Winners & a Few Freebies

Thanks so much for all of the helpful comments about using a Smart Board in the classroom. We saved all of your comments and we feel so fortunate to have such great advice.

Thank You, thank you, thank you!

Zputty, Kate, & Whining & Dining you are the winners of our giveaway! Congratulations! Please email us and let us know which item you would like from our Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

We are on spring break and REALLY enjoying spending time with our families. It's great to know that we can relax today and not have to worry about the week ahead! We've got a few new products in the works that we'll be working on during our break and we hope to have them up in a few days, but until then we have a few freebies that we'd love to share with you all. Weather is our current topic in science and will continue through the second week in April.

Here are some weather vocabulary cards that we display in our science area in our classrooms.

Our students consistently refer to these cards and always enjoy when we add new cards to the wall.

If you'd like this set, just click the picture above. We made a few different versions. Cloud/cloudy, rain/rainy, etc...We also created a set in illustrations too!

It's time again to give out math homework awards to our kiddos who consistently bring back their math homework. With our new math program our students have math homework every day. Here's the award we're giving away when we return from spring break.

Just click the picture above if you'd like a copy. If you'd like to see the last award we gave to our first graders, you can find it in {THIS} post.

We hope you all have a fabulous week & we'll be back in a few days!

Clipart courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles and Dennis Graphic Design

We're All About Matter Around Here

Hope you all are having a great weekend. We have been so busy in our classrooms! Our students have been making Christmas gifts for their families, we're so thankful for our volunteers who help us with this one, definitely couldn't do this activity without their help! Our Christmas classroom celebrations are all planned and we're looking for a fun filled Friday with a school wide sing-a-long! LOVE this time of year!

Anyhow, matter has been our science focus this month and we wanted to share some ideas and freebies with you all!

After reading a book about matter to our first graders, we completed a vocabulary building activity. When we introduce new vocabulary to our kiddos we usually complete a worksheet like the one below. Our first graders put these worksheets in their writing binders and refer to them when needed. If you'd like a copy of the worksheets below, just {CLICK HERE}.

After a lengthy discussion about solids, liquids, and gasses, we did a little experiment about solids and liquids with our first graders. It was SUPER easy and they were just thrilled! We showed our kids how liquid takes the shape of it's container by pouring water from a pitcher {cylinder shaped} to a rectangular shaped container.

Next we explained that a solid is different from a liquid because it does not take the shape of the container in which it is placed. We used several classroom objects, like the tape dispenser shown, and again they were lovin' this experiment!

Finally we told them that we can take a solid, turn it into a liquid, and then back to a solid of a different shape. They were seriously amazed! We took a container filled with ice cubes, let it melt throughout the day, and it turned into a liquid. The next day we poured the liquid into a new mold {heart shaped} and turned the liquid back into a solid by freezing it. The kiddos will see our result next week, and we're sure there will be excitement!

We also like to display our science vocabulary cards near our science table. You can get a copy of our matter vocabulary cards {HERE}. See below for a picture.

We hope you all have a great week! If you teach matter we'd love to hear activities that you do with your kiddos. Just comment below!

Habitats & What to Eat Wednesday

Hi all! Hope you're all having a fantastic week! This week we have been busy focusing on habitats and we thought we'd share some freebies with our blogger friends!

The first vocabulary activity relates to our Step Up to Writing program. These vocabulary worksheets have a word, brief definition, and a picture. We read the definitions with our students, write the word, glue on the matching picture, and then these sheets go into their writing binders (we'll show you these soon). Our kiddos can refer to these vocabulary words throughout the school year when writing. As soon as february approaches, our students do most of the definition writing with us, but for now we print it for them.

Click HERE for two vocabulary sheets along with picture cards and answer sheets!

Tundra, River, Ocean, Rainforest, Forest, and Desert have been our main focus this week. We've shown several photos and read books about these six habitats. Here is a habitat writing activity that we also did this week with our first graders.

Click HERE to get your copy!

Finally we are finishing off the week with a small group activity. We each have 6 table groups in our classrooms. Each table group will get a large white poster with a specific habitat written on the poster. Each student will get a picture of an animal that can be found in their specific habitat. The table groups are going to create posters of their habitats and glue their animal pictures onto their posters.

Click HERE to get 6 different sets of animal cards!

And finally we have a yummy new recipe that you all might like to try. Even my picky little eater devoured hers!

Lasagna Cupcakes (from: The Girl Who Ate Everything)

These were fantastic and really quick to make

A few tips:

1. I used gyoza wrappers instead of wonton wrappers. Gyoza wrappers are similar to wonton wrappers but they are round. They worked perfectly!

2. Throwing in some minced garlic while the ground beef was cooking really added a lot of flavor to the meat.

3. I used a little over 1 lb. of ground beef and also used a jar marinara sauce. I was able to make 12 Lasagna Cupcakes and even had leftover ingredients to make a few more for leftovers the next day!

Hope you all have a fabulous rest of your week!

Only 2 more days until Friday!

Pin It

Clip art courtesy of Scrappin Doodles

Step Up To Writing Vocabulary

Our district recently purchased Step Up to Writing. Here is a weather vocabulary activity developed from our Step Up lessons. These words/pictures will be used to introduce our first graders to weather vocabulary. This download contains two sets of pictures to use on two different days. Click HERE to download!