First ever weather unit give-away!

Happy Monday all!
I hope that you have had a chance to enjoy some of this gorgeous weather that we have been having (at least here in the sunshine state of Florida)! I have FINALLY finished my newest unit called Reading the Weather and I'm totally new at this free give-away business, so here goes! If you are anything like me FREE ='s AMAZING..... The first 3 people to comment below will receive this entire unit for FREE! Don't you love the sound of that?

Enjoy the remaining part of your week and comment away!

Graphing Galore

Lately we have been doing lots of fun things with graphing! I LOVED this week because the students get so focused in on what we are doing! To introduce this lesson, I taught students what a graph was and the various types of graphs. Then we went around the room and graphed our favorite type of weather!

Of course with it being Dr. Suess' birthday, we graphed our favorite Dr. Seuss book!

 

We have also been learning about non-fiction books in reading (I'll be sharing ll of those ideas soon).. I love that this graphing lesson was totally common core!!

 

After the students had a week to practice graphs all together, I then gave them a chance to create a graph of their own. They had to figure out a subject and then walk around the classroom to conduct a survey. After that they had to use their data and turn it into a graph to share with the class. They LOVED this activity and still spend a good part of the day trying to figure out a way to make up a new survey!

Aren't they having a BLAST!

We have also been working on contractions. We began our learning by making the contractions alligator. (Not sure who to give credit to for this, but thank you! It was adorable)

The next day we turned into surgeons for one of my favorite activities of all times. CONTRACTION DOCTOR! I gave each student a card with two words on it and it was there job to take their scapula's (scissors) and cut out the bad parts of the words out and then bandage them back together with a band-aid (which is their apostrophe!) Thank you First Grade Parade for this fun idea!

 

We have also been learning the -or and -ore sounds, which if you haven't noticed, there are hardly any resources on this skill. So, I created my own! Click on the image below for your copy!

 

 

Hope that you are enjoying your week! Only 3 days till spring break for us! Whoop whoop!

I smell cookies.....mmmmmmmm

One of my most favorite things about Christmas is not only the tree and all of the gorgeous lights, but it is also the wonderful aroma of Christmas cookies.. This weekend I spend some sweet R&R while spending time in the kitchen mixing up some of my great grandmas famous cookie recipes (if you lucky I might even let you in on some southern family recipes!) Man so I love to hear my kitchen timer going off when a fresh batch of cookies are ready... and then to get the first bite.... OH MY WORD.... I am addicted......

Ok before I eat another one of those cookies I need to move on! hahaha.... This week our theme is gingerbread! We will spend days reading the various gingerbread man books, like gingerbread baby, gingerbread girl, gingerbread man, etc... After we have read and story mapped each one, we will spend a day comparing all of the stories and coming up with reasons as to which one we liked best. For writing this week, we are learning how to steal, I mean borrow stories that have been written by other people and make them our own. This week since it is ginger bread themed, I will have my student write their own version of the gingerbread man but all it "The Gingerbread ____insert their name______"  The students will write their stories in a gingerbread cut out book and then decorate the outside of their book like a gingerbread cookie! I promise I will post pictures of this project when we complete it on Wednesday!

We are also starting measurement this week so don't forget to check out my new unit on called Merry Measure Me!!! Its a freebie so go get it!

Here is the latest unit that I will be using this week. It is fun of ginger bread themed morning work pages, reading worksheets and Long O word sorts activities!

Also wanted to give a shout out to some AMAZING blogger who inspired some of my gingerbread creativity.....  You have got to check out their gingerbread units!!!

First Grade Parade
Fun in First Grade
Erica Bohrer's First grade
Babbling Abby

Again these ladies are FABULOUS!! Thank you ladies for inspiring us all with your creativity!

Click on the image below for your very own copy of this week's FREEBIE

 

Let me know if you are doing anything gingerbread themed in these last two weeks before the winter break!

New Measurement Unit

Please tell me that I am not the only one having to go to school for two days before we can begin celebrating the Thanksgiving season. I have to say that I am a little bitter and upset that some of my friends around the blogging world are already enjoying their long vacation week.

I promise to update you on all of the fun things that we have been doing in our class for the Thanksgiving season but if you are like me you are already thinking about Christmas themes and lessons. This weekend I got a little inspired to create a measurement unit to begin once we return from this much needed break. My little ones have been working so hard it will do them a lot of good to take some time away and "Sharpen their Saws"! This unit is called Measure me Merry because I want my little ones to fall in love with measuring!! Click on the image below to grab your own measurement unit that follows the common core standards! Enjoy..

New Halloween Unit

Hello friends,
Hope that you are all enjoying your wonderful weekend.. Of course I'm sitting on my back porch enjoying this AWESOME fall weather (finally, we don't get to many days like this in the Sunshine State!) creating some things of this upcoming candy holiday called Halloween. If your like me you love it but will be ready for it to be over by the end of the day on Wednesday because all of those cute little costumes will be running all of the place begging for candy from anyone that they see.. So to help organize my day into something fun, yet very productive I created this little Halloween Unit which includes some addition and subtraction practice games, noun and verbs sorts with recording sheets and a "How to Stay safe on Halloween" writing activity. For your copy visit my TPT store by clicking on the link below. Please let me know if you have any amazing ideas or trick for the trade that you normally do on Halloween Day... If nothing else, enjoy your week!

Halloween Day Unit

- Kelly Thigpen