Super Quick Banner

Tonight I just had to try out some Christmas scrapbook paper and the GLITTER! I threw together a quick little craft to hang on the bathroom mirror. I have a similar type banner in my classroom except that I threaded ribbon through instead of using clothespins. The lighting in the picture isn't great, but here it is if you want to see:

Click here for picture!

DAiLy ScHEdULE!

I have never been one to have the kids recite the daily schedule as part of our opening or morning meeting. Consequently, this year I never got around to actually posting an official schedule in the room. (gasp!) Finally, yesterday I made a decision about where to put one based on the space I had available and so I made some cards to work within that space. This year I am into "clothespins" and so I hung my cards on a piece of ribbon. If they will help anyone out-here they are . . .I have included a couple of pictures as an example and the download link is below! Have a wonderful evening! Oh, and if there is a particular card you need that I don't have in the download, email me and I can make it and email it to you in a couple of days!

Click here to download schedule cards!

Glitter-iffic!

If you love glitter, you will LoVe this! It is the prettiest glitter I have ever used. It is from the Martha Stewart Craft Collection. I have posted a picture of the colors here, on my personal blog. I am going to use it to decorate some small canning jars and put a gift card in it for a present, along with some christmassy shredded paper in the bottom and a bow around the jar.

Rudolph!

Several years ago I had my first graders write a letter to Rudolph. They were darling! What wonderful thoughts and questions these kids had for this special reindeer! I have included a template for black and white, all color and a little bit of color depending on how much ink you have or want to use! ;)

Click here to download "Letters to Rudolph."

The clip art is for sale here

Organization made cuter!

I made these for my house, CLiIcK HeRe for InFo. I know a lot of teachers that use them in their classrooms though. . .

"Yes Virginia, Teachers Are Regular People Too"

Mrs. Carroll from First Grade Parade posted some darling Christmas decorating pictures and I thought that was such a fun idea! I have several photos posted on my personal blog called

Focus Forward.
(click above)

 Here is one of the pics from our family room!

SunShInE AwArd!

Wow! We are all SO excited to receive the Sunshine Award from Liz at Stickers, Scissors and Smiles! What a great surprise. Thanks a bunch Liz!

The "rules" for the Sunshine Award are:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award and write a post about it.

2. Answer the following questions below.

3. Pass the award to 10-12 fabulous bloggers, link their blogs, and let them know you awarded them.

• Favorite color? I don't have one particular favorite. I tend to use variety of bright and primary colors in my classroom, with accents of black and colors like brown, navy, dark green, dark red and black at home.
• Favorite animal? Dogs. We have a West Highland White Terrier at home named Lucy who is like our other child! (She is the same breed featured in the McDuff books)
• Favorite number? 1
• Favorite drink? Chocolate Milk or Sweet Tea or a Fountain Coke
• Facebook or Twitter? Facebook. I haven't explored the Twitter world yet.
• Your passion? Family
• Giving or getting presents? Giving...and it is hard for me to keep the present a secret because I am so excited!
• Favorite day? Any weekend that I am snuggled up at home in my pajamas watching the snow fall and feeling like I don't have to rush around.
• Favorite flowers? Daisies. I like how simple and casual they look.

Here are the recipients of the Sunshine Award...

The First Grade Parade

Fabulous In First

First Grade is Fantabulous

Teaching Blog Addict

Ladybugs Teacher Files

GradeOnederful

Funky First Grade Fun

Primary Graffiti

What the Teacher Wants

A vs An

It really drives me batty that my kids use "an" when they should use "a" and vice versa, so I made this anchor chart to help them remember. (I really made it mostly for my own sanity, now I can tell them to go and check the chart to check!)

Click here for a copy!

CoLoRfUl FlOoR CloCk!

Today we had a great time practicing telling time on our big floor clock. It was lots of fun and the kids think it is so interesting because it is big, on the floor, and they have to physically move the hands of the clock to the correct place. We took turns pulling a "time card" out of a basket and making that time.

Click here to download the floor clock.

A few fun November things . .

A peek at a few fun things for November . . .

CoNtRaCtIonS

We have been learning about contractions this week. I made some practice pages that we put into page protectors so that they can reused over and over with dry erase markers. It has worked out well. I copied the 6 pages back to back, filling 3 page protectors. We are going to put them in folders to keep organized.

Click here to download 6 contraction pages . . .

So Many Nouns

We just started learning about nouns.  To help my kiddos remember what a noun is I made these.  Now don't go thinking that I am all creative, because I got the Idea from the Teacher Wife.  She has this amazing noun unit on TPT, but I wanted mine to match.  I kinda got this polka dot thing going on in my classroom.  So here they are....10 minutes on photoshop and walla....

Here is the finished product on my wall.  We Brainstormed words for each anchor chart and wrote them on the chart.  I am trying to use smaller anchor charts, so I can put more up this year:)

FaCt or OPiniOn

Since we have a new core curriculum this year, all of our first grade team has been trying to integrate as much as possible.  We have done fact and opinion lessons with apples, pumpkins, and spiders.  We just finished learning about clouds and are going to do a fact/opinion activity with it as well.  Our firsties are getting pretty good at determining what is a fact, and what is an opinion.  For them to refer back to, I made a fact and opinion anchor chart.

Click here for your copy.

Click here for your copy.

Monster Family Glyph

Have you seen these darling shape monsters?

Check out Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten for the original idea.

I just loved how they turned out, and I really wanted to make some in our class. The only problem was we were studying families not shapes, but it was sort of close of close to Halloween so I thought I could stretch it and make it a "Monster Family Glyph."

There really isn't a pattern for it. I did trace large shapes for the kids to trace and cut out a bazillion circles for eyes (note: don't try to use construction paper on the cricut, it doesn't cut very well.)

Here is what my "monsters" looked like.

The kids chose their favorite color, and their favorite shape. The eyes were the number of kids in their family. For their hair they had to pick enough strands to equal the number of letters in their last name (I didn't care what color). For the mouth if they were a girl they needed to cut a semi-circle, and a boy left them as rectangles. The number of teeth equaled their age (this is where the holiday interfered a bit-there were lots of dracula teeth). For the legs they each got a red strip (mom), blue strip (dad). Then, if they had a step mom they got a pink and a step dad they added a light blue strip. I just gave them a rectangle of black to make a "foot."

It was fun enough, I want to do it next year.

Capitalization Anchor Chart

Yes, I know it is late in the year, but my little ones are still struggling to know what and when to capitalize something. I found this example of a capitalization anchor chart at First Grade Fresh and decided to make one on the computer (since I am NOT an artist of even the basic kind--that is my little sister's job).

Here is what I came up with:

Click here to get your copy. Enjoy!

Sentence Anchor Chart

I have several ESL students in my class this year, so we are working really hard on what a sentence is. I found this lovely on pinterest and decided to make one of my own. (Sorry I don't have the original source, if you know where it is posted please let me know.

Pinterest link

Here is my version:

Click here to get one for yourself.