My first giveaway

Ok, I made my first ever worksheet to give away.  It's just a simple little -at word family for kids to practice with.  If you like it, let me know and I'll make more.

at word family

Classroom Freebies Manic Monday

Edible Maps

So this week we were learning about maps.  After a week's worth of activities, we, as a grade level, decided to make edible maps to wrap up the week.  I found a recipe (won't use again) and made the dough.  Unfortunately since it's halfway to payday, I didn't have much money for decorations AND I left the icing at home.  The dough I made was extremely hard to push the decorations into so I had bought a can of icing to cover it with them promptly ran out of the house without it Friday morning.  At least I remembered the other stuff!!!  So here's what we did:  Thursday we made a map of the room.  We decided on chocolate bars for the desks and bookcases, caramels for the computers and my desk, and gummi bears for the kids.  It turned out pretty cute despite me forgetting the icing which I had also planned to use to write on it with!!!!

Map of the room

  No-bake cookie dough

Passing out gummi bears

Adding their bear to where they sit

They were really excited about this.

Finished map

Centers or Work Stations

Depending on where you work, I know you use centers or stations if you are in 1st grade.  It's a good way to keep kids working on skills while you pull a small group together.  I have 6 we rotate through including me.  I took pics of them while they were working.  I also use Math stations and included some pictures of those as well.

playing race to 20

counting on to move

for independent reading, they get to get a pillow and go someplace comfortable to read, this was HIS idea :)

I don't usually let 2 read from the same book but I made an exception with these 2 so they could help each other

this is a very popular corner

they're cutting and pasting whether it's a word, sentence, or letter

these are rhyming puzzles I was very lucky to inherit

Bulletin Board

We have a grade-level bulletin board that we sign up to take care of 2 months at a time.  October/November is my time and I created this little scarecrow patch.  I put the standard and I Can statements on his pumpkin.  The assignment was to draw and label parts of a plant and also to label what a plant needs to grow.  We're not allowed to color (in 1st grade!!!!) so they're in black and white.

Water Cycle

We study the water cycle each year in 1st grade and they usually get it even with the big words.  A coworker had found these bracelets and made them the year before and I wanted to do them as well.  A quick google search returned with this link: http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/RainbowWaterCycleBracelet.htm

First I separated the beads by color.  Then I saw everyone in a HUGE oval (didn't want to move desks).  Next we talked about the water cycle and how it works.  Then I started passing the baggies of beads around  and they were to each take one but NOT put them on the pipe cleaner yet.  After everyone had all the beads, we talked about the water cycle and how the beads would go on the bracelet.  

First it rained (precipitation) on the grass and created a puddle.Next the sun came out and evaporated the puddle and turned it back into a cloud.  Then it rained again and the cycle started all over. 

The only change I made was I made the cloud beads dark gray since they look more like rain clouds than the white bead did.

October

Yes,  I know, I suck at this.  But I'm trying to get better.  Here goes:  We did a unit on Tall Tales and one of the books--Thunder Rose--was about a little girl who lassoed tornadoes.  I thought it'd be really cool for the kids to try so I got a long jump rope from the coach, tied a loop in it and showed them how.  They had to lasso the bad bumblebeeto (from SkippyJon Jones story) and save the classroom.  There were LOT of giggles and fun and quite a few good little cowpokes.