you enjoyed getting a little peek at our week! Have a fabulous weekend, everyone :)

Welcome to Fun With Firsties' Classroom!

Heya'll! So if you follow me on Instagram (@funwithfirsties) you may have seen this post announcing my upcoming classroom reveal:

Well, it's finally here!!! Of course my classroom is not complete (...but let's be serious, is it ever really complete??!?) but I wanted to share it with you nonetheless. So without further adieu, come on in and take a tour of my classroom!

*apologies in advance: I am horrible at remembering my camera so all of the following pictures were taken with my phone at 7:30 this morning. So the lighting is strange and the pics are somewhat blurry!*

Above is the view from my classroom door.

This is my little "where we are" information board located on the outside of my door:

To the left of the door is our drop-off station. This is where the kiddies put their take-home folders, drink/food tickets, and move their star over to sign in:

(you can download my FREE magnetic sign-in labels HERE!)

To your right when you walk in the door is our prayer centre (not pictured) and the "welcome" bulletin board, which is currently featuring our class jobs and birthdays. Beneath the bulletin board is my behaviour management system. I don't use a clip chart anymore and have switched to this ticket system which I am *in love* with. GOOD RIDDANCE, clip chart!!! (more on our ticket system in a future blog post!):

(If you would like my FREE class jobs labels click HERE!)

If a student earns 20 or more tickets in one week, they get to clip their name to the "Hall of Fame:"

Next to the welcome board is our word wall and the Word Work 2 centre:

(Download my FREE blank word wall labels HERE)

Separating Word Work 1 and Word Work 2 is my alphamagnet "Read It, Build It" activity. This filing cabinet was just a waste of space last year--I NEVER use it. So this year I had the great idea of turning the drawers to the wall, and using the remaining 3 sides as a magnetic activity board. MUCH better!

If you keep moving along this same wall, you will find our writing/reading focus wall. Right now it is just showing off (from left to right) our Visual Writing Rubric, Writing Rules Checklist, our in-progress classroom big book which will eventually be moved to our reading centre, and our current writing focus (recount writing). Below this whiteboard is Word Work 1.

Last but not least along this wall is our reading centre/classroom library. That big empty space on the bulletin board is being reserved for our class-made big books. Right now my library is seriously lacking some comfortable pillows/seating, but I have been too broke to buy/make pillows...One day!

You may have noticed the folders on the back of the blue bookshelf above. Those are fast finisher activities. I have not introduced this routine to my kiddies yet but I can't wait! Here's a closer look:

(Although they are not editable, HERE are my fast finisher folder labels--as seen above plus MORE!!--if you would like them!)

The back wall of our classroom is where we display all of our fabulous work. I hung up their family tree activities after I took this picture so you are getting the "blank canvas" look :P

In the centre of the counter (as seen above) is our pencil station. Here's a closer look at that:

(Grab some FREE pencil labels HERE!)

And beneath on the shelves are all of my math manipulatives and math tubs:

(Download my FREE math tub labels HERE!)

Moving to the other side of the classroom, you will find my guided reading corner:

Beside that is our "math" whiteboard and "math words" bulletin board. Beneath that is our listening centre, which also houses the laptop and Elmo for my SmartBoard:

Here's a bigger view of this side of the room taken from the reading centre:

(The coloured construction paper above the boards is my alphabet, waiting to be customized by my firsties! Download my FREE chalkboard alphabet labels HERE)

To the left of the SmartBoard (as seen above) is our "Morning Meeting" area. Here's a closer look at that:

...looking from the reading centre to the back of the classroom and out the door:

Behind my desk, at the back of the classroom, is our writing wall (currently featuring all of the students' writing from the beginning of our Recount focus until now) and writing centre:

Behind the chart stand, pocket chart, and "Morning Meeting" area, is our supplies station and all of my math tub activities for each month. Opposite this area is the sink: 

(Click HERE to visit the post where you can download my monthly chalkboard labels for FREE!)

Here is a view from my desk (such a beautiful sunny morning!):

Each of my tables has a coloured pompom and a chalkboard group number:

(Chalkboard labels are from my Chalkboards and Banners Decor Pack)

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And that about sums up my classroom reveal. I hope you enjoyed the tour! I will be back at the end of the week to share our week's fall-themed activities.