March 2012 | Peace, Love, and First Grade

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

Hope you're having an awesome weekend! 
We are officially on Spring Break! 
Today, I want to share a few activities we did while learning about Presidents and reading Jack & the Beanstalk.




Jack and the Beanstalk
We read Jack and the Beanstalk each year with our Plant unit. 
Well, I decided to make a mini-unit to go along with the book. 




The mini-unit is 41 pages of comprehension activities. 
Here's a sampling! 



What’s Included:
Mini-unit Cover-page 1
Table of Contents- page 2
Vocabulary/Character cards- page 3-9
Sequence the Beanstalk-Story Sequencing- pages 10-11
What would I say? Character Speech Bubble Match (color)-pages 12-14
What would I say? Character Speech Bubble Match (B/W)-pages 15-17
What Would I say? Speech Bubbles-pages 18-20
Unscramble the Beanstalk-Sentence Scramble (color)-pages 21-25
Unscramble the Beanstalk-Recording Sheets-pages 26-27
Make Words with “beanstalk”-Making Words letters- page 28-29
Make Words with “beanstalk”-Making Words recording sheet-page 30
Describe Jack-Bubble Map- page 31
Describe the Giant-Bubble Map- page 32
Label The Beanstalk-Labeling Mat in color-page 33
Label The Beanstalk-Labeling Mat in B/W-page 34
Creative Writing: What would you trade for Magic beans? page 35
Creative Writing: would you climb the beanstalk? page 36
Beanstalk Craftivity-pages 37-41


I'm excited about the craft! It's easy to prepare and won't take forever
for the kiddos to complete! I think it turned out really cute!

You can find my mini-unit at TpT for $5!


Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Spring Break (if that's you)!!






ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION GAMES

Hope you are having a great weekend! 
Our Spring Break starts this Friday-hard to believe!

Math Games
One of the Common Core Math Standards for First and Second Grade is 
"mentally" being able to add or subtract 10 from a given number. 

I don't know about your pumpkins, but some of mine struggle with this skill! 

I made an "I Have, Who Has" game to practice this a few weeks ago, 
and the kiddos loved it!

We used number grids to help us find or check our answers. 
The kids really had to listen and THINK, 
and the number grids were excellent tools for practice. 
This is what we did:
  1. Each child was given a number grid and an "I Have, Who Has" card.
  2. I read the first card, and each student listened and placed one finger on the addition fact I read.
  3. Example: Who has 27 + 10? Place one finger on 27 and count up 10. By this time, most students know the shortcut to this skill.
  4. The child who had the answer then read his card. Proceed from there.

This offered great practice for adding 10 to a number.




Well, I've been asked if I were going to make a subtraction one, and here it is! 
My kiddos were excited to see this!! 
Love it when they enjoy practicing a difficult Math skill!

Click the pic to take a look.


By the way...
I appreciate all who stop by this little blog! I love reading your comments! 

I also want to thank all who have purchased from me on TpT every day. I can't thank you enough! 

I enjoy using my creations in my own class, 
but it makes me smile to think someone else may want to use them, too. 
It's very humbling.

Have a super week!

READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY




Today we had a school-wide birthday party for Dr. Seuss!
Mississippi Public Broadcasting helped us celebrate with a precious Seussy program complete with the Cat himself!  

They gave out goodie bags for the kids AND the teachers, too! 
The student goodie bags contained a book, bookmark, pencil, eraser, and notepad, all Seuss themed! 

And get this, ALL teachers and K-2 students received a Cat Hat!
Did you know the Cat had his own Boogie?? 
Well, we learned the Cat Boogie today!! What fun! 




We continued the celebration in our class with Seuss-inspired Friday treats! 
I asked the parents to send the ingredients and let the kiddos do all the work! 

We made Red Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat's Hat! 
My sillies loved it and kept saying, "This is the best day!" 
Don't you love those days?? I'll definitely do this again next year!



We had a little extra icing as you can see! 
Why waste it when the kids will eat it???


Before Seuss Hat pics:
Love to see them get comfy and read!!

We had a lot of wild and fun hair! 
This precious one is actually a VERY athletic boy! 

So engaged in the book-Love!

Sweet friends reading together! 
Our 5th grade had a fundraiser today for their class trip.
Hence, Sprite!

First grade teachers: Don't you love this time of year when your babies can sit and read independently?? Love it!!


Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!!!