Doubles and Race Car Games Giveaway

Hi all! We have had so much fun this week introducing different careers to our first graders. This week is Career Week at our school and today the teachers participated in "If I wasn't a teacher I would be..." We all dressed up as someone from another field other than teaching and boy was it fun! When our students arrived at school they were given forms that contained teacher names. Throughout the day they needed to write down each teacher's "other career" next to their name. Our kids had so much fun and had an opportunity to learn about several careers. Can you guess what we dressed up as? One of us was a nurse and the other a hair stylist :)

Along with several career activities this week, our first graders have been practicing their doubles addition facts. We taught our first graders a doubles song that they REALLY enjoy singing. In fact, they like it so much that we have typed up the lyrics so they can sing it at home. The link to the video/song can be found HERE and HERE is a copy of the lyrics.

To celebrate our doubles practice we are having a giveaway for our newest additions to our TpT store. Our doubles activity is a 10 page package that contains doubles facts 1+1 through 12+12, a recording sheet, and 8 doubles word problems. Our race car math games package contains three games geared at addition, subtraction, fact families and place value. Both of these items are great for centers, group and buddy work, or to play as a whole class. Both sets include blank card masters for you to make your own cards if needed. There are 5 ways to enter our giveaway:

1. Follow our blog

2. Blog about First Grade Fanatics and attach the link

3. Follow our Teacher Pay Teachers store

4. Blog about the give away and attach the link

5. Grab our button and add us to your blog roll

We will draw a winner Sunday at 7:00 PST. Good luck! If you can't wait, you can purchase our doubles activity for ONLY $2 and our race car math games for ONLY $4 at our TpT store! Click HERE to purchase the doubles activity and HERE to purchase the race car math game pack.

Motivational Monday Vol. 5

Hello Friends! I have to admit, I'm not feeling all that motivating this evening. We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend! It may take me days to catch up, after the business and bustle of 3 small children, so bear with me. :)

This is a quote that I came across, and it made me think. I know that today, I may have just been a good teacher, but hopefully, more often than not, I'm better than that.

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
-- William Arthur Ward

For putting up with me tonight, I thought I'd share a math game with you all! We are really working on reviewing all of the skills we've learned so far in first grade, with enormous hopes that maybe it will stick. :) This is a game, very similar to go fish, that works on addition. Hope you enjoy! Click on the picture for your own copy.


Make sure to check out our Race Car Math Game on TPT!

Race Car Math Games

We've finished our Race Car Math Games, and we want to share it with you! This is a pack of three games geared at addition, subtraction, fact families and place value all for just $4. These games are great for centers, group and buddy work, or to play as a whole class. And if you like our Weather Walk or Going Buggy, then you'll be glad to know that these cards work for them too! And like all of our products, blank sheets, masters, and student record sheets are included to make this as user friendly as possible. We can't wait to see how you make this work for you! Here's a sneak peek at what you'll get...

If you are interested, please head on over to our TPT store and take a look! If you have bought our products, and have been happy, please leave us some feedback! And as always, if you have any suggestions, ideas or needs, please leave us a comment, or email us. Happy Friday, and have a great Easter!

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Race to the Greatest- Math Printable

Happy almost Friday! Here is a great little math game that we've been playing with our kids. It's really great for kids who need some extra work on number sense, and really understanding a 100 chart. There is also good practice on writing a bit tougher equations. Click on the picture for your copy!

On another note... Christmas came early today! I am so excited I can hardly stand it!! Any guesses what's in the boxes?


Stay tuned...

Addition and Subtraction Recycle

Earth Day is coming up on Friday and we have already been incorporating several activities from our Earth Day Mini Unit this week. We added a worksheet to go along with our addition and subtraction recycle activity. This is an independent/group activity that is part of our Earth Day Mini Unit. You can download the worksheet HERE. If you would like to purchase the entire mini unit which contains other pieces that go along with this worksheet, you can find it at our TpT store by clicking HERE.

And the winner is....

Sorry we're a little bit late. Tonight we had t-ball, dinner, bath, story, bed... we got a bit behind. Thanks to all who entered our Creepy Crawlers give away. The winner is...

We will get your prize to you shortly Mrs. Saoud!

If you didn't win and would like to purchase our unit, visit our TPT store or click HERE!

Keep watching, we'll be sharing some more fun games very soon...

Marc Brown

So, this year I have been taking a class called "Authors, Authors, Authors." It's offered every year in Portland through a company called TINT. They have some great online classes as well if you are around the area. Each month we meet and listen to a children's author speak about writing, their story, and publishing their work. Tonight we got to meet one of my favorite authors. I remember loving the Arthur books when I was in school, and they have become favorites of my own two little boys. Marc Brown was quite entertaining, and it was fun to get to see some of his upcoming work, some of which isn't even finished yet. He hadn't written an Arthur book in about ten years, but for Arthur's 35th Anniversary he published Arthur Turns Green. It's a great book, and even better since tomorrow is Earth Day! What a fun night! I even felt a little like a groupie waiting in line to get some books signed. Someday maybe I will publish a children's book, and you can say you knew me when...



Don't forget to enter our Creepy Crawler give away! We will draw a winner tomorrow night. Have a great night!

Motivational Monday Vol. 4

As often as we can, we like to connect children's literature to a variety of content areas. Click HERE to download a list of great read alouds related to math.

Creepy Crawler Unit Give Away!

We are so excited to share our new Creepy Crawler unit with you! We've been working hard on it, and hope that you love it as much as we do. It is 93 pages filled with literature connections, writing, word work, math, science, art and some really great activities to do with your kiddos. We really try to make our units user friendly as well. Whenever possible, everything is lined up so you can cut out with a paper cutter if you choose, and everything comes with masters and blank pages for you to make it work for your needs. We know how valuable your time is, so we want to make it as easy to use as possible. So please visit our TPT store, and check it out!

Here's a little preview of what you will find in our unit!

And of course, we'd like to give a lucky blogger friend the chance to win our unit for free! There are four ways to enter, so leave a comment and link for each that you do.

1. Follow our blog

2. Blog about First Grade Fanatics

3. Follow our Teacher Pay Teachers store

4. Blog about the give away

So, that's four chances to win!

We will draw a winner Wednesday at 7:00 PST. Good luck! And don't forget, if you can't wait to get started, you can purchase our unit at our TPT store! Need a fun creepy crawler game? Don't forget to check out Going Buggy at TPT as well! Good luck!

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Solid, Liquid and Gas

Today we did a little activity on types of Matter. We focused on the difference between liquids, solids and gases. This is a bit of a difficult topic for the kids to grasp, but we do our best. Click on the picture for a copy of the activity we did. Enjoy! It's almost Friday...

Daily 5

We've noticed that many bloggers have been talking about Daily 5 lately, so we wanted to share a little tip that we have. This is our second year doing Daily 5, although our first doing all 5 components. We are constantly re-working things to make it work for us. We may not do it exactly how the sisters would prefer, but it works for us.

Listen to Reading was one of the hardest parts for us to implement. We worried about how much we'd have to spend to get books with cds, how would we keep track of all those books, should they be separate from our classroom libraries? The first thing we did was invest in some iPod Shuffles. These are very reasonable, you can find them for $40, and at times they are at the Apple Education store under the refurbished section. Same warranties and everything!


We then decided to keep things organized, we'd also get matching color bins to keep the ipods and books in, so that it's easy for the kids.


The kids now know them as the "blue iPod," "pink iPod," etc. We also decided that instead of just letting kids choose listening, it would be a rotating schedule. If they didn't want to listen on a particular day, fine, but they had to wait until their name comes up again. Each ipod has different books according to theme, holidays, or whatever we feel like at that time.

The last part was fairly simple, after sitting in a Daily 5 class for a few days. We have Macs, and they come with Garage Band. We didn't need to have every cd, we could just record ourselves reading. Maybe many of you do that already, but the idea seemed genius to us! It really helps because we aren't limited on the books we can choose. Now of course the cds that come with books are more fun, so we include those as well. iTunes is also a great place to get the stories, and those are pretty cheap. We have a master list of books with cds that we all share. It is actually working great! We asked the kids to bring in ear buds, so they don't have to share.

Hope this helps anyone who is wanting to implement Daily 5 in their classroom. What other tips do you have?

Don't forget our Daily 5 record sheet. Click HERE to get it!

Going Buggy Winner

Congratulations to t. ulch who said "I would use this in stations/math or reading. My kids love a game they can play together! They don't even think about the fact that they are learning! LOVE IT!" So true! Email us and we'll send you your copy. If you didn't win, head on over to our TPT store to grab your copy now!


True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 13 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

*Again, we're having trouble showing the results of the number generator. Is it a Mac thing? We can't seem to get the picture to work. Any ideas blogger friends?

Bug unit preview...

We are working on our Bug unit for TPT right now, and hope to have it finished and up by this weekend. Be watching for a giveaway... But for now, we've uploaded a fun game, Going Buggy. If you liked Weather Walk, then you will love this! The task cards can be used in either game, and this game includes even more! It's great for review, or for centers. Please stop by and check it out! Click the bee, and it will send you right there!


Want your game for free? Leave a comment tonight telling us how you would use this game, and we will draw 1 lucky winner at 10:00 pst. Good luck!

Motivational Monday Vol. 3

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Happy Monday blogger friends! Hope you all have a great week! :)

Water Cycle Experiment

This week we will be reviewing the water cycle and conducting a water cycle experiment with our first graders. Here's what we’ll do:

1. Fill a plastic bowl with 1-2 inches warm water. Place an empty baby food jar in the middle of the water. Cover the plastic bowl with plastic wrap.

2. Set a marble on the center of the plastic wrap above the baby food jar. Make sure the marble causes the plastic wrap to sink down a bit in the middle. This will help direct the “precipitation” to go into the jar.

3. Place experiment in a sunny spot for a few hours, or one day. It’s best to do this on a sunny day or set the experiment in a windowsill.

4. Several hours later or the next day, check inside the baby food jar. There will be water.

5. The warm water from the bowl evaporated. Condensation occurred when it hit the plastic wrap, then moved down the plastic wrap to the center due to the weight of the marble, and then dripped into the baby food jar as precipitation.

This experiment can be found HERE and also HERE. Both include using salt water, but it is not necessary. Below is one of our response sheets our first graders will complete after the experiment. Click HERE to get both copies!

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Cloud Art/Writing Activity

This week we have been busy learning about clouds. One art/writing activity that we do every year with our first graders is an activity that incorporates Little Cloud by Eric Carle.

We give each of our students a piece of blue construction paper and they paint the entire paper with white paint. Then they create designs in the paint using their paintbrush, a toothpick, or a Q-tip. The following day we read Little Cloud by Eric Carle and then have a discussion about the shapes that little cloud turned into. Eventually our students create their own clouds out of their painted paper and complete a writing about their cloud. We save our students' large scraps each year so other students can cut out pieces the following year if needed. See one of our examples below. We thought you might enjoy a copy of the writing. Our students begin the writing with, "My little cloud turned into..." Click HERE for a copy of the writing page if you are interested!

Along with clouds and weather, we've also been talking about the water cycle. HERE is a fun video/song we share with our students. HERE are also a few songs from Teacher Tube that we have typed up for our students to practice.

Earth Day Unit Winner!

Congratulations to Gladys #61 who said, "I also follow your TpT store."

We'll send it off to you shortly. Don't forget you can also click HERE and purchase this unit at our TpT store.

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 61 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

*On a side note, we are having problems copying and pasting the results of the true number generator. We did use the correct numbers, but they aren't showing up. Any suggestions? :)

Weather Walk on TPT

We have had lots of requests for our Weather Walk game after the give away ended, so it is now up on Teachers Pay Teachers. If you like it, stay tuned because we will be adding a bug version to go along with it!

Click on the picture below to purchase the game!

If there are any other theme versions of this game you'd like to see, let us know. We love to hear feedback!

Motivational Monday Vol. 2

"For me it is about the children. Let know child live in poverty. Let know child go hungry. Let no child live without shelter. Let no child be abused. Let know child remain ill. Let no child be uneducated. Let know child be oppressed. Let know child be unloved.

Children did not ask to come here. They are innocent, and they are helpless. It is our moral obligation to help them whether they are ours or not. Only we can save them...and only they can save the world."

-Stanley Tucci (actor)

Don't forget to enter our Earth Day Unit Give Away. Hurry the give away ends Wednesday at 4:00 pm PST, and there are three ways you can enter!

Earth Day Unit Give Away!

We have jumped on the bandwagon, and have finished our first unit for Teachers Pay Teachers. It is 52 pages of literacy, math and even a bit of science fun based on Earth day! Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd, and since our school is a "green school," this is an important day for us. We do some school wide cleanup projects, as well as cleaning, and recycling in our own rooms. This packet is filled with activities for you to use, including adjectives, nouns and verbs, ABC order, addition and subtraction, place value, literacy connections, and some great group activities. You can get all of this for only $5.00! But..... we'd also like to give one away! So, here are three ways you can enter to win our Earth Day Unit Giveaway:

1. Follow us on our blog, and leave a comment on this post.

2. Follow us on TPT, and leave a comment on this post.

3. Blog about this giveaway, and leave us the link in a comment on this post.

Three ways to win! But you better hurry, we will pick a random winner on Wednesday April 6th, at 4:00 PST. Good luck! We hope you enjoy our unit!

Can't wait until then to get started? Click below to purchase or see our unit at TPT.

Have a great week!

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Antonym Ants

Along with working on homophones we have also been working on antonyms. The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss is a great read aloud to introduce antonyms. Our first graders really enjoy this book, and many are able to read the book themselves. Here is a antonym word sort for extra practice. Click HERE to get your copy!

Earth Day is on the way...

Earth Day is coming up in April, and we've been working very hard on our first Teachers Pay Teachers unit, to be here this weekend. Watch our for a great unit filled with math, reading, writing, science, and much more!


You can tell we are still new to this so please bear with us! Here is a recording sheet for yesterday's "Smarty Pants Contractions." Enjoy!