First Grade Fanatics

Lesson Plan Notebook Makeover

Hope you are all having a FABULOUS summer! It hasn't been much of a summer around here yet, it's been one rainy June around here! We decided it was time to makeover our lesson plan notebooks and we though we'd share with you all what we keep inside of them.

Our lesson plans make up the "bulk" of these notebooks and are located at the front.

We have a master that we copy and fill in weekly.

We have 5 divided sections with tabs labels for:

School Schedules:

Here we place schedules from learning specialists, library/PE schedules, computer labs schedules, etc...

Assessment Scores:

All of our district/classroom test scores are stored in this section.

Student Information:

This section contains the student info sheets that we have parents fill out on open house. These sheets contain student info, bus/pick up info, important phone numbers, and email addresses.

Emergency Informations:

This section contains allergy information & other school wide student information forms.

Important Notes:

Here we keep notes from parents regarding bus/pick up changes, or any other notes that are important to hold on to.

Behind each tabbed divider is a section cover page (see below for examples). Behind each cover page is where we keep the important papers and information. At the end of each section, behind all of the papers, is a pocket folder that can easily hold small notes or other small papers.

If you'd like a copy of these pages, just click below the picture for your copies!

{Click HERE for notebook cover and section cover pages}
****WE'VE UPDATED THE COVER WITH 2014-2015****

Hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week!

We're definitely hoping for some sunny weather to head this way!

Clipboard Makeovers

Hello summer! Well, officially it begins on June 20th, but we've been on vacation since June 8th and are truly relaxing and enjoying some much needed family time. Classroom organization has been on our minds these last few weeks as we've been deciding on where our new smart boards should be mounted. We loved all of your advice and can't wait to use these newest additions to our classrooms in the fall. We've had these old clipboards lying around our rooms for quite some time and have been wanting to give them a little makeover. The two small ones were new purchases at Walmart and were SUPER cheap!

We found a great tutorial on how to remodel these clipboards over at Skiptomylou, one of our favorite crafty blogs!

After gathering the clipboards, we got out our scrapbook paper, spray adhesive, and clear acrylic sealer. Then we traced the clipboards and got the paper all trimmed up. Since we were using large clipboards and our paper was only 12X12 (our large clipboards were about 14 inches long), we cut small strips of paper to fit the top. Decorative tape would probably work as well, but we didn't have any on hand at the time.

After they were glued and sealed, we attached some ribbon! Doesn't ribbon just make everything prettier? The small one on top already has a place ready for it! Right next to one of our laptops. It seems like when we're sitting at our laptops (which is usually at the end of the day, or when taking attendance or checking our email) we are always in need of paper. Our sticky notes always seem to disappear and make their way to other parts of our classrooms. We're sure these cute little boards will stay put!

We've also recently added our June/July Math Journal Questions to our Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

There are 30 questions which review of the following skills:

*Adding/subtracting single digits

*Adding/subtracting a single digit to/from a double digit number

*Comparing sums and differences

*Place value (grouping 1’s into 10’s)

*Time (counting up one hour/half hour)

*Shape fractions with halves and fourths

Interested? Stop on by {HERE} and take a peek!

Have a wonderful week! We'll be back in a few days!

It's the end of the school year!

Tomorrow is our last day with our kiddos. We've had a great year and we're both looking forward to family time this summer and lots of other projects.
Here are a few little freebies from this week that we thought you might enjoy!
This little freebie is a word/picture sort activity focusing on
r-controlled vowels that make the er sound. These cards worked perfectly with the Two and Four Column Double-Sided Pocket Chart

that Homeroom Teacher kindly gave to us to review.

Here is the four pocket side that worked perfectly for this word sort.

The two pocket side worked well for a compound word sort that we also did.
We put the compound word on the blue side, and the two words that make the compound word on the green side.

We received this product for free in exchange for an honest review.

The opinions expressed in the above paragraph have not been influenced by the company or the free product mentioned above.

If you'd like a copy of this word/picture sort, just click below this picture. We've also included a recording sheet. The word/picture cards could easily be cut on the dotted line to provide more of a challenge for students if needed. You could have students match the words to the pictures before sorting them into the correct column.

{r-controlled word/picture sort}

Here's another little freebie that we'd like to share with you all too.

We like to reward our students that consistently bring back their math homework. Here's a little insect (since we recently learned about them) inspired math award. If you're not wanting a math themed award, no worries we've also created a hardworking award that can relate to any subject area! Just click below the picture for your copy!

{Math Homework/Hard Worker Award}

We hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll be back in a few days after we get some much needed rest and relaxation!

Treat yourself!!!

6 kid days left... We think we can, we think we can...

After a fantastic long weekend, we are back and trying to finish up the year. Our little kiddos are assessing our hearts out, and are really trying to keep their heads in the game. We had a fantastic field trip to the zoo last week, and we have a little freebie to share. But first. Don't you think it's time we all give ourselves a little pat on the back? We've (almost) made it through another year. So we have a way for you to do just that. Have you heard of Silpada Jewelry? It's definitely a favorite of ours, and we wanted to make sure to share it with all of you!

Erin is hosting a catalog party right now, and we knew you'd want in on the action! So click on over {HERE} and shop away. The fantastic thing about this jewelry is that it's all sterling silver, and life time guaranteed, and it's all FABULOUS! And don't forget to put it Erin's name (Erin Scott) when you place an order. Then, send us an email and we will send you our amazing new First Grade Common Core Math Assessment for free! It's quickly turning into one of our best sellers, and we'd love to help you get it for free! Make sure to take a minute and treat yourself, but hurry up, the party is closing at the end of the week.

We also mentioned that we went to the zoo last week, and we have a quick activity to share with you if you're still looking for some last minute classroom ideas. We started with the book One Night in the Zoo.

We read this sweet story, and then the kids did a piece of writing on their own. We had them imagine what they thought happens at the zoo at night. They had the cutest ideas, but dang it! We forgot to pull out the camera! So go ahead and do this in your class, and see what great ideas your students have.

Click {HERE} for your copy.

Need more zoo activities? Make sure to check out our Zoo Map Pack and our It's a Zoo Day Game pack.

We have a few more freebies to share during this crazy busy week, so check back later. Happy Tuesday!

And the countdown begins

Well we have about 12 more days left with our students and A LOT of things to get done!

Along with assessments and all of the other end of the year items on our lists, we've got a field trip coming up, school wide jog-a thon, and field day. Although there is a lot on our minds we're still trying to keep some normalcy and consistency in our classrooms as much as possible!

We've been incorporating pieces of Treasures (our new reading program) into our Daily 5 and we're excited to fully implement Treasures with our first graders in the fall. We've been creating new word work activities that relate to the weekly sound focus. Last week we focused on the long i sound (igh, i, y, i-e) and this week our sound focus has been on the long e sound (y). Below our a few word work items we created for our kiddos. Just click below the picture and you can get your copies!

Click {HERE}

Our latest focus in math has been shapes. Along with a new reading program, our first grade team has been piloting a new math program, My Math, and WE LOVE IT!

Here's a fun shape activity that we created to use while teaching our kiddos about two dimensional shapes. Just click below the picture for your copy!

Click {HERE}

And speaking of math, we've just uploaded a First Grade Math Assessment based on the new Common Core State State Standards. We've have been working on this assessment for quite some time and it's FINALLY done!

Skills included, but are not limited to:

*Addition and Subtraction within 20

*Fact Families

*Addition/Subtraction Strategies

*Understanding the equal sign

*Number sense to 120

*Place Value

*Greater Than and Less Than

*Addition and Subtraction of 2 digit numbers

*Measurement

*Telling Time to Hour and Half-Hour

*Graphing

*2 and 3 Dimensional Shapes

*Halves and Fourths

Not interested in standards based on the common core standards. Our First Grade Math Assessment is another great assessment tool and can also be found in our TpT store!

Click {here} to check it out!

Still need an idea for Mother's Day?

Hope you are all having a fantastic start to the week! We're having FANTASTIC weather here so we can't complain. Great weather really helps make a great start to the work week!

We thought we'd share a few Mother's Day ideas that we are doing in our classrooms.

Fingerprint Bookmark

Here's a cute fingerprint bookmark that could be a gift itself or added to a gift.

The idea is all over Pinterest, but the link no longer works to the site. If you search Mother's Day bookmark on Pinterest you should be able to see a picture of how these turn out. We promise to get a picture up tomorrow of a few that our kiddos created.

We laminated them and they turned out ADORABLE!

We loved the idea so much and recreated the bookmark.

You can get a 2016 updated copy {HERE}

You might not be able to see the outline of the stem and leaves, until you print. It is very light in color.

One of our parent favorites is our pen holders that we do every year. Every kid brings in a jar from home. We then use small tissue paper pieces and attach them with glue. We then have the kids paint over the tissue paper with glue again, before we spray them with a clear gloss. We then attach these sweet little flower tags with ribbons. They aren't quite finished yet, but will try to share pics when they are. They are turning out so sweet!

The last activity we do when we can get kids to bring in their recipes is a class cookbook. We've also done this as a fathers day present at the end of the year, which is quite possibly what it's looking like will happen this year. Friday is coming awfully quick...

We uploaded a template using a simple font, and only Office graphics so that you can change it to fit your needs. You can find it {HERE}.

Here is a template for the poem if you'd like to use it. Grab it {HERE}.

Hopefully you have all found some things you can use at our TpT Store as well! If you haven't grabbed all of your goodies yet, better get on it! The sale ends at midnight...

Have a great rest of the week!

Everybody loves a sale!!!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

In honor of all of you fantastic teachers we are having a 20% off sale at our entire Teachers Pay Teachers Store May 6-8, plus Teachers Pay Teachers is also offering and additional 10% off!!!!. Here are the details:

1. Visit our store and receive 20% off everything including our newest addition, our Zoo Map Pack.

2. Enter TAD12 at checkout for an additional 10% off.