Contraction Word Snowmen

Last week we had MAP testing with our first graders.  4 days of testing was really hard on my kiddos so we did some fun snow activities during the week.  We made the CUTEST snow globes.  I can honestly say, it was my favorite activity that I have EVER done in the past 13 years of my teaching.  My kids loved it too!  I love this idea!!!

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Snow globe activity



This week we will be working on contraction words.  I just uploaded an activity that I will be doing with my kiddos to my TPT store.  You can find it here. 

Snowman-Contraction-Word-Matching-Game-and-Worksheets

Have a great week!
Sara

2013...Already..REALLY?!?

It seems like 2012 came and went in the blink of an eye.  It was such a tough year for my family for so many reasons...but we made it through!  We are so lucky that we have the family and friends that we do!  My husband found a job a week after being laid off from a job that he had been at for almost 20 years, my mom had a kidney transplant and my son's hair grew back after it fell out in February because of Alopecia.  With the loving support and prayers from friends all the hardships we faced turned out well! :)

This week was a pretty tough one for me.  I learned that a teacher I taught with my first 9 years of teaching passed away.  She was the sweetest, kindest, most patient woman that I knew.  She was always smiling and was so nice to everyone.  During her service I saw many of the people that I taught with in the beginning of my teaching career.  I realized how much I missed all of them. SO.MUCH!  They were like family to me. Maybe it was because I started teaching there when I didn't have kids and left that school after giving birth to two of my kids.  Maybe it was because we were a smaller school and had 3, 4 or 5 people on our team.  Or maybe it was because everyone geninuly cared for one another and looked out for one another.  I ran into both of the principal's I worked for.  It was nice to see them.  It's sad that someone's passing away is what brought us all back together again...for a couple hours this week.  Time goes by quickly...It did make me appreciate my teammates, past and present.  We are each other's family.

During the month of December, we did so many fun activities.  We were talking about story elements.  We read several different versions of The Gingerbread Man/Girl and compared the stories to one another.  We discussed where the stories took place, who the characters were, what the problem was and what the solution was.  At the end of the week we made a Gingerbread Girl.  The cooks put her in the oven and called us when the timer when off.  When we got back, she was gone.  They sprinkled flour on the floor and put tiny footprints in it.  There was a note left on the oven giving us clues as to where else she might be hiding.  We looked all over.  In one note she told us to write her letters and tell her why she should come back.  We wrote letters and put them in the office.  Our high potential teacher had one of her classes respond to the letter's pretending they were the GB girl.   It was so cute and the kids were so excited. 

 

 

We also made Gingerbread Houses.  It was a fun afternoon.  Many of our parents came to help out.  I really love this time of the year. 



We have been talking about compound words.   You can find an activity that I will be doing with my class on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

You can find it by clicking here...

 

Compound Words

Little Red Riding Hood

Wow!  I cannot believe it is December already!   I LOVE this month!  I have gotten almost all of my Christmas shopping done and can really concentrate on the fun at school now without being stressed at home about trying to get  it all done. 

This past weekend was a busy one for me!  My good camera broke so I ended up getting an early birthday and Christmas present for myself!  This is what I got for me!

It's a step up from my old camera and I can use all the same lens that I used before!  I am back in business of taking pictures in my classroom and at home.  I am excited about it!!!

This week is my birthday.  I will be saying good-bye to my 30's and hello to my 40's.  I hope my 40's are as much fun as my 30's were.  I was told I needed to wear cheaters last week, so I am not sure how to feel about all the new health ailments I will be experiencing!  I started my birthday week by eating at the Cheesecake Factory.  On Wednesday I will be going to Benihana's, Thursday I will be celebrating with friends and on Saturday my twin sister and I will be having a family birthday party!  Bring on the fun! :)

Over the weekend I also spent some time at a benefit for a little girl that goes to my school.  She is in 3rd grade and has  Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).   I was amazed at the turnout.  Not only were there tons of people there to support the family, but I got to have my picture taken with this guy!

Mike Delfino from Desperate Housewives was there and auctioned a lunch date with himself off.  They also raised money by having pictures taken with him.  It's a pretty crappy picture of me...but he looks amazing!!  :) 

On to our week at school....
This week we are going to be taking our First Graders to go see the play Little Red Riding Hood at Old Log Theater.  To prepare for seeing the play, we have been reading lots of different versions of Little Red Riding Hood.  Thank goodness I read ahead.  I had to change the words to this version...
Litte Red Riding Hood.  I am not sure I wanted to explain to my kiddos what wine was why she was bringing wine to her granny.  I just changed it to apple cider.  :)

We will be talking about characters in the story, the setting, events in the story, the problem and solution.  We will be reading each story and recording all of these things on a big grid.  We will talk about all the differences in each story.  Below you will find some freebies that you can use in your classroom if you would like.  Have a great week!

We will be reading several different versions of the book Little Red Riding Hood and then filling out this form.  We will talk about different story elements. 

 

You can get it here....Little Red Riding Hood 1

 

Little Red Riding Hood 2

 

 I cut these pictures apart.  We then looked at the pictures and matched them with the words. 

You can get it here...

Little Red Riding Hood 3

 

 

Finally, at the end of the week, I will be giving them this worksheet to see if they can match the picture/sentence with the story element.

 

You can get it here...

Little Red Riding Hood 4

 

Have a great week!!!

 

 

Number Sense: Christmas Candy

We've had a pretty busy month at school.  We started the month off by talking about Veterans Day.  We made some cute art projects from Deanna Jump.  You can check out her Veterans Day activities packet here.  We made the cute soldiers and sent them off to an Army National Guard base for Veterans to see.  We also celebrated the 50th day of school.  We got all dressed up in poodle skirts and rolled jeans.  We made root beer floats to end the day.  We finished the month by talking about what we were thankful for.  It seem like Thanksgiving got here super quickly this year.  During the month we also had some guest readers.  My kids were so excited when 2 Minnesota Viking Cheerleaders came to our classroom to read. 

 

 

We also had our Superindendent read in our class.  The kids were so excited, they thought the President of the United States was visiting. 

 

We are going to be super busy from now until Christmas Break.  We will be going to a play, Little Red Riding Hood, so I plan on reading several different versions of this story.  We will talk about who the characters are in the story, some of the events in the story, when the story is taking place and what the problem in the story was.  We will also be celebrating, Holidays Around the World and we will be making Gingerbread Houses and a Gingerbread Man that runs away.  During our math time I have created some math activities that kids will do when they are done with their work. 

 Students will look at the numbers on the candies and put them in the correct numerical order on the mats.  They will record the numbers on the recording sheets.

 

 In the following activities students will look a the numbers on gumdrops and they will put them into the jars.  Even numbers will go in the even jar and odd numbers in the odd jar. 

Students will look at the numbers on the cards and will sort them into the correct piles.  4 cards will go together.  They will look at the numbers on the red card  and find the yellow, blue and green match.

Finally kids will look at the green card and find the blue and yellow card that is the same. 

 

You can find these below by clicking on the words Number Sense.  I will be throwing a sale on Monday for Cyber Monday!  Happy Shopping!  I plan on getting lots of good deals! :)

 

Number Sense

Coffee and the Newspaper

This week was a busy week and I survived it!  Who else thinks Halloween should be on a Saturday?  We don't celebrate Halloween at our school.  So, I typically do a fun project that takes a longer amount of time on that day!  This year I did my Coffee and the Newspaper activity.  I start out by asking my first graders how long they have been reading.  I then tell them that reading is a skill that they will be using for the rest of their life.  I ask them when they see their parents reading.  They give me all the times they see them reading.  We then focus on reading the newspaper.  I tell them words that they are learning now can be found in the newspaper.  I ask them how many people see their parents drinking coffee.  Many of them raise their hands.  I then tell them that they will be pretending they are adults and they will be reading the paper.  I also tell them that we will be reading the newspaper and drinking coffee.  Many of them say they don't like coffee but I tell them that they will like "my" coffee.  I put a pot on to brew so that it smells good and they can see it. 

 

We then get our newpapers out and I tell them that they need to look for words that they know.  They can only cut out words that they know and glue them to their piece of paper.

 



As they are working, I take the pot of coffee to my desk and secretively pour chocolate milk into coffeee cups (that I purchased from Target).  The last glass I pour is real coffee so they can see me pouring it.  I then pass out the "coffee" to the kids.  They think they are drinking real coffee and get excited with how good it tastes.  I also pass out donuts.

At the end, we share the words that we found!  I have so many kids that say this is their best day ever!