Center Printables

Ok, have you ever woken up one day and realized that you have been using something for years that could be made better?  I just realized that my generic center printables were soooo boring.... and sad looking as well.  SO, I remade them all to look closer to my personality!  I posted them for sale for cheap on my TpT page if you want to go over there and take a look!  I use some of these forms for Daily 5 as well!  There is some stuff for "Word Work" and "Listen to Reading"

center forms

Christmas in February?

Ok, Sooooo I am REEEEAAALLLY behind on posting my Christmas stuff but I have been feeling a little guilty and feel that I should!  Here are a few of the fun things that we did during December!

This is actually my coworkers nifty bag!  I usually make one every year to hold our fabric wreaths (silly me forgot to take a pic!!!!) but this year we ran out of time. 

We DID make these awesome hats though!  And of course sang Christmas carols to our parents wearing them!  I LOVED them!!!! They are the cutes hats ever!

This is one of the anchor charts I did for spelling in December.  (Sometimes you just gotta put forth the extra 10 minutes to make it cuter than white chart paper, RIGHT!)

We made "Christmas Tree" poems using only adjetives! They love using a paintbrush to glue on the "ornaments" (aka-rediculously small paper hole punches!)

 

And Who didn't write a letter to Santa?

 

Well, that's all I snapped pictures of.  I am kicking myself now because there were so many other fun activities we did that I didn't get on the camera.  It's so hard to live in the moment and "capture" it at the same time! 

 

Now I have a student teacher, I'll just put the camera in her hands! (If I can even remember to do that!)

Football "Fact" Fun!!!

Well, I wanted to get a little in the "Super Bowl" spirit this year! (Since my little first grade homeschool buddies are soooo into football!) I came up with 3 different games to help practice making 10 and matching math facts!

 

 Here are some "1st Quarter" action shots!

 

 

 

I did eventually take half the deck away because we were struggling with getting/matching pairs together. 

 

Click HERE if you want to play the games too check out my pack with 3 games (2 memory games, and score 10, as shown above).

Thanksgiving Freebie and our October stuff!

I know I've shown you before but......Check out my Thanksgiving/Columbus Clipart Pack!

 

Check out this freebie using my Thanksgiving clipart for Thanksgiving Patterns on my TpT store!

Here are a couple of our CUTE Columbus Journey Maps we made! The kids LOVE bringing out their markers! When we were learning about Columbus we did a brain file to talk about our schema....My favorite misconception...."He was a famous singer!" I love kids!

 

Then we read the cute story Where's My Mummy  and we talked about how our "Mummy" helps us when we are scared.  We all started with the same writing stem "When I'm scared my mummy...."

 

These are some of our math "tubs" we have been working on to help enforce the math concepts we are learning.  Kids love "sums of ten"! You cover the mat then find as many ways to get a sum of ten as possible. 

This is "Under the Cup" covering missing addends.

 

"Race to a Flat" practicing base 10. 

Here the kiddos flip over two cards and make number sentences for each parnter.  They then record both partners' number sentences and compare <,>, or = between the two number sentences.

This girl got through a ton of math "fact family triangles"!!! You can find these on my TpT store! They love to write with dry erase!!

"Follow the Leader" I found in some small domino activity book and remade the recording sheet using a cute font (I am a total addict!) They choose a domino to be the leader then in three different columns they sort and record which dominos are less than, equal to, and great than the leader.

This is my "money math" game similar to "Race to a Flat".  The students take turns rolling a die and counting out that many pennies.  Then when they fill a ten frame they exchange it for a dime.  Then when the time is up they record their money and compare who has more/less.  Then we end with a spinner telling us who won (least amount or greatest.)

 

Hope these pictures help encourage and motivate!!!! I am ALWAYS looking for ideas and activities to help me get throught the day!!!

 

Math, Oh My!

So, math has been on my mind this year! Our standards given by the district have changed and caused me to rethink how and what I am focusing on in math! I wanted to share an old "Math Their Way" game revamped that my students loved!

Under the Cup: Student 1 rolls the dice and counts out that many cubes.  Then has student 2 cover their eyes while they cover some of the cubes up.  Then student 1 will write a missing addend equation (number sentence). Student 2 will use the white board to draw a picture to help them solve for the missing addend.  They love trying to trick their partner! 

The example pictures are of my own girls practicing the game!

Under The Cup Pics and Video

 

NEXT......

 

We are starting to slowly cover fact families (during math tubs practice) and I created some simple "Fact Family" Triangles for the kids to fill out.  Anything DRY ERASE is always fun for the kids!!!

 

 

 Math Fact Triangles

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to School Give Away!

Ok, I have never done a give away before but I would like to try!  I know a lot of us have already started school but I still want to share with y'all! 

 

I am giving away my Back to School Clipart Pack

 

 

and my Morning Meeting Must Haves.

 

 

The way to qualify is to follow my blog, and leave a comment through rafflecopter.  I will then pick TWO lucky folks!  (I am crossing my fingers this works right, since its my first giveaway!!!)

 

This offer ENDS September 13, 2013! Thats Right! Friday the 13th!  LOL!  I will announce the winners within 48 hours!  I will then contact the winners via EMAIL.  Good luck! And hope you enjoy checking out my blog!!!

 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And On the 7th Day.....

Well, I don't know about y'all but I made is 7 WHOLE SCHOOL DAYS before my first melt down, LOL!  (And yes "y'all" I am a Texan!)  Surprisingly enough, it really wasn't school itself, but all my after school obligations with my girls!  AND, a not so fun trip to the municipal court to pay for a few tickets (all dismissable ladies! don't judge)
So, I took a few pics of some of our first week graphs we have made.

Day one we make a transportation graph and talk about it.  I swear I never cut the butcher paper long enough!

Then we did a birthday graph (Teachers, you know we really do this for us!!!)

 And my favorite, the eye color pie chart!!!!  This idea came from Abby Lee's Kindergarten blog.  My gradelevel did it last year when I was in kindergarten but you would have never known by the reaction from my first graders as I put the last piece up and it made a circle!  (AND 17/21 where here in kindergarten!)

 

This is a quick snip of our CAFE Strategies board.  Granted, I wish we had gotten to more strategies but I just can seem to find the time.....It is crazy at the beginning of the year! 

Last year I decided to try homemade book bags because I was tired of bying boxes and I loaned my totes to a coworker and decided to let her have them.  So, I asked parents to bring an old (child sized) Tshirt and I did a little cosmetic touches to them and TADA!  The kids love that they have their own personal book bag that is made out of a shirt.  And the best part so far is that it is REALLY fool proof when I tell them to go get their bag.  I don't have to wait while they look on every label to try and find theirs!

One of my students favorite things right now are the pointers.  I have purchased cheap stir sticks from Hobby Lobby, Dollar Tree, and other places then put them in a pen organizer and let them grab one when they head to work on Daily 5.  Trust me, this is a HUGE motivator to read.....(as well as a distraction for some, lol)