New Winter Product, a FREEBIE, and The Year End BLOW OUT Sale

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and got to spend some much needed time with your family.  I have had a wonderful week visiting my family in Pennsylvania.  My boys enjoyed preparing for Santa's arrival and I loved their reaction on Christmas morning when they saw that Santa left them presents.  Anyway, I've been working on my new winter math product that features snowmen, polar bears, and oh-so-cute winter kids.  The focus in the entire packet is on the Operations and Algebraic Thinking strand of the Common Core State Standards.  

Winter Wonderland has 12 fun, winter themed games ranging from simple addition/subtraction, doubles/doubles +1, missing addends/subtrahends, and word problems.  You can view the rest of the 12 activities HERE at my TPT store.  

You can also download "Fun with Frosty" for FREE by clicking HERE!!

Enjoy the last few days of 2012 with 20% off all products in my TPT store including my new winter product, Winter Wonderland.  Click HERE to view all of my products.  For an even better deal, my Teacher's Notebook store has all products marked at 40% off until December 31, 2012.  Click HERE to go to my Teacher's Notebook store.

Have a wonderful and safe New Year!

Turkey Trouble: Literacy Centers

Anyone ready to go back to school tomorrow?  OHmyGosh!!  I could definitely  use another day!  Between working extra on Saturday, running errands, and an eye appointment today (getting color contacts - yippee), I feel like I was constantly away from my computer.  Okay, I sound like I'm addicted to this thing!  LOL!   I cannot wait until Thanksgiving break so I can get caught up on all my products and school work.  Okay, I really think I may need some therapy!  LOL!!  It's not a bad thing to want to work, right? We have 6 more school days until break, which means that my firsties will be working on my new Thanksgiving literacy centers: Turkey Trouble.  The centers have elements from the story "Turkey Trouble" but does not require you to read the story in order for students to understand the centers.  You can simply use these centers as a fun Thanksgiving/Turkey filled week.  Click on any of the pictures below to download these fun turkey centers. 

 Don't forget that all products on my Teacher's Notebook store are 30% off.  Take advantage of those wonderful prices now.    Click on the pictures above to access both stores.  Have a fun turkey filled week!!

"WINNERS!!" and "Math and Reading Unit Plans"

It's Sunday night and my "Characters in Action Giveaway" has come to a close.  Congratulations to our winners Lori and Rachel.

As stated in a post over the summer, I was part of a unit design team that helped create our county's first math unit: "Number Sense and Place Value".  We recently concluded the unit and the foundation in numbers that we created over the past 8-9 weeks is absolutely amazing! We have noticed that our first graders are so much more prepared for addition since they know numbers inside and out.  

Since then, my first grade team has worked diligently in completing the next math unit ("Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems").  We have also completed the "Characters" and "Nonfiction" units for reading.  Click on the links below to access each of the units that we created for FREE.  

MATH PLANS/RESOURCES

Unit 1: Numbers and Place Value - UbD Plans

Unit 1: Numbers and Place Value - TEST

Unit 2: Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems - UbD Plans

Unit 2: Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems - TEST

READING PLANS/RESOURCES

Unit 3: Characters: Paying Close Attention to Actions - UbD Plans

Unit 4: Information Text Features and Strategies (Nonfiction) - UbD Plans

If you have any questions about any of the units or resources above, please ask.  I enjoy creating these  documents and it has been very helpful when lesson planning each week.

Have a great week everyone!!

NEW!! Characters in Action GIVEAWAY!!

Hello everyone!!  I've been working hard on this 105 page "Characters in Action" unit and have finally posted it!  It is jam packed with full page color printables, anchor charts, and character printables for any character book you may be using.  Click on the picture to preview all 105 pages!!  :-) 

Here is what this unit includes:

~Character Essential Questions: 12 Essential Questions with Full Sheets of Question strips for Reading Journals

~“Characters” Anchor Chart: What Are Characters? - 5 statements about characters on word cards for use on a pocket chart.

~Character Stories: 6 character stories about a fictional character. Contains a recording sheet to tell about the character.

~Character Labeling: 6 character pictures to label with describing words about what the characters are like based on the character story.

~Character Compare/Contrast: Open ended character Venn diagram

~Build a Character Game: FUN Character Game where students move around the game board picking up character trait cards to build their own character. Students will also be challenged throughout the game with character inferencing cards. The recording sheet lets them draw a picture of their character using the cards they collected during the game and write a story about their new character.

~Character Photograph: Students will draw a picture of a character from their story and write describing words in the box that tells about the character.

~Character Traits Poster: Students will use the character traits poster in an open ended activity. They can write a story, play bingo, or even find characters with those character traits.

~Character Map: Students will draw a picture of a character in the middle, write the characters inside/outside traits, and tell what the character says and does.

~Character Thinking Stems: Use these Inferencing and Character Thinking Stems with your students during read alouds to guide student thinking. This also comes with a sticky note template to print the thinking stems onto sticky notes for students to use independently or with a partner.

~Prove it!: Use these Prove It! thinking stems with your students to guide them to find the text evidence that tells them about the characters. Text evidence magnifying glasses are also included.

~Characters Mini Book: Students will draw pictures of the characters they read about and write complete sentence about what the character say, what they do, and how they feel.

~Connections to Characters: Students will think of a time that they felt like the characters in the stories they read. They will make a connection to the character, draw a picture of themselves, and write about it.

Characters in Action Giveaway!!!

I will be giving away 

2  FREE "CHARACTERS IN ACTION"

 units to 2 different winners

in this weekends drawing!

The drawing will be held on Sunday, November 11, 2012.

You can enter 5 times for doing each of 5 things: 

1.)  Follow my blog

2.) Follow me on  Facebook

3.) Follow me on TeachersPayTeachers

4.)  Follow me on Teacher's Notebook (everything is always 30% off there) 

5.)Post about this giveaway on your blog 

GOOD LUCK!!  I HOPE YOU WIN!!  Be sure to leave your email address in each of your posts!

Monster FREEBIE: A Present for YOU!!!

 HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME...TO ME!!!

My family and I spent the weekend at our local amusement park celebrating my baby boy's 5th birthday.  He's not such a baby anymore!!  Here is the party crew of superheroes.  My boys are in the middle...Batman and Robin!  Gavin chose 2 friends from his preschool...one boy and one girl.  They had a blast! 

 I even got to ride the carousel with my little Landen.  He actually sat still for the entire ride...that doesn't happen very often!

We had such a great time enjoying the fall festivities and celebrating our birthdays.  My hubby even took me on the tallest, fastest, and longest roller coaster in the southeast.  He apparently saw the camera on the top of the coaster and was quick witted enough to think to make a silly face.  I was too worried about losing my sandals and the possibility of walking around barefoot the rest of the day!  HAHA!!

So since it's my birthday now...I have a present for YOU!!!
If you love the movie Monster's Inc., you are going to LOVE these cute literacy center activities featuring those adorable monsters.

 The ABC Order game will feature nasty monster words.  LOL!  YUCK!!

 The syllable counting game will have students practicing the phonemes in a word.

 Monster Boggle will have your kiddos building words with the boggle board.

You will receive the following 10 literacy centers:

ABC Order: Put 3 monster words in order alphabetically
Building Words: Create words using the word “Monster's Inc.”
Word Wall: practice Writing word wall words (letters: B, U, G)
Syllable Counting: Say the word and count the sounds
Rhyming Words: See if the two words on the card rhyme
Nonsense Words: Read the word to see if it’s a real word
Boggle: Use the boggle board to make words
Graph a Word: Graph words by rolling a die
Sorting Sentences: Read and record telling and asking sentences
Spooky Stories: Read a monster story and write about it

I hope you love your monster FREEBIE!!!  Enjoy your Monday!!

 

Creepy Creatures, Numbers/Place Value Assessment, Tens Frames

Hello bloggy friends!  I hope you all are off to a wonderful start to your school year and have your routines set in your classrooms.  I finally feel like I'm in a groove and I'm loving it! :-)  Sorry for such a long post:  I have a lot to say...it's been a while! :-)  Anyway, here is my new download for my October literacy center activities.  Click on any of the pictures to download all 10 literacy center activities.

 
 We have been busy in math since the start of the school year teaching numbers and place value.  I was a little apprehensive to begin math this year because my county has changed the way we teach the common core.  Last year, we spiraled each topic throughout the year and only really taught each for a week...then moved on. When we taught numbers and place value, we spread it out over the entire school year.  This year, we are teaching numbers 1-120 in it's entirety by the end of October. 

Over the summer, I was part of the Units by Design training team and we learned how to keep each chunk of the common core together instead of breaking it up in small, week-by-week chunks.  We started with math only and we came up with a math curriculum map that our entire county uses now.  We used several research based programs and theories to guide our thinking/decision making when we planned the progression of each chunk of the common core.  Here is what we came up with:

This curriculum map allows us to spend the more time on the most important topic in math.  We decided that numbers and place value was the most essential for first graders to learn. We have been teaching every aspect of numbers and place value since the beginning of the school year.  I feel that my students will really have a grasp of all numbers 1-120 by the end of October and this wonderful foundation we have created will really develop their addition/subtraction skills needed in the next unit.

The first step in the UBD process is to create an assessment so you know exactly where you want your students to go.  Here is the assessment that I made for unit 1:

  Click HERE to download this entire Unit 1 assessment for FREE.  We have just a few more weeks until we give our assessment and I really feel like my class is going to be ready!!  Last week we practiced using tens frames to show numbers and we incorporated a little technology with the ipads.  Here is a video of one of my kids using the drawing app to make the number 19 with tens frames (don't mind the background noise):

I hope you like our new way of teaching math and look forward to our next unit: Addition/Subtraction.  Have a wonderful week!

Excited for October!!

October is almost here, which means it's almost time for my sweet Gavin to celebrate his 5th birthday!! With us both having October birthdays, we look forward to the leaves changing colors and all the Halloween festivities the month brings. As I prepare for his big birthday bash I have been busy creating invitations for his big day.
He chose to have an alternative party this year, instead of the traditional Chuck E. Cheese or home party. So we will be heading to our local theme park for a fun filled day of rides, Halloween festivities, trick-or-treating, and a costume parade. Check out my little "batman" in the invitation that I created for his birthday. If you are in need of invitations for any event, I can create those for you. I usually send the picture to Walmart and have them print it on photo paper. They look great printed on card stock as well. This year, we're doing digital RSVP's so I just sent the invites by email. Saves paper and stamps! :-)

Down on the Farm: My Literacy Centers

NEW!!  Just posted my new format for my literacy centers this year.  Our next theme for September will be farms and I have created this literacy center pack to use in my center bins.  Each of my students have a center schedule that tells them which literacy center activity to do each day.  

I will be posting more information soon on how I teach reading and how I manage my classroom during that time.  Check back soon for those documents.  Have a wonderful Monday!

Ultimate Number Sense Game Pack GIVEAWAY

I hope you all have had a great start to your school year and are ready to dive into the Common Core.  I have just uploaded a huge resource pack to help you teach number sense to your first graders.  This game pack contains 169 pages of full color games including numbers in sets, number words, tallies, base ten blocks, and more.  Click on the pictures below to check it out! 

The first person to guess the name of my favorite candy will win this Ultimate Number Sense Game Pack for FREE!!  Good Luck!!  Be sure to leave your email address in your comment.

Have a great week everyone!