First Grade Fanatics

Back to School Sale and OUR NEW STUDY GUIDE!!

With just a little more than a week left of summer, we just can't believe it's already getting to be that time! You know what we mean... The return of getting up early, getting kiddos dressed and out the door, district meetings, setting up classrooms, YIKES! While we are excited about the start of the new school year, we aren't quite ready yet. We are continuing to soak up every second left of summer before we return to reality. So, what better way to celebrate than to throw a sale!

Everything in our store will be 20% off, PLUS an additional 10% when you use the code BTS13. Happy Shopping! Make sure to check out below for some great back to school items from our store.

But first... We get several emails daily asking us about an old product we had called our first grade study guide. We decided that it wasn't very user friendly for the first graders, and wanted to throw it out. We had it on our list to really come up with something that was our own, and was easier for the first graders to use. And.... it's DONE! Introducing "My First Grade Buddy!"

Here's a little preview of what's included in My First Grade Buddy.

There are so many ways this study guide can be used in first grade. You could put it in sheet protectors inside of writing notebooks, laminate at centers, put in homework folders or book boxes, and so much more! We are lucky enough to have a copy machine that will copy pages into a booklet that prints out onto legal size paper, and then is simply folded in half. It creates the PERFECT size booklet for My First Grade Buddy. We will be printing on cardstock to help with the durability of My Buddy so the kids can use all year. If you like it, we'd love to hear how you use it! And get it soon while it's on sale!

When you're shopping, make sure to check out our great back to school products in our TpT Store!

Sub Kit

First Grade Math Journal Prompts For The Year

Pocket Chart Calendar Set

Check out our new paper practice activities that are aligned with Treasures weekly words. Don't use Treasures? These are still great first grade words to practice.

Have you seen our new Paper Practice Activities that go with each Unit in Treasures? We are working now on Unit 3, so make sure to take a look!

Unit 2 Paper Practice

Unit 1 Paper Practice

Happy Shopping! And enjoy the last few days of your summer! If you've already gone back, we hope it's going well!

Got an iPad?

Hope you're all having a FANTASTIC August! School is just around the corner for us, and we're definitely getting back into the planning mode, our kiddos arrive the first week of September and we can't wait to meet our new first graders!

We just love using iPads in our classrooms and thought we'd share some of our favorite teacher apps that we love!

Before we share about those we wanted to show you all an awesome iPad case that each of us received.

The Snugg!!!

We just love a stylish iPad case and this one definitely meets that expectation! With children of our own we also needed a case that can easily be cleaned and is durable too, and this case meets those requirements. Finger smudges wipe away nicely and the case is very flexible.

We LOVE how the case is designed and how easily our iPads fit securely inside.

The Velcro tab lifts nicely, and tucks easily under to securely hold an iPad. There is also a stylus loop which ca easily be tucked under if not needed.

Along with being stylish, this case has several features that we love!

The case is flexible yet sturdy, and because the cover tucks nicely and securely, we are able to display our iPads vertically or horizontally without the case sliding.

Along with the nice-looking stitching, we love how all of our buttons and power slots are easily accessible! No need to take our iPads out to take a picture!

The Snugg has MANY iPad case colors to choose from, and a lot of other accessories as well!

You can check them out {HERE}!

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.

We mentioned above that we LOVE using iPads in our classrooms. There are so many educational apps out there and we'll share our favorites with you next week! Today though, we wanted to share with you some cool teacher friendly apps that we've just recently discovered and our using on our own iPads!

Grade It!

& Groovy Grader

Love that you can enter in how many questions possible and then these apps provide you with the percentage based on how many problems missed.

With Grade It! you can email the table to yourself as well.

These are both free and who doesn't love a free app?!

Visual GradeBook

This app does cost, but is SO helpful when organizing student test scores. It took a little practice to figure out, but once we got the hang of it, we could see how beneficial this app is going to be in the upcoming school year! We like that you can create charts to compare a group of students or an individual student.

TeacherKit

Another free app!!! With this app you can track behavior and attendance. We also like that you can

create a visual seating chart. This app allows you to keep track of grades as well.

CORE (Common Core Standards)

This is an easy to use free app that provides access to the Common Core Standards. This is a great paper free version that we can easily access anywhere!

Here are two apps that we've recently found and are going to teach with this upcoming school year. They could easily be displayed on a SMART Board or Whiteboard. We have been able to display images from our iPads to our SMART Boards, but have yet to find the appropriate adapters to be able to actually use apps on the SMART Board from our connected iPads. This is our second year with SMART Boards and we are determined to find the right adapters this year! If any of you have tips or ideas we'd love to hear them!

Sight Words List- Learn to Read Flash Cards & Games

Another free app!!! What we like about this app is that you can create your own sight word list. This app also contains several built in sight word lists, but we liked how we could create a list based on our sight words that we teach with our current reading program. Instead of using flash cards that can be often hard to see, this will be much easier for our kiddos to see on our SMART Boards and more fun since you can also record your voice for each word!

Teaching Number Lines

We use a number of tools and manipulatives while teaching math and number lines are one of them. This app has a free and paid version. We love that is provides a fun visual on how to use a number line and this will be perfect when while teaching addition and subtraction!

We hope this post provided you with some great ideas for your iPads or other type of tablet. If you've found other teacher apps that you love please share in our comments below. Any tips on how to play apps from an iPad on a SMART Board are welcomed as well :)

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!

Who loves Jeopardy? {A first grade CCSS math review}

Wait, what? Someone said that it's August??? That is just not possible! Our summer is going by way too quickly! Luckily for us, kids don't come back until after Labor Day so we still have plenty of time. The end of the year was crazy busy like most of ya'll, so we never got to share a fantastic new game we created to review first grade math. Our kids loved it! And who doesn't love to play Jeopardy?!?!

The great thing about this game is that we included SOOO many questions! Honestly, it would be hard to get to them all, but the kids loved having the variety. We also found that it was best to review a few topics at a time. You could print this a variety of ways as well. If you printed them smaller, 2 or 4 to a page it wouldn't take up nearly the amount of room if space is an issue. We just taped up the questions, and then taped up the numbered cards on top. We played in table groups, and tables got the chance to answer each question to get the most out of the review. As long as the table worked together and got the answer correct, they got a point. We just rotated tables as to decide which category they wanted, and for how much ("I'd like addition for 20 please."). It was so much fun to play! And really, now that we have the game made, we can use this for any subject we'd like. It focuses and is aligned perfectly with the CCSS too! We created this for the end of first grade, but would be great for a review at the beginning of 2nd grade as well. We are in the process of working on a smaller kindergarten version that we could play at the beginning of first grade, so watch out for that later.

Check out a preview of what the game looks like!

If you'd like to check it out, head on over to our STORE and take a look!

If you'd like a chance to get a copy for free, we have a quick little chance for you. Erin is celebrating her 10th anniversary next week, and to celebrate, her husband is whisking her away for a 2nd honeymoon. Be the first to guess where they are going, and you can have your very own copy of our First Grade Common Core Math Jeopardy.

We've had a ton of questions regarding a freebie we used to have called our First Grade Study Guide. We want you to know it's currently being totally revamped, and updated to make it really user friendly for first graders. So if you've been looking for it, check back. It will be done soon!

We've also had a lot of requests for our monthly math journal prompts to be bundled into one pack, and we've just added that to our store! You can find our bundle {HERE}!

We'll be back next week or so with some great new ideas, and some fabulous freebies! We are still on summer mode, so forgive us for our absenteeism. :-) Enjoy your weekend!

Planning For Place Value

Even though we've still got a few more months before we return, lesson planning is still on our minds! One chapter in our math program that we feel our kiddos often need extra support in is place value. If you're looking for some ideas then this is the post for you! We can't wait to share a few new products we've created, an idea that's all over Pinterest with a freebie we created to go with it, and some great interactive websites that we're sure will be a hit with our new first graders in the fall!

Here's one of our newest additions to our

Teachers pay Teachers Store:

Just click the title below if you'd like to check it out!
Place Value Numbers 10-19

This place value set focuses on numbers 10-19. There are 6 different worksheets. Each worksheet has two versions. There are also two games and six blank masters.

Just click below to check out this game!

Place Value Number Match

This place value game focuses on numbers 10-19

and is also great extra practice for your students.

Students place the cards in three piles: numbers, tens frames, and cubes. Then they match the correct three cards together.

After all of the cards have been matched, students recored their matches on the worksheet. See example above.

Here's a a place value activity that we've seen all over Pinterest.

We're excited to try with our new first graders.

My Second Grade Journal has a great tutorial on making these {HERE}

We'll begin by just focusing on tens and ones. First we'll have our kiddos move their cups and position two numbers side by side.

Then we'll have them pull the cups slightly apart to show the numbers and plus symbol. We'll explain that five tens is 50 and then you add eight ones to the 50.

Then we'll have them push the cups back together and explain that that's the sum. 50+8 is 58!

Here's another example just using one hundred. This will definitely be added once our kiddos have a firm grasp on tens and ones.

We wrote hundreds, tens, and ones on the bottoms of the cups for organization. We'll explain to our kiddos to place the hundreds cup down, then tens, and finally ones on top (we'll probably repeat hundreds, tens, and ones several times to help them remember the order :)

Hoping this will help keep the cups in the right spot!

If you're wanting to go past 199, here's a picture showing a cup with 100-900.

We thought it would be nice to have a recording sheet for this little activity, so we created a little freebie that we'd love to share with you all!

Adding in Expanded Form

There are two sheets. The first one with two addends if you're just focusing on tens and ones. The second one is for three addends if you're also focusing on hundred. You can click below either of the pictures above if you'd like a copy!

Finally, we wanted to share some great interactive games. We can't wait to play these with our kiddos using our SMART Boards!

We just LOVE ABCYA.com!

They have a great Base Ten Bingo game that can be found {HERE}

They also have another great place value game, Base Ten Fun, that can be found {HERE}

At another site, Birmingham Grid for Learning, we found a Bead Numbers activity where students can create numbers using beads that represent hundreds, tens, and ones. You can have the computer create questions for you, or you can select free and create your own numbers.
This game can be found {HERE}.

ict games has a fun Shark Pool Place Value game where your students can practice with tens and ones. It can be found {HERE}.

We hope you have found some helpful ideas and wish you all a wonderful rest of your week!

We have a winner!

Congratulations Katy!

Katy said, "I follow your blog."

We'll send you an email Katy with the details!

Thank you to all that entered and all of your wonderful tips for literacy centers. Great ideas!

It's so nice to share ideas with others!

We also wanted to share with you that Google Reader no longer exists, just in case you followed your blogs through it. We love bloglovin' and love that there is an app for our phones and iPads :) There are also a number of other alternatives, but if you're using bloglovin' just click below and you can follow us!

Follow our blog with Bloglovin

Have a great week!

Happy Summer!

WOW, we've had a busy yet fun 2012-2013 school year and

We are just thrilled that we have a few months off for some much needed rest and family time!

We hope you're all enjoying your summer as well, and we've got lots to share with you. Plus, as a kick off to summer, we're giving one lucky follower a $30 shopping spree in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store! But first before we fill you in on this giveaway, we'd like to show you some of our newest products that we've added to our store!

We've added six different paper practice/word work activities that can easily be incorporated into your literacy centers. Each set contains 30+ worksheets! These worksheets work well with Treasures, our newest reading program, but if you teach first grade high frequency words then you will love these practice pages for your students. They give great practice and are perfect for students to work independently in centers. Just click the title above each pic below and you can head over to our store and check them out!

Spin a Sight Word
Students use a plastic spinner (or pencil and paper clip), and write the word they land on.

Rainbow Words
Students simply read, trace, and write the words in rainbow color in order to help them memorize these words

Write a Rainbow
Students practice writing the words in different rainbow colors in
order to help them memorize the words.

Roll a Sight Word
Students roll a dice, and write the corresponding word.

Word Boxes
Students use the letter boxes to write the words.

Read Write Build
Students use the letters to cut and paste while creating their words.

At the end of each set is a list of high frequency words that are incorporated into each word work set.

Another newest addition to out TpT store is our

Common Core Math Vocabulary Cards.

Included are 100 math vocabulary word cards, with both definition and pictures. These cards are great for focus walls, vocab and word walls, and reinforcement of those concepts that our first graders must know. Just click the pic below and you can check this handy little set out!

Now onto our little giveaway!

You've got 5 ways to enter. Please comment separately for each entry you complete.

1. Leave a comment below about any tips/activities you've tried and/or used during literacy centers

2. Follow our blog {If you're on bloglovin' you can follow us HERE we'll give you more info about bloglovin' in our July 1st post}

3. Follow our TpT store

4. Blog about our new products and leave the link in your comment

5. Pin one of our newest products from this post and leave the link to your pin in your comment

Our giveaway ends on Monday, July 1st at 5:00 (PST).

We will choose one winner who will choose $30 total in free products from our store.

Winner will be chosen using RANDOM.org and the winner will be announced shortly after the giveaway ends!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fraction Freebie

We just ended our math unit on fractions and found an activity that's all over Pinterest, Pizza Fractions! Our kiddos had a blast creating their pizzas. Our kids colored their paper plates brown (crust), added some red (sauce) and some orange and yellow (cheese). Next they decided if they wanted their pizzas divided into halves or fourths. Then they chose their toppings. We had a chart posted (see pic below) of the toppings they could choose from. We also had scrap paper available for the students to cut out their toppings from.

Here are a few!

After they created their pizzas, they wrote about their Pizza Fractions and glued their papers on the back of their black construction paper.

If their pizza was divided into fourths, they used the paper that had four fraction/topping lines. If it was divided into halves, they used the paper that had two fraction/topping lines.

If you'd like a copy of the paper our first graders wrote on, just click the picture below!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!