Cara Carroll

ELA

How Many {Antonym} Feet Do We Meet?!

This week we’ve been working on antonyms and the kids are lovin’ it!  We started by reading this book……and then we brainstormed a list of opposites.  Surprisingly, some of my babies were having a hard time with the concept.  So I had to explain to them, “If something is ______ it can’t be _______!!!”  After a few go ‘rounds of that, I sent the kids off to trace their own feet and write a pair antonyms on either one!!I added all the pairs to a big anchor chart…The kids have also been working on their very own little antonym books!  They’ve been keeping these in their book baskets and adding to them every time they have … [Read more...] about How Many {Antonym} Feet Do We Meet?!

Candy Heart Math {& A Making Words Activity}

I know Valentine’s Day is over, but I like to extend my Valentine-ish activities throughout the month.  After all, February is the month of LOVE, right?!  Well, that’s what I’m goin’ with anyway.  Candy hearts are my favorite February math manipulative and here are a couple of little math printables & activities for you!!  The first is a little candy heart graph.  I know there are a GAJILLION of these floating around right now.  I like to graph the number of letters in the conversation.  I pass out a large conversation heart to each kiddo and have them count the number of letters on the heart.  Then we create a big ol’ graph on a giant … [Read more...] about Candy Heart Math {& A Making Words Activity}

Boggle – Making Words

I love Boggle.  One of my most favorite apps. While writing about my love for this game during Writer’s Workshop one day, I realized that my kids sorta love this game, too!  A few of them said that their parents play it on their phones and some of the others talked about playing Boggle Jr. at home with their families.  Love it!  So I combined their love for Boggle with their love for the SMARTBoard and now they ALL have a FAVORITE Work Work activity!!  At least once a week, I have the kids visit the SMARTBoard to play Boggle…and they LOVE it!!  They each take turns connecting words and then recording them on a corresponding sheet.  You can … [Read more...] about Boggle – Making Words

Groundhogs & Their Burrows

The kids have loved learning about burrows and how groundhogs dig tunnels.  Did you know they dig up to 700 lbs. of dirt when digging their burrows?!  WHOA!  We talked about burrows and other places animals calls home…dens, lairs, nests, caves, etc.  Then I had the kids pretend like they were groundhogs and do a little descriptive writing.  First they had to draw their little burrows.  CRACKING up that this one has a TV & a bed!  HA! Then they had to write a few sentences describing their burrow as if they were a groundhog. Finally, they made a little groundhog.  I LOVE this little art piece.  It takes all of about 5 seconds to put … [Read more...] about Groundhogs & Their Burrows

Chocolate Pudding & Penguins

I’m trying to catch up on a few little things, but thought I’d share this in the meantime.  We’re stuck INSIDE today…no school…with tons of ice on the ground and temps too cold for me to talk about.  Yuck.  But the upside to this little sleet day is that I’ve got a clean house & chicken noodle soup on the stove.  Speaking of soup, if you’re dealing with stay-inside-weather like we are, you’ve seriously gotta try THIS SOUP.  Y’all….it’s DANG good.  Perfect cold weather meal!!  Moving on… This week we’re learning about the “-ch” digraph.  My firsties are LOVING the Digraph Kids and talk about each of ‘em like they know them personally!  … [Read more...] about Chocolate Pudding & Penguins

Penguin Fun!

Oh how I LOVE learning about penguins!!  They are just the dang cutest things, aren’t they?!  I’ve tried to get my boys into Happy Feet, but they aren’t big fans just yet.  Boo.  Anyway, we had a lot of penguin fun this week and I can’t wait to continue with more in the week to come!  First off, if you haven’t had a chance to purchase Deanna Jump’s Penguin Unit, GO.NOW.  It’s FULL of awesome ideas and activities which is one of the reasons I’ve extended our penguin learning for another week.  AND…you need to check out Babbling Abby’s post about her week of Penguin fun!  She has some DARLING ideas too and a 5-day lesson plan to download.  LOVE … [Read more...] about Penguin Fun!

Place Value, MLK, and Snowmen!

  Here's a fun little place value activity I made for my kids to do in their math tubs last week.  It’s a snowman place value spinner!    Graphics courtesy of Digi Web Studio   Last week we were working on place value with teen numbers, so that’s what this particular activity reinforces.  The kids spin the spinner on the middle portion of the snowman and collect that amount of ones cubes...or whatever kind of counter you want!  Then they spin the spinner on the bottom portion of the snowman and collect the same amount of ones cubes as well.  Then they count their cubes and see if they can make a set of ten.  I always tell them, “If you can … [Read more...] about Place Value, MLK, and Snowmen!

Brown Bag Book Club

Years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Linda Holliman workshop.  It.was.AWESOME!!  She is such a hoot and her ideas are SO inspiring!!!  While she was explaining a few different ideas to us, one of them really got my attention.  She talked about how her kids would complete a readers/listening response on a lunch bag and then she’d fill the bags with popcorn and have the kids partner up and share what they wrote.  I LOVED that idea!!!  Since I’m such a big fan of book clubs, I decided to incorporate this idea and turn it into a book club…hence the birth of the “Brown Bag Book Club”.  Y’all…my kids are OBSESSED.  And I gotta say…I’m LOVIN’ … [Read more...] about Brown Bag Book Club

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, friends!  It’s been a busy week!  Isn’t the first week back from break…and every week thereafter…busy?!  HA!  We started the week talking about goals and resolutions.  I told the kids my resolution was to be healthier this year {aka: lose about 10 lbs. of holiday weight.  MERCY!}  I had my kids make goals for themselves either at home or school.  They LOVED this activity!!  I used the lined paper from a new year template one of the teacher’s on my team gave to us.  I found this super fun scrapbook paper and used that to make the hats, glued on a fun little pom pom, and busted out the Dollar Tree party blowers for some sass!  … [Read more...] about Happy New Year!

Reindeer Games

I feel like the 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas break are so RUSHED!  Not that I’m complaining…I LOVE breaks :)…but there’s always so much I want to fit in in such a short amount of time!  Last week we started learning about reindeer. Before we continue on with more reindeer fun this week, I wanted to start with some non-fiction reading and fact gathering, so that’s just what we did! We started out by reading this non-fiction book about reindeer… I love reading non-fiction books because my kids just eat it up!  They’re SO engaged when it comes to learning new facts.  Plus, it gives me a chance to teach them about the table of … [Read more...] about Reindeer Games

Noun Town

Oh…I’m SO lovin’ all these fun little Christmas activities!  There’s just something about this time of year, don’tcha think?!  I’ve gotten SO many WONDERFUL ideas from blogland that I can’t wait to implement in my own room!  Y’all are too dang much!  Here are a few more things we worked on this week… I was so inspired by Sarah Cooley’s Noun Town that we made one of our own, too!  Since it’s the holiday season, we decided to make a Gingerbread Noun Town.  We did some “city planning” before we got started.  We talked about people, places, and things that we might see in our town and brainstormed a list of each.  After city planning, I had each … [Read more...] about Noun Town

Pumpkin Fun For Everyone!

Such a FUN week!!!  I absolutely LOVE this time of year!!!  We had a pumpkin themed week and we learned SO much!!  We started the week out with a pumpkin shaped KWL that the kids helped me fill out.  They are SO into non-fiction and loved helping me fill out the “What we Learned” part of the pumpkin :) {No pics…BOO!!} We were working on sequencing this week, so I put a little sequencing activity in the pocket chart & they had to sequence the life cycle of a pumpkin.  They loved it!  I found the real life pumpkin photos HERE & they matched them to sentences that I typed up on the computer.  After they matched the pics to the words … [Read more...] about Pumpkin Fun For Everyone!

Mystery Words

This week was a chunk week review for us, so I made up a little activity that would get the kids thinking about word families & popcorn words.  I took a couple of lunch bags and filled them with letter tiles.  In one bag, I included the letters contained in all of our popcorn words {to date}.  In the other bag, I included all the vowels & word endings to the chunks we’ve learned thus far, plus a few additional letters.  The kids had to pick a bag and use the tiles inside to make words.  I told them to read the room if they had trouble figuring out what words to make. {We’ve got our chunk charts & popcorn … [Read more...] about Mystery Words

Skeleton Hiccups

For a little reader’s response fun, we read this book… SO darling!  And then we got to problem solving.  The kids had to write using the prompt, “I would get rid of a skeleton’s hiccups by…”.  Their answers were pretty dang cute!  I drew the skeleton face & hips and had a mom cut them out.  Then the kids decided how the rest of the skeleton would look!  LOVE IT!!  My favorite part is how different each of them look.  Too dang cute! This might be one of my most favorite writing activities of the year…I’m just sayin’.  I’ve done this for the last 7 years and I always look forward to it!!  And the kids love it, too!! … [Read more...] about Skeleton Hiccups

Where’s My Mummy?

We had our annual Fall Book Fair a couple of weeks ago and there was the most darling little book on the shelves… Now, this book has probably been around for a while, but it’s the first time I saw it.  One of my sweeties from class bought it for me and I fell.in.love!  SUCH a cute story!  {And it’s since become a favorite of my two boys, too!}   I immediately knew I wanted to use this story for a writing activity and here’s what we did… For a reader’s response, I had the kids use the sentence prompt, “When I get scared, my mummy…”, and they had to write about something that their Mommy does to help them when … [Read more...] about Where’s My Mummy?

Who Lives Here?

At the beginning of each week, we usually introduce 3 new chunks to our kids.  We brainstorm words for each chunk both real and nonsense…they LOVE coming up with nonsense words!  We also encourage our kids to come up with words that contain the chunk somewhere inside…not necessarily at the end of the word.  I LOVE seeing what they come up with!  After we brainstorm our chunk words, I give the kids a tri-folded piece of paper to make houses for their word families & they record the words they can read inside.  This has become their favorite Monday activity!  They usually keep their houses in their book baskets … [Read more...] about Who Lives Here?

Spidey Writing

We started out our spider themed week reading a few non-fiction books and filling out a KWL.  Not gonna lie…I learned A LOT of things about spiders this week!  It was amazing to hear my kids recalling facts of everything they had learned, too!  They were SO into it!  I set up a labeling activity for the kids to visit during transition time or when they were finished with their other station activities.  They also labeled a spider template I found on abcteach.com.  This little labeling activity includes a lot more words to use for labeling…not sure what happened to them?!   At the end of the week, we talked … [Read more...] about Spidey Writing

Stamp A Spider

I included a little stamping activity in our Word Work station this week that the kids just loved!  Stamp-a-Spider!  They used our chunks of the week to stamp short o words {-ot, –op, –og} onto strips of paper that became the spider’s legs.  I had a sweet mom pre-cut the spider body templates so that all the kids had to do were stamp the chunk words!  I think I’ll keep this activity out for the next few weeks as a choice for Word Work!! click to download STAMP A SPIDER … [Read more...] about Stamp A Spider

Reader’s Response – A Chair For My Mother

We’ve been discussing Wants vs. Needs this week and used the book A Chair For My Mother, by Vera Williams to talk about the topic. After reading the book, the kids really led their own discussion about buying things they need rather than what they want. They were so precious and sweet talking about what they thought they needed. I might’ve heard one of them say “Rip Stick”, so I was quick to interrupt and remind them how needs are different than wants :) Here’s a little peek at their entry… As usual, the kids wrote the title & author and completed the sentence prompt, “I will use my coins to buy…” This sweet little love said that she … [Read more...] about Reader’s Response – A Chair For My Mother

Chunk Sorts

Each week we give our kids 3 chunks to learn and *hopefully* master.  We introduce the chunks on Mondays and we have a “spell check” on Fridays.  Spell checks are like spelling tests, but NO grade is given.  They’re responsible for spelling each chunk along with three chunk words.  They’re also responsible for spelling 3 popcorn words.  I like for my kids to work with chunks throughout the week so that they’re getting a lot of hands-on practice with each word family.  When we were working with spiders, I created some spider themed chunk sorts along with a recording sheet...     Here are several … [Read more...] about Chunk Sorts

The Very Busy Spider

I love starting the month of October learning about spiders.  We read several non-fiction books that the kids adored, but they also LOVED this Eric Carle classic…The Very Busy Spider. After we read the story, I gave the kids a writing prompt to complete… “I am very busy____________________________________ in First Grade!”  Their responses were cute and some of them were downright hilarious!!  Apparently we spend our time running away from girls and coloring all day?!  Hmmmm… I cut out a class set of large black circles and a class set of smaller white circles to fit on top of the black {for a spider body}.  I also … [Read more...] about The Very Busy Spider

Word Helper Strategies

I originally saw these darling Word Helper strategy cards on the First Grader At Last blog and knew I had to have them!!!  My kids are seriously OBSESSED with word strategies now!  Every time they get stuck on a word, I’ll hear someone say, “think Stretchy Snake!”  OR, “don’t forget Fly Eye!”  I changed up a few little things to fit the needs of my kids and to go along with the clip art I had available :)  I also created bookmarks that I laminated and cut out for each student to keep.  They have a “keep at home” bookmark and one to keep at their desks.  They love these little guys!  I have the large … [Read more...] about Word Helper Strategies

Reader’s Response ~ The Big Orange Splot

What a random little book find! Have you ever read The Big Orange Splot by D. Manus Pinkwater?! I never had until one of the girls on our team was telling us about it a few weeks ago. It’s a cute little story about people who live on a street where ALL the houses look EXACTLY the same until one day a guy spills orange paint on his roof. SO…he decides not to “fix” it, but paint the rest of his house instead. Everyone tries to get the guy to change his house back to being “normal”, but he encourage people to embrace the differences! SUCH a cute little message! After we read the story, I passed out a little house template and had the kids … [Read more...] about Reader’s Response ~ The Big Orange Splot

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