Writing with Picture Clues - Texas

We started learning about the great state of Texas this week.  We are focusing on learning the state symbols this week and next week we will be adding cowboys to the mixture.  Yee Haw!

We did some writing today and mentally put on our "Author's Purpose" hat and tried to persuade our readers to visit the great state of Texas.  I made a writing plan sheet to go with this.  Today our topic was:

"Texas is a nice state to visit."  

Here are what a few of my sweeties wrote:

Their plan sheet looked like this:

(BTW:  Some of my sweeties are forgetting to write their topic sentence so I added a little box for them to check off after they write the topic sentence.) 

Next week, we will be using this plan sheet to write about our state symbols:

If you would like a copy of these plan sheets, you can grab yourself a copy HERE.

If you are using my plan sheets, I would love to hear how they are working out in your classroom!

Adding 10 and 1; Subtracting 10 and 1

Do your kiddos need extra help

adding ten and adding one? 

subtracting ten and subtracting one?

To help my firsties visualize this concept, I made the following worksheets to help:

You can grab yourself a copy HERE.

 

Aaargh!

Awhile back, we learned the sound of /ar/ and I failed to post some pictures of my cuties (with their faces erased, of course.)    I purchased the pirate hats (6 in a package)  and the blow up parrot at The Dollar Tree.  The eye patch is black construction paper and yarn.  My firsties loved this.

I also made myself and my coworkers shirts:

 

This is Abby Mullin's idea and you can go to her website and get the shirt graphic and instructions on how make yourself this same get up.  It was easy peasy.  You can hop on over to her blog and get the directions to make the shirt HERE and while you're there check out all her stuff that goes with her Pirate Mark unit listed below (that I purchased, of course):

You can purchase yourself a copy HERE

President Day

Here are a few things I made for my class to work on next week.

                    Part, Part Whole and Fact Family Practice:
                                                (BTW:  that is supposed to be Abe Lincoln's hat)
     (I also made a blank copy of this sheet so you could fill in your own numbers for additional practice.)

A few little science activities using pennies:

 

A Sentence Scramble or Unscramble (whatever you want to call it):

A little ABC order:

(I laminated the cards and then ran off the recording sheet for the students to write their answers on)

And a little Place Value Practice with tens and ones:

You can check out these activities HERE. 

Conversation Heart Compare/Contrast

We will be playing and eating doing educational activities with

 conversation hearts next week.

Of course we will be doing some graphing activities and I have found a couple of cute graphs that other bloggers have worked hard to create.  You can find candy heart graphs at Teacher Bits & Bobs or Mrs. Plants Press.  Just click on the following links to go grab yourself a copy:
                                      Candy Heart Graph

Candy Heart Freebie

After graphing the candy hearts, you could have your students do a little comparison activity using two of their candy hearts.

You can grab yourself a copy HERE.

Counting Dimes and Pennies Valentine Activity

For another center during Valentine week, I am going to put coins (dimes and pennies only since that is what we are working on) in each of these little hearts I picked up for $1 at the Dollar Tree. (I made 12 problems on the worksheet so I needed 2 packages.)

  Students will dump out the coins in the hearts starting with heart 1, record how many of each coin that was in the heart by coloring it in on their recording sheet, and then count how much money there is altogether and record their answer.

You can grab a copy of the recording sheet HERE.

Valentine Sentence Scramble

        I made this little sentence scramble for my firsties to do.

I am still on the lookout for some cute little containers to store each set of sentence cards in but they may end up in plain little baggies.  *sigh*

You can get a copy Here.

No Homework Poem and Valentine Part Part Whole

Here's a little Valentine I will be sending home on Valentine's Day.  I got the cute heart border graphics free from From the Pond and if you wish to use these graphics for yourself, you can find them by visiting http://frompond.blogspot.com/ and following the links provided to the graphics store. 

 Use candy conversation hearts for this Part Part Whole activity. 
You could use this a couple of ways.  Give each student some conversation hearts and let them pick up a handful and show the parts of the number they picked up or you could give them a set amount and have them show all the ways to make that number.

Grab yourself a copy Here.

Valentine Venn diagram and ABC order

Hey friends!  I am going to post at least one activity every day this week that I will be using the week of Valentine's Day.  I intend to use all of these ideas as centers but some of them could be used as whole group.

        Venn Diagram - students sort the hearts by ruffles and stripes:

 I will be laminating a copy of the ABC colored hearts below and using it as a center.  There is a recording sheet to go with this activity.

You can grab a copy of both activities HERE.

Check back tomorrow (evening probably) to find another Valentine activity to do with your class.

Great Math Resource

I found a great math resource to use in your classroom and of course I had to share.  It is from Illuminations. I found activities for the kids to do on the computer reinforcing concepts taught in the classroom and  I also found lessons and other resources on it as well.  The grade levels on this sight are PK-12 so you should definately check it out!

Here is the link:   Illuminations 

Go check it out!