Groundhog Shadow Experiments

              My little firsties were super excited this morning when they walked in and saw this center setup:

I purchased Cara Carroll's Groundhog Day Unit and this experiment is in it.  If you get a chance, you should check it out.  Definately worth it!  Her blog is definately worth checking out too!

The First Grade Parade

More Writing with Picture Clues Freebies

I had a request for more of the plan sheets I use to teach writing. 
I have inclued 7 more FREE plan sheets.  If you need a look at how I use them, you can read my previous post HERE.   

If you like these and use these, I would   ♥ LOVE♥  for you to follow my blog and would appreciate your feedback.  You can grab a copy of the writing plan sheets below:
                                        Writing Plan Sheets



The Big Trip

Have you noticed how the Journeys series got really hard challenging all of a sudden?  But somehow we are plowing through it.  This week's story has tons of hard new words .  The skill with this story is compare/contrast so I whipped up a couple of things to go with this cute little story.
We completed this little Venn Diagram comparing/contrasting the two characters:

I don't have student samples of the next little activity but they turned out great too. (you'll have to take my word for it)

You can grab a copy HERE.

    

  

Accelerated Reader

We use the Accelerated Reading program (AR and Accelerated Reader are registered trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc.) at our school to supplement our reading program.  It is a software program that our school purchased and this is how it works:

1) students read a book at their reading level

2) take a comprehension quiz on the computer

3) they get points based on how many questions they get correct

We record their progress in first grade with this cute little bulletin board:

Each child gets a "back stage pass" with their picture on is and their pass moves as they get AR points.

Our goal in first grade is 25 points, but as you notice we go all the way to 100 because some of our little readers will make it past 100.  If they get to 100, they get this little prize:

All of our firsties usually get the 25 points and for that we have an end of year pizza party (every 1st grader attends even if they don't attain the goal)

Students are allowed to cash in points for junk prizes at the end of each six weeks.

This is an incentive program to get our little readers to read and the part they love most is getting on the computer to take their test!