Today we celebrated “Mayflower Day”!! Okay…so I made that up…but I thought that sounded pretty fitting for our day today :) We started by reading a non-fiction book about the Mayflower. I can’t remember which one, but I checked it out from our school library and it was really good!! It was a great book to review Table of Contents also :) Each “chapter” was only a page or two long. After each page, we stopped to jot. During our stop to jot time, the kids gave me a few facts they learned from that chapter. We learned a lot of really cool facts!! Did you know that the water was so unsafe to drink that everyone on the Mayflower…children … [Read more...] about If You Sailed On The Mayflower…
Education
A Few More Math Ideas Before The Holidays
Here are a couple more ideas for you to *squeeze in* {HA!!!} before Thanksgiving break :) How funky is your turkey?! Here’s a little fact family activity your kids will love! Each kiddo gets a half circle {turkey body} and a triangle {turkey head}. The kids take two dice and roll. Let’s say they roll a 4 & 2. They have to add the numbers together to get the sum {third #}. They write these numbers in each corner of the turkey head with the sum sitting in the beak. Then the kiddos take 4 different feathers and write a different number sentence on each to match the fact family in the turkey … [Read more...] about A Few More Math Ideas Before The Holidays
Symmetrical Pattern Block Turkeys
This week we had a little fun with symmetry. To reinforce the concept, I had my cuties make these fun little pattern block turkeys. It was a great little assessment to see which of my kiddos were struggling with the concept :) I absolutely LOVE how different they all turned out! Can’t wait to do these again next year! … [Read more...] about Symmetrical Pattern Block Turkeys
Pilgrim Projects
Our kids are learning about Thanksgiving customs and traditions and we’ve REALLY gotten into learning all about the pilgrims. The kids are FASCINATED!! They just can’t imagine that little pilgrim boys and girls didn’t have DSI’s & American Girl dolls ;) We started learning about pilgrims reading a few realistic fiction & non-fiction books from our library. We really LOVE this one!!! It’s super informational and it’s got lots of great facts about the Mayflower, pilgrims, and the first Thanksgiving! We learned that life was different for pilgrim boys than girls. We learned a lot of neat facts about little pilgrim boys & … [Read more...] about Pilgrim Projects
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
Happy Veteran’s Day!
Happy Veteran’s Day to all that have served…and are serving…our wonderful country! It was precious to hear my kids singing the song to the soldiers from Deanna Jump’s Veteran’s Day Unit. We watched a beautiful tribute to our soldiers & veterans and listened to them talk about their experiences as it was broadcast throughout the school. It was SO moving and I teared up NUMEROUS times. One of my sweet girls said, “are you okay Mrs. Carroll?!”. Ooops! While they were watching the tribute, a few of my itties made the soldiers and veterans pictures to wave during the parade… So sweet. Every kiddo & adult in the building had their … [Read more...] about Happy Veteran’s Day!
The Thankful Tree
I really love the idea of kids reflecting on what they have to be thankful for. So, we read the book, “The Thanksgiving Bowl” by Virginia Kroll. The beginning of the book talks about a sweet Grandma who sets aside a Thanksgiving bowl for her family to place strips of paper detailing what they’re thankful for, and then all the little papers are read aloud during Thanksgiving dinner. Love it! I thought it was the perfect intro to adding a Thankful Tree to our room :) I have a stack of die cut leaves that sits in a little pumpkin close to my door. Every time one of my kiddos has something to be thankful for, they write it on a leaf and … [Read more...] about The Thankful Tree
Veteran’s Day
I’ve decided that when I grow up, I wanna be just like Deanna Jump. LOVING all of her FUN {and darling} activities!! Have you had a chance to grab her Veteran’s Day unit? If you haven’t, you really should! Veteran’s Day is a BIG deal at our school. The kids invite any family members or friends that have served or are serving in the military. The honored guests gather in the library for a reception and a tribute. Kids are chosen to read their essays and the whole event is broadcast for everyone to see. After the tribute, the veterans/soldiers parade through the school as everyone stands outside their classrooms waving flags while … [Read more...] about Veteran’s Day
Turkey Math
We are learning about traditions and customs & I swear I’m LOVING all this Thanksgiving talk!! I know you’re probably all planned out for the next couple of weeks, but just incase you aren’t, here are a few math tub activities you might like to incorporate :) This is a little addition & subtraction activity where the kids have to solve the problem on the turkey’s belly and add the number of feathers to show the sum/difference. They kids LOVE the feathers :) This is a little fact family activity that the kids are loving! And this is just a little skip counting reinforcement activity. I found this in … [Read more...] about Turkey Math
FAQ’S {The Math Edition}
HAPPY FRIDAY, friends!!! I've recently had a lot of emails and a few comments asking questions about how I set up my math tubs & what my math time looks like, so I thought I'd just give you a little breakdown right here :) Math Mania ~ 8:00-9:30 Morning announcements are broadcast around 8 and as soon as they’re over, we start our calendar routine {you can check out the details HERE}. Immediately following calendar, I send the kids back to their desks for some Math journaling. This usually consists of “Number of the Day” and a problem solving prompt. I usually give the kids a couple of minutes to work alone, and then we share aloud. … [Read more...] about FAQ’S {The Math Edition}
Anytime Math
Do you ever have those weeks where you feel like you’re just behind?! I had to jet outta school early on Friday because BOTH my sweet boys were sick with a 24 hour tummy bug…my oldest one {3 years old}, threw up for the first time. Poor baby!! ANYWAY…Mommy had to leave early and come to the rescue :) Then my sweet family came in town to celebrate Halloween with our little family of 4, so needless to say…I’m BEHIND this week!!! I knew this was the perfect week to pull out my “anytime math” stations!! I love the kind of activities you can just pull out when you’re in a bind! And thankfully, the kids … [Read more...] about Anytime Math
Pumpkin Day!
Pumpkin Day! What a fun end to a week filled of learning about pumpkins! Luckily, I’m blessed to teach at a school where the parents are really involved and eager to help, and that made our Pumpkin Day run SO smoothly!! I had 4 parent volunteers come in and each parent brought in a pumpkin, spoons, carving knives, a bowl, and paper towels. We covered the tables with orange butcher paper and each parent took a group of 4 kids {which is why I got to walk around and take pics of our fun day!} Each of the kids was given a Pumpkin Math & Science Booklet to complete and the parents did an AWESOME job of working … [Read more...] about Pumpkin Day!
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!
Math “Board” Games
When I taught Kindergarten, one of the girls on my team made these one-to-one correspondence math games for the kids. We kept them in our math tubs pretty much all year long because they were great for the kids to play when they were finished with their work, plus they were great for reinforcing rote counting and one-to-one correspondence. To kick it up a notch and make it “First Grade friendly”, I made a little addition/subtraction game out of similar game “boards”. The kids LOVE these games!! I have the kids play with a partner and both players get a matching game board, a set of {seasonal} counters, a stack of … [Read more...] about Math “Board” Games
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
I See The Moon & The Moon Sees Me!
We’ve been learning a little about the moon and the kids are loving it! One of our objectives is to observe changes over a period of time, so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity for the kids to observe the changes in the appearance of the moon! We made this a class project and the kids are just TOO excited! Each night, a different kiddo gets to take home the class “Moon Bag”. {I used yellow fabric & stitch witchery for the moon, a fabric marker for the lettering, and glittery puff paint to outline the moon and make the stars :)} Inside the bag is a book about the moon {from the library}, our class moon log, white crayons, … [Read more...] about I See The Moon & The Moon Sees Me!
A Couple of Math Things…
This is a CRAZY week!! Our schedule is a little off and we’re planning a FUN “Pumpkin Day” on Friday, so I set out a fewer number of math tubs this week. Here are just a couple of things that we’re working on… Greater than/less than candy jars. Each piece of candy is programmed with a number {1-50}. There is also a set of number cards {1-50}. The kids have to pick a number card and then sort the candy into the corresponding candy jars. This was just a little review that they’ve really loved! I’ll definitely keep this in my "when I’m finished…” tubs for them to revisit :) Here’s just … [Read more...] about A Couple of Math Things…
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?
What’s The Weather?!
We’ve been studying the weather the last few weeks in Science and it’s been FUN to say the least! I love hearing the kids talk about the clouds when we’re outside… “Look Mrs. Carroll! That’s a stratus cloud!!” They’ve become such awesome little weather watchers, SO very interested in anything and everything weather!! Here are a few little things we did for this fun little unit! We watched a really neat video about the different types of weather and read some pretty cool non-fiction books, too! We made a little word web to show what we learned… We added weather poems to our poetry journals {no pics, but you can download them below.} We … [Read more...] about What’s The Weather?!
I Want Candy!
Since it’s so close to Halloween…and the kids are SO very crazy about candy right now…I popped this little activity into a math tub this week! The kids were SO excited to work with candy and immediately wanted to know if they could eat it ;) No shocker there. I glued these little signs onto 4-5 different paper bags and filled each with different amounts of candy. The kids reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of candy and recorded the # of pieces they grabbed onto a corresponding recording sheet. Then they reached in a second time and pulled out another handful of candy and recorded that amount as … [Read more...] about I Want Candy!
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?
Jack O’Lantern Addition/Subtraction Sorting
I bought these darling little jack o’lanterns at Wal-Mart YEARS ago when I first started teaching Kindergarten. I used to have the kids do a little one-to-one correspondence activity with them. Since my 1st graders are knee deep in addition & subtraction right now, I knew these little guys would come in handy for the perfect sorting activity! I wrote a different number on each jack o’lantern {6-18}. Then I took popsicle sticks and wrote a different math fact on each….about 6 facts for each number…4 addition problems and 2 subtraction problems {subtraction is still pretty new to us}. The kids sort the math … [Read more...] about Jack O’Lantern Addition/Subtraction Sorting
Candy Corn Math
This week I set out a little candy corn math activity for my kids to use in their stations. Because I have such a sweet tooth, I ate the whole bag of candy corn, so the kids had to settle on the laminated cardstock version instead ;) Each candy corn is programmed with either an addition or subtraction problem. I cut off the bottom {yellow} portion of the candy corn and left the rest intact. The kids have to match the bottom {sum/difference} to the top {number sentence}. We’ve been working on vertical addition & subtraction, so this is a perfect reinforcement of this concept! The kids love … [Read more...] about Candy Corn Math
