Thunder and Lightning Oh My!

We just finished our water cycle/weather theme unit that we've incorporated into our classrooms and we wanted to share a few thunder and lightning activities that we did last week with our first graders.

Click {HERE} for a great resource that has "kid friendly" info about thunder and lightning.

Here's a great non fiction book. There is quite a bit of information, so we read bits and pieces to our first graders.

Since we've been talking a lot about author's purpose, we discussed with our kids that the author wrote the above book to inform.

We also read the book below and talked about how the author wrote this book to entertain.

After reading and discussing thunder and lightning we showed our students pictures of lightning Click the picture below if you would like a PDF of lightning pics!

Just in case some of our students hadn't heard thunder, and to remind them of the sound it makes, we downloaded thunder sounds and saved them to our laptops to listen to after we displayed the lightning pictures.

Finally after watching and listening to thunder and lightning, we made lists on our whiteboards of adjectives that describe thunder and lightning. Then our first graders filled out the worksheet below by writing an adjective in each box that describes thunder and/or lightning. Just click the worksheet below if you'd like a copy!

We ended the week discussing the different types of weather that we've learned about and our first graders completed the writing below. They wrote what type of weather they liked and why it was their favorite. Example, "I like sunny weather because I can play outside with my friends." Just click the worksheet below if you'd like a copy!

We've also added our newest addition to our TpT store. It's a new weather themed math and literacy game pack that includes a nonfiction printable weather book too!

Included in this game pack are:

*48 addition equation cards (double digits 10-20 plus a single digit number)

*48 subtraction equation cards (minuends 10-20 minus a single digit number)

*24 telling time (hour and half hour) cards

*24 counting coins (pennies, nickels, & dimes) cards

*36 spring phrase cards

*198 sight word cards.

*Weather themed special cards are included as well!

If you'd like to check out our Weather Themed Math and Literacy Game Pack, just click the picture below!

Have a great week!

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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What We Do With Our Game Cards

Hi blogger friends! So we we have been creating games for our students and have them listed in our TpT store. The cards that come with our games can be used interchangeably with the exception of the "special" cards that relate to the game's specific theme. Some of our games include a space on the game board for cards, and for the other games we like to use plastic cups, pails, and plastic bowls as containers for our students to draw their cards out of. They can grab a card and either place it back in the container, or not (completely up to you). Our first graders like to put them back in the containers, especially the cards that allow them to move ahead 2 spaces, hoping that they'll grab that card again! Well, we've been doing some shopping lately looking for some containers for these cards, and have found some great deals.

The red and white tumblers and green and blue bowls came as 4 packs for $1 from Target's dollar spot. So that's 12 containers for $4! The pink and green pails were just too cute to pass up and they were at IKEA in the pottery/plant department and they came in sets of 3 for $2.99, not too bad either. And here is an example of what our newest game cards look like in one of the bowls:

The cards in this bowl haven't been laminated yet (wish I had one at home) but they will be as soon as I head back to school. We like to laminate the entire sheet, and then cut with our large paper cutter. This makes it a lot easier than cutting first and then laminating. We will soon be posting about our newest unit that contains game cards that have beginning of the year sound, letter, number, and basic addition skills we want our first graders to master. If you are looking for game cards that contain more addition, subtraction, and sight words we've also added a set to our TpT store as well. These cards have similar equations and sight words that come with our Race Car Math Games, but are in a large and small format. These cards can be used with any of our games as well! You can find the cards HERE if you are interested!

Here are the games we have created so far:

Race Car Math Games

It's A Zoo Day Games

Summer Fun Activity Pack

Weather Walk Game

Going Buggy Game

And below is a picture of a little freebie that we'd like to share with you all, because we are so thankful for our followers. JUST CLICK HERE for the hall passes that we've created for our students to place on their desks when they are either in the bathroom or at the office. Simply cut on the fine dotted line, fold on the fine straight lines, and these should look similar to a tent that could easily stand. Laminate before cutting and folding for extra durability.