I think math shamRocks!

Reason #254 why I love teaching first grade - adding simple clip art to the same old math problems instantly makes them exciting and fun a first grader's eyes.  So, for your teaching pleasure, here are a few March math pages.  I've included some work on fact families, ten more/ten less, and a 100s chart to be filled in by your little leprechauns.  I've got some more March-themed crafts and whatnots in the works, so stay tuned for more March fun! Click here to download.

Guess who spent way too much time this weekend on Pinterest?  My son's naps are my only "me" time right now, and Mt. Laundry and the dust bunnies took a serious back seat to my search for Pinspiration.  Well, I found this idea for some fact family fun from Mrs. Thiessen, and our fact family flower garden turned out just so purdy.  I get so happy every time I look at the finished product.  Spring can not get here soon enough, but until then, this will have to do.  Here's a pattern for the flower we made.

Did anyone else have a blast celebrating Leap Year today?  More on that in my next post.  Too many fun things happening this week for one post!

Cheers!
Meghan

Pigs, pancakes, and everything in between

My school district is still rocking it old school with our outdated Houghton Mifflin adoption (thank you, current state budget clusterf$%&), and sometimes the anthology selections we read seem a bit outdated.  This is not the case with this week's story, Felicia Bond's If You Give a Pig a Pancake.  Her stories are all gold in the eyes of first graders, and this one is no different.

We were working on questioning this week, and more specifically, I wanted my students to decide whether the story was realistic fiction or fantasy by questioning the validity of various plot elements in the text.  On top of that, I wanted them to be able to extract details from the story to prove their thinking.  Anyone who has read the soon-to-be-implemented Common Core Standards knows that explaining/defending answers is a pretty big chunk of the new standards, across multiple content areas.

My students can easily identify if something is fantasy.  For this story, they often say something like, "That's fantasy because pigs can't build a tree house!"  In the years past, I've accepted this answer and moved on. Not this year.  Now they had to tell me specifically why a pig can't build a tree house.

We took some time to put together this poster and talk about our thoughts on what made certain plot elements fantastical.  First, after reading the book, we took a class vote to see what genre the students thought this story belonged in.  Fantasy shut out realistic fiction, 21-0.  Next, it was time to jot down some hard evidence.  Students worked in pairs to come up with the fantastical story element as well as a valid reason for their thinking.  Their favorite part, of course, was at the end of the day when I chose a random student to take the poster home.

Next, we created our own pigs holding two pancakes.  On one pancake, the students listed a "Piggy Fantasy," where they jotted down a plot element that fit the fantasy category.  On the other pancake, the kiddos wrote a "Real Piggy Fact," and they had to write a real reason why that plot element was fantastical.  We then sponged some brown paint on the top of the pig's head, sponged a brown patch over his eye (all to match the illustration in the book), and ta da!  I give you our Fantasy Pancake Pig.  I included a template for making the pig here if you'd like to give it a whirl.

Side note - Isn't it hysterical how kids personalize their art?  This was a guided art activity, but somehow, we ended up with an Edward Cullen vampire pig, a pig with a bushy moustache, and a pig with a full set of pearly whites.  To each their own, right?

Happy Friday!

Cheers,
Meghan

I Heart You, Long O Words!

Oh, long vowels.  They are exciting for first graders because they open the door to more advanced reading.  On the flip side, they can frustrate little learners with their many rules to remember and different ways to spell the same sound.  What's a first grader to do?  My answer is always the same - practice, practice, practice.  Practice reading them, writing them, using them any way you can.

So, last week, in the spirit of Valentine's day, I put together a little heart-themed activity for my kiddos.  I created a spelling scramble (which you can grab here - the pages are intended to be the front and back of the same sheet of paper) using long o words. Using this recording sheet, students thought they were playing some strange version of musical chairs, when in fact they were racing against the love-themed playlist on my ipod to unscramble the word and write it down correctly.  I paired up the class and put a baggy with a scrambled word at each desk. Each baggy had a number on it that corresponded to a heart on their recording page.

Ready, set, go!

Sorting it all out.

The music stopped - hands in the air!

The finished product.

When the music started, the kids could open their bags, unscramble the words, and jot them down in the correct heart.  The pictures on the back of the phonemes provided scaffolding for those who needed it, and my high students challenged themselves to figure out the word without using the picture clue for help.  When the music stopped playing (I gave them about 30 seconds for each word), students put the phonemes back into the baggies and rotated to the next desk.   Simple, right?  This was such a hit!  I have kids asking me if we're going to start doing these each week.  I sense a whole lot of weekend work ahead of me.  Happy spelling!

Cheers!
Meghan

Introductions and Confessions

Here goes nothing!

I'm Meghan, a first grade teacher in Northern California.  I am lucky to teach 22 of the most caring, hard-working kiddos around, and I wouldn't trade my job for anything.

Now, time for the confession(s)...
At the beginning of this school year, I was ready and willing to walk away from my teaching position.  I had just returned from 6 months of maternity leave, and leaving my son was harder than I could have every imagined.  I wouldn't say that I had a nervous breakdown, but let's just say I wasn't in a good place.  It took me months to feel "normal" again at work, and you know what got me through it?  An amazing grade level partner who introduced me to the wonderful world of teaching blogs.  I swear, when I read the first post on that first blog I found, hours of my life passed me by as the inspiration seeped into my teaching soul, and I haven't looked back since. I realized that most of my problem was that I felt my classroom, my art projects, my overall everything was stale, and the thought of reinventing all of that on my own was overwhelming.  Enter everyone else's ideas, and presto!  I quickly became a teaching blog addict, and I am now back to my type-A, perfectionist-ish self.  It seems so silly now to say that blogs saved my career, but it's the truth!

Seeing as I owe quite a bit to the blogging world, I figured that I'd give it the old college try and create my own.  If I can give back just a small fraction of inspiration that I've been given, I will be a happy camper.  So, if you're up for it, come along for the ride!

Cheers!
Meghan