Bunny and Easter Centers

Many of you have already looked at our Bunny Business Literature packet. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we do!

Here is a look at what we have posted on TpT for our Bunny Week and Easter center activities.

Bunny Business

We’ve been busy little bunnies this week getting all of our Easter stuff ready to post on TpT to share with you. 

Here’s the first item . . . it is a 64 page unit called Bunny Business that is filled with several math, writing and art activities that incorporate many of our favorite “bunny” themed books.  There are even ideas and activities that you could do if you had your very own “Bunny Day” at school.

Our kiddos have always loved these activities.  We hope you and your kiddos will, too!!!

Inside our Classrooms

We wanted to invite all of you to come take a peek in our classrooms this week to see what we’ve been up to.  Besides this blog, we have each had our own class blogs for the past two years.  We originally began them as a way to let parents see what their child was doing all day at school.  Then before we knew it we had grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, family friends, former students and even teachers from around the world checking in with us on a regular basis.  Our own mom’s even log on a few times each week to see what we’re doing!

Thanks to some fabulous parent volunteers, we get pictures almost every day of our kids during center time.  Then we try to capture the rest. It’s a BIG job, but we’ve had such a great response.  The kids really feel like stars when they see their pictures online.

Writing A Complete Sentence

If you are looking for some new activities that will help your beginning writers learn to write a complete sentence check out our newest item on TpT.  It includes 60 pages of activities that will teach your students about nouns, verbs, capitalization and punctuation.  There is also an entry skills assessment and a pre/post assessment that can be used to document student readiness and growth.

 

 

The very first items we ever posted on TpT {What is a Noun? and What is a Verb? books} are part of this download.  Now we’ve combined them, added additional literacy centers and updated some of the graphics.

Gumball Math {Expansion Pack} Winner!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered our Gumball Math {Expansion Pack} giveaway.  We are happy to announce that the winner is . . . (drum roll please) . . .

If you didn’t win and would still like to purchase the Gumball Math {Expansion Pack} then head on over to our TpT store.

Gumball Math {Expansion Pack}

Since posting Gumball Math last week on TpT we have received several requests from many of you, our loyal followers, for additional tests that focus on specific skills.  So, we listened and we got to work.  We are happy to announce that we’ve just added a brand new Gumball Math {Expansion Pack} to our TpT store.  It includes the BONUS tests that we previously posted as freebies as well as  several {new} additions.   

There are 22 tests included in the new Gumball Math {Expansion Pack} as well as record sheets for you to document students as they progress through each test.

  We would absolutely LOVE to give one of these away so here’s what you need to do . . .

 

1.  Make sure you are one of our followers AND post a comment.

 

2.  For an additional entry you can blog about this giveaway and then post an additional comment with a link to your blog post.

 

We will announce the winner tomorrow (Friday, March 25th) at 6:00 pm CST.

 

Good luck!!!

 

If you can’t wait or aren’t feeling lucky you can head on over to our TpT store to buy your own set.

Lost in Space

Looking a little ahead . . . we have an exciting two week long space unit coming up in our first grade classrooms.  It’s always a unit that our boys absolutely LOVE!!! 

Needless to say, we’ve been working hard the past few weeks to create lots of new activities . . . and jazzing up some of our old ones so we could share them with you.

Here’s a {sneak} peek at all the items we now have listed on TpT.

We really like posting our items individually so teachers can buy exactly what they want and not have to spend money on activities they won’t or can’t use. 

Many of you have expressed an interest in seeing how we incorporate literature into every unit so . . . here is a freebie just for you.  It includes two creative writing lesson plans and art projects.

Let’s Learn About Weather

We LOVE incorporating literature into all of our 1st grade thematic units.  Even after all of these years we are still finding new books to add to our classroom libraries.  

Here’s a little {sneak} peek at the brand new item we just posted on TpT that has lesson plans, literature suggestions, creative writing activities, art projects and a science project that will supplement your weather unit. 

{click here to head over to our TpT store and get your copy}

 

Do you have a favorite book that you like to use with your weather unit???

 

If so we would love to hear about it.  Leave us a comment!!!

Weather Unit

When we return from Spring Break we are going to launch right into our weather unit.  Here’s a little {sneak} peek at all the new center activities we have made and posted on TpT.  We have 8 activities in all . . . so far. 

And now . . . here’s a weather freebie

These are a few of the “rainbow” themed activities we do to wrap up our weather unit.  After learning all about the water cycle, wind and storms we introduce our students to Roy G. Biv.  He is here to help us remember the order of the colors in the rainbow.  We always make this silly little art project and do a rainbow writing activity.  Students love to make their torn paper art project and then write about what each color of the rainbow reminds them of.  They also REALLY love tracing over each color of the rainbow with colored pencils.

{click here for writing paper and nametag}

Here are some “rainbow” themed books you might want to consider adding to your library.

 

Circle Story Giveaway

The day has finally arrived for us to giveaway a copy of our Circle Story Unit . . .

We are absolutely AMAZED at the response we had from all of our new friends {followers} since we blogged about this last week.  For those of you who couldn’t wait and already bought your own copy . . . thank you, thank you, thank you for your purchase!!!

We can tell you that we finally got to do it this past week with our own kiddos and it was a HUGE hit!!!  The kids did a great job with all of the writing and center activities.

As we mentioned earlier in the week we did find a few mistakes and they have all been updated on TpT.  If you already purchased the unit and don’t want to have to go through all 136 pages of the download here’s a brief description of the updates

1.  Muffins for Money – the word “quarter” was misspelled on the poster . . . {page 27}

2.  Muffins for Money – the muffin that now says 85 cents had the wrong amount printed on it . . . {page 35}

3.  School is Cool – the worksheet had the wrong coding marks printed above the oo sounds  . . . {page 87}

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for . . .

the WINNER is

If you didn’t win and you would still like to have a copy of our Circle Story Unit head on over to our TpT store. 

We would really love to hear from you and get your feedback after you do this unit with your kids.  We are always looking for ways to improve our activities.  Your comments or suggestions are welcome.  Just drop us an e-mail at madefor1stgrade@gmail.com

We are taking a few days off because it’s finally Spring Break . . . plus we have lots of Jayhawk basketball to watch.  We think they are going to go all the way this year!!!

It’s Your Lucky Day

We are SO excited to announce our very first winner . . . EVER!!!  Thank you so much everyone who posted such sweet comments about our Gumball Math unit and for becoming one of our followers. 

 

Even if you didn’t win . . . it’s still your Lucky Day.  Here are some bonus tests we created that focus on specific skills we all cover in 1st grade.  This is a new addition for us too!!!  We are planning to di-cut colorful gumballs out of fun scrapbook paper.  Each time a child passes one of these “BONUS” Gumball Math tests they will get to choose a colorful gumball to their machine.

  {click here to download}

You can also still head on over to our TpT store and purchase your own copy of Gumball Math.  It’s got everything you need . . . except the real gumballs . . . to reinforce basic addition and subtraction fact mastery.

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day friends!!!

Gumball Math

We’ve just added a new item to our TpT store.  It’s a series of timed addition and subtraction fact tests.  We use them in our classrooms to reinforce mastery of facts.  As students successfully complete each test they get to glue a paper gumball on their gumball machine.  They also get to celebrate by earning a real gumball, too!!!

There are 10 tests in the Gumball Math series. 

Here’s a {sneek} peek at what this download includes. 

We would LOVE to give one of these away to one of our new friends {followers}.  All you have to do to do win is leave a comment and make sure you are already following us. 

Since tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day we figured there was no better time to make someone lucky.

We will announce the winner tomorrow (Thursday, March 17th) at 4:30 CST.

Good Luck!!!

Circle Story Correction

Just when we thought everything was perfect . . . we found a mistake!!!

This morning we began using all of the circle story centers with our own kiddos and discovered a little mistake with one the of the cards in the Muffins for Money activity.  We were so bummed!!!  If you want a quick fix click on the {new} cupcake card below and it is linked to a document you can print.  We will also update the entire unit with the correction on TpT for those of you who haven’t printed any of the activities yet.

Discard the 41 cent muffin card and replace it with the 85 cent card.

We are SO sorry for not noticing this sooner!!!

Welcome to the Jungle

If you have a jungle themed classroom and would like to have a few new things to jazz up your walls check out the new items we posted on TpT this morning.  Here’s a little {sneek} peek.
There is a set of (32) “NO MONKEY BUSINESS” behavior cards that you can print, laminate and display in a pocket chart.
There is a set of (9) 11x17 posters that have basic classroom rules that everyone should follow.
There is also a cute set of jungle themed numbers {0-20}.
We are completely overwhelmed by the response we have gotten from all of our new friends {followers} the past few days. We can’t wait to announce the winner of our circle story unit giveaway later this week.  For those of you who couldn’t wait and already purchased the unit . . . thank you, thank you, thank you!!!  We hope you are as excited about using it with your kids as we are with ours.

It's Magically Mathematic

Looking for a fun {and relatively cheap} math lesson to do next week that will "Charm" your kiddos.  If so, all you need to do is run out a buy a box of Lucky Charms cereal this weekend. 

Begin by making a class prediction about which shape of marshmallow the kids think there will be the most of in your box of Lucky Charms.  Then divide the box up evenly amongst the kids in your class and let them get to work sorting all of their marshmallows on the sorting mat.

 

The next step involves having your kiddos tally how many of each marshmallow they had.

The last step is a big one . . .you will combine all of the information from each students tally mark chart onto a class tally mark chart to find out which kind of marshmallow you had the most of.  Beware . . . this is a big job, but the kids will love it.

{Here's an example of the chart we used on our Promethean Board to record our class results.}

We even took it one step further last year and made a hallway tally mark chart using the data from 4 classrooms.  It was so interesting for the kids to compare how our results compared with the hallway results.

If you are an Active Studio Promethean user and would to use the flipcharts we have, just drop us an email and we would be glad to send them your way!!!