Christmas Tree Mystery Picture on a 120 Chart

Click here for the FREEBIE!!

I've had so much fun making these images on the 120 chart. They are great for Math center rotations or just for early finishers. They reinforce some Number Sense skills with fluency of numbers within 120. I try to also strategically choose the number sets to reinforce skills such as ten more, ten less, one more and one less.
As the students fill-in the missing numbers to the pieces on the left, they then color those coordinating numbers on the 120 chart to create a mystery picture. We of course, needed some pictures specific to December and so I decided to share a FREEBIE with you all! I hope that you find it useful and that your students are completely engaged with the worksheet! Just click here and it will take you to my TpT for the free download! Enjoy!


$5.00 in TpT store

If your students enjoy this one, consider checking back in my store for a set of 11 different images of Mystery Pictures on the 120 Chart. With so many different images, you can do a few a month! This packet is a $5.00 packet but well worth it to help support this important skill and keep the students actually WANTING to do more! I hope that your students are calm, focused and learning for the next few weeks. We have two weeks... and counting!

It's raining today... I'm off to curl up with my girls on the couch to watch "Monsters University" and drink a warm cup of coffee. I CAN NOT WAIT!
Grab yourself a cup and do something nice for yourself, too!

New items posted

Just wanted to share with everyone that I have added Word Ladders for Unit 3 as well as more Math Center Games #2!! I hope that they will be useful to you and your students!

These Word Ladders are created for Unit 3. I have been using them for two years and they are great for word work, phonics, spelling, phonemic awareness and reading. Unit 2 Word Ladders are already posted, if you are interested, as well.

I am LOVING these 1st Grade Common Core Math Center Activities #2. They have been very engaging and a great reinforcement of skills. This set of activites will review standards 1.OA.3 and 1.OA.6 in several ways. There are 6 center activities included in this set for $4.00. I hope that you will take the time to review them.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!!! I hope the coffee is on!

 

 

Unit 1 Center Worksheets... finally!!!

I always have great plans... that don't always happen in a timely manner... oh well! THEY ARE FINALLY HERE!!!! These center worksheets that align with the California Treasures Flip Books support the independent center work FOR UNIT 1!!! I have posted the other units as well, so please take time to check them all out! The consistency from unit to unit really helps minimize the need for teacher support, so the teacher CAN work with a small group. I hope you find them as useful as I have been able to!








Word Ladders Unit 2

Ah, word families... I love 'em! Love teaching them! And it reinforces rhyming words. spelling, read fluency rates, exc.... it's no wonder I love 'em! Well, because of that love, I came to create Word Ladders! They are dictated word families. Here is how they work! Super easy and VERY effective!!

The Word Ladders have been created by me in order to support several skills which include: word families, spelling, writing, reading, phonics and phonemic awareness.

I copy the ladders front to back and distribute on Day 1. As I dictate the words, the students write the word on the next “rung” of the ladder. Once we have completed a ladder, we choral read the ladder from the top to the bottom and again from the bottom to the top. (We make a silly noise going up or down, just to make it even more engaging!) We complete 2 ladders and then my students hold on to them in their folders.

Days 2 and 3, we repeat the process with the next two ladders.

(about 10 minutes)

On Day 4, the students will partner read the ladders on the front. Their partner gets to choose what ladder they have to read and they take turns choosing for their partners and reading to each other. Day 5, the students partner read the back or any ladder from both sides.

These ladders can be very helpful with informal assessing as well. As I pass by a student’s desk, I will ask them to read a ladder to me to see how they are doing with blending and decoding with word families. My students LOVE working with the Word Ladders. It is just another way to get in some extra phonics work while applying it to writing and reading… and I hope you will find your students ENGAGED!!!

Common Core Math Center Activities

Click the picture to check it out!

Have you already started it?? Is your district in waiting?? Are you new to it this Fall?? Sooo many changes and everyone doing it differently! My district will begin this fall with implementing Math Common Core. We will layer on the reading in the following year. I like the way we are doing it because we all know how hard change can be and so phasing into it will sure be nice for us. This year we will begin working with Common Core Math. I had the privilege to work with some AMAZING 1st grade teachers in my district as we breakdown the standards and analyze how we will be teaching these standards because our current adoption isn't quite going to align with this. I have spent a large portion of my summer drinking coffee.... oh! And working on Common Core Math activities, as well! I have just posted my first of several 1st grade Common Core Math Center Activities. This one includes 8 different center activities. Each includes a directions cards to be printed and laminated. They have simple, direct steps for the students to follow along with a visual to support the steps. This will ensure the students can complete the tasks independently which will free YOU up to re-teach or extend with other students. Differentiate... the HARDEST part of teaching... well, maybe that's just me... 12 years later and I'm still trying to figure it out! And every class, every year is different too!


One of the Center Activity Direction Cards

Okay, back on track! Each center activity includes a 2-sided accountability worksheet, as well. I also created several numeral cards for the different activities and went as far as my OCD would let me and labeled each set of cards with the name of the center activity for ease of prep and organization. (I HOPE!!!) Finally, I labeled all accountability worksheets and directions signs with the corresponding Common Core Standard. I


Accountability Worksheets for every activity

REALLY hope that these activities will be useful for you and your students. We all know how limited our prep time and planning time can be so hopefully these will be useful to someone! I can't wait to use them with my students this year during our Strategic Math time! It will be FAR more beneficial to all students then some of the activities I did last year... I won't mention those! HA!! Hey, sometimes desperate times.... call for more COFFEE! ;) It's back to work for me tomorrow! Our kids start on the 12th... right around the corner! Time to stock back up on coffee and creamer! And lots of planning, prepping, and creating!



Roll and Read

Engaging practice of sight words

If you have yet to see my post about my Rainbow Sight Words, please click here because THIS post is completely related! Okay! I have created a simple way to encourage students to be motivated to WANT to practice their sight words. It's time to get these kids playing Roll and Read!!! In this game.... side note, but don't you LOVE how if we call it a "game" our students perk (yes, coffee pun there!) right up! Okay, back on track... sorry!

As for the new GAME, the students will roll a die and read the words in that designated row. The pages are sorted by the colors of the sight words in my Rainbow Words. Each page contains the same 15 words organized in various ways so the students will read all 15 words regardless of the number they roll on the dice. This is an engaging way to keep the students accountable for which sight words they are working on while also making for a great (and EASY) center activity that can be used ALL YEAR. It can easily be used as a partner activity, as well, having the students read to each other. And finally, if you need a quick activity for your unexpected (or your oops-i-knew-you-were-coming-but-forgot-to-prep-something-for-you) parent volunteer, just grab these and a single die and they are ready to engage with the students.


Mount on colored construction paper, Roll and Read!!!

I truly hope, from the bottom of my coffee cup, that you are able to put these to use in your classroom and that your students excel in mastering their sight words!!!

Sight Words... aka Rainbow Words for my Firsties

Every color of Rainbow Sight Words

How do you monitor progress of your students' mastery of sight words? I know there are a million ways that teachers do it! I wanted to share with you how I do it in my classroom. When I started in my current district (like 6 years ago) we used Rainbow words in 1st grade for our sight words. Since our new adoption, and several other changes later, most don't use it anymore but I love the accountability of it and so I re-created my own version for our current CA Treasures adoption. The Rainbow sight words are sorted into 10 different colors (red, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue, violet, light purple, and pink). Each set of colored words include 15 sight words in order they are introduced in Treasures (or very closely, because I DO make mistakes...) starting with red words. I also made a rainbow that we use and post in the classroom. When a student passes a color of words with 100%, they get to color that portion of their rainbow on the wall. It's a great way to keep kids motivated to progress through their sight words. It also allows for differentiated sight words at the same time, but in a streamlined, simplified way. We all know how critical it is to differentiate, but it is also NOT an easy task. So pop on over to my TpT store and check it out! I'm sure it will greatly simplify your sight word process, especially if you are a Treasures adopted district.



Rainbow Clip Art included to post and students color



Rainbow Words Bin

   I bought this container at Target (my <3) and I just keep all of my Rainbow Word supplies inside so when I am ready to assess each week, all I have to do is pull the bin out and GO! And if you are lucky enough to get a parent volunteer to do it for you.... then it's all here and ready to go for them! And you have NO prep!!! (Don't you hate having to prep for a parent to prep????) The cup has all the colors of the crayons they will need for the rainbow so when they pass I can just hand them the correct color. When they bring me the crayon back, I hand them their next color. The clipboard is where I record their progress for my records, just in case someone decides to color something they didn't REALLY pass (GASP!!!! No student would EVER do that...).


 I will be back at work this week doing bulletin boards and getting ready for school to start. We begin training this Friday! And the kids come on the 12th! Can't believe it is already here! I will post a pic of my Rainbow Wall once it is up. I also use these words as my word wall, but I build it as we introduce the words each week. Here is a picture of what I mean. This was mid-year, last year. The turquoise words at the bottom are the Kinder words that they SHOULD already know (not currently in my TpT store, but will be VERY soon!). Then I just build it as we go! See the little plastic bag to the left... yep, I'm fancy like that! Now I always know where they are! I just keep them all in there and add each Monday. Sometimes when the kids need help spelling a word they know it's a red word (or I tell them) and they know which color to look through. So this works for us in two ways! It also helps us see what color we are working on as a class so the kids know where they SHOULD be to stay current with what we are working on. For example, according to this pic, we are working on green words, so if your student has not colored yellow on their rainbow, they are behind. It's a nice visual for the parents too! I put the student rainbows right under this wall.

I sure hope you can use some of (or all) these ideas! I know how important sight words are to success in reading and this is a great way to streamline the process. I sure hope it works for you, as well as it has worked for me!


Trace and Cut FREEBIE packet

I hope EVERYONE is having a relaxing summer! I, honestly, don't really know how to relax. I view my summer vacation as a way to "get ahead" for next year. I've been working like crazy and NOPE, that is NOT a complaint! I LOVE my OBSESSION, job, remember??? So this year I had SEVERAL students that really struggled with motor skills. And I get it!! Kinder is so rigorious now and they don't have time in their day to deal with motor skills anymore (and for 1st grade, we need them to have that rigor!). However, the reality is that BOYS some kids need that practice. LOL! So, I've created just a few practice pages. I will be using them for the first 2 weeks of school, when routines are just being established and kids are settling back into the routine of school. I plan to start every morning with a page on their desk. They will first use a crayon to trace and then use their scissors to cut on the lines. I also recommend starting the copies on a heavier construction paper or cardstock. Then phase into lighter construction and finally regular paper. You will quickly be able to see who is ready to progress with the different papers and who isn't. During this time I will do my usual "busy work" of attendance, lunch count, exc. I hope that you find it useful! Click on the picture to get the FREE download from my TpT store!


Click the picture for the FREE download!
 

Place Value Freebie

Busiest year of teaching EVER... if I weren't 11 years into this career, and didn't LOVE my obsession, I mean job, as much as I do... phew! Can we say LOTS of changes this year??? Any teacher out there reading this can TOTALLY relate, right???

ANYWAYS, one of our "changes" is to write a weekly Math objective... last week we worked on Place Value. We teach the focused standard/objective all week and assess it every Friday (in addition to our Math curriculum, btw). And then graph our grade-level results the following Wednesday... do you do something like that too??? ANYWAYS, I shared some freebie here for place value practice that I made. They cover tens and ones place value. If you're interested, follow the link here for the 3 practice pages!



And if you have to choose an objective for Math for next week... HERE YA GO!!! Do place value!!! LOL! But seriously, If there is ANYTHING I want other teachers to get from this blog, is to help make OUR jobs easier. Thanks for your support of me! I hope that I am supporting you, as well!!

Coffee note, tried the new Starbucks Blonde coffee this weekend... brewed a few pots while creating teaching things on my computer and was home with two sick kids... MY NEW FAVORITE (for at home brewing)!!! Delish!!! Cheers!!