New Hard & Soft G Sounds Activity Pack (freebie & Currently too!)

Whew! That must be my longest blog post title yet. I've enjoyed my time off this summer so much. Just relaxing at home. It's been nice. At the beginning of summer we thought we'd lose our little blind kitty Stevie to his kidney disease. He's 4 years old and it hit him again hard! But with a lot of effort of his part, from us, and from our fabulous vet, he's still here- happy, purring, and playing.

Aside from that I've been able to catch up on some reading and get some things ready for this coming school year. I can't believe it's time to get back in the classroom already!

One of my projects was to finish up this hard/soft G sound packet I started using with my first graders last year. I had a group of higher readers who were getting confused about how G could sound like J in a word like huge. So I created a word sort and game for them to play with my instructional aide. They had so much fun with it! And it got them through that little struggle they were having. With more time to work on it the activity pack I've added a Read/Write the Room activity for my whole class to do and a few other things. I like having something like this because it's easy for my aide or parent volunteer to do with a group too. It looks like this and you can pick it up in my TPT store. It'll be in my TN store early tomorrow.

My aide started off with a word sort to explain how the G sound changes depending on what follows it (often anyway).

They did this over a 2-day period. My aide is so wonderful and teaches some of our RTI groups, so she was able to judge what my students needed.

After that she thought they were ready to play this game

I wanted to save myself some printing, so next year I'll use these same cards for a Memory game. To play Memory with them I'll print a 2nd set of cards and sort them so that each pair of students gets only 16 words. I'll put each set a in a baggie and that way I'll actually have 3 games and can they can play Memory several times. Once the game has been played in a small group with me or with my aide or parent volunteer I may include it as a choice for Work on Words during Daily 5.

This word sort also helped incorporate what my students were learning about language.

You can check out the entire packet on my TPT store. I included a directions sheet for each activity so that an aide, volunteer, or sub can easily know what to do. Here's a little freebie from the packet for you. Just click on it to download.

I'll leave you with my Currently.

I almost forgot... I created some ocean themed number cards for Math Work Stations. They're in my stores too and I'll have school themed ones there tomorrow. Wow! Thanks for sticking with me  through all that! Have a terrific week back in the classroom or hanging out at home!

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I love, love, love Math Work Stations! (freebie)

Where were you this morning? I saw a lot of familiar bloggers along the Blog Swap and Hop. Wasn't it fabulous? I found useful freebies, new blogs, and just enjoyed reading what other bloggers are up to. I told myself I'd stay off my computer for a while when I was finished hopping around, but I got the creative bug and made some things to go in my jungle/animal print themed classroom next year. 

The first is for Math Work Stations. People, if you haven't read this yet, you may want to. Last year was my 15th year teaching (11 years of that in 1st grade) and this was one of the best things I've ever introduced to my classroom. In our district, or in all of California (I'm not sure), were supposed to have 15 minutes of "math intervention." Work Stations were perfect for this. I used them at the start of math time and kids did them while I pulled a small group. Depending on what I needed to do with my group they may have switched and done 2 work stations, but this was rare. Often the group I pulled were students I thought would struggle with the lesson. My thought was to intervene before students had trouble rather than after. So I pre-taught and had the kids do some of the problems on the math worksheet. When I taught the lesson to the whole class I could see little light bulbs appear over the heads of the students who'd been in my group. Well not really. But you know what I mean. And they'd smile. I could see their confidence building. And they were much more successful every day.

If you want to read more about Math Work Stations, I found a lot of good information on Mrs. Parker's blog

Warning: once you start, you'll probably have a new project on your hands. I mean I love, love, LOVE math work stations!

Here is a picture of the tubs I used for Math Work Stations and some of my earliest work stations.

How can you get the cute stars in the pictures? Graphics by The 3AM Teacher
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-3am-Teacher
http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/

So to get ready for my jungle theme this year, I made some labels with numbers 1-12. The animals with numbers will go on the front of each tub and the larger numbers will go around the room so students know where to take their activity. If they'll work for you, just click on the picture and you should be able to download them. Just please leave a little note if you do.

Both sets of numbers are in the same document,

The numbers will also go in the pocket I use to keep track of which stations are being done each day. I put each students name on a card and slip that in next to the number of the station they'll be doing that day. At the bottom of the chart I put "Work with Teacher" and put names there as needed. I change theme daily. One things I did was duplicate some of the stations so I didn't have to create or teach so many games. Sometimes station 1 was the same as station 6 but the kids didn't seem to mind.

I'm curious, what do you do for "intervention" with your struggling math students? Leave me a note, I'd love to hear.

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New Weather-themed + and - BUMP games (freebies)

I love Saturdays! And it was sunny too- my favorite kind of weather. Funny though, I spent it inside. I went to school to get "caught up" (do you ever get caught up?). I changed out my math work stations that had been there a while and rearranged my library a bit to create a featured area of non-fiction books. Since Common Core pushes reading more non-fiction, our sweet librarian is gathering lower level non-fiction AR books for me to put in there. Another blogger had posted that she gives the kids double credit for non-fiction tests so I thought I'd do the same. I really think the kids will be excited! I also got out my weather unit and that inspired me to create some weather-themed math BUMP games. You can grab them by clicking on the picture below. There are 5 games all together. Have fun!

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, as I'm getting tired. I stayed up really late last night and my two kitties were hungry early this morning. Have a wonderful Sunday and start to your week! If you're on Spring Break, good for you. Stay in your jammies Monday for me. I have one more week before break.

 Chrissy

6

What a Day! and a Freebie, and Medallions

Oh my today was a challenge. I feel the need to talk about it whine a little. There's a freebie and some pictures a little further along. The kids in my class had so many troubles today. It began right away when we started our district math assessment and "R" began to pout. He refused to try (even though he ended up getting 16 right out of 20). So he sat off to the side and moaned and groaned the whole time. Aw, geez. After recess, "J" came to me shouting about "C" scratching him on the upper lip.
"C": We we're just playing vampire."
Me: "You still don't need to touch other people on the face."
"G" comes running crying "R" said he was going to tell on my and I wasn't doing anything."
(Okay, GUILTY!)
Me: "If you weren't doing anything, then don't worry about it."
After lunch, "G" again is crying and clutching his side like his ribs are broken and he says "C jumped on me when I was laying on the ground."
Me:" Why were you laying on ground letting him jump on you?"
"G": I wasn't letting him."
Me: Here's your note to go see the nurse. (Me thinking "What time is school over?")

After school I was talking to another first grade teacher who said her day was like that too. Then I come home and check my blog and it sounds like kids across the country were like this today. At least it's reassuring to know it wasn't just me. It actually makes me glad we have a Staff Development Day tomorrow. Things should be better Monday. Thanks for listening.

I took some pictures today of some Dr. Seuss projects and a math project we did recently.
I told the kids they were going to draw the Cat in the Hat and it was so cute- they looked at me like "Your crazy, lady." and looked at each other  like there was no way they could do that. Here's how they came out. The kids were so surprised that they could actually do it.

And if you haven't seen it, Amy Darley's Dr. Seuss Activity Set on TPT is great! My friend Rachel purchased it for me. Thanks, Rachel! And we made Amy's Thing 1 and Thing 2. Aren't they adorable?

And we did this math project to wrap up place value. The kids made their initials with tens and ones. I am pretty sure I saw it this summer on Hayley Bishop's blog Bishop's Blackboard. (If I'm wrong about that I apologize.) She has super math ideas. It was hard for some to count the tens and ones , but most did fine. They were excited to get to make their initials.

And last night I made this math game. Doubles plus 1 is in our math and I thought this would be fun practice. Maybe you can use it too. Just click on the picture to grab it.

After all the kids stuff today, we got our new reading curriculum after school. Well, it's not entirely new. It's called Medallions and is for use next year with all of the same Houghton Mifflin stories but with a new writing component. We go over it at the Staff Dev. Day tomorrow.

I can't believe we have to think about new curriculum already! How could it be? It seems like I just got these kids a couple months ago. They're so smart and most days they're really wonderful. Now it feels like they'll be leaving me soon. What will next year bring??????

On that note, have a great Friday and a nice weekend. I'm off to blogstalk some more. Thanks for listening. Hope you like the freebie.
 Chrissy

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Math Game Freebie and lots of "Lovely-ness"

I'm so jazzed about my new 3-column layout! With some help from Dani at Blog Designs by Dani, it worked. It's fun for me to have it looking different. The only problem is that I can't remember how to get the title moved down. It seems silly that I can't figure it out, but... if you know how, could leave me a comment?

I made a quick math game tonight. I play it with my students each year when I'm teaching place value and they always really like it. We'll play it for the first time on Monday. It's here as a freebie if you want to play it too. Just click on the picture to grab it. Please leave me a comment if you do. Thanks!

 Also...
A heartfelt thanks to Barbara at Grade ONEderful for this "lovely" award

 In case you haven't checked out her blog yet, it's fabulous! And she's working on the design herself.

The rules with this award are to:
1. link back to the blogger who gave you the award
2. pass the award on to 15 other lovely bloggers
3. follow the person who sent it you you

The 15 Lovely Blogs I'm passing this on to are:
1. First Grade and Fabulous
2. Teach It With Class
3. Teaching First
4. Swinging Through Second Grade
5. Ms. Rachel's Room
6. Just Teaching...Kindergarten Edition
7. Just Reed!
8. First in Maine  (her lovely blog looks like it's from Blueberries For Sal)
9. Empowering Little Learners
10. A Cupcake for the Teacher
11. A Teacher's Bag of Tricks
12. Swimming into Second
13. Soaring Through Second
14. Heather's Heart
15. and last, but never least, I'd like to pass this back to Barbara. The "lovely" part of this blog seems so appropriate for the beautiful new design changes she's made to her blog.
Grade ONEderful

And I will add too that you don't need to feel like you have to pass this on to 15 bloggers. Just enjoy some fun blogstalking and leave some lovely comments for folks. Everyone loves that!

Have a wonderful weekend!

 Chrissy

9

The Colors of Us and 2 freebies

It wasn't raining and my car wasn't frozen today- YIPPEE! And today one of my students came back. He left suddenly a week before Christmas. I was told after school one day that he and his family were going to Mexico to see a sick grandmother and didn't know if they'd come back or when. And this is a nice, really smart kid. I didn't want to see him go. Since he left without warning, I still had the gift he made for his parents and some of his projects. Yesterday I got a note that he was returning today! He walked in and the other kids were sooo excited. They hugged him and showed him where his desk is now and even got out his folder and pencil box for him. It was a fun way to start the day.

After school I took a picture of our art project (yes, art. Once in a while we get to it.) that we did last week. It came from a class I took, although I can no longer remember what class it was.  I hadn't done it in quite a while but knew this class was careful enough and would do a good job. I read the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz.  We had studied about Martin Luther King, so this fit right in. My parent helper traced the kids hands, I premixed skin color paints, and we were ready. The kids painted the backgrounds the second day. Don't they look great?

A couple of freebies...
The first goes with the Leo Lionni story A Busy Year and is for Daily 5- Listen to Reading. Since this story is only a few minutes long, I made this to go with it. Just click on the picture to grab it.

There's also a Math Work Stations freebie to work on equivalent number sentences. Again, just click on the picture to grab it.

Here is an idea for Math Work Stations too. These are laminated die cuts from 0-99, each 10 in a different shape and color. My students will have 50 at a time to put in order on our magnetic white board. After a while I'll probably change it to counting by 5's or 2's.

Wishing you lots of fun blogstalking,
 Chrissy

5

Money Math Work Station

Today was a good Monday. We got a lot done in my classroom and my students did some really good writing in their journals. After school I was starting to change my math work stations again and thought there were too many that were just addition and subtraction. So I came home and made up this simple Coin Sort. I'll put them all in the same bin and students can choose which one to do. I hope you can use this and just add a bag of coins and have it ready to go. Have a great week!

Coin Sort Pages

Here is a sample page:

There is another page for sorting dimes and quarters and another for sorting all 4 coins.
P.S.- There's a cheat sheet too!

 Chrissy

4

Math Work Station freebie

I designed my first math game everybody! I'm so excited to use it myself! My first graders need to develop better math sense so I thought this game might help.
Just click on the link below the picture to access the game. Please leave a comment if you use it. I'd love to hear what you think!

Bigger Number Math Game


 Chrissy

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