I "MUSTACHE" You A Question!

 

Hey y'all! Look what I found in the Target Dollar Spot...

Are these not the funnest things ever?!? And just a dollar! I knew when I saw these fuzzy lil things that I would really be able to catch my firsties attention! Now to decide....what should I do with them???




Click on the pic to check out this mini-unit!

I "mustache" you a question...
Do your kiddos need a little extra practice with asking and telling sentences? Well, my firsties still get a lil confused with the whole asking/telling sentence thing at times. So these fuzzy lil helpers are exactly what I needed to create some writing fun! And if you can't find those in the dollar spot at Target anymore, you should be able to find them at Wal-Mart, Oriental Trading or any party store. Don't want to mess with finding them at a store....no worries! Just use the pattern included in this packet to copy an entire sheet of mustaches onto black paper. Another fun {and easy} way to make a mustache is to draw one on the student's index finger and then they hold it under their nose-sooo silly! Then grab your camera & WAH*LAH! You are ready for some super sentence-writing fun! We got started with an ANCHOR CHART...

I also listed some of the words that an ASKING SENTENCE begins with. Last year I made this little chart for a handy lil reference for the kiddos. Click on the pic below to link to that FREEBIE!

Okay! Now let's check out this super-silly writing activity. The kiddos really love the idea of being able to write a question and then having someone else answer it. Of course, we had to give lots of examples of questions AND how to answer with a complete sentence. {Many of them want to just ask a "yes or no" question.} This would even be a great activity to connect to a science or social studies unit!

 

Be sure to visit my TpT shop or Teachers Notebook shop to preview the other sentence writing activities included in my "I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION" mini-unit!

Hope you have some super-silly learning fun!

 

 

Spectacular Spider Fun! {& some FREEBIES!}

Spiders, spiders everywhere! Wow! do these firsties love spiders! We've had lots of learning fun in the classroom this week with these lil 8-legged critters. Check out this fun Spider Glyph we made...

I wasn't too sure that we were going to get them made....Have you ever had one of those days weeks where you think that you are prepared??? Let me emphasize the word "THINK". As Danielle {my 1st grade teachin' bud} & I so carefully planned & prepared for our week, we did not realize that we would run into the dreaded "copy machine issues"..... Ya, you know exactly what I'm talkin' about, don't ya?....you put your paper in, hit the start button & that big ole machine makes a big clunkin' noise and then all the buzzers start to BEEEEEEP & lights start FLASHING at you!!! Aughhhhhh! Well, to make a long story short, we tried copying our glyph patterns on 4 different copy machines! YES I said 4-with NO luck! Can you believe that?!? I think that those big fancy copy machines should be equipped to shoot out chocolate & caffine when all those darn lights & buzzzing beepers start sounding! Great idea-don't ya think?!? :)  {BTW we did finally get things copied the next day...whew!} At the beginning of the week we started out with a Spider Schema chart. It is so stinkin funny to hear some of the things that kiddos come up with!

Here's one of our spider centers..."Spider I Spy." I made these fun little spider magnifying glasses for the kiddos to read the tiny little sight words on the cards. They just LOVE this center!

We have also started working on related facts & fact families so I made a "Spider Fact Families" math center. The kiddos work with a partner to build the related math facts. These fun centers, the Spider glyph, data collection activities & much more is included in my new "Spectacular Spider Fun" unit.

Just click on the pics to check out more of these super-fun spider activities!

And, of course, I have a couple spider FREEBIES to share with ya! The first one is a simple little dice game that reinforces "doubles addition" skills. Just click the pic to grab it!

The second FREEBIE is a short e word sort. Hope your kiddos love it!

Fall Anchor Charts & a Lil Freebie!

Oh, I just love fall! It just so happens to be one of my favorite times of the year {besides summer, of course!!!} I just love snuggling up in a sweatshirt & sitting by a bonfire! Oh ya! bring on the s'mores!!! This week we made this fun lil "Fall" chart & discussed some of the things that we see or do in the fall.

And, we also made this anchor chart when my firsties were introduced to nouns this week.

 And, ya know "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves" is a MUST-READ this time of year! Like all of the "Old Lady" books, it is perfect for practicing sequencing skills. So, I made this lil reader so we could get a lil extra practice with sequencing and nouns. I also included some story sequencing cards with this file!



Just click the pic above to download your FREEBIE copy!

Hope your kiddos enjoy the "Old Lady" reader!

Asking or Telling???

Asking or Telling? Telling or Asking??? Omigoodness!!! Do your kiddos ever give you that "dazed & confused" look when they are trying to come up with an asking sentence??? Well let me tell ya... one minute they can do & the next minute they get all confused. They are sticking question marks anywhere & everywhere just to try to make their sentence into an asking sentence. Yikes! So, I decided that we needed to make an anchor chart that lists the words that asking sentences begin with. If you would like to download the lil chart above, just click {HERE} or up on the chart. Below is a pic of the large anchor chart that we made. {I'm not sure that this is a complete list, but it's what we came up with...a good start for firsties!}

I just had to add another pic of our cutie-patootie groundhogs. I finally got all of them hung up today and OMIword they are sooo funny! I love how they each have their own "look"!  Especially lovin the one that looks like it might be part monkey! lol They just crack me up!!!

One of my little guys was looking at his groundhog today and said, "What do ya think?... Did I over-do the eyebrows?" {What do ya think??? .....Na!!!}

Rockin' Reindeer Fun! & a Countdown Sale!

Oh wow-sie, wow! I can't believe that we only have 12 more school days before Christmas break! Ahhhh-oooooo-ahhh!! (That was me screaming with excited just like that Target woman did when she saw the Black Friday sales flyer!!!!) By the way, I just love those Target ads-what a HOOT that woman is! There is just a extra boost of excitement in the air this time of year so...our job is to figure out how to harness that excitement & keep our kiddos engaged for these next couple of crazy weeks! Well, I kind of ran with a teachable moment this week when the topic of Santa's reindeer came up. It began with two of the students discussing reindeer antlers ("Only boy reindeer have them! Na-uh girls can have 'em too!") Can't you just hear this arguement discussion? Well, that "discussion" drew the attention of my entire class! So much for my Reindeer Fact Families activity! lol The kiddos were so interested in these animals that I went to our library to find a non-fiction book on reindeer-no luck. So, that night I decided to write my own non-fiction book about reindeer. One of our school goals is to incorporate more non-fiction reading and what better animal to learn about in December than reindeer!?! Here's a look at my lil non-fiction book.


I printed the book (& of course, added some cutie-patootie ribbon!) but I actually put it up on the Smartboard when I read it to my firsties. OMGoodness! They soooo loved learning about real reindeer. Check out our chart... (see if you can find our fact that only applies to Santa's reindeer!)

I decided to package up this book along with some of my other reindeer/holiday activities in my "Rockin' Reindeer Fun" math & literacy unit. I feel bad since I did not have this ready to go for the cyber Monday sale...so I'm going to have a "Countdown to Christmas" sale. Everything in my TpT & Teachers Notebook shops is on sale through Tuesday (12/6).


Click on the pic to check out this unit!

A big thank you to Amy over at Krazy About Kiddos for giving me the Sunshine Award! That was sooo sweet! Be sure to head on over to check out her blog-its awesome! And check back here this week for some freebies!
Let the countdown to Christmas begin!

Gettin' Into the Swing of DAILY 5-Read to Someone

WowSiE! I'm so excited about using the Daily 5 with my first graders this year! Today, we had our first focus lesson for Read to Someone. We made an anchor chart: "When I Read to Someone, I will..."I modeled the EEKK {elbow to elbow, knee to knee} reading position & then the kiddos all practiced with partners. Amazing!!! They actually were all engaged in reading {for a few minutes anyway}. For the first day, I thought they did a GREAT job! It was just too cute watching them work so hard to get their elbows & knees matched up!

The Daily 5 book {below} & the website The Daily Cafe are amazing resources filled with a wealth of info-check these out! Thanks so much Danielle for letting me borrow your book!!

And, of course, I had to add a little "zebra bling" to my Daily 5 signs! If you would like a copy, just click on the pics below for your FREEBIES! I would also LOVE to hear from you guys about any Daily 5 things you are doing in your classrooms or if you have found any great Daily 5 blogs or websites!