Cara Carroll

*Literacy

Charlotte and the Rock – A Virtual ELA Lesson

This week's lesson is all about a little girl named Charlotte and her pet rock. Charlotte and the Rock is a PRECIOUS story...from the storyline to the illustrations and everything in between, this is one of my most favorites. I'm using Charlotte and the Rock to reinforce the concept of making predictions. You can watch the full video lesson HERE: I'll use this printable as a reference for what it means to make a prediction. This printable would be great for your kids to have on hand as you're reading the story. While it can absolutely be used with any book you're reading, we'll use this to make a prediction about Dennis. … [Read more...] about Charlotte and the Rock – A Virtual ELA Lesson

Rot The Cutest in the World – A Virtual ELA Lesson

I love picture books with personality and Rot The Cutest in the World is full of just that! Rot is a story of a mutant potato who isn't short on confidence UNTIL he starts thinking he should be just like everyone else. The story is illustrated so incredibly well and the lesson/theme is perfect for kids of all ages. Rot is great to use as a mentor text for several different concepts & skills (theme, character traits, making predictions, etc.), but for today's ELA lesson we're focusing on Fact & Opinion (with a heavy emphasis on the opinion piece.). Feel free to check out this video to see this lesson from start to … [Read more...] about Rot The Cutest in the World – A Virtual ELA Lesson

The cOOkie Monster Freebie & A “Bag”pack Tutorial

We finished up learning about the /oo/ {as in cookie} sound last week and I was so proud of my kiddos when it was time for our spell check on Friday.  They did AWESOME!!  One of the little activities we did for word work last week was “Feeding the Cookie Monster”.  The kids had to sort through /oo/ words on little cookie cut-outs and feed the cookie monster with the cookies that had the /oo/ {as in foot} words. Click HERE to download :) We celebrated our learning with a little “Cookies & Bookies” party on Friday :) {I just passed out cookies while they read during D.E.A.R time.  Put the word “party” in front of anything and the kids … [Read more...] about The cOOkie Monster Freebie & A “Bag”pack Tutorial

Stomp Your Feet

I’ve been a little MIA lately.  In all honesty, I’ve had the blogging “blahs”.  Not a whole lot of motivation to sit down and post anything.  I’ve just been lovin’ on my boys and spending an insane amount of my “free” time just having fun with my little family of four {and some out of town visitors, too!!}.  Since my last post, things at school have been, ummm…CRAZY.  Since Friday, I have… …sanitzed my hands…and the hands of 17 littles…NO LESS than 2,347 times. …successfully cleaned up a few cases of the pukies {talk about gag reflex} …counted 6 kids absent on Friday & Monday…and sent two pukies home today. …cloroxed {yes, it’s a verb ;)} … [Read more...] about Stomp Your Feet

On A Roll

After reading this post, you *might* think I’m a little obsessed with dice activities :)  Not true…however, my kids totally are!!!  And I know that when they’re excited, I might as well milk it for all it’s worth!  HA!  One of my firsties told me today, “You know what’s weird?!  I feel like I’m having a lot of fun, but really I’m learning!”  Oops…guess the cat’s outta the bag ;) I’m LOVING this little activity…and so are the kids!!  This activity focuses on ADJECTIVES.  Now, I might be obsessed with that!!  HA!!  I prepared 7 envelopes.  6 envelopes contained 4-5 different adjectives.  1 envelope contained 12-15 different sentence strips.  … [Read more...] about On A Roll

Fractions, Editing, Compound Words, & Freebies

Since this is a post of a bunch of random things, I’m calling it my “potpourri”. {Does anyone dislike that word as much as I do?!?!  Mark it under one of my most not-favorite things to say} Is anyone else BARELY getting to fractions?!  We started our fraction unit this week and started by discussing equal & unequal parts.  I folded a bunch pieces of construction paper {even & uneven} and passed them out to the kids after a little fraction introduction on the SmartBoard.  The kids had to go back to their desks and cut the construction paper on the creases and then determine whether or not they had equal or unequal parts. Then we … [Read more...] about Fractions, Editing, Compound Words, & Freebies

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

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!

Mitten Loads of Fun!

We hit the ground running the first week back from break and it was so nice to be back in a routine.  We did a lot of mitten themed activities and the kids loved it!   Hope you enjoy them, too!!Of course, we started the week reading The Mitten, by Jan Brett.  There was SO much to do with this book!!  We created a flow chart to sequence the events, used puppets from the Jan Brett website to retell the story, discussed the story elements using a mitten themed story map, and lots more! {I kept forgetting to charge my camera, so I didn’t take many pictures :(}We also read, The Hat by Jan Brett and compared it to The … [Read more...] about Mitten Loads of Fun!

If Take A Mouse To The Movies

One of my favorite holiday books… And there’s SO much you can do with it!  We had a little “If You Take A Mouse To The Movies” day the other day and the kids had so much fun!!  Of course, we started out reading the book.  After reading, we talked about cause & effect and made a diagram to show the chain of reaction. I also assigned each kiddo to a story event and had them illustrate it.  Then we came together as a whole group and I had the kids work together to sequence the events on a giant filmstrip! I really wanted a text to self writing activity, so I gave them the prompt, “If you take me to the movies, I will ask you for some…”.  … [Read more...] about If Take A Mouse To The Movies

Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town

I have a thing for Santas.  I really do.  I have a HUGE collection here at the house and I just can’t get enough of him!  He’s so dang cute!  SO…it would only stand to reason that I’d want to include a few Santa activities in the classroom as well :)  I know that a lot of kids don’t celebrate Christmas, but this year EVERY single one of my kiddos does…so that makes planning a little bit easier for me.  However, this hasn’t always been the case!  I guess you could say I’m taking advantage of it this year :) I read a book about Santa the other day…can’t remember which one…and had the kids make these cute little scrapbook Santas after we read … [Read more...] about Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town

A Time For Turkeys

We have been busy this month!!  We’ve been learning about a little bit of everything from turkeys, to pilgrims, to the Mayflower.  Here are just a couple of little things we’ve been doing with turkeys…with LOTS more to come!!! We were working on “long a” this week and our chunks were –ake, –ate, & –ave.  So I made these fun little word family turkeys and had the kids write words to match each turkey on colorful little feathers!  They LOVED it!! I also included a set of turkeys with nothing typed in the bellies….just incase you’d want to program them yourself :)   We read the book, Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving… …and followed up with … [Read more...] about A Time For Turkeys

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

Stellaluna Fun!

We had SO much fun learning about bats last week!  My kids are really into non-fiction this year and LOVE “fact gathering”.  Kinda precious if you ask me ;)  At the beginning of the week, we read Stellaluna & followed up the story with a Bats vs. Birds Venn Diagram and a story map.  My kids are really into story maps this year, too!  And I love having a visual to organize our thoughts.  Since there were a lot of little problems and characters in Stellaluna, this was the perfect time to talk about main character & main problem.  We starred those on the story map to remember the difference! I also had the kids make their own … [Read more...] about Stellaluna Fun!

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

Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

My kids this year are SO very much into non-fiction stories. I LOVE IT!!! We started our week of apples with a KWL. I set out this little KWL and fill it out with the kids as we go along… After reading a few short non-fiction books about apples, we filled out the “What You LEARNED” apple and had the kids complete their own KWL to keep in their Reader’s Response Journals. They LOVED this activity! I told them to choose 1 thing from each apple to write down.KWL Printable: APPLE KWL And we labeled the parts of an apple… I also had the kids fill out their own version.  I found it on Mrs. Nelson’s Apple Unit Page. We also start out the week … [Read more...] about Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

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

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