Make the Grinch Smile...

My teammate, Hayley of Bishop's Blackboard, shared this cute activity to use with The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I believe she got the idea from a different blog as well so please check out her blog for the original poster. Thank you to all for sharing. The kids really enjoyed this activity.

Christmas Stocking Fun

The students decorated Christmas stockings at home and then wrote descriptive paragraphs about them at school. A traditional lesson the kids always enjoy!

Even and Odd Turkey Fun!

We were working on even and odd patterns when skip counting by 2's last week using "start" numbers other than 1 (for odd) and 2 (for even.) After some practice using a 30 chart coloring even and odd patterns and playing "race to 30" and lots of practice identifying an even or odd pattern beginning at any given number, I cut up a 30 chart and gave a number 3 - 22 to each student. I chose the range 3 - 22 because I didn't want to start on 1 or 2 and by ending at 22 it left enough numbers to continue the pattern to 30 without going over. We began by drawing the turkey body, legs, head, face and wings together. Then I passed out the numbers to glue in the first feather and the students continued the pattern writing one number on the tip of each feather in pencil. I told them to make it pretty large. They identified the pattern and wrote "even turkey" or "odd turkey" in the center of the body. The students then traced the numbers and letters in black marker and colored last. I am going to laminate them, make a little flap to go over the turkey tummies to cover the words, and use as a review book and a book in my math book math station for review. This way the kids can look at the pattern, identify as an even or odd pattern and then self-check.

Double Your Money math game

In this game I made, two players take turns rolling a decahedron die, doubling the number and putting that many pennies on their game board. When a number is rolled, 5 for example, each student puts 5 pennies in one of the ten frames. (Both the student who rolled the 5 and the other player each put 5 pennies in the ten frames nearest making ten altogether.) Only the student who rolled the 5 get the 10 pennies and places them on his game board. I found that involving the other player each time kept the kids interested and made placing the pennies on the ten frame faster. Both students could also quickly check to make sure the player was taking the correct amount of pennies. The first player to 50 cents is the winner. Get a free PDF of this game at my Teachers Pay Teachers account.

Double Cover Up

To practice memorizing our doubles, I made this game called Double Cover Up. The students take turns rolling a decahedron die, doubling the number and placing a marker over the sum. When one student has covered all of the doubles sums on his side of the game board, he wins. Simple, but the kids loved it. Download a free PDF of this game at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Thanksgiving Feast - 2011

Additive Pattern Designs in Native American Art

Increasing and decreasing additive patterns... depending on which way you turn the strip. I think I have most of these turned around backwards because I honestly threw them on the floor really quick. We used these for our Native American headbands at our Thanksgiving feast as well. :)

Pattern Block Turkeys - 2011!

Math Vocabulary Books - Shape Riddles

Here are just some of the pages we made at the end of our 2-D shapes unit to summarize what we'd learned.

Math Vocabulary Books - All About Larger Numbers

Trying to remember so much math vocabulary can be hard for first graders. I even have trouble remembering what vocabulary we've covered and not covered sometimes. This year I decided to write class books to wrap up each unit and summarize the concepts taught. Before we take our 9 weeks tests, we will go back and read our books to review. I have also placed these books in the "Math Books" math station - an idea inspired by Debbie Diller's new math station book.
Get a free download of the words to cut and paste into your own book at my TPT account.

"SP" Sports Pennants

At the conclusion of "College Week" and our study of "s" blends, we made these adorable sports pennants. The pennant pictured above is my example, but the kids glued on the clip art pictures of sports and added other /sp/ words and pictures.

Soil Observations

The students practiced using tweezers and hand lenses to observe the contents of soil samples. Would you believe how surprised they were to discover live "rolie polie" bugs in the samples!