*This post contains affiliate links via Amazon* On a personal level, Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. The parades. The family. The FOOD!!!! And when the weather cooperates, it's one of the most magical days of the year (for me, anway). So it should come as no surprise that I would feel the same about celebrating Thanksgiving in the classroom, too. Well, any holiday, really ;) Here are a few things I've done with my Kindergarten and First Graders through the years during the month of November. Of course, I don't have time for everything you see every single year, so depending on the dynamic and abilities of my students, I … [Read more...] about Celebrating Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Math Freebies!
Hello all! I hope this week's supermoon hasn't throw your babies off at all. Oh, who am I kidding?! I know it has, LOL!!! Here's to you and making it through to the Thanksgiving holidays up ahead! Halleluia, right?! Okay, so let's talk math, shall we?! I just wanted to share a couple of math activities from my Simply Social Studies Thanksgiving Mini Unit (K/1) that you might be able to use in your classroom this week or next. I always try to include ELA & Math extension activities in my social studies lesson plans. I love cross curricular teaching and our kids tend to build a more … [Read more...] about Thanksgiving Math Freebies!
Talk Turkey To Me!
How many of y'all are in scramble mode right now?! Scrambling to get things planned and prepped for your Thanksgiving festivities...and I don't mean your homebound celebrations. I thought I'd throwback to some old things I've done in my classroom for Thanksgiving and share a couple of new things with you as well. If you're still not done planning and prepping, maybe these ideas will help! First up, here are my favorite Thanksgiving books! Before I throwback, here's a little something new for this year. I created this supplemental math & literacy resource full of printables and writing craftivities to get you … [Read more...] about Talk Turkey To Me!
Hello? Hello? Is Anybody There?
Hi friends. Maybe you remember me? I’m the girl who used to be semi good about blogging here at The First Grade Parade. Is anybody there? I’m convinced no one reads blogs anymore…or maybe just that no one reads this one. I’m sure it doesn’t help when I don’t post for a month :) Living in a small little town means that sometimes you don’t have internet access…for extended periods of time…even when you call your provider and practically beg for them to restore your service. {{Sigh}} So I enjoyed the temporary lapse in blogging. And when Internet service was restored, I kept on enjoying my break. … [Read more...] about Hello? Hello? Is Anybody There?
More Even & Odd Fun and The Great Turkey Race
We had some more odd & even fun today…just a little follow-up to yesterday’s Odd Todd & Even Steven lesson. I drew a few hands under my document camera {don’t worry…they wiped right off!!} and passed out some number cards to the kids. I called on each of the kids…one at a time…to tell me the number they were holding. We used snap cubes to count them out and then checked to see if we could split them EVENLY between the two hands. If we could, they sorted their number in the "even” column, and if we couldn’t, well…the number went to the “odd” column. They made some GREAT connections to yesterday’s Even … [Read more...] about More Even & Odd Fun and The Great Turkey Race
Catching Up & When The Leaf Blew In
I am home from school today…AGAIN…with a sick little man. And I’m missing the 50th day of school…SADSVILLE!!!!! My favorite day of the year!!!! While my kids are at school dressed in their cutie little poodle skirts and saddle shoes, they’ll be celebrating with root beer floats and 50th day fun TOMORROW. I can’t miss out on EVERYTHING ;) One thing is certain…I’m SO ready for my boys to be well again!!!! Between strep throat, ear infections, and breathing treatments…this momma is spent! Moving on… We celebrated “Character Dress Up Day” at school last week. I don’t know if I told y’all this before, … [Read more...] about Catching Up & When The Leaf Blew In
Thanksgiving Threw Up in My Classroom
OH.MY. Pretty much sums up how I feel when I walk into my classroom. I’m greeted by dangling turkeys, pilgrims galore, and kid work all over the place…and I LOVE IT. Y’all…this last month…3 weeks, I guess…have been a total whirlwind. I didn’t get a chance to do half the things I wanted to, but I’m okay with it because the kids got JUST what they needed! We’ve been furiously preparing ourselves for our annual Grandparent’s/VIP day tomorrow. It’s our biggest event of the year! The kids get to invite the special people in their lives to come watch them perform the most darling little musical … [Read more...] about Thanksgiving Threw Up in My Classroom
Let’s Give Thanks!
I'm CLEARLY technically challenged. After about 3-4 days of unsuccessfully trying to upload my latest unit to TpT, it's FINALLY added. Praise the Lord. My word. It was TOTALLY user error and I won't bother to mention what I was doing wrong because it was pretty lame....and *maybe* a little embarassing :) HA! I know we only have a few days left before the break, but if you're interested, here's the latest...Clipart courtesy of Scrappin Doodles and Jessica Weible Illustrations This 120 page unit is filled with 10 activities {and recording sheets} for math tubs...plus 10 word problems...and 10 literacy … [Read more...] about Let’s Give Thanks!
The Littlest Pilgrim, Symmetrical Turkeys, and Scarecrows…OH MY!
You guys *might* remember these little guys from last year… We made a whole new set of symmetrical turkeys today and the kids were SO intense! We talked a TON about the concept of symmetry and then I sent the kids off to make their own symmetrical patterns {for turkey feathers}. LOVE how different each one turned out! I forgot to mention that we did our fun little pumpkin adjective/simile activity last week. It went along perfectly with Abby’s recent pumpkin activities! {The purple words describe the OUTSIDE of the pumpkin and the green words describe the INSIDE.} There’s nothin’ cuter than scarecrows this time of … [Read more...] about The Littlest Pilgrim, Symmetrical Turkeys, and Scarecrows…OH MY!
Happy Thanksgiving, Y’all!
Celebrating Thanksgiving with my first graders has been, by far, my favorite thing yet! As a culminating activity to our Thanksgiving unit, we had a giant Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the season. We made pilgrim hats & bibs to wear for the occasion. The fun feast was catered by one of my favorites…Dickey’s!!!!…and the kids dined on turkey, ham, mac & cheese, green beans, rolls, and homemade cookies {one of the sweet first grade moms made peanut free chocolate chip cookies for the WHOLE grade level…and they were GOOD!} It was such a fun experience for both the kids and their parents…us too!! Can’t wait to celebrate … [Read more...] about Happy Thanksgiving, Y’all!
If You Sailed On The Mayflower…
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…
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
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
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
