It's Black Friday People!!!!

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving with family and friends :)

I am full to the brim and now... it is time to shop!! I am headed to Target, Nordstrom Rack and Best Buy to shop my little heart out! I am on the hunt for a new, fancy camera. My iPhone pictures just aren't cutting it anymore.

I, along with lots of other sellers, am throwing a SALE for one day only! It is today... right NOW... and ends tonight at midnight! My entire store is on sale so click the cute button below to head on over and start your shoppin'

^Thank you, Amy, for the button!^

Happy shopping :)

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Subtraction for 1st Grade! {What's the Difference?}

My first graders are elbow-deep into subtraction!

We are learning all sorts of subtraction strategies and practicing some hands-on math!

Students practice building and removing counters or cubes in this easy subtraction center. You may have seen the addition version of this center for free here on my blog.

After learning how to visualize the problem and draw pictures we practiced lots and lots of story problems! Some are more basic and others are multi-step challenges for my firsties! Check out this one below... after lots of practice... my kids rocked this one!

We have also been playing lots and lots of GAMES! We play all sorts of hands-on, dice rolling, paperclip spinning math games for about 30 minutes a day. My kids loveeeee to learn a new game and literally clapped for this one - ha!

I also made some anchor charts to display in the classroom when teaching different subtraction strategies:

I compiled all these activities, games, printables, and anchor charts in my new pack:
What's the Difference?

There is a lotttttt more in this new pack, so click above if you would like to download the preview.

Also, this pack is on sale for only $4 from now through Black Friday (11/29).

I am wishing everyone a happy, happy Thanksgiving and I hope everyone counts their blessings... I sure am :)

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Thanksgiving Fun

 It's all turkeys and pilgrims in our room! 

We are getting ready for the holiday with some fun holiday activities.

These crafts & writing are decorating our room:

 (on a side note, these grainy pictures make me really want to take the bull by the horns and learn how to use my new camera!)

Those writing prompts are from Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving unit and the turkeys are actually my number of the day turkey! There is a long story involving printer paper and a RISO and a time crunch... but I won't bore you with that.... 

Essentially it is the sad, sad reason we didn't make these fun turkeys:

 Next year, it WILL happen!

We are also full-swing into turkey themed math games!

  Comparing #s review!

 Ordering #s 1-120

 Addition with 3 addends practice

Spin-a-Story Problem!

All the math games (and the turkey) are available in my "Who's Talking Turkey? Math Centers"

 

We also started diving into the real REASON we are celebrating Thanksgiving! We learned all about the Pilgrims and their voyage and we started recording our vocabulary in this notebook from my pal, Stephanie (Falling into First):

This is just one of the amazing activities she has in her new Thanksgiving Unit! 

Check it out - forrealz.

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First Grade Common Core Language Standards - Part TWO!

SO happy to announce that part two of my Common Core Language pack for first grade is FINITO!

I have worked so hard on this bad boy and I wanted to highlight a few of the activities inside:

Meet the Capitalizing Crew! This is a fun spin on learning all about capitalization. Carly, Chris, and Chloe will help your students practice beginning capitalization, capitalization of names, and capitalization in dates. There are a few fun activities to use with this crew and some printable practice pages.

Roll, Spell, and Cover! This game is already in use in my classroom and my kids are loving it. This helps my kids sound out words phonetically drawing on what they've learned so far this year. Students roll a die, find a word that corresponds, spell it and cover! There is a short vowel board, a long vowel board, and a digraphs board.

Be a Wordsmith! The second half of this pack is all about vocabulary! I encourage my students to become wordsmiths and not only find and define interesting new words, but to use them as often as possible!

Categories: Students spin the spinner and sort words into different categories based on their meaning. There are 3 different game boards.

 Root word, Prefix, and Suffix anchor charts!

 After learning all about prefixes and suffixes, students make numerous little flip books and create sentences with each word.

 List it: Students practice using commas correctly with this activity! Students will pull a picture card and create a detailed sentence using the three items in the picture.

 Multiple meaning match-ups! Students dive deeper into vocabulary and match up these words with their two different meanings.

These are just a few of many different activities in Part 2 of the pack!

Feel free to click any of the images in this post to check out more about the pack.

For those of you who don't already have Part 1, I bundled both parts together at a discounted price.

 

 

Oh yah.... all 3 of my units are ON SALE through Monday (11/18)! Click on the covers above to see them :)

Have a great week!

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Helpful Hints for Teachers!

My first post over at Blog Hoppin is up and ready to read!

I joined in with Kim Adsit, Rachelle & Natalie to bring you 10 Helpful Hints for teachers!

Click the image below to head on over and read them.

Do you have any helpful hints of your own?

Link up with us over at Blog Hoppin'

Happy Tuesday :)

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Anchor Charts Galore!

My class is becoming covered in anchor charts.

A couple weeks ago, I shared this picture on my FB page:

This is only about 1/4th of the anchor charts in my room.

I have used anchor charts in previous years, but only about 1 per subject and I would switch them out each month. This year is a whole new story! I am getting re-arrange and file away some of these anchor charts to make room for new ones, so I thought I would share what I currently have taking over my walls.

*Side note: about half of these were found or inspired while scouring blog posts from ALL over*

Addition Strategies:

 Math Vocab:

Retelling:

Reading Punctuation:

Just Right Books:

Questioning:

Read-to-Self:

Treating Books Right:

 Close Reading:

Writing Norms:

 Lucy Calkins - What do I do when I'm done?

Happy long weekend!! 

I will be back on Sunday with some exciting news to share :)

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What's Your Schedule?! Linky!

Having moved from Vegas to Mass and teaching the same grade level, I am amazed about how different the day-to-day schedules are!

It got me thinking...

How long is your school day? How long do you have for each subject? Do you have a Social Studies or Science block? Do you get time for planning or PD each week?

I am NOSY!

The beginning of my school year was crazy-hectic so many of you may have already shared your schedules, but if you want to share them again and make my stalking life a bit easier, LINK UP!

I would love to see what your school day looks like!

Grab the button:

Many thanks, Melonheadz & MTF fonts

This is what my week looks like:

Does my schedule look similar to yours?! Or are we wayyyy off??

**Some answered questions:**

- Our morning meeting is with the kids each day.
- We have duty free lunch for 45 minutes each day except Friday which is 30 minutes
-So far this year, we have had PD about half the time and planning with our team the other half on Fridays - it is awesome. Yesterday, our principal let us leave at 1230 as a reward for our extra time! However, I think those days will be few and far between.
-We also have planning while the students are at specials for an hour and 5 minutes
-Our scheduled time in each morning is 7:29 - it is an early start so we just have to be there to pick up the kids! Our time to leave is right after the kids leave.
-I do not get to choose my own schedule. This is the schedule of the entire 1st grade team which was given to us by our principal!
- I have a full time para - GASP! Yeah... with me.... all day long... I am VERY lucky!
- My kids' specials change each day and we have: Library, Music, P.E., Dance, Art, & Safe/Caring (a class all about being kind friends!)
- When my students go to enrichment on Fridays it is an afternoon full of music, arts, literacy and nutrition! Currently my students practice dance, boxing, and they are learning about the composer, Carl Orff. Next week they will start a new 6 week rotation and learn all about Futsol, Storytelling, and Health/Nutrition. Some classes are sponsored and taught by the instructors who sponsor them while other classes during that time are taught by our specialists and volunteers.

Anything else? Feel free to ask!

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