Sunday, April 3, 2016

Three tips for making the most of the last months!




It is the last day of Spring Break!  If your district is like ours, this was the last break we have before the end of the year.  In the last months we have so much to get done, so it is so important to keep them engaged and learning till the end!  Here are 3 of my strategies that I use to keep them learning until that last day!

I live by this all year for first grade, but even more so the last couple of months!  Spring around here means kids starting baseball, soccer, and playing outside The only thing worse for a child to be stuck inside all day, is to be stuck sitting inside all day!  These last few months, we do some kind of 5 minute movement at least every 45 minutes.  It might seem like a lot of time wasted, but it helps students stay focused and more engaged during instructional time. We use GoNoodle! The students love the variety of the fun activities they can do!  We love it because we know there will not be commercials like YouTube or anything inappropriate popping up!
GoNoodleWarning: they have many songs tend to continually go through your head! #kittyhighfive
 
 The last months we make sure that we pick themes that are engaging and fun too!  We get to explore the world of frogs and toads while we read the books from the Frog and Toad series, we have a 2 week LEGO unit complete with LEGO robotics, and the last 2 weeks we do some camping and picnicking!  Integrating our learning into these themes helps students get excited about being in school and keeps them engaged until the end! 
Who doesn't love to have choices!  To keep my students engaged, I try to provide lots of choices so that they have no choice but to learn!  My students get choices of if they sit, where they sit, and who they want to sit by.  They know as long as they are working, they can do it however they want!  I have flexible seating in my room, so my students can stand, sit on the futon, in a bean bag, on a wobble stool, on a cushion, at a low table on the floor, or even at a regular table.  I also make sure to provide activities for practice that accommodate any learning style.  Hands on learners may be using manipulatives,  social learners might be playing a game, and kids who just need to move might be doing a write the room activity all at the same time.  It takes a little more time, but it sure makes a difference in classroom engagement and management.  Kids are almost always 100% engaged when they have activities that fit their learning style!


I am so excited for these next couple of months because we have so much yet to accomplish, yet so sad because I just ADORE this group of kids and I really don't want to pass them along to someone else!  (occupational hazard!)   Hope your week is full of sunshine and fun!
Thursday, January 28, 2016

Winter Goal Setting

 
In our school, teachers work hard to teach our students how to set and achieve a goal.  So this week we worked on goal setting in math.  All of my math students have a math fluency goal that they are working to complete.  Our standard is 1.OA.6 Fluently Add and Subtract within 10.   My students  have their goal setting sheet in their math folder, but I wanted a fun, meaningful way to display them as well.  So we wrote our goals on snowflakes, decorated them (using glitter of course!), and hung them on our goal bulletin board.  As the students accomplish their goals, we will take them off the board.  I reminded them that I didn't want to see any snow after February! :)  Hopefully, the visual reminder of their goals and the promise of taking their glittered snowflake home will be an extra motivator to practice, practice, practice their math fluency!
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8g6oWKcZiB_MVFucWdBdDMzQjQ/view?usp=sharing
 
You can download a copy of math and reading are snowflake goal setting by clicking the image above!  Happy goal setting!  Send me some warm thoughts!  We could use them in Northern Illinois!
Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year, New Goals!

I have been on a little bloggy break!  December was so insanely busy (I had one week with a meeting after school EVERY day!)  and once break started I decided that my Christmas present to myself was to put everything aside and enjoy just being a mom. The first 2 days I had off, but my children didn't. So my first mommy activities involved helping in classrooms and some cutie lunch dates, getting some shopping out of the way, and cleaning my very neglected home.  What a great start to a week!
 
After a fun 2 weeks of Christmas, New Year's, XBOX game nights, play doh, painting, and playing it is time to get back to real life.  I am rested and ready to roll!  :) 

I have spent the last couple of days planning my first couple weeks back.  We are going to start back strong with some goal setting by my students.  If your students are like mine, they are at all different levels in math and reading.  I am going to find some time on Monday morning to discuss setting goals and how to reach them and then quickly conference with each student to help them come up with a good goal.  I give them a watered down version of how to make a SMART goal.   They have to make it specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound.  My students have to choose an ELA or Math goal, we usually choose a math fluency, reading fluency, sight word, or reading goal.  We base our math fluency goals on Xtra math data and there is district data for the ELA goals.  I conference with them to help them come up with a measure that is achievable and results-focused.  The time limit is the month of January.  The students are not expected to know they are making a SMART goal, I just want them to get in the habit of making goals this way.  I also want them to think and write about how to get to their goals, so they know that they have to do something for their goal to be met.  I had my kids make them at home too.  #teacherkidproblems 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8g6oWKcZiB_R0NETHVhZ19FOW8
 
I also wanted to have them do a little writing on what they are hoping to do in 2016!
 
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8g6oWKcZiB_V1JzcUJjeV9vRXc
 
You can click on either printable by clicking on the picture!
 
Happy New Year!
 
I am linking up with my friends at I Teach First Grade!  Check out their links and sign up to win a $25 TpT gift card!
 
 

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Reindeer Fun!

We are on Day 2 of our Reindeer fun in our classroom.  We introduced our reindeer pal, Rodney.  Rodney was a big hit yesterday!  This is how we introduced him!



The students thought it was hilarious that he was reading a book! We told the students that he flies to the principal at night to report about all the learning he sees!  We had journals made up and ready to go for the kids to do a little writing.  Our students were so excited to write! Even my struggling writers were motivated to write!  #win

You can download a copy of the journal here.
This pack also includes a cover for a Penguin journal.

The kids had so much fun!  They were so excited to name him and to write about him.  It is such a fun way to encourage writing! 

I am linking up today with my friends at I Teach Second! 
 


Monday, November 30, 2015

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

What a lovely week!  We had 2 wonderful family thanksgivings full of cousins, family, laughter, and great food!  I can't even begin to list all of the things I am thankful for, but a wonderful family is at the top of my list!  Having a job that I LOVE and being a part of my students lives every day is also pretty high on the list! We celebrated Thanksgiving with our students on Tuesday with a traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!  The popcorn was cooked to perfection and the jellybeans were the right combination of sweet and chewy!  #charliebrownthanksgiving


 

 
http://amzn.to/1NCDkkQ
 The 2nd best part of Thanksgiving?  BLACK FRIDAY!  It has been a girl's tradition in our family to shop, and even though my mom's recent health hasn't been great, we still were able to go! We did wait to go until 8 AM.  :)   We got tons of great deals!  I will admit to doing a ton of on-line shopping on Thanksgiving morning!  I am excited to get all our packages delivered this week!

Today has been cleaning and lesson planning!  #funisover
 
My students love using songs as practice for reading!  They keep mini-books in their book boxes and pull them out during silent reading.We will highlight our word wall words and there is a writing prompt at the end of each song.  You can click on the picture to take a look! 
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lets-Go-Caroling-Christmas-Carol-Minibooks-1004317
 
I made a religious edition too for one of my friends in a private school.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lets-Go-Caroling-Religious-Christmas-Carol-Minibooks-1007694
 

 
 

We are also reviewing our math facts with this Holiday Dinner game:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Feasting-on-Facts-A-Common-Core-Aligned-Math-Game-984757


and of course, word problem practice!!!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Math-Word-Problems-in-Santas-Workshop-392396
 
But our big focus this week is REINDEER!!!
 
Come back this week for reindeer ideas

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rudolph-the-Red-Nose-Reindeer-songbook-2235475


I am very excited to shop tomorrow for the 
Cyber Monday and Tuesday TeachersPayTeachers Sale!  
 
I have a cart full of great products!!!

Don't forget to use the code: SMILE


Happy Shopping!







Sunday, November 15, 2015

Turkey Tasks



We have been going crazy with the turkey centers in math!  Our objectives have been adding and subtracting word problems and fluency.  {common core standards 1.OA.1, 1.OA.2, 1.OA.6, 1.OA.8} We have also been working on numbers to 120 and starting place value. {1.NBT.1, 1.NBT.2}

Here are some of our tubs!

Turkey roll and color! 1.OA.6

 Missing Numbers 1.NBT.1
 Turkey Clip Its 1.OA.6

Turkey in the Straw game 1.OA.6

This  week, we are making these cutie headband turkeys to practice fact families.  The 2 parts are the number of each color of feather.




We will also be playing my new Feasting on Facts Game.  I even bought a Dollar Store roasting pan to put my food pieces!



Students match the food cards to the target number on their plate.  We are practicing addition, subtraction, counting money, tally marks, and number words all in one fun game!!!  It is also in my TpT shop!



I am probably keeping this one out until Christmas!  There are a lot of good skills to practice!!!






Thanks for peeking in! 
 Hope you have a great week!

Julie


Thursday, November 5, 2015

3 Activities to Add Rigor to your First Grade Geometry Unit

Geometry has always been one of the most fun units in first-grade math.  We took this unit and Common-Cored it up to make it more rigorous, but we kept the fun!  

The standards that we worked with are 1.G.1 and 1.G.2:


1. Distinguish between defining attributes (e.g., triangles are closed and


three-sided) versus non-defining attributes (e.g., color, orientation,


overall size); build and draw shapes to possess defining attributes.


2. Compose two-dimensional shapes  or three-dimensional shapes


 to create a composite shape, and compose new shapes from

the composite shape.



We pulled out every kind of manipulative we had and came up with activities for them!   


1) One of the kids' favorites was building the shapes out of playdoh and toothpicks!  Here are some of the 2D shapes we created!


Tip: You have to have larger vertices made out of the playdoh, or they will fall apart too easily, and the kids get frustrated!
And...  don't buy 6000 toothpicks!  1 box of 1000 was way more than enough! 
(Learned that one the hard way!) #overachiever  



 And in Common core fashion, we wrote on a recording sheet to explain what we knew about our shapes! 
There is a LOT of writing in this unit! 
I made a point of explaining that the playdoh balls were called vertices or corners.  They picked u;p the terms pretty quickly! 
We did this a few days later using 3D shapes.

2) "Shape Snack!"  Students brought in snacks that were in 2D and 3D shapes.  I provided a list for parents, but I loved the creativity that our families have!  One parent told me they were walking around the grocery store for 15 min, and their child was naming what kind of shapes different food was. I love how into it they were getting!




The kids all brought in food "shapes," and we ate them as a snack!

And of course, writing to tell me about what they ate!  We had so much food we did this all week! And... wrote about it every time!  By the end of the week, I was getting some GREAT sentences! (I made them write a sentence before they could dig in!  #willbeengagedforfood)

The super cutest thing about it all?  They kept on talking about what shapes they were eating at lunch and snacks!


3) Have fun with it!
We watched "Spookly the Square Pumpkin."


this led us to a debate about whether or not he was indeed a square! (lol!)
We decided that they called him a square because his face was a square- but he was really a cube!  Nice segway into the faces on a 3D shape!  I love it when the stars align for these teachable moments! 


And we made Amy Lemons cute little Owl Craftivity!

We discussed the shapes it takes to make the owl.  This fit wonderfully into our Owl Unit we are working on in reading and Science!  I found this Red Ribbon Week display to put on our bulletin board! 




We finished up with daily building and tangrams task cards to make our composite shapes!  It was a lot of fun Hands-on activities! The students were so excited to have math every day, they learned a ton, so I could not be happier! 

All of these activities are in my unit.






I included every manipulative I could and wrote assessments to end each of the standards.  I also added a page of technology links and a sample lesson plan to explain how I used it!





I hope you have a great night!