Fun and a Freebie!

Ok, I just couldn't help myself.  Seriously, raise your hand if you ever wore pants like this?  Ok, so there's my little FUN moment.  I thought I was going to be saying this today and may have this song, but my class was super awesome with one of my favorite Word Work activities. I broke out the shaving cream for shaving Cream words, yes, you heard me correctly.
Take a look.

First you smear the shaving cream around (not too much, or it will start evaporating) Then scrape off the excess with your finger.

I call out a sight word or spelling word. I say each letter. The students write the letters into their shaving cream.

Notice all the shaving cream on her hands...see what I mean about "Can't touch this!"

Fun!

Usually, someone is always coming up to me with shaving cream hands, and getting it all over me, but I have to say I stayed pretty clean.  Some of my little goof-balls, decided they may need a shave and created some mustaches and goatees, but  it was all good.

After this we did math as usual, but since the new common core states that first graders need to be able to solve problems, using addition and subtraction I created Monster Problems.

These are not in the unit right now...however my class liked them so much I will be adding them in within the week.

I have taken 1 of the anchor charts and 2 of the problems to offer as a Freebie, to all my readers. 
Click the link if you would like to download.
I love feedback, so let me know what you and your little kiddos think of Monster Problems.
If you want to grab the whole book, you can pick it up at either 1 of my shops. (There is also a 2nd grade version available with 2-digit addition and subtraction problems)

Monster Problem Freebie

Fall Fun Day Freebie

If you are looking for some Fun Fall Centers to do this Wednesday, then check out my new Freebie!
Fall Fun Day Center Signs and Freebies has 5 different fun centers signs to place on tables to go with your Fall Centers.
Here are what a few look like:

If you are in need of some fun activities, then head on over to TPT and download.
Please leave me feedback here and on TPT and let me know how they work in your classroom. And a big shout out to Fern Smith for Letting me know about Freebie Fridays at the Teaching Blog Addict!

Thanks and enjoy,

Flashback Friday-Round and Round

I'm linking up with Teaching Maddeness for Flashback Friday.
This week was a short week for us, so I did a "mini" unit on Laura Numeroff's Circle Story books.


I picked up Erica Bohrer's Unit on TpT and it really helped me out.
(I posted about it earlier this week) The song  above is "round and round" and it makes for good background music to these circle stories.
We started with some Buddy Reading and a Buddy Reading Log. I paired the kids up so 1 student could help the other read the picture book.

Then we did some Fantasy/Reality sorting with If You Give a Moose a Muffin and Compared and Contrasted If You Give a Cat a Cupcake and If You Give a Moose a Muffin with Venn Diagrams.
To End the week, we wrote a Class Circle Story (sorry no picture) it is still in the editing Phase.
I went around the rug and had each student add a line to the story.
Next, they worked in teams to do the same. I used Erica's "file folder word walls" that went with the unit. It really helped them fill in the blanks.

I wrote some sentence frames on the board so they could have a model, it went a little like this:
If you give a ______________________ a _______________________,
then he will probably want a _________________________________.
When he's done he will want so more, so you will have to get him some.
You will have go to the _____________________ to get it.
When you get there he will see some ________________________ and you will have to get him some.......
and chances are if you give him some _______________ he will want _____________to go with it.
 

We also finished our monster writing from my  Fall into Writing unit.

We read: Are you a Monster? by Debra Hess

Then designed  our own monsters and wrote about them.

 

Here is what my son did in his First grade class, with his fabulous and fun teacher. (Hi Dawn!)

We also started our Monster Problems Math Pack, to go along with Common Core Problem solving standards.

Next week guess what we will be writing about? Hope you found some good ideas.  Let me know how you might use these ideas in your classroom.

Have a great weekend everyone--Oh yeah, in honor of Hurricane Sandy I'm having a 20% off sale at both my stores.

TPT  TN

Stay dry,

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is currently blowing up the East Coast of Florida.
Thankfully we have an early dismissal today and tomorrow is a work day for teachers.


Click the image above to track the storm at weather.com

Well that made me think, I won't be able to get much time in this weekend, if we have a Hurricane, so I am hosting a Hurricane Sandy Sale at both of my stores. I am honestly hoping this whole thing blows itself out.  Hurricane shutters are no picnic. (well my hubby has to do that)  I am going to have to rush out and stock up on peanut butter, jelly and bread.

Teachers Notebook Shop        TeachersPayTeachers Store

Wish us Floridians luck!

If you give a teacher a Unit....

Manic Monday by the Bangles
Hit play or hit the link and listen.....You might as well have some background music, while you read right?

OK, so for the past few weeks this has been me at the end of the day.

Then I try and remember this and I get back to myself again. Add to that, I have my own 2 kids to take care of and I'm ready to put on a cape and red boots!

Ok, so Mondays are always busy especially when I have to get myself and my 2 kids out the door in the morning. Every day I've got to make breakfast for us all, make lunches, walk the dog, pack the homework, do my hair, my daughter's hair and now my son's (believe me that's a good thing--he used to look like that book Bedhead all the time).
This is usually my son--Only with dark brown hair and a bit cuter :).  
As I finally sit down to write this, I have already done homework with both my kids:
1st grader--adding 3 addends using cubes and writing them a different way.
3rd grader--multiplication word problems, U.S. Geography and Reading Log.
Made dinner--do you wish you had smell-a-blog... it was yummy :P

 
and....bathed and showered my kids.  I don't have much time until my daughter is out of the shower and asking for ice cream, so I will continue on and tell you about my school day. 

Luckily for me, we are all on a routine now, so this Monday morning went pretty smooth.
I had all of my papers ready to be copied in my bag, so when I got to school I went straight for the new copier and didn't even have a line to wait on. (yes!)

This is a short week for us...what does that mean?  It means Thursday is an Early dismissal--kids leave 2 hours early and Friday is a workday. We get to plan, do report cards and gab.

So, I took a detour from my usual Basal story and decided to do a Book Study.  I ordered the Laura Numeroff "If you give..." set from Scholastic and it came in on Friday afternoon. I was pretty pumped about it, so I paired off my class and gave them each a different book.  They read it together and then started a flow map in their journals.  Today we paired up again, but this time I was armed with a great unit from Erica Bohrer's First Grade . I've only just begun this Laura Numeroff Author Study Unit, so I will share snippets as we work on it this week.  Since they had already read one of the books, they completed the Buddy Reading Log and wrote their favorite parts.

In the afternoon, during reading block,  I read If you Give a Cat a Cupcake and If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We began completing an organizational chart from the unit, which designates the animal and item, setting and the "biggest mess" from each book. Tomorrow, we are going to compare 
(time out--My daughter just asked me for ice cream--I'll be right back)

 the two books using the Venn Diagram in the unit and complete the Fantasy/Reality sort for if you give a Moose a Muffin. (I will try and share this later in the week, tomorrow I take my daughter to dance for 2 hours... so blogging is not in the schedule)

In Math today we used the Base 10 Mats I shared in my last post (scroll down or click here to download the mats)
I placed them in my Clear Board Communicators.  We are able to then re-use these again and again.  I made 2 versions, 1 with the picture of the Base 10 Block and 1 without.  I copied them back to back and place them in the clear board (love these things).  The kids were able to place the blocks on the mat and get great place value practice.

Come back later this week to hear more about  the Laura Numeroff Unit and the Monsters we will be making to go with my Fall Into Writing Unit

Thanks for dropping by,