Ready to Teach About Dental Health

I really surprised myself when I finished my Dental Health Packet this weekend!  It turned out really cute.  This is what I created for my Dental Health Packet.

The first thing in the packet is a Dental Health Leveled Reader.  The reader is 7 pages long and talks about what you should do to take care of your teeth.  I also created a written response page that goes along with it.

Making Words Activities are one of my students favorite centers.  I created two of these activities using the letters in DENTIST and TOOTHBRUSH.  I choose these two words because of the amount of three and four letter words that can be made rather easily.

I also created three sentence scrambles.  For this activity, students have puzzle pieces with a word or punctuation mark on it.  They will arrange the words in order to make a complete sentence that makes sense.  If you would like to try this activity, here is a freebie that is in my TpT store: Winter Sentence Scramble

This packet also contains a syllable sorting or write the room activity.  Students will sort 1 or 2 syllable dental health themed words.  There are 12 picture cards, 6 for each syllable.

Okay, last activity in this packet are writing prompts.  There are two different writing prompts.  There is a sequencing/narrative writing prompt in which students will write about how to brush your teeth.  The last writing prompt is informative/explanatory where students will write about ways that they can take care of their teeth.  Hopefully, they will have lots of information to write about after reading the leveled reader.  You can check out this packet here.

I think that I am ready to start working on some math centers.  I was hoping to make a similar packet for Groundhog's Day but I don't know if I am ready to create something like this so soon.

I'll be back soon to hopefully share some clocks/telling time centers.

Amber

Dental Health

Greetings!  This has been a crazy week.  The weather here has made my allergies go all crazy and now I have been spending my weekend in bed with a nasty virus.  It is crazy to think that last week, temperatures here were in the -20s with the windchill and yesterday the high temperature was 40!

I finally was able to post my beach themed Dolch word wall, TeacherspayTeachers has been acting crazy when I've been trying to upload a product.  I didn't have too much trouble this morning when I tried!  Here is the link, if you would like to check it out.  Surfs Up! Word Wall

My focus for the rest of the weekend is my Dental Health pack.  I have some big ideas for this pack, now to see what I can accomplish.  So far, I have created a 7 page book on dental health and was to keep your teeth healthy.  Now to move on to what I have left to complete, I want to complete a comprehension questions page to go along with the story that I have created, Making Words Activities with the word dentist and maybe toothpaste, a Syllable Sort with 1 and 2 syllable words, Sentence Scramble, and a couple of writing prompts.  I might add more, but not sure what yet.  I have many of these ideas already written down, it is just a matter of creating them.  If everything works out, I hope to have this done by next weekend.

Dental Health!

I'm hoping to do the same thing with Groundhogs.  Last year, I created a similar pack for Valentine's Day, excluding a reader.  Maybe I can upgrade that packet a put in a reader, I'll have to see what I have time for.



Thanks for reading!

Amber

Word Wall, Beach Wall

After having three days off because of the cold last week, it seemed like Monday was our first day back from break.  It was nice having a 5-day weekend last week but it was very hard to get motivated for school this week.

This weekend, I spent many hours working on a beach themed word wall for all 220 Dolch words.  I am hoping to have this posted on TeacherspayTeachers before the end of the week, fingers crossed that it happens tonight.  Maybe it was the temps below zero last week, or maybe the fact that I could still be living and teaching in North Carolina, but the beach was on my mind.  The beach word wall packet will contain 26 word wall letters, with a cute flip flop theme.  I even colored coded vowels and consonants.  Each word wall word is on a blue surfboard.  These turned out really cute, I wish that I had a classroom right now to use these.  I have been having some difficulties with getting this packet to save as a PDF file.  Thankfully, I figured out a way to save what I was working on a different way and everything is fine!

Surfs Up!

I have also been busy writing a Groundhogs Day and a Dental Health Literacy Packets.  So far, I have the main ideas for my two stories written, and have a few comprehension questions to answer for each one.  I have also been trying to think of some other literacy center ideas and writing prompts.  With another long weekend coming up, I am going to motivate myself to get one of these done.  

Today, I was working with my students on character traits.  The fifth graders, are reading War With Grandpa.  We haven't gotten too far into the book yet, but they seem to be enjoying it.  When they came up with a character trait, they had to find proof in the book.  With the group that I have, we do a lot of our reading assignments together.  One thing that I have learned is that students need to have comprehension questions to answer at any age.  My group of students struggle with comprehension, this is something that is crazy for me to imagine because I always had my kindergarten and first graders working on comprehension pieces for their stories.  There have been times where I have reread things many times hoping that they will pick up on what I was asking.  

Stay warm, soon it will be spring!

Amber

New Year, New Job

I know that I have been absent for a while, can't believe that three months have gone by since the last time that I blogged.  I have been busy subbing daily and started a new job back in November.  The good news is that I no longer get woken up to phone calls asking me to sub.  I am now a fifth grade teacher assistant for a student who has behavioral issues.  Some days are more challenging than others.  It took me a while to figure out what my role in the classrooms were, at the school that I work for, fifth grade teachers block, so I move around with one class all day.  Some rooms, it seems that I just sit there because they don't do much in those classes.  Some rooms, I am a part of the lessons and have my own group that I will work with.

I have been busy trying to find time to create new items for my TeacherpayTeacher store.  This has been hard to find time to do since I my school hours are 8:00-3:30 so I don't get home until 4:00.  Sadly, I used part of my winter break to create some new items for my store.  I have been busy creating some beginning digraph sorting activities that could also be used as write the room activities.  So far I have created l digraphs, h digraphs, and I am trying to finish up r digraphs.

Also on my to do list is to work on a reader with comprehension questions for February.  I have to decide if I want to do a Valentine's Day theme, a Groundhog theme, or a President's Day theme.  Right now I'm thinking about the February holidays while creating new products.  My goal for this school year is to work on items that could be used during the upcoming month.  I've been looking at my lesson plans from last year for inspiration.

I have also decided since February will be my 1 year anniversary on TpT, that when I post a new, paid item, that it will be on sale when it gets posted.  I haven't decided if it will be for 1 or 2 days yet.

Stay warm, this is my second no school day because of the extremely cold temperatures, With the wind chill is in the -20s, I've been second guessing my decision to leave NC and move back home to Illinois.

Amber

More Pumpkins!

I don't know about you, but this has been a very exhausting week.  I guess it is a good thing that I subbed every day this week, and I am already booked for 4 days next week.  Friday, I witnessed the craziest dismissal ever.  I taught second grade today and all bus riders and after school daycare students just walk themselves from the room to where they are going.  The only difference with the car riders is that I walked them to the door and watched them leave.  It was crazy considering for the past 9 1/2 years, I had to personally see each one of my students leave.

Now to get back to all of my pumpkin creations.  On Wednesday, I posted 2 of my pumpkin creations, I have 1 more that I will highlight today.  All of these items, plus a few additional fall themed items, will be on sale in my shop throughout the weekend!  I have 8 items that are 20% off throughout the weekend, http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Amber-Ottman/Price-Range/On-Sale

I created another pumpkin themed reader titled, "We Like Pumpkins!".  This reader goes over the different things that you can do with a pumpkin, like carving it, painting it, counting the seeds inside of it, and more.  This reader is priced at $1.50 but is on sale through the weekend for $1.20.  To take a look at this reader, click here.

We Like Pumpkins! Reader

I'm going to try and enjoy this weekend, I already know that the next two weeks are going to be busy like this one.

Amber

Pumpkins

This has been and is going to be a very busy week for me.  I'm booked for subbing everyday this week.  It is really hard getting up in the morning since it has been a long time since I've had to wake up to an alarm clock three days in a row and counting.  The one thing that subbing has taught me is that every school district is completely different and I'm getting a feel for the districts that I would like to find a permanent position with and ones that I would not.  Tomorrow, I will be back with the sixth graders that I was with today and on Friday, I will be in second grade.

Last week, I mentioned that I finished a couple of pumpkin literacy activities.  I am going to share two things today, one free and one paid item.  I will share the others later this week, hopefully Friday.

I'm going to start with my freebie.  I created three sequencing writing prompts about pumpkins.  The writing prompts are: how to pick a pumpkin, how to carve a pumpkin, and how to make a pumpkin pie.  I made a version with and without transitional words.  I also made a cute blank writing page, what can I say, after spending so much time in K-1, I have to have a certain level of cuteness in my projects.  You can grab this freebie by clicking here.

The last thing that I am going to share is a reader that is titled: "How Does a Pumpkin Grow?".  This reader is 9 pages long, including cover and goes over how a pumpkin seed grows into a pumpkin. There are 2 copies of the reader, one in color and the other in black and white.   There is also a comprehension page that you can have your students work on after reading the book. This item is available in my teacherspayteachers store for $3.00, check it out by clicking here.

Here is a preview of "How Does a Pumpkin Grow?"

The good news is it is Wednesday and there are only two more days left for this week.  Come back on Friday/Saturday to see what else I have to share with my pumpkin theme, there may also be a sale on the items that I'm sharing over the weekend!

Amber

Apples and Subbing

I've started subbing last week, I will have to admit that it is so much more relaxing being the substitute teacher instead of the teacher who has to make the sub plans.  So far, I've been a high school math teacher, a high school ag teacher, and a elementary p.e. teacher.  Tomorrow, I will be in 5th grade.  After spending the past 9 years teaching K-1, this has been really easy.  I know that it is still early in the school year and that my days will start to pick up.

While I have been home, I have been working on some apple projects.  I have found that it is easier to have the clip art that I want to use then start working on my projects.  Sometimes I have this wonderful idea about what I want to do but have to make changes because I cannot find clip art that works with what I am creating.

Here is a peek at what I've made with my apple theme.

I've created a reader, that talks about how an apple grows.  I started with an apple seed that will grow into a tree.  Then about how the tree will get buds in the spring, the buds will open into blossoms, then will turn into apples.  I even included how a bee will visit the blossoms to collect pollen.  I also created a comprehension worksheet that can be used after the story. You can check this product out here.

I also created a few apple writing prompts.  This is a freebie in my teacherspayteachers store.  The prompts that are included are: "Write about your favorite food to eat that is made from apples.  What makes it your favorite?", " Write about the steps needed to pick the perfect apple." and " Write about the steps needed to make an apple pie.".  You can find this product here. 

I made another apple reader as well.  This reader talked about what you can make with an apple.  I ended this reader with the question, "What do you like to make with apples?" this question would be perfect to use as a writing prompt after your students have read and discussed the reader.  You can find this product here.

I've also been working on some pumpkin readers and writing prompts.  I'll be back next week to preview those for you.

I'm anxiously waiting for Saturday so I can go see my nieces and nephew!  Enjoy your weekend.

Amber

Number Puzzles

I did it!  Through many, many headaches I've completed my number puzzles.  This project made me realize just how difficult it is to work with clipart.  I will have to say that they did turn out cute.  I made three different sets of puzzle cards.

The first set contains puzzles for the numbers 1-10.  Each number has three pieces with a bonus fourth piece to allow for differentiation.  Each puzzle contains the numeral, the number represented in tally mark, the number represented in base ten blocks, and the bonus piece contains the number word.

The second set contains puzzles for the numbers 11-20.  I did this set the same way as the numbers 1-10.

The third set contains puzzles for the numbers representing tens from 10-100.  This set was very challenging to make the clipart do what I wanted it to do. Each number in this set has three pieces with a bonus fourth pieces for differentiation.  This time, each puzzle contains the number, the number represented in base ten blocks, the number represented in ten frames (there was no way I was making that many tally marks and besides I taught my first graders last year not to draw by ones when your number is above 30 because it takes too long and it is hard to count) and the bonus piece contains the number word.   I did make two different variations for the number 100, one puzzle has the number shown using base ten 10 rods and the the other with the 100 block.

I can't wait for my 4 year old niece to try this!

All items are now in my teacherpayteacher store.  I even created a bundle with all three of the puzzle sets.  To celebrate the start of football season and the many long hours I spent creating these.  My puzzles will be on sale until after the Miami Dolphin game on Sunday.

Each set will be set at a sale price of $2.25, regular price is $2.75.  The bundle will be on sale for $5.00, regularly priced at $6.50.

Here are the links to each of the sets:
Numbers Puzzles 1-10
Number Puzzles 11-20
Number Puzzles for Tens 10-100
Puzzle Bundle

I'm thinking about making a mixed up sentence center with these puzzles too but that is going to have to wait a while.  I've spent too much time working on these that I need a break.

Amber

My Crazy Summer

It has been forever since I've had time to write.  Last year was a crazy, busy school year that kept me working late every night.  Over the summer, I decided to move back to Illinois, which is extremely hard to get a teaching position.  This school year, I will be subbing, working on products for my teacherpayteacher store, and tutoring.  There is always a chance that a full-time position will open up during this school year, fingers crossed.  I will have to admit, that it is a little different not setting up a classroom this year after doing this for the past nine years.  It is also hard to break my habit of buying school supplies that are now all on clearance wherever I go.

The past month, I've been busy making different themed calendar numbers.  So far, I've created calendar numbers using the following themes: football, soccer, basketball, stars, polka dots, fall (apples and pumpkins) and paw prints.  The paw print design has been the most popular design that I've created.  I'm trying to figure out some other seasonal designs that I can create.

My super cute paw print calendar numbers!

I'm currently working on numeral puzzles.  I will be making three sets of these, one containing the numbers 1-10, another with the numbers 11-20, and the last one with tens (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100).  For these, each number puzzle will have three pieces; the numeral, tally marks representing the number, and base ten blocks showing the number.  I've also decided that I will be making a fourth piece that will contain the number word, which can be used for differentiation.  I am hoping to get these finished by the end of the week.  I am almost finished with the puzzles for the numbers 1-10.

I am trying to think about cute things to make with pumpkins and apples for September and October.  Enjoy your school week, I'll be back later this week to give an update on my number puzzles, hopefully they will be completed, fingers crossed.

Amber

Plants

For the past week, my students have been learning about plants.  It has taken all of my energy to get my very ready for Spring Break to start first graders on board to learn.  Our Spring Break will start on Friday, two more days!

We have done a lot of reading and illustrating about plants.  I'm going to share a couple of the books that we read, I've created them and have them listed in my TeachersPayTeachers store.

Last week, we read a a book that I created that goes over the process of how you plant a seed.  My students really enjoyed this book.  This was a great sequencing book that led into our center writing for the week, in which they wrote about how they would plant a garden and what they would plant in their garden.  Here is the link for our steps to plant a garden reader Planting a Garden Reader

 This week, we are working on the lifecyle of a plant.  This book was a little more challenging for my first graders.  For this book, I used vocabulary like photosynthesis, chlorophyll, and embryo (these were words that they struggled with).  My students had fun reading this book and were able to understand how something as small as a tiny seed could end up as a big plant that could then make new seeds.  Tomorrow, we will be working on one of the comprehension pages that I created for this book.  Here is the link for our Lifecycle reader: Plant Lifecycle Reader

The rest of this week is going to be crazy.  Tomorrow looks like it will be another indoor recess day because of all the rain that fell today.  Thursday is Field Day, my students will be able to be outside participating in the games in the morning.  It is always fun trying to get them to focus and do anything in the afternoon and it might be a little more of a challenge since Spring Break will start on Friday.

Amber

Habitat Study

We have started our last LDC (Literacy Design Collaboration) for the year.  This is the third one that my students have done and the third one that I've created.  I feel really confident about writing a LDC now after I have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from my trainer and others from my county.  For this LDC, we will be learning about the different habitats and creating a book about their favorite animal and the habitat that it lives in.  Right now, each class is visiting a habitat for two days.  Next week, our first graders will choose their favorite habitat that they would like to visit to learn more about.  My habitat is the savanna, yes I have the best habitat of them all.  The other habitats are the woodlands, the arctic, the ocean, the wetlands, and the rainforest.

During the two day habitat visit, I have been teaching them about some of the characteristics of the savanna and about the animals that live there.  At the end of each day, the students have to write in their habitat journals.  On day 1, they write three facts that they learned about the habitat.  On day 2, they write about three more things that they would like to learn about or questions that they have. Here is the link to our habitat journal that we are using during our habitat visits.  It is a freebie in my TeachersPayTeachers store.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/A-Look-At-the-Habitats-1148748  

We will be starting our animal/habitat focus when we return from Spring Break.  I will have lots of information to share and will post the link to the journal that we will be using to write our notes down for our animal books!  I have spent a lot of time getting this LDC module ready, I actually started back in November, I created a DonorsChoose project requesting books that our students will be using to help them with their project.  I was able to get almost $1000 worth of nonfiction books that many of my students can read independently.  After my students have finished their animal books, they are going to be able to create and print a 3D model of their animal with our 3D printer.  We are really excited for this!  I really love DonorsChoose, I have gotten so many needed resources for my classroom.  It is also a good feeling to help other teachers get the materials that they need for their classroom.  DonorsChoose is amazing and if you have checked it out, you really need to and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to help!

Enjoy your weekend,

Amber

Field Trip!

Today was a very busy, tiring day.  We had our first field trip today to a farm located down the road.  My first graders really enjoyed it.  They got to see many farm animals, go on a tractor ride, and see an animal/puppet show.  Sadly, I can't do many of these activities with my students because of my crazy allergies, I'm pretty much allergic to everything that we saw.  I have been there many times in the past, as this is a common place to go for a field trip, we haven't been there in about 3 years but they still remember me as the one that is allergic to everything!

To make it easier to spot each other on our field trip, each classroom tie dyed shirts in their own colors!  Of course my shirts had to be teal, hot pink, and orange (if you ever saw pictures of my classroom, you would see why I had to have these colors)!  

Coming back from a field trip and still having almost three hours of school left is a real challenge, especially since you can't go outside because the students in grades 3-5 are taking a benchmark test.  We really picked a good day for our field trip, on testing days we have no resources and can only leave our classrooms to go to lunch.  We spent the remaining part of our day doing fun math and literacy centers that we never get to do.  One of our centers, is our Farm Animals Roll and Write activity that I created.  This game is really cute and fun!  Each student rolls a dice and then they match the number on their dice to the animal on the sheet.  They have to write a story about the animal that they rolled, perfect activity to do this afternoon.  You can grab this freebie from my TeachersPayTeachers store.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/On-The-Farm-Roll-and-Write-1184445

Tomorrow is Wednesday, that means I have 7 more school days until Spring Break!  Yes, I have not had a Spring Break yet and have been envious of those that have already had theirs.


Amber

Printing in 3D!

It has been forever since I have found time to post.  And yes, I know that I still have a winter theme but it has seemed like winter in NC.  School has been extremely busy.  It seems like I have been living at school most days.  Hopefully this changes soon.  My goal is to start posting twice a week.

This week, our MakerBot 3D printer arrived!  I was able to receive this fabulous item from a grant on DonorsChoose.  To check out some of the grants that I have posted and funded on DonorsChoose, feel free to visit my teacher page: http://www.donorschoose.org/ottman.  They are even having a Friends and Family Contest going on right now, for every $20 donation that a teacher receives, they will get a DonorsChoose gift card that they will be able to use to help their own classroom or others.  I will have to do a post someday on DonorsChoose.

It took several hours for me to get our printer functioning but we had fun yesterday printing our first objects in 3D!  I was surprised to find out that our MakerBot Replicator 2 does not have to be hooked up to a computer.  It has an SD card with some preloaded graphics.  So far we have made a chain and a shark.  Sadly the shark broke when I was trying to get it off of the glass plate.  Now I know why the recommend putting down blue painters tape before you start your printing job.  It evens comes with a couple of the blue painters tape sheets, I have never seen such a thing before but I will be ordering more off of Amazon soon.

We are going to be using our 3D printer in the upcoming months while we are completing our habitat unit.  All of first grader is going to be learning about one of the following six habitats (the rain forest, the ocean, the wetlands, the arctic, the savanna, or the woodlands).  Our students will be completing a book about their favorite animal from their habitat.  This is going to be a lot of work and I will make time to share our journey with all of you.

It is Wednesday, that is normally a good thing but this week we have to go to school on Saturday to make up a snow day.

Amber

Jingle's Wild Week in Review

Kind of frustrated that my wi-fi is not working on my tablets. I have taken some cute pictures to go with this post but I cannot get them off of my tablet! I have been trying for the past couple of hours without any luck, it is sad that it tells you that it can't connect because of a weak signal strength but it shows that it has a strong connection strength.  I'm hoping that this issue is because of the very gloomy day that we are having today and not my brand new router. I will be adding the pictures as soon as my wi-fi wants to work again.  Anyways, back to my post. **Update** I finally have access to my pictures, enjoy!

Our elf, Jingle, had a crazy, fun week this week. He went fishing for our beta fish, Millie, he build a cup tower with our sight word cups, he brought in and decorated a little tree for our classroom, and he was sitting in our awesome chair reading Rudolph! I have had quite a few students asking if I am the one that is moving Jingle and I always respond "No, I'm not moving him, he was there when I got here in the morning." Jingle has a few more surprises in store for the last 10 days of school before Winter Break. Wow, I can't believe that we are down to the last two weeks of school!

We also started working on our parent gifts this week. I'm sure that you have seen the cute little snowmen that are made out of a battery operated tea light. Since I could not find little hats to put on the snowmen, I am having my students make them out of Model Magic. We are going to let our snowmen sit and dry as long as possible before we begin to wrap them. They are really cute, rather inexpensive, and my students we able to make them in about 10 minutes. They are already asking when they can take them home! The only thing that I have left to do to them is to either glue on a ribbon to make it an ornament. My students are also making a picture ornament, I had bought a kit years ago, that I found this year, and our PTA gave us a set. So, it seems like my students' parents will be receiving 3 ornaments this year.

I can't wait to see these all finished!

Now to start planning for the upcoming school week. This week, we are going to be working on double addition facts, long i vowel sound, adjectives, and starting our Winter Holidays Around the World, I get to teach about Germany.

December and the Return of Jingle Peppermint Bell!

It was really hard getting up for school today.  I really enjoyed my 5 day break, I was good and only did school work yesterday!  I have forgotten how good it feels to take time for myself and not constantly work on school things.

Last year, I started Elf on the Shelf with my class.  They loved our elf Jingle Peppermint Bell, yes our elf has a full name.  My students would bring in candy canes for Jingle to eat, in his first letter he talked about how he loved to eat candy canes.  Jingle ate many candy canes last year, he would eat parts of them when we were at resources or at lunch, he is such a sneaky elf!

Today was Jingle's first day with our class.  Jingle wasn't very creative today in his hiding place, he was just sitting on the top of our SmartBoard.  Jingle is ready to play some tricks with my students this year!  Tomorrow he is making a tower using paper cups!  He is also planning on having another glow-stick party with our "quiet critter", class turtles, and our fish, going fishing for Millie (our beta fish), making a snowman, bringing in and decorating a small Christmas tree, and wrapping up our desks with wrapping paper for our last day before break!

My fingers and toes are crossed that having Jingle in our class will help with some of the behavior issues that we are having.  I have a group of first graders that love to talk, they also love to tattle on each other and are too concerned with what everyone else is doing to pay attention to our lessons.  I'm hoping that these issues stop soon!

My teacherspayteachers store is on sale for the next day, be sure to check it out!  Don't forget to use CYBER during checkout to save even more.

Amber

Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences and Our New LDC

I wish I knew what has happened to time, it seems like it was the middle of October and now it is the middle of November.  I've been super busy lately dealing with my ever increasing food allergies, creating a new LDC, and getting ready for Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences.

Our school district does not set aside a day to have conferences, our conferences had to be done on multiple nights after school.  Tonight was my last night of conferences.  Conferences went well, it is always good to hear that the parents' of my students are already seeing improvement in their reading!  Those comments make me feel appreciated, I don't get that feeling much at my school.

The past month, I have been busy creating and teaching the rest of my first grade team about LDC.  I have previously shared with you what my class was doing with the LDC on Citizenship.  I wanted to do this again with this one, but it seemed like I was living at school and had no time to blog.  This LDC is on The First Thanksgiving.  Today was day 6, we have 1 week left.  Like the Citizenship LDC, we have had a word of the day.  So far, my students have written about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower, Pilgrims, Native Americans, harvest, and feast.  Our last 2 vocab words are giving thanks and tradition.  My students, and the rest of the students in first grade have really enjoyed this unit!  They have been learning and remembering what they have learned about on previous days.  This is truly a great feeling!  On Friday, my students will begin their final writing project.  For the LDC, my students are going to write a report (1 paragraph this time) about how they would celebrate Thanksgiving, like the Pilgrims & Native Americans, or like we currently do today.  They are going to be required to give three reasons why, along with an opening and closing sentence.  This report will include at least 5 sentences.  Completing this type of writing with a group of 19 1st graders takes a lot of time and energy.  Our goal is to have our reports finished by Tuesday afternoon in hopes that some of my students will be able to share their reports with the class.

Our Journal Writing From The Past Week!

Like last time, I created a journal for my students and I have posted it FREE in my TeachersPayTeachers store.  Here is the link. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Thanksgiving-Journal-961549

Amber

A Crazy, Late Week of School

Last week was a very busy week for me and I could not find time to blog, was pretty bummed with myself, I was getting so good at blogging a couple of times a week.  Last week was filled with meetings and our Fall Festival was on Friday.  This week I am promising myself that I will not stay at school, except on Thursday when I have a quick meeting.  Thursday is my birthday and I really am not too happy about having our meeting switched til then but as long as it is over with in a half hour, I'll survive.

This week my students are working on the following r blends, gr, tr, and pr.  I made a super cute R blends sort that is free in my teacherspayteachers store.  I created this center because I want my students to be able to identify the beginning sound (r blend) for each picture instead of matching words to the correct beginning letters.  My students started using this center today.  I'll have to take pictures this week to show you guys.  We are also working on pronouns, bats, forces and motion, and reviewing our math concepts for our 3 day math benchmark next week.  Yes, I teach 1st grade and yes my students have to take benchmarks.  It may only be 10 questions each day but it will take at least an hour for my students to complete it.  Then I get to score their benchmarks and fill in a bubble sheet.

I'm also pleased to announce that my students are finished writing their citizenship reports!  They did such a good job on them.  Sometime this week, they are going to be able to read their report to a group of second graders.

Here is the link to my R Blend Picture Sort.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/R-Blends-Picture-Sort-gr-pr-tr-blends-941642

Amber

My Literacy Centers For The Week

I don't know why, but it seems like I have been waiting until Sunday to start getting ready for the next week.  I really need to spend a little bit of time throughout the week to start my planning so I can enjoy my weekend.  I am currently printing off the materials that I will be using for my literacy centers for this week, now to start laminating them.  

This week, our literacy theme is pumpkins.  We are also going to be working on identifying nouns and working with the following beginning blends (br, cr, dr, fr).  These themes are going to be carried out in my writing and word work centers.  

My teacher center, after I finish progress monitoring for the week, will be working with sight words (for my low group), my other groups will be reading books that are on level.  We will also be working on written responses to questions for the books that we will be reading.  This skill is something that my first graders from last year struggled with a lot so I'm trying to work on this skill as often as I can.

My writing centers for the week will involve pumpkins.  For Monday and Tuesday, my students will be completing a center called Pumpkin Punctuation & Sentence Fluency.  For this center, students will be given a baggie with words in it and different types of punctuation.  They will have to arrange the words to make a complete sentence.  I have done centers like this before when I taught Kindergarten and may have to dig out my sentence bags for my lower level students.  I found this center on TeachersPayTeachers.   http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Punctuation-Sentence-Fluency-333468.  My center for Wednesday and Thursday will be Pumpkin Writing.  My students will choose 3-4 pumpkin cards and write a sentence describing each pumpkin.  This is a great center to work on descriptive writing.  Again, I found this activity on TeachersPayTeachers.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Sentences-FREEBIE-919105

My word work center will focus on the beginning blends and on nouns.  On Monday and Tuesday, my students will practice sorting picture cards that begin with the four blends that we will be working on this week.  I found my picture cards on http://carlscorner.us.com/Blends.htm   Each student will be required to write at least one sentence for each word blend.  On Wednesday and Thursday, my students will be sorting noun picture cards by person, place or thing.  I found this super cute noun sort called " Nouns on the Funny Farm" on TeachersPayTeachers.  Now this activity does not fit with my pumpkin theme for the week but it is so cute and pumpkins come from farms.  You can pick up your copy here.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nouns-on-the-Funny-Farm-541170

My students will also go to a silent reading center, a listening center, finish writing our citizenship reports on the computer, and work on the tablets.  

Time to get back to printing my centers so that I can start to laminate.  I also need to try and finish making my new hall passes, I still can't believe that my students destroyed or lost 4 out of the 5 that I made in less than 2 months.  At least I have my lesson plans, my homework packets, and our at home science experiment finished for this week.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Amber

Wrapping Up Our Week

Friday was a pretty good day for my students.  I was pleasantly surprised by this, especially after the notes that I received from my sub early this week.  My students enjoyed our math centers, which included our tablet center with a focus on addition/subtraction game (at least that is what they were suppose to be working on), addition facts practice, equal equations (true/false), and I worked with students on word problems.  It is funny how whenever I try and take a picture, there is always 1 student who has to turn and smile at the camera, if you look at our science picture for today some how he managed to get into a picture!

We finished up our ramp experiment today and also completed an experiment on friction.  My students had fun with this experiment.  The only problem with this experiment is that the majority of them were too short to do the experiment correctly.  They had to hold both ends of a shoelace and release a spindle from the top to see how long it would take it to get to the bottom of the shoelace.  They were surprised as to how fast it went on just one shoelace.  We then proceeded to send the spindle down two shoelaces.  To get the spindle to move, we had to give the shoelaces a shake, this is where we had difficulty because of our height.  We tried three shoelaces but could not get the spindle to move at all!

There is my photo bomber student in the bottom picture!

Our Friday ended with a PBIS Dance.  The majority of my students were able to attend.  There is nothing like ending the day in the gym with loud music and 40-50 1st graders running around.  I was so happy when the music stopped and the dance was over.

I have my first observation of the year on Thursday.  The rest of this weekend will be spent making sure that I have an amazing lesson plan for my math lesson.  This is going to be a challenge because this is a review week.  I have a feeling, that my plans are going to be a lot center work.  Off to find some amazing resources on addition/subtraction, word problems, shapes, and equal equations.

Enjoy you weekend!

Amber

Smokey The Bear & Science Experiments

This afternoon was crazy.  We had a visit from Smokey the Bear.  Only my class would ask Smokey if he had any kids.  They also asked constantly if he was fake.  At the end of the presentation, my class took a group picture with Smokey the Bear!

This week, we have been studying about Forces & Motion.  Well, at least that is what they were suppose to be covering with the substitute teacher.  Today, we began our experiment.  I wrote a grant on DonorsChoose, requesting a Forces & Motion Activity Kit and some nonfiction books.  We started an experiment using the ramp and objects that could roll down the ramps.  Today we watched as a toy car and a marble rolled down the ramps.  My students the wrote about their findings.  Tomorrow, we are going to continue our experiment using bouncy balls and whatever else I can find tonight that will roll down a ramp.  

Tomorrow is Friday!!  Our plans for tomorrow include spelling tests, hoping to get a few more students finished writing their citizenship reports (fingers crossed), math review on equal equations, addition/subtraction and word problems), and more science fun.  Time to start planning for next week, lots and lots of pumpkins!!

Amber