Spelling

I have been trying to come up with more exciting ways to practice our spelling words.  My kiddos and I get super tired of doing the worksheets out of our basal so I'm trying to incorporate other activities to reinforce their words.  Today, I had them divide their paper into sixths and write their spelling words on the spots.  I gave each table some paint and Q-tips.  They used the Q-tips to dot/spell their words.  They had a blast doing this and I even heard these comments, "How cool" and "This is so fun." When a teacher hears those comments, it makes you want to jump and scream because what you are doing is working, they are learning and having FUN!!!  Here are a few pictures of it. GRRR!! Sorry it is upside down, can't get it turned.

 

I had to share these photos.  The activity came from http://firstgradewow.blogspot.com/.  If you have neveer been to her blog page, do so NOW!!! She has many amazing ideas and packets.  The best part she shares them all for FREE!!!  Yes, I said FREE.  Go visit her now. 

They had to finish the sentence, My 2013 is going to be.... 

We made a list of words that could describe our 2013 and then they put it together on a party had and added their face and hair.  This one cracked me up with her hair.

Snowmen

What a crazy week back, especially after having seven weeks off from maternity leave.  It took me a couple of days for my brain to get back into teacing mode.  We spent the week doing some benchmark testing, math testing, and snowman fun!!  We read the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.  Click picture below to view it.  It is an exciting story about snowmen and what they do at night when everybody goes to sleep. 

After we read the book, we created a chart and listed what the snowmen did at night.   I then had the students fill out their bubble map.  We also created a list of what we would do if we were a snowman at night.  Boy, the kids loved coming up with their own ideas, I stopped them at six or we would have been there all afternoon. 

 

Then I had the students respond to, "If I were a snowman at night, I would..."  They had some very cute answers.  Finally, they put their creative juices to work and created their snowman!!  Click on the picture below to get the writer's response sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the finished snowmen!  I hope you all have a restful and relaxing weekend.  I'm going to try and get some ZZZZZ's, but that all depends on my little man!!

"The Culprit"

Some of you out there might be thinking I have fallen off the face of the planet!  Step aside blog stalking and TpT there is a new culprit in town that has been eating up my time day and night.  Here is the newest addition to our family, Michael Thomas.  The first picture is right after he was born on November 19th and the second one is when he turned a month old.  He is the "culprit" taking up all my time day and NIGHT!  But I wouldn't have it any other way.  I have to go back to work on Monday and I am going to miss this peanut, but luckily my dad is gracious enough to be his babysitter.  How lucky is he, gets to spend all day with grandpa.  Well hopefully I will soon get back into the swing of things and squeeze in some time for blogging and creating.  Must go, he is calling my name!!

I'm Back (Only for a moment)

Wouldn't you know it, I just get logged onto my blog page, which I have been very unfaithful to the last weeks (sigh)!  But I have been enjoying my newest bundle of joy born on November 19, at 2:46 P.M.  Of course, as I am typing this he is now waking up crying "Get Me!"  But, I just wanted to wish all you a very Happy New Year!!

Update!!

If you follow my blog faithfully, I want to apologize for being MIA lately.  Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to get any better either.  We have conferences next Monday and Tuesday, after spending hours testing my kiddos to see where they are at and filling out report cards, I am done.  The upside to being at school every evening this week is we have Thursday and Friday off!!  Woo-hoo!!!! 

I am also due with baby number 3 in 5 weeks, oh my, yes 5 weeks.  I think I am ready, but exhaustion has set in once again.  I am super excited though to finally get our boy after have two wonderful daughters.  So unfortanely, between conferences and preparing for another baby, my time is gone.  So if you are thinking I have given up, I haven't, just more important things taking place right now. 

Thanks so far for your support and hopefully after the baby arrives and things settle down a bit, I can get back to sharing and creating for you wonderful followers. 

Common Core: How many ways can you make 10?

We  have been working on addition to sums of ten in first grade.  Today we had to find all the ways to make ten.  I started by having the kids use a ziploc bag.  I divided the bag in half using some fun duct tape.

In each bag I placed 10 counters.  You can really do this with any sum, but since our lesson was making sums of 10 that's what I used.  The students would start by having 0 on the left side and 10 on the right.  So 0 + 10=10.  Next I had them move one counter to the other side, they would write the addition sentence 1 + 9=10, then they moved another counter 2+8=10, and so on.  It was fun to see them realize the pattern you get when you move them.  Having this hands on visual helped my kiddos a lot.

I created this little paper to use as a pre-teaching lesson before having them do the activity page out of our math series.  By preteaching the lesson with this paper helped them to do the activity page more independently.  I have included this activity page as a FREEBIE to use in your classroom. 
Just click the image below.  The students draw the counters in the "ziploc" bag and then record the addition sentence.  Enjoy!!

Sunday Funday!!

Wow, I spent 6.5 hours in my classroom today, what a great Sunday (insert sarcasm)!  I'm starting guided reading and centers this week and wanted to make sure I had everything prepared!!  I still am not sure about this, but hopefully the kids will pick it up.  I know it's going to take a lot of modeling, modeling, modeling and practice, practice, practice.  I just have to "Keep Calm."  I'm also trying to stay caught up and eventually get ahead because I have to prepare maternity lesson plans for end of November/December and I am already stressed out about that.  If anybody has any tips for centers/guided reading or maternity lesson plans, please, please share them.  I will be back later this week for our hands-on math lesson, so be on the lookout for a freebie!  Hope you all had a great weekend and a much better Sunday than mine.