Place Value and Stations {Five for Friday}

I'm ready to jump right in to this three day weekend. Who's with me? I stayed late at school today get everything finished so I have nothing but relaxing and fun ahead of me! 

Here are some things we've been up to this week. We just finished off day 22 of this school year and that is unbelievable! Time is flying by! 

We've been hard at work this week introducing place value. My favorite lesson from the week was an impromptu circle session where we practiced counting out groups of ten bears and recording the results. 

We are slowly but surely getting settled in to reading stations. So far I have introduced writing, word work, and computer. I love first grade writing and this little cutie loves brain breaks! 

This year I'm following the steps outlined in Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading to get my stations started. I'm loving all the time I get to spend with each group modeling and teaching them how to use the materials at each station. While I've been introducing stations the other groups have been working puzzles, coloring, play with play dough, legos, and tangrams. 

I made these Place Value Scoot cards as a fun way to practice our learning this week. This was our first try with scoot this year and it was a success! I heard a lot of, "Oh I get this now!" while we were playing, so that always makes this teacher happy!

Click here or on the picture above to check it out in my store. 

Today marked week two of Fun Friday and it was another big hit! The idea came from Angela Powell and you can read more about it here. I thought the beads and pipe cleaners would be nothing but a distraction to my firsties, but they have proven me wrong and been so responsible with them! 

First Grade Calendar Routines {Five for Friday}

I'm so glad to have another great week of first grade in the books AND I'm so glad it's the weekend!

If you've been reading my blog for a while you know that I was new to first grade last year. Before first grade I'd spent all my time in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. I am going to confess that the thoughts of calendar time stressed me out!! It was elusive. I polled everyone I worked with about what they did during calendar, I read blogs, and did a lot of Pinterest searches. What if I did the wrong things? Was there a special formula? 

Thankfully there is no wrong way to do calendar! But there are a lot of amazing ways to do it right! There were a lot of great ideas out there about calendar time and it really helped me out a lot, so I wanted to pay it forward and link up to share some of my favorite routines for calendar.

Last year I used straws to count the days in the place value chart. This year I switched to the base 10 blocks and I'll never go back to straws. Already I can see my students starting to gain an understanding of place value. 

This was something I used last year and loved! It's even better this year because I'm using it along with the base 10 blocks, so when we do the add it together part it makes my teacher heart so happy!

If you are interested in it you can click here to go to Home and School Creations.

Have you heard about Blendspace? 

It's an amazing tool that lets you blend together all different types of media into one lesson. It is super easy to use. 

As soon as I read about it this summer I signed up and started this calendar lesson. I love using YouTube videos in the classroom, but I hate getting the ads on screen with students watching. YIKES! 

Since I've been using Blendspace that hasn't been a problem at all. Another perk is that the lesson stops after each video. Last year I just created a playlist on YouTube, but the problem with that is the songs play continuously. Since it didn't stop after each video I had to do acrobatics across the room to get to the computer and stop the videos. Because we all know if I don't stop it and Adding with a Pirate comes on we have to listen to it. Every. Time. 

I wanted to incorporate some tally mark practice in to calendar, so I made these little posters. Last year I tried keeping a tally mark for every day of the school year and that didn't work out so good for us. I thought a month would be a little more manageable. 

Click the picture to check them out at TPT. 

Of course the trusty countdown subtraction problem. Can be a little depressing at times when you're having one of those weeks, but I'm hopeful that all that repetition helps the second grade math teachers! 

Click here to visit Sara Schear on TPT. 

I bought this adorable 10 frame (180 frame?!) on TPT this summer and we are loving it! It makes a really nice visual for the kids. There were some ooh and aahs when they noticed it, how tall it was, and how many boxes we'd have to fill up before first grade was over. Click here if you'd like to see this one from Firstie Kidoodles. 

What are you some of your favorite calendar time routines? I'm always looking for something else to add!

Classroom Pictures 2015-2016

Hi friends! I've been back in school for a whole week now. How'd that happen? 

I wanted to stop in with just a few pictures of my classroom for you. 

I love having the big window beside of my door and I'm always looking for ways to decorate it! The little First Grade Rocks pennants are from the fabulous First Grade Blue Skies. I've got a post coming soon about the sign in the little window. 

This is one of our little reading areas. I just added the rug this year and I thought it looked extra inviting. I hope the kids think so too! 

I'm trying out the Prop and Park from Really Good Stuff this year and so far it is amazing. Anyone else ever notice how a first grader can't keep a pencil on their desk until after Christmas? This really has been a life saver when it comes to lost pencils and erasers. Each kid has 2 pencils and an eraser at their desk. The only place they can store them is in the Prop and Park. I hope this cuts down on the pencil hoarding, too. You know....time to clean out desks and one kid has 20 pencils crammed in the back!! 

I added the bookshelf to the calendar area this year to help house some lesson materials and read aloud. I like the extra stacking room. #sorryimnotsorry 

Thanks for stopping by and taking a little peak into some of the favorite parts of my classroom. What's your favorite area in your classroom? 

Teachers Pay Teachers Seller Challenge: Week 1 Makeover Madness

I'm thrilled to be joining in on the Teachers Pay Teachers Seller Challenge hosted by Teach Create Motivate, Sparkling in Second Grade, Third in Hollywood, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista. 

This week the challenge was all about giving a TPT product a makeover. I spent some time during my 3 week snowcation this winter updating most of my product covers and it has become an addiction! I love playing with clipart and font to come up with new combinations!

I still had one product that could use a little more spice, so I gave it a try and I'm so excited to share the results with you! 

This product was a request from a buyer, so I threw it together in a hurry and just hadn't had the time to give the cover the attention it needed. 

You can click here or the picture above to check out this product in my store! 

Money Easter Egg Hunt

Looking for a quick activity to incorporate a little Easter fun into your week? Try this Money Easter Egg Hunt. 

Label some eggs with letters of the alphabet, throw in some coins, and hide them around your room. 

The kids worked in pairs to make their way around the room. I had each pair name the coins, put them in order from the greatest value to the least, and then each partner had to count the coins. If both partners came up with the same answer they each wrote the amount on their answer sheet. 

If you'd like to try this activity in your class you can click here to download a copy of the answer sheets. 

Have a great week and enjoy your students! 

Greater Than Less Than and Compare and Contrast {Five for Friday}

It's Friday. We've made it through to the other side. I walked outside one night this week, looked up and said, out loud, "Well that explains so much." 

I'm linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs to celebrate the start of the weekend! 

It snowed on Monday. We knew it was coming, but we went to school on a regular schedule and stayed all day long!! I'm whining really...there was really not a lot of snow to speak of, but we've had so little and every other district around us had an early dismissal. In years past this would've been enough to close us, but times are changing!! We live in a very rural county and the back roads get bad in a hurry....

My little friends were having a hard time with greater than and less than this week. I cut out some signs using my Silhouette Cameo and we used them during class. First, we looked at some problems on the Smartboard and they held up the signs. Then, we did this worksheet and they were able to move the sign around on their desks. Last, we had a little fun..who couldn't use a little fun, right? 

We turned the signs into math gators, complete with a math sentence. 

It was an exciting math day. I love getting to do projects like these just as much as the kids do!

We've spent a lot of time on compare and contrast lately, so I decided to change it up a little this week. The kids worked in pairs to compare different scenes in our story this week. 

post its = instant fun.

The Sunday Superbowl Sale in a lot of TPT stores caused me to get clip art fever, like I needed any help! Since then I've been updating the covers of some of my TPT products. Here are two of my favorites! 

I got an iPad Mini this week!! I've been debating about getting one, but finally decided to go for it last week and it arrived on Wednesday!  I'm having so much fun playing with it. 

Question of the week: What apps do I need to download? 

Place Value and Review Week

Happy Saturday! I'm a day late joining in the Five for Friday party because this week kicked my butt!! It was our first full week back after a 3 week Christmas Break (last week was a 4 day week with a delay every day). I was asleep by 9:30 last night #thestruggleisreal. Here is a peek at what we've been up to this week. 

 We've been working on place value this week, so I pulled out the football serving trays I got at the Dollar Tree last year and put them to use for a little game. 

This idea hit me in the car on the way to school the morning we did it, so it's pretty easy prep. I put some 10 rods and one cubes in the center compartment of the footballs. The kiddos worked in groups of three. One person got to pick how many blocks stayed in the middle of the football while the other two turned their backs. Then, the person on the left put all the tens in that little compartment and the person on the right put all the ones in the other compartment. Once the blocks were sorted the group counted together and wrote the number on a white board. 

You could use white boards because aren't those just so much fun?! Or click on the picture above to download this cute football work mat.

We played Consonant Digraph Scoot from Fun n Games in First Grade. Scoot is one of my all time favorite classroom games and this one was free! 

We had 40 sight words to review for our unit test this week, so I made some flash cards and we walked all over 'em! The kiddos thought this was so much fun. I was able to walk the loop with some of the kiddos who struggle with sight words and we practiced together. 

I have a handful of student who need a little extra support when it comes to appropriate behavior, so I decided to give these personal clip charts a try. That little visual reminder has been a big help this week!

It was happy mail week! 

We have secret pals at school now and mine rocks!! I found these goodies in mailbox at lunch on Wednesday. Just on time too cause I was in need of some new Expo markers. 

This super sweet package arrived yesterday afternoon! Don't you just love a handwritten note? I've really enjoyed working with ReadWorks this year. 

How was your week? Head on over and link up with Kacey!