Did someone say SALE?!?!?

Who doesn't love a sale?!?! It's almost time! The Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale is only a few days away! So before the tryptophan from the turkey settles in, fill your cart with all the goodies you've been eyeing... 

 We are offering 20% off all of our products and TpT will give you another 10% if you use the checkout code CYBER. This makes for a total of 28%. ( 20 +10 = 28?? a teacher apparently didn't do the math for TPT)

Need an idea of something to add to your wishlist? If you still haven't purchased our Walking In A Winter Wonderland Math unit or our Non-Fiction Text Feature Unit, we suggest doing so! If you want more detail about the Non-Fiction Text feature unit, click HERE to go to that post.

CLICK HERE TO PICK UP YOUR UNIT.... Non-Fiction Text Feature Unit

CLICK HERE TO PICK UP YOUR UNIT....Walking In A Winter Wonderland Math


 Now, some things that are on our Wish List... This is just a sample of the things we have in our cart.

We hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Day! 









What? No Turkey?


WARNING!!! TURKEYS ARE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!  
Looks like turkey is off the menu for this years Thanksgiving feast!!!  Yup, you heard right, thanks to the hard work of my little first grade kidets, there will be no turkey for supper this year.  Why you ask?  Well… that’s because my super students have help to disguise all the turkeys and save them from being this years turkey dinner!



Last week, my students and their families worked on a turkey disguise project.  As a class we read Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano.  In class, my students worked on a turkey disguise writing project, while at home they worked to disguise their turkey.  The end results were hilarious.





Check out our TPT site for this Thanksgiving writing project and more fall writing activities.

~Sacagawea~


For most of you educators out there, the week leading up to Thanksgiving is a whirlwind. I have conferences, report cards, portfolios, and of course, our Thanksgiving Play!  However, I find the strength to crank up the energy and end this Thanksgiving season with a bang!  We started this week by learning about yet another important historical Native American, Sacagawea.  

Now, I’m sure you will hear me mention this over and over again, but we have a partnership with the J.F.K. Performing Arts Center and work hard to integrate art into our curriculum.  So … I like to always begin a Social Studies/LAL lesson with a portrait study.  My kidets have been trained in the art of studying portraits using 9 elements (facial expression, focal point, gestures, clothing, setting, objects, size, quantity and last but not least, color).  At this moment, you might be thinking….WHAT??? First graders studying portrait elements?  I kid you not my friends, my students are experts!  I begin S.S. lessons by having the students sit in a circle and in the middle of the circle I place a number of different portraits (all of the same historical figure) in front of them.  We play a pass the portrait game, where students work in pairs to study a portrait of Sacagawea and discuss the 9 elements together.  When they hear me say… “Pass The Portrait” they switch and begin the same process with a different portrait of Sacagawea.  When this game is over we come together and make a list of what we can infer about Sacagawea just by studying her portraits.  YOU WILL BE AMAZED at how much information a 6 year old can produce just through this activity alone.  For example, one of my little kidets stated, “Well, I see that her gesture in this picture is that she is pointing over the mountains and the two men with her, well their focal point is in the same direction so maybe she is showing them something really important.”  KAPOW!  Yup, that was my mind blowing! 

Click here for this freebie!


From here I read a few different stories with the students and we work on some LAL skills.  The background knowledge they bring to the following activities is heightened from these art integration lessons.  My CCSS for the activity was for the students to compare and contrast two different non-fiction texts.  Each student was able to choose their own type of graphic organizer, and my lower level students completed hands on comparing with hula-hoops.







Hope you can use this freebie in your classroom.  Happy Thanksgiving!

***Congratulations to Nancy from First Grade WOW and Kelly from First Grade Fairytales! You were the winners of our very first giveaway! We hope you enjoy the materials.  We will e-mail you the Walking in a Winter Wonderland Math Unit.***




If you would like to pick up copy of our 
Walking in a Winter Wonderland Math Unit click HERE



A little more turkey please... and a GIVEAWAY

Freebie Fridays

Is it just me, or does anyone else think this year is absolutely flying by...We have conferences all next week so it will be half days for us, and then off for Thanksgiving... when we return it will be DECEMBER.....which means.... CHRISTMAS!!!  
ok, I need to calm down..... anyways...

Next week we will be up to our ears in turkey ...
Unfortunately for us, not real turkey.. womp..womp... this is the first year we are not allowed to have a feast in school... I know, it's insanity I tell ya, Thanksgiving without a feast, is that for real??? ... but we will have to make the best of it. 
We will be making these cute little guys to work on our ABC order skills. 

Click HERE for the ABC order tracers and words freebie....
 We will also be completing some of the activities from our November Noun Activities Freebie...

Click HERE to get them


  GIVEAWAY TIME...
 I am freakishly obsessed with Christmas, by the time December is over, you will probably be sick of hearing me talk about it, but I just can't help myself.  We have so many fun things planned for this winter...
we are going to kick off our favorite season, by having a GIVEAWAY. After endless hours of creating our first math unit, we are finally finished and so excited to share it will all of you.   
 The unit is common core aligned and is jammed packed with hands on activities for your Firsties. Below is a sneak peak at the unit. For your chance to win this unit, all you have to do is follow our blog and write a comment saying what you are thankful for, and your email address...
we will pick two lucky winners at random on Sunday






  If you would like to purchase our unit you can click HERE to pick up your copy.

And for sticking with the post here is a little winter themed list making  freebie... I plan to use it during Daily 5 in my writing center. 


Click HERE to get your freebie...
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Turkey Time

Just like on Thanksgiving... time for some more turkey!  I believe, I originally saw this idea over at The First Grade Parade a few years ago, and I have done it every year since.  My Firsties absolutely love it. After reading numerous books about the Mayflower each student wrote 10 items they would bring.  They put all the essentials in their suitcase, like Ipods and candy.  The free suitcase printables are at the end of this post.



Click HERE for the suitcase freebie.

We also completed our "How To Cook a Turkey" writing from our Fall Themed Writing Pack, which might I add, is always quite humorous. I love when they write that they have to cook it for 2 minutes at 10 degrees.  

To go along with our writing I took a picture of each student with a chef hat and cooking tray and super imposed turkey clip art.  I will put each picture next to their writing on our bulletin board.  They came out too cute!


Below is a little Pilgrim Fact and Myth activity that we completed today.  My firsties always L.O.V.E the fact that there was no bathroom on the Mayflower and that they had to use buckets... it's a huge crowd pleaser for first graders. =)




If you like our Freebies please follow our blog and TPT store... Thanks =)

Click HERE for the Pilgrim Fact and Myth Freebie

SGOs, done.... Report Cards, done....now it's time to relax!

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Gobble, Gobble!!


Some of my colleagues might say I have over done the turkey theme for the month and it's not even Thanksgiving yet…but…I don’t care!   It could be due to the many varieties of Thanksgiving hats that my students have created over the past week, or the fact that my kids sit at the lunch table practicing their lines for our Thanksgiving play we are putting on… but what I really think drives my colleagues a little crazy are the endless songs my students sing up and down the hallways… including our turkey rap song… “Gobble Gobble, Gobble Gobble Gobble What!”  I have my kiddies doing so many different Thanksgiving related activities I think they all might all turn into turkeys! 
My students are putting on a Thanksgiving play for our school the day before Thanksgiving, so I think making the connection across the curriculum is super engaging for them.  Today we were learning about sums of ten and practicing turn around facts, so naturally I added in some turkey time to these activities!

I started by giving each student a sentence strip with a number sentence on it.  They had to color in the correct number of feathers to represent their number sentence, and then use them to create their turkey feather hat. 




After the hats were created I separated my students around the room and gave them 1 minute to find their “turn around fact” partner.    Once all partners were paired together, I rolled out the life-sized number line and as a class we practice hopping on the number line to demonstrate their number sentences.  It was inevitable that as the students hopped up and down the number line, they were all gobbling like turkeys. 


I also created a turkey “sums of ten” math center activity to reinforce this lesson.  I mean, obvious I wasn’t going to stop at just creating the turkey hats… I told you people, I’m addicted to turkey!

              If you like our Freebies please follow our blog and TPT store... Thanks =)
Click Here for the "Sums of Ten Turkey Style" Freebie!

Non-Fiction Text Features and a Freebie


Ohhhh November...I truly do love November, the weather is beautiful and we have TWO mini breaks from school, but at the same time, it is by far the most hectic month. With report cards, SGO's (if you live anywhere besides NJ they are called SLO's, but still as equally exhausting), and parent teacher conferences, it couldn't possible be more overwhelming.  To tell you the truth, I'd rather skip over November and say hello to December...lets be real, who doesn't love December?


Last week, NJ schools had a 3 day week, woohoo!  Instead of starting a new unit in our reading series, we focused on Non-Fiction Text features. I know, you're probably thinking "sounds like a snooze fest," but you are completely wrong.  My firsties absolutely L.O.V.E.D. every part of this unit.  

I kicked the week off by taking out a boat load of non-fiction texts and allowed my students to browse through them.  Using the posters in our unit, we dissected the various text features.  The following day, students were given a super cool magnifying glass, along with a decodable reader and went on a text feature scavenger hunt.
The following day, my firsties broke up into groups and defined each text feature, along with creating a rough draft for their final project.  They really got into it, I've actually never seen them work so well together.
All contributing and engaged....a-maz-ing

The most exciting part to them was the assessment.  Yes, you heard me right, they actually enjoyed the ASSESSMENT.  They were ecstatic about applying everything they learned.

Students worked in groups to create a poster which included all the non-fiction text features.  I couldn't be prouder of them, their posters came out amazing! Below are a few more pictures, a freebie and the TPT link to our Non-Fiction Text Features Unit.




Some of our final products.

Side note:  if you give First Graders free range of stickers, glitter and font choices the end product is inevitably going to be a tad tacky, but I love it even more because of it. =)





If you like our products and freebies please follow our blog and TPT store... Thanks =)
Click Here for your freebie 
and
 HERE for your copy of our Non- Text Features Unit.
















Mystery Reader Fun

Can you believe it is already November?? Even my students are amazed at how fast the school year is flying by.  Before we know it, it will be CHRISTMAS!!  Well, before we get ahead of ourselves.  I just wanted to stop in and tell you about a fun activity that I do in my classroom.  I am sure many of you have heard of Mystery Readers, but if you haven't you are in for a real treat. 
My Firsties L.O.V.E. this activity, and it is a great way to get parent involvement.   At Back To School Night I inform all my parents about Mystery Readers.  Parents, relatives or friends are asked to come in and read to the class on Fridays, but the best part is, is that the Mystery Reader is a complete surprise to the class.  Each day, I reveal a clue about our Mystery Reader and on Fridays we try to guess who it is.  Their little faces are priceless when they realize it is their parent, relative or friend reading to the class.  They look forward to our daily clues, and can hardly wait for the big reveal on  Fridays. 
Some parents truly get into it, which the students love.  They will dress up as a character, or others bring in a treat for each student.  I had one mother read a Dinosaur story, and decided to make mini dinosaur cakes for each student, had a dinosaur game prepared, along with goody bags filled with dinosaur treats, it was incredible. 
We just uploaded our unit on TPT . It includes everything you need to get Mystery Readers started in your classroom... Parent letters, clue sheets, thank you cards, bulletin board materials and more!
letter informing parents about Mystery Reader
date selection notice
You can click HERE to go to our TPT store to pick up the unit.
It is currently on sale!


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