December Math Problems & We've Got a Math Freebie!

Our December Math Journal Questions are now available in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store!
December Math Questions include:

*Addition (2&3 addends with sums to 20 and adding while counting by 10's)
*Subtraction
*Greater than/less than
*Place value (tens & ones)
*Ordering numbers
Just click the picture below and head on over and take a look.

Don't forget to check out our November Math Questions which can be found {Here}.

And now for our math freebie! Last week we reviewed counting by 10's with our kiddos. students are pretty familiar with counting by 10's to 100, so we created a counting by 10's to 120 activity. Click the picture below for directions and free activity printables!

Also we thought we'd call upon on blogging friends for a little advice on reading programs that you are currently using. Our district is currently going through the adoption process, and we have to make a decision by mid-November. Erin is on the committee, so she'd love any help you can offer! Are any of you using Journey's, Imagine It!, or Treasures? These are the three it's been narrowed down to. If you are using one of these programs, we'd love to hear what you think! Leave us a comment with your thoughts/advice/info on these programs and we will enter you into our drawing. One lucky comment will win any fall item in our TpT store. We'd really appreciate the help! We will pick a winner next Friday night (November 4th). Have a great Sunday!

Candy Corn (Pssst, we have some freebies!)

Today was a good day. Sure, the kiddos are crazy, we have too much to do, and WAY too little time to do it, and we are nearing Halloween, but in the craziness we call first grade, we had a few fabulous moments...

We are doing secret pals this week, as a fun way for the teachers to celebrate Halloween, and we found this when we arrived at school today. How cute is this!!! {This was for Leslie, so Erin is secretly super jealous!! :) }

And then, I got a package in the mail. I know, I'm sure ya'll do book orders. But doesn't it just make your day when a box arrives, and you get to open it and smell all those brand new books? I only had a few kid orders this month, so most of these were mine for my classroom, or for some Christmas presents for the kiddos...

If you don't do Scholastic Book orders yet, you are missing out! It's amazing how many free books we get each month!



So candy corn... we love it during the fall, but don't care for it the rest of the year. But the kids always love doing any type of candy activities {duh}, so fall is a great time to get this in. We started with the cute poem we wrote:

The kids wrote it on the paper, but we weren't able to get any pictures of it.


We glued those to the bottom of a 9x12 black piece of construction paper, and did a cute art activity for the top.


This is the type of art where you cute tissue paper into squares, and then use the end of your pencil, and some glue to stick it on. They turned out so cute, I wish I could have gotten pictures. Maybe next time. :)

In math we made these cute candy corn math fact flashcards for the kids to practice.

We also thought that if we printed these on card stock, and laminated (may have to color them a bit first) we could use them as game cards. So we had to create a little candy corn game to do with it. This we will be playing on Halloween.


If you would like these activities, click below for the downloads.

Candy Corn Activities
Candy Corn Flash Cards

Here's a little fun treat if you need help giving out little goodies to your firsties. Just print these, and then fold in half. Staple onto a little baggie filled with treats. (We haven't put ours together yet, but wanted to share before the weekend just in case you want to use.) Sign the back, and you've got an easy treat! Enjoy!


Halloween Treat Toppers

Have a good rest of the week!

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Do You Use a Behavior Clip Chart?

Happy Friday Friends! We wanted to share with you how our behavior clip chart system is going this year. This is our first year of implementing this in our classrooms and we absolutely LOVE it! We have tied it in with our school wide behavior/reward system and our students feel so proud when their clips are moved up. If you'd like to see our examples of our clip charts you can scroll down through the post HERE.

This behavior system was working so well, and after the first few weeks we really wanted to reward the kiddos who made it to outstanding. We thought about several ideas and came up with the option of allowing our students to customize their clips with pieces of ribbon.

Here's what we do:

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Before lining up the kids for busses and pick up, we review the chart. Using a spreadsheet with the kids' names, we put a tally by the students who've made it to outstanding.

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When a student has made it to outstanding 3 times, they get to choose a piece of a ribbon to customize their clip. We then glue their piece on after school.

How cute are these?

We made sure to get our state's college colors and some theme related ribbons as well.

Our kids love this and we too are having so much fun finding different ribbons for them to choose from!

Here are some close ups of a few clips with ribbon pieces:

After a clip has 5-6 ribbon pieces, the student gets to take their clip home and then start all over again. We haven't had anyone fill up their clip yet, but we are thinking about 5-6 pieces should fill up a clip.

We also wanted to create a simple sheet for some of our students to take home that communicates with their family about how their day went. Here's a freebie that we would love to share with you.

Just click the picture below!

Have a wonderful weekend, and if you use this clip chart system, we'd love to hear

how it works for you!

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It's Time For Place Value

Happy Wednesday! Hope you are all having a wonderful week! Our math focus this week has been place value and we thought we'd share some freebies with you all. Place value is an ongoing focus during our calendar time and our students are familiar with counting straws and base 10 rods and bits, but this week place value has also been a focus throughout our math lessons.

Race to 50 is a game our first graders really enjoy. This is a 2 player game and each person gets one worksheet and the partners share a spinner. Player 1 spins and records their number on a 10's frame and writes how many 10's and 1's, and the total. See the example below.

Here I spun a 4. So beginning from left to right, I filled in 4 dots on my 10's frame and then wrote how many 10's (I didn't have any filled yet) and 1's I that I had, and my total. Then player 2 spins and records their number on their worksheet. Next player 1 spins again and records their number by adding it to their total. See my second spin below.

Next I spun a 9. So I filled in 6 dots on the first 10's frame and then filled in 3 more on the next 10's frame. Then I wrote how many 10's and 1's I had, and my total.

The object of the game is to be the first person to reach 50 by having

all five 10's frames filled in.

Our first graders had so much fun! On the first day we played this game as the class against the teacher, then the second day the students played with a partner. They had so much fun!

If you'd like a copy of the worksheet and spinner just click HERE!

Keeping the focus on place value and 10's frames, we made a few worksheets that we used as masters, filled in our own dots, and copied the worksheets for our students. We've used these worksheets during morning work and we've also sent them home for homework.

If you'd like your own copy, we would love to share with you all! Just click HERE to download.

Simply fill in the 10's frames and copy!

Do you use a behavior clip chart system like the one we talked about in this post? Stay tuned later this week for a helpful tip and a freebie to go with this system.

Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Pinkalicious is Here!!!

Next month we are taking our lucky little firsties to the Oregon Children's Theatre to see "Pinkalicious the Musical." And let us tell you, we are all kinds of EXCITED! This is one of our student's favorite books, not to mention a favorite of our own. Who doesn't love Pinkalicious?!?! We've had to buy several copies throughout the years, because these always seem to be a favorite in book boxes, and not-so-gently used. Even the boys seem to love these fun books! So when we decided to go to the musical, we of course thought it would be a fantastic time to create a little Pinkalicious unit. We asked the amazing Scrappin' Doodles to see what kind of pink clipart they could come up with for us, and the end result was INCREDIBLE! If you haven't seen the new Pinktastic set, you must hurry over. To. Die. For.

So now, we'd like to introduce Perfectly Pinkalicious!


This is a 88 page pink pack filled with oodles of pink deliciousness, all surrounding the kid favorite Pinkalicious. Here's a little preview of what you will find in our fun new unit.

Head on over to our TpT store to check out this little gem.
This unit is based on Pinkalicious, but of course could be used with out it as well. We also wanted to share something with all of our fabulous followers, so here is a fun freebie just for reading. Click on the picture for your copy.

And since we're introducing a new unit, we of course have to have a giveaway! Leave us a comment with the date you think we are going on our field trip, and the first two to guess the correct date will win our Perfectly Pinkalicious pack for free! Good luck!

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Our Writing Notebooks

This year we have implemented writing binders into our kiddos took kits. We've had writing folders in the past that the kids have used for writers workshop, and we've used a variety of personal dictionaries, both purchased and created. This year our school has gone to a school-wide science focus, where each month we are all focused on the same theme, with the same set of vocabulary words. You might go more in depth, or just introduce them, according to to your grade. We've previously posted our habitat vocabulary words HERE. If you like our vocabulary sheets, keep watching. (We will be posting them as we do them.) So this year we thought we would try to combine their vocab with their writing folders. Take a look at our writing notebooks!

The cover of our notebooks. Like the cover? Click HERE to get your own, as well as b/w versions for your students.

On the inside pocket of their notebooks the kids have these fabulous personal word walls to use for words they need help with. We don't use these for word wall words, since they already have those (later on), but just for any other words they want spelled. These were pretty cheap and should hold up pretty well.

Next we've put their plastic folders that they use for writers workshop. The go side is for work they are still working on, and the stop side is for work that they've finished. Once a week or so we share our writing, they turn in their best piece, and take the rest home. Click HERE for our stop labels and HERE for our go labels, which fit Avery Labels 8160.


Next is our first grade study guide. This has their word wall, letters and sounds, color words, months, days, and even some math words. You can find these HERE if you'd like your own copy. We keep these in page protectors to really protect them all year.

We have included our writing reminders in a page protector as well. We also have these as smaller book marks that the kids can keep in the back pocket, or take home for extra help. Find our writing reminders HERE.

Last is where our firsties keep their vocab pages. (I apologize that this picture won't turn. It's refusing, and and is driving me CRAZY!!!) We'll continue to add these throughout the year.

Thanks for taking our tour of our writing notebooks. How do you handle writing in your classroom?

If you haven't already been over to visit Anna at Crazy for First Grade, head on over. We were guest bloggers today, and we have some great freebies for greater than and less than.



Have a great weekend! We have a day off tomorrow so we get a 3 day weekend!!!

Some clipart courtesy of Scrappin Doodles

Coming soon...

Pinkalicious

National Fire Prevention Week

Did you know that this week is National Fire Prevention Week? Yesterday our local fire department came and did a great assembly for our students on fire safety. As a follow-up we sent home this Fire Escape Plan for the kiddos to complete with their families. Grab a copy for you!


Fire Escape Plan

Clipart courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles

Halloween Freebie!

Happy Monday! We're working on a few things for later on this week, so for tonight we have a quick little freebie for all our our First Grade Fanatics! Today in reading group we did a fun little reading about the history of Halloween. We only have kids 2 days this week, so I decided to not to start a new unit. Anywho, I found a reading somewhere out there a few years ago, I'm thinking maybe on ABC teach. We read it a few different ways, and talked about it, and the kids really learned a lot about why people celebrate Halloween, and the history behind it. Then later on during intervention (where I have my reading group again) we did this activity. The kids had to come up with 4 things that we learned about Halloween. They did a great job, so we thought we'd share it with you. Enjoy!

What do we know about Halloween?

We Have Some Winners!

Congratulations Kelly and Miss Taylor. Thanks for including your email addresses! We will email our Fall Fun Game Pack, It's a Pumpkin Parade, and October Math Journal Prompts to you shortly!

Thanks everyone for participating. And don't forget you

can still get these items from our TpT store. Stop on by and take a peek!

Have a great weekend!

It's Fall & It's Time For a Giveaway!

Happy Fall y'all! To kick off the season we thought we'd share a fun game with you, let you know about our latest additions to our TpT store, and throw in a giveaway that includes some of our fall themed lessons/activities!

Pick Your Pumpkins

Pick Your Pumpkins is a perfect game to have your student practice addition and understanding more/less when comparing two sums. We liked Jodi's apple version so much that we decided we needed a version using pumpkins that could be used in October & November!

To get our pumpkin version click HERE!

We've got some new fall additions to our TpT store and would love for you to check them out and let us know what you think!

Fall Fun Game Pack

Our Fall Fun Game Pack is a game pack that includes 5 fall themed games and over 500 math/literacy game cards that can be used interchangeably between all five games. Plus each game includes 12 theme related special cards!

Click HERE to stop on by and check it out!

It's a Pumpkin Parade!

Another new addition to our TpT store is It's a Pumpkin Parade! This 88 page unit is oozing with math and literacy activities! It's perfect for use during both October and November, and will be a great addition to your themes. This unit contains:

*Pumpkin Blend Game

*Playin' at the Pumpkin Patch Game

*Greater/Less than

*Scarecrow Addition

*Find my pumpkins (greater & less)

*Pumpkin Place Value Puzzles

*Pumpkin Equations

*Pumpkin Word Builders

*100 Pumpkins

*Pumpkin Word Sort

*SQUASH (sight word game)

*My Pumpkin Mini Book

*5 Senses Writing

*Pumpkin Life Cycle

*Pumpkin Pie Sequence Cards

*My Pumpkin Report

*Pumpkins Can, Have, Are

*Pumpkin Pie in a Bag

Click HERE to check it out!

Now onto our GIVEAWAY!

We would like to give 2 lucky winners our Fall Fun Game Pack, It's a Pumpkin Parade, and our October Math Journal Prompts!

There are three ways you can enter:

1. Follow our blog and leave a comment that you follow us.

2. Follow our TpT store and leave a comment that you follow our TpT store.

3. Blog about our giveaway and leave a comment with the link to your page.

This giveaway ends on Friday, October 7, 2011 at 11:00pm (PST)

Winners will be announced Saturday October 8, 2011.

Don't forget that you can enter up to 3 times!

Thanks so much for being our FABULOUS followers and have a wonderful week!

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A Week of Apples

Hello friends! Hope everyone is having a fabulous Saturday. As September came to an end, we finally finished up our apple activities. Much of what we did can be found in our Apples, Apples Everywhere unit, but of course we also had to use some great ideas we found from our blogger friends. But don't worry, we're also going to include some freebies for ya'll today.

Our students have had some fun with our apple word work activities. They had fun building words, sorting our word families, and working on sequencing.

We also found this great apple addition math game on Pinterest from First Grade Friends. We actually loved it so much we've made a pumpkin version which we'll share soon.


We also tasted apples this week, and graphed our favorite apples. We began by tasting, and then each colored an apple for our favorite apple. We made a quick data table, tallied our results, and then made our graphs. Our graph can be found in our Apple unit.


We then did a 5 senses writing piece about apples, and made some great charts with the funniest adjectives. Of course I forgot to take pictures of those.

We ended up the week with some apple sequencing activities. We really talked about what comes first, next, last, etc with apples. We started by making our apple tree book about how an apple comes from a seed.


We then did Cara's great apple pie activity, and extended it a bit further.

To end our week we made applesauce. Each child brought in an apple, and before the kids came we cut them up and threw them in the crockpot. We did the cutest sequencing activity about who to make applesauce.
We then turned it into a First, Next, Then Last flip book that turned out so darn cute. It also REALLY helped reinforce this concept. This seems to be one thing that our kids struggle with, so we're starting on it early. Aren't these great?


And voila! Here's the finished product!

We like to send home a recipe for applesauce with the kids, so we added it to the back.


Before we actually ate our applesauce, we did Cara's labeling chart, and talked about and looked at everything we used to make the applesauce.


It turned out pretty yummy!

Here's our graph that we made for our class. Click on the links below to get your copy of our applesauce activities.


Applesauce Sequence
Applesauce Class Graph
Applesauce Recipe

And don't forget to check out our Apples, Apples Everywhere Unit at our TpT store.

We're working on our fall and pumpkin units, so keep an eye out for those, as well as for some great freebies early next week.
Happy Saturday!

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Clipart Courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles.