Measurement Centres {with freebies} and an Announcement!

We are in the midst of a little measurement mini-unit in math right now. I put together 6 hands-on measurement centres for the kiddos to work on and they are having a blast with all the fun manipulatives! Here is what we are working on:

Centre #1: Measure a Friend {estimation & nonstandard length}

This is a fantastic freebie from Crazy for First Grade. I chose the nonstandard units (pencils and links) that the students needed to use to measure the length of their friend. First they had to estimation, then they could measure!

Centre #2: Measuring Penny {nonstandard length & width}

We read the adorable book Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy and complete this adorable craft and measuring activity from Primary Junction's Second Grade Common Core Measurement Unit. We did the craft on a different day--I just had them do the measuring part as a centre. They had to use four nonstandard items (cubes, pencils, crayons, and paperclips) to measure the length and width of Penny the dog.

Centre #3: Farmer's Market {estimation & nonstandard length}

This is another centre from Primary Junction's Second Grade Common Core Measurement Unit. Students choose some fruits or vegetables from the market, make an estimation, and then measure the length with cubes. Primary Junction's activity has them measure with inches, but I just had my first graders use cubes to measure.

Centre #4: Rock Balance {estimation & nonstandard weight}

This cute freebie is from the awesome Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. We had five rocks labelled A, B, C, D, and E. Students estimated how many bear counters would balance each rock. Then they measured! The students loved working with the balance scale. So much fun!

Centre #5: How Much Coffee? (or How Much Soda?) {estimation & nonstandard volume}

This was a freebie that I created. All you need is three different size cups... I went to my local Tim Hortons and asked for some cups. They were eager to share! I made two different versions... one to use with coffee cups or one to use with drink cups (ex. McDonalds). I wrote sizes on the bottom of the cup (S, M, and L). Students estimated how many cubes would fill up the cup. Then they filled it up and counted the number of cubes. Easy to set up and lots of fun! {Download recording sheets here.}

Centre #6: High Five! {nonstandard area}

This was another simple freebie I created. Students trace their hand on the recording sheet, then use different pattern blocks to fill in the area of their hand. {Download here.}

There you have it! A fun week of hands-on measurement activities!

Now onto my announcement.... if you've been following me for a while, you know that I have been moving from school to school so far, just covering terms and maternity leaves. I have been teaching for 6 years and I have been in 5 different schools, not including my year of subbing! Well finally it has come... I have been offered a permanent Grade 1 teaching position! I will be changing schools again, but then that will be it! I will finally have my own, permanent classroom that I get to stay in forever(ish)!! Yay! I am beyond excited! I can't wait to get in there and share some pictures with you! It's a bit smaller than my previous classrooms, but I don't care because it is mine! :)

Well enjoy your week everyone! We only have 27 days left.... yikes! Yes, that must seem a lot to you who are already done or are down to the one-digits... but we still have so much to cover! How will we get it all done?? Stay tuned!

Five for Friday {with a free app suggestion}

Oh what a week! I've been down, I've been up, I've been around the block and back! It's Friday though and I am ecstatic to be at home for two days. (Plus I got good news today... I will be teaching Grade 1 again next year... but it's not quite official yet, so I'm keeping it to myself for now!!) I am linking up with Doodle Bugs again for her fabulous linky to share some randoms from the week.

1. I saw this pin here for a Mother's Day card and I just loved the flower sticking out of it! I brought some of my girly scrapbook paper to school to create these cute cards. The kids wrote sweet messages and drew pictures for their mom on the inside. I took a picture of each student pretending to hold flowers, then we glue the picture to the front with a fake flower. So easy and cute! :)

2. Another pinterest-inspired Mother's Day craft was our gift (pinned from here). I picked up a variety of pot holders from the dollar store and some fabric paint. We painted the kids hands in the middle and attached a recipe for mother's love (freebie from Susan at TGIF). They turned out adorable!

3. I finally decided to let my kiddos to let my kiddos take home their grassheads. (Really I was just tired of having to water them every day... lol) So at the end of the day we opened our hair salon and cut our grass heads' hair! They loved it!

4. We are working on measurement in math right now. This fun activity was from Primary Junction's Second Grade Common Core Measurement Unit. We traced our hand and foot and measured them with unifix cubes. Very hands-on!

5. Here's a new free app for you to try... for iPads or iPhones/iPod Touches. It's called A+ Spelling Tests. You can input your own spelling/sight word lists and there is a record button so you can record your voice saying each word. It's super easy to use! There is a scramble game where students hear the word and have to unscramble the letters or there is a spelling test where students hear the word then they have to spell it. Try it out if you haven't heard of it before!

Enjoy your weekend! :)

Phonics Instruction

Yesterday I posted my new phonics cards that I am so excited about! I have them all printed out, waiting to be laminated at school! I had a question about the order I teach phonics skills in, so I thought I would share that with you as well! If you want to check out my phonics cards, click the picture below. I have also created a preview that shows all 120 cards included in the pack. Each card is approximately 3.5"x3.5".

The way I teach phonics is based on a program that I was inserviced on called "Cracking the Code". I start the year by going over all the consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds. Every day we practice the sounds as a whole group. I shuffle the letter cards (so they are not in the same order). Then I say "t says /t/" and the students echo me. "l says /l/", etc. We make sure that the sounds are short, so it doesn't sound like we are adding a vowel to the end. Sometimes we make little scissors with our fingers to "cut it off" short. We also add actions to the short vowel sounds to help us remember them:

a says /a/ like apple (pretend to bite an apple)

e says /e/ like elephant (make an elephant trunk with arm)

i says /i/ like igloo (shiver and rub arms)

o says /o/ like octopus (make octopus tentacles with fingers)

u says /u/ like umbrella (pretend to hold an umbrella, or point up)

I find that this really helps students with sounding out words in their writing. If they are writing "big" and get stuck on the /i/ sound, I might remind them of the action to help them figure out the letter. It works great!

After a few weeks of the consonants and short vowels, I add in the common digraphs (sh, ch, wh, and th). I refer to the pictures a lot. /ch/ sounds like cheese. /sh/ sounds like shhhhh! I also introduce -ing right away as well, because this is a very common ending in the early guided reading books. I also add in the soft/hard c and g sounds too.

Then I get into beginning/ending blends. I might spend a week working on a few that go together (like br, cr, dr, fr). I introduce a few new cards into the pile at a time. I keep doing the cards in the same fashion--I say "s-h says /sh/", then the kids echo--but with all the new cards I introduce as well. I might not do it everyday, but a few times a week. We will usually do some sort of phonics work to go with it as well (Abby has a great word work packs and an awesome blends pack). I usually stick with the short vowels and beginning/ending blends until about Christmas time.

After Christmas I focus on the long vowel sounds. I usually teach the two big "rules"--silent e and when two vowels go walking. This usually covers most long vowel pairs. Now, this doesn't mean I don't mention silent e before this. When I'm modelling writing during a writer's workshop mini-lesson, I say outloud everything I am thinking. So I talk about silent e, two vowels, oi/oy, etc. even if we haven't really "learned" them yet. This sets the foundation and helps the students who are ready to try these things in their reading or writing.

Once I have spent time on the long vowels, I get into the r-control words (or/ar/er/ir/ur). Then I move into dipthongs (ow/ou/aw/au/oi/oy/ew/oo). Near the end of the year I focus on other things, like contractions and compound words. Depending on the group of students, I might also introduce the endings -tion and -sion, but not necessarily. I never give up the basic letter sounds, I just add to them.

Now, I am not an expert on phonics instruction, but this is what has worked for me! I find the key is repetition, repetition, repetition! A lot more goes into our phonics instruction... we do independent work, we play fun activities at starfall.com on the Mimio,  we do some phonics word work activities during Daily 5, and we do some reinforcing/reteaching during our guided reading lessons as well.

Somedays after doing our phonics card echo/chant, I would use the cards to do some making words activities. At the beginning of the year we would stick to CVC words. I would place three cards on the whiteboard ledge: consonant, vowel, consonant. We would sound out the word together. Sometimes we would play real vs. nonsense. I would make a little scoreboard on the whiteboard. Each time we sound out the word, we would determine if it was real or nonsense and then put a tally on the scoreboard. Lots of fun! Once we started learning the blends and long vowels, we could use those cards to make words as well. Here is what it would look like:

I also created a little recording sheet for students to record words we have made. You could also put a set of the phonics cards into a station and let students make their own words! Click the picture to download your own recording sheet.

(frame by Bubbly Borders)

Well I hope this has been interesting/informative/something to think about... How do you teach phonics? Do you use a specific program or have your own order?

New Products, Just in Time for the Teacher Appreciation Sale!

TeachersPayTeachers is having a Teacher Appreciation week sale this Tuesday and Wednesday. Everything in my store will by 20% off. If you use the code TAD13, you get an extra 10% off. Click the graphic below to check out my store.

Thank you to Beth from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the cute graphic!

I know my cart is pretty full, waiting for the big sale! If you are looking for some more things to add to your cart, check out my newest products. I just uploaded two new math versions of the game "I Have, Who Has?" Each game has 30 cards that form a continuous circle. The first set works on place value with base ten blocks from 1-100. The second set works on subitizing with ten frames from 1-30. Click on the pictures to check them out at TpT!

Next up is something I have been working on for a while and I am so excited to show you! This is a pack of 120 phonics cards. At the beginning of the year, I used blank letter cards to practice the sounds that letters/digraphs/etc. made, but I really wished they had pictures on them to remind the students of the sound. So I decided to make my own! This pack contains 120 cards, complete with the cutest clipart ever! Here are the phonics sounds included in the pack:

Vowel Sounds (a,e,i,o,u,y)
Consonant Sounds
Long Vowel Patterns (a_e,ai,ay,ey,ea,ee,igh,ie,i_e,o_e,oe,oa,ue,u_e)

Other Vowel Patterns (oo, ow, oo, ou/ow, ew, au/aw, oi/oy, ea)
"R" Control (or,ar,ir,er,ur)
Digraphs (ch,th,gh,sh,wh,ph)
Beginning Blends 

(bl,kn,wr,br,cl,cr,dr,fl,fr,gl,gr,pl,pr,sc,sk,sl,sm,sn,sp,st,sw,tr,tw,spl)
Ending Blends 

(mp,nk,ck,nt,sk,nd,lk,ft,st,sp,lt,ld,rd,lf,pt,ct,lp,rk,rn,dge,rt,tch,rm,mb,lm,lb,x,ll,ff,ss,tt,zz,ing,le,tion,sion)

Finally, I have completed my last three word work packs for the year. I have made a spring pack, camping pack, and summer pack! This will definitely keep us busy for the next 38ish school days! :)

Have a great week!

Five for Friday Linky

It's Friday! Time for a link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching. Here's what has been going on this week...

1. Our grass heads are growing! Everyone who stops by our room has to come check these guys out. They are just too cute! The kids keep asking when we are going to cut them, but I think we should wait until they get a bit longer! :)

2. In theme we have been studying Dental Health. The kids are loving Deedee's poem "A Loose Tooth" from her February Poetry Pack. We say it each day, using each student's name. So fun! We also did some writing about how to keep our teeth healthy. We used lots of ideas form Mr. Harry's Kindergarten fun song "If You're a Kid... [Dental Health Remix]". We used this tooth writing page. Then I took pictures of my students, cropped their photos to just get their beautiful, hole-y smiles, and made a fun guessing game bulletin board. They love looking at the pictures!

3. We are doing a little measurment mini-unit in math. I armed each student with ten unifix cubes and a stack of mini post-it notes. They had to go around the classroom to find something that was less than 10 cubes, exactly 10 cubes, and more than 10 cubes. They had a blast! Those cute measurement posters are freebies from Angelia Grimes-Graeme from Extra Special Teaching.

4. We finished up our Eric Carle author study with some artwork. We used a white pastel and blue paint to do the background. Then we painted grass with two different kinds of green. After those dried, I let the kids have free rein of the pastels and construction paper! I told them they had to make a bug and we brainstormed what kinds we could make. I think they turned out beautiful! It's my class' turn to decorate the display case by the office, so this makes a nice welcome to our school.

5. I'm away from school for three days. I've never been away for so long before. Usually only a day at a time. This was my desk before I left yesterday... I placed every day in a different file folder with different coloured sticky notes for each day. I hope all is going well! :) Next year I am definitely going to put together a sub binder. I had planned to this year, but never got around to it. One day!

Have a great weekend! Enjoy the weather (if it's nice where you are)!

May Currently

I am so glad to see that May is here. Our snow is almost all gone and we had a few days of sunshine and real spring weather. Unfortunately the cold has hit again and there were a few snowflakes falling today. Yuck! It should be back to spring weather by the weekend though. Fingers crossed! I'm joining up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her awesome monthly currently. Click the picture below to see all the other blogs joining up as well!

I can't wait for summer vacation! Only 39 more days! Can you tell we have our priorities straight for the summer? We are suppose to be focusing on our house renovations, but we keep getting side-tracked! Our first trip is a week in Minneapolis. We're going to check out a Twins vs. Yankees game, visit a few zoos, go to the Mall of America, and of course roller coasters at Valley Fair! Our second trip is a weekend get away with about 15 of our close friends on a house boat for a weekend! A bunch of our friends (minus me... I'm still in my twenties!) turn thirty this year, so they dedcided we should celebrate house boat style. Should be fun! And lastly, my boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law are celebrating their ten year anniversary this year Vegas style. They asked if we wanted to go with them and I couldn't say no!! The bf has never been, but I've been twice and absolutely love it! There is so much to see and do. That being said, it is going to be a busy summer! Add in a few camping weekends, a wedding or two, and hopefully some renos, and it'll be September before I know it!! Eek! Oh well, enjoy the rest of your week!

Here Little Piggy!

During our Writer's Workshop time, we are in the middle of doing a "Three Little Pig" mini-unit. We started by reading many different versions of the 3 pig story, such as "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark" or "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig". Each day we read a story and completed an activity from my new "The 3 Little Pigs: Reading & Writing Mini-Unit". I have included several reading comprehension activities, as well as a few creative writing activities. Click the picture below to check it out at TpT!

I put all my pages into a cute little booklet.

Here are some student samples from my class. On the first day I just read a regular version of "The 3 Little Pigs". We used this story elements mini bulletin board set to talk about a story map, then filled in our own story map with characters, setting, and beginning/middle/end events.

One day we talked specifically about characters and how characters can change (in "The Three Horrid Little Pigs" the pigs turn good at the end). Another day we talked about the setting and described the setting from "The Three Little Dassies". Then we spent a day talking about cause and effect and gave two examples from the story "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig".

After we read "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark" we used a venn diagram to compare and contrast that story with the origianl version. We also got to do some comic writing by filling in the speech bubbles of the three little pigs and the wolf.

Then we did some writing activities. We wrote an alternative ending to the original story. Here's a few of them:

"The wolf got out of the pot can never came back. And they lived happily ever after."

"The wolf became friends with the pigs. And they lived happily ever after!"

Awww... I have the sweetest kiddos! They all want happy endings!

"The wolf got his revenge and turned the pigs into fried meat."

Oh... maybe not... hehe!

We also pretended to be one of the little pigs and wrote a letter to the wolf. They were pretty cute!

"Dear Wolf,

I wish you would be nice. I would like it if you would be nice. It is rude to be bad. 

Sincerely, the Pig"

"Dear Wolf,

You were a big bad wolf. I wish you can be good. Do not send a letter.

Sincerely, the Pig"

"Dear Wolf,

I wish you can be nice and won't blow our houses down. We want you to be nice for us so we will let you in our houses.

Sincerely, the Pig"

Finally we graphed which story was our favourite and wrote why we liked that one.

Next week we are going to start writing our own fractured fairy tale. I have a story map and good copy book included in my mini-unit. Students will choose different animals to be the three little ____ and another animal to be the big bad ____. Then they will pick three new materials to make their houses. I can't wait to see what creative ideas they come up with! I promise to share some pics once they are all done.

I have also put together a mini-unit for "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". This unit has the exact same activities as the three pigs, but based on different version of Goldilocks. Check it out by clicking the picture below!