No Nonsense November

Is it really November? I was running off a turkey addition page and thought to myself, "It's too early for this!"

I always enjoy November and December because things start to "click" in first grade. We did an assessment today and I had mentioned to the students several times that it would be "tricky" and to just try their best.

Well the assessment was done when one of my little sweeties said, "The hard part never came!"

It was one of those times where my heart felt super happy.

Speaking of happy, guess who managed to leave their work, at work this weekend? This girl right here!

We have a very busy week ahead of us next week! We are right in the middle of assessment season and I'm constantly looking for ways to keep things engaging. I have a very young class this year and most of us are JUST turning 6!

Between activities, we are doing brain breaks using the free website: Gonoodle.com. They have a great blend of calming, energizing, and everything in between when it comes to ways to get the wiggles out.

We are going to be doing a character study unit on "The Littlest Pilgrim" starting next week.
We read "Turkey Trouble" this week too!

 

Next week we will be doing a bunch of fun activities from my Turkey Trouble Common Core Unit!  

 Tom the Turkey will be the focus of our exploration of character traits!

In math we are exploring place value and addition to 20.

We are going to use the Turkey Trouble addition color by number as an independent math by myself choice during Math workshop.

Next week, I'll be discussing math workshop and how I've modified it to work with 30 first graders at very different levels of mathematical understanding.

Until then,

Halloween in First Grade

Happy Halloween! I had a blast (a very tiring one) celebrating Halloween with my little pumpkins today!

We started the morning off with labeling pumpkins and putting treats away for the afternoon. This isn't even half of it. I'm pretty glad it's a Friday and that by Monday, they will have all this sugar out of their system.

I have to give them credit though, we managed to get everyone's pumpkins labeled, treats put away, folders and homework checked, and morning work in 15 minutes. Pretty impressive!

For Daily 5, we read "Splat and the Pumpkin Picking Plan." We then retold the story using a beginning, middle, and end graphic organizer. This year we can't get enough Splat! Last year they loved the Little Old Lady Who..books.

We also did a Halloween safety sorting activity. This page came from my Second Grade Halloween Math & ELA Unit.

We also had an hour long Halloween celebration. We decorated pumpkins, passed out treats, and watch "The Cat in the Hat: Tricks and Treats."

But that is not all...we also did math AFTER the party and everyone was pretty focused despite the excitement! We practiced addition within 10 using these adorable pumpkin pails and cauldrons. Each had a sum on it and the popsicle sticks had the equations.

I'm pretty sure we did a million other things too! Halloween is my favorite holiday and it probably showed in my lessons this week!

I came home with close to 100 pieces of candy somehow. Let's see how many are left by Monday.

I'll be blogging about some of my favorite November activities soon!

Until then,

It's October! Really?!

I can't believe it is October already!

We have been very busy in our classroom. It explains my lack of blogging recently.

My students are having a blast learning how to be first graders. They are also enjoying partner work, a whole lot!

Last week, we did a sorting activity about past and present. I have a large population of ELLs and wanted to facilitate a chance for them to have a discussion using the vocabulary past and present. I took the time to make the picture cards to sort. The students benefited from identifying the objects in the picture such as "phone, airplane, and even dinosaurs." I loved how everything came together.

 

As far as planning for October, I am looking forward to using the following Math and ELA seasonal resources. My birthday is in October and I just adore everything about the month! Halloween is my favorite holiday and this is apparent within 5 minutes of visiting my classroom. My October must-haves:

I use the First Grade Halloween Math & ELA Activities Set which is Common Core Aligned for homework and math stations.

  I love the Little Old Lady! We read the book "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed Some Leaves." Next, we worked on sequencing the story. This week we will use the packet to do syllable counting and some math patterning. The packet can be found here.

Second Week of First Grade

I do not enjoy Sunday lesson plans. I do not enjoy them on a sunny day. I do not enjoy them on a rainy day. I do not enjoy them in the beginning of the year.

You get the idea. I'm usually a Thursday night lesson planning type of girl. This week...I just don't know what happened.

We had a great first week of school. I have a very sweet class!

This week we are working on all sorts of fun things. We still have so much ground to cover with procedures but you can't do procedures all day.

We are still launching Daily 5. We got to 5 minutes of read to self last week! They were pretty happy with themselves and so was I !

Social Studies: We are learning about rules at school and at home. I grabbed this awesome product off of TeachersPayTeachers:  School Rules Book (Free!)

Science: We are doing popcorn investigations! I have it scheduled for Thursday which is our Open House...will our classroom smell like popcorn for families? Maybe... I'll have to let you know! I am using this super generous free product: 5 Senses - Popcorn Investigation


Math: We are working on number sense and identifying numbers this week. I am using one of my favorite TeachersPayTeachers products to supplement my teaching because I am not bringing out the workbooks yet. We are having a challenging time with figuring out what "comes next" after a number. I'm hoping this awesome product will help us out. 

I'm super excited for Fall too! Fingers crossed we can use pages from my Fall Math & ELA Activity set. I'm hoping to do the even/odd sorting page this week. Will let you know how it goes.

We will also be working on 5 frames. I know this is a big topic in first grade right now. I have a FREEBIE for you to enjoy: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREEBIE-Five-Frames-883875.

Until next week!

Free Resources