Number Sense: 10 More, 10 Less

Whew!  It's been a crazy, busy week.  We had conferences last Thursday night & this Monday and Tuesday night.  On Wednesday we had a professional development day.  We got to choose the morning sessions that we went to.  At 7:30 a.m.  my class was on learning how to use Excel spreadsheets!  I am soooo excited to make graphs with all the data I have collected so far.  My next class was learning how to use Google Forms for Assessments.  This was another great class.  I have a survey done that I am going to send to my parents.  Finally, in the afternoon we discussed PLC's.  Our school is doing them this year.  We met to learn what they were and then our team met and decided on a goal that we want all of our first graders to know.  We discussed how many of the kids have a difficult time looking at a given number and telling us what number is 10 more or 10 less than that number.  We are going to assess all of our kids on this, practice the skill with them and then assess them again.   I created some fun game sets that we are going to practice.  They will take the piece with the number in the middle and place the four cards onto the proper squares.  We will also play the game, I have...Who has...looking at different numbers. 

You can find them by clicking here....

10-more-10-less-1-more-1-less

Rhyming Words Freebie

I am absolutely LOVING fall!  I love the colors, the crisper weather, picking pumpkins and going on fall walks with my kids.  At school we do not celebrate Halloween because of our diverse population.  We have a Harvest party and do lots of Harvest Day activities.  I love making my pumpkin playdough for our carnival style party.  I will be playing this rhyming game with my kiddos.  You can download your freebie below. 

Rhyming Words

Columbus Day

We are going to be learning about Christopher Columbus this week.  I have created a Literacy Center packet loaded with activities that the students will be doing as I start up my guided reading groups.  I am hoping our first week of working independently will work out.  Here are some examples of things that we will be doing this week.  You can find them at my TPT store by clicking on the words below:

Christopher Columbus Literacy Activities

Where are we? Signs....

I created some signs tonight to put outside my room.  Hopefully this will help my first graders find us when we are out of the room and they are coming back from the nurse, coming to school late, or from an intervention, ELL or Speech class.  I will laminate the red sign and the pictures.  I will attach a piece of velcro to each one.  When we leave the room, I will have a helper add the picture that shows where we are.

Click here for red background

 

Click here for picture cards

 

All About Us

Last year I shared an activity that I do with my families.  I have had requested for an edible version of it.  I am not sure how to do that?!?  So...I created a new cover....minus the dates and grade levels.  You can have your class name on it.  

All About Us Cover

Literacy Label with Girl

I have received a request for a Literacy Label with a girl on it.  I created a new one this morning for anyone who wants to use it.  Enjoy!

Get your label here

Labels, Labels, Labels

Tonight I have been working on making labels for all of the folders and notebooks that my first graders will be using this year.  I copy all of the labels onto pieces of full or half sheet label paper.  Once it is copied, I just peel the back and don't have to write the same label on EVERY single notebook or folder that I have.  I just have the kids write their name on the label!  I'm not sure why I didn't start doing this a long time ago. 


Every day my students do Writer's Workshop.  They have a folder that they keep all their drafts of stories and unfinished books in.  When it is time to do Writer's Workshop, I have them move their desks away from one another, take out their Writer's Workshop Folder and get to work.  I play piano music in the background while they are working.

Labels for Writer's Workshop

Last year I started doing a daily math prompt.  The first 10 minutes of the day, students would get a daily math question, they would glue it in their math journals and they would answer it.  This year I am going to start doing this with Language Arts as well.  I found this idea from Anna Brantley at Crazy for First Grade.  You can see the idea here.  Anna Brantley.  This year I will be doing the Literacy ones that I found on her blog as well. You can find them here: Literacy Journal Prompts.  I did label my journals Language and Math.

Daily Language Arts Journals

Literacy Journals

Daily Math Prompts

Every day we do a morning meeting.  I have my kids share something that they did the night before or are excited about.  We then do a free writing for about 10 minutes.  At this time, I do not correct their work.  This is a time for them to use inventive spelling, spelling words that they are learning and just write.  I label these Writing Journals.

Writing Journals

Finally I send blue Parent Communication Folders home with my kids daily.  In these I have paper.  I may write notes to parents in them or they might write notes to me.   I check these daily and send them home at night.





Parent Communication Folder

I hope that you can use some of these!