Addition in First Grade!

I love teaching addition in the younger grades. After we have built a strong number sense, we start with simple addition using manipulatives. We use buttons, cubes, gameboard pieces, etc. Basically anything we can get our hands on. Developmentally, I believe this is exactly what my first graders need to learn addition. 

They need to see it. 

Feel it. 

Understand it.

I want all those things before we practice quick math facts and math strategies. Once they can show me an addition sentence and find the sum, we move onto different addition strategies. Last year, I  created a subtraction unit that we used and loved [see post here] Naturally, I wanted to make a similar addition one. The same set-up, but with addition facts (up to 20) and addition strategies.

Take a look below to see some of the activities that are included:

Add it up! This hands-on activity is where we start. We use different colored cubes or game pieces to build and add and find the sum. Most of the cards only use two colors (2 addends), but I made some with 3 to get us familiar with adding three numbers together at the same time.

Add and Color! This was one my students FAVORITE games in the subtraction unit, so it was an easy choice to make the same game, but for addition.

Some fun anchor charts:

and much more!

Click the image below to check out What's the Sum? in my store and see if it works for you an your students.

0

Math Centers for the Whole Year!

I have been busy, busy with my son, Theo these past 6 weeks, but I was able to finish up my Christmas math centers I had started before he was born!

Every month, I make 6 different themed centers based on what we are learning at the time. They are Common Core aligned and by the end of the year, each math standard will be addressed in these packs. I made these December centers with my previous ones in mind. Each month has different centers, but include similar games and activities - just with harder material. They are scaffolded, so that as the teacher you can spend less time teaching HOW to complete each activity and more time focusing on the content.

If you liked any of my previous math centers, these may be just perfect for you and your students!

Here are 2 of my Santa Math centers:

 10 more and 10 less practice! Students practice matching (and reading -BONUS!) the Santa with the numbers that are 10 less and 10 more. They then record the answers on their recording sheet.

Making 20. In October's math centers (Pumpkin Math), there is a similar activity which requires students to find the missing addend to make 10. This activity is the same except with 20! Students choose a present card, cover up that many presents, and figure out how many more they need to make 20. They then record the missing addend on the recording sheet.

These, along with 4 more centers are included in my newest unit, Santa math:

I also decided to bundle the all seasonal centers together to save some money. They aren't all complete YET, but each month (September through June) will be uploaded by the 25th of each previous month. The bundle will be 400+ pages by the end! Already included in the bundle are also the following:

Apple Math - September

Pumpkin Math - October

Turkey Math - November

Here are the upcoming months' themes:

Snowman Math - January
Heart Math - February
Leprechaun Math - March
Bunny Math - April
Camping Math - May
Summer Math - June

I have the bundle AND the already uploaded units on sale through tomorrow night for even more of a discount :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

1

Quick Common Core Assessments for 1st Grade!

DATA!

Data. Data. Data.

 I love data. That's probably really nerdy, but it's true. I like to assess and re-assess my students. I like pre-tests, post-tests, formative assessments and summative assessments. I like making charts, keeping track, moving students from group to group and tier to tier. I like to SEE it all in front of me.

My dilemma?

I don't like the act of actually giving my students these tests all the time. I absolutely don't want to feel like I am testing them all day every day because if I feel like that, can you only imagine what my poor 6 year olds feel like?!

While there are certain diagnostic and end-of-year tests I have to give, those tend to be quite lengthy. If I want to collect some data quickly, I don't want to give my student a longggggg test. Especially when I just want to see if a student has made progress on one skill.

To help solve some of my testing problems, I created Quick Checks!

I made each assessment a maximum of 3 questions because I wanted them to be QUICK! I don't want my students bogged down in lengthy tests. I always think of my students who are struggling when I think about the length of tests. Do I really need to see them struggle on a 20 question test to know that they need more help or can I see that right away?!

Same goes for my higher students, if they get it... they get it! I don't need to have them sit in their chairs for another 15 minutes doing something redundant when they can be learning something new!

Here are two math quick checks and two phonics quick checks:

 1.RF.2c and 1.RF.2d

1.OA.8 and 1.MD. 4

I have created two different types of checklists that I like to use in my classroom. The first is just a mastery checklist. I use this one to mark when my class has mastered a certain skill. It allows me to quickly look at which standards my class might not have mastered yet. It also lets me group students quickly.

The other data tracker is a progress sheet. This one is for each individual student and allows me to track their pre and post data along with the dates I administered the quick check. These sheets have a place for me to take notes and a place for me to record a student's score if they needed to be re-assessed.

This unit includes all of the Common Core PHONICS standards (RF.1.2 and RF.1.3 with all the subsets under those) and all the Common Core MATH standards (OA, NBT, MD, and G).

**If the past two sentences look like another language to you than click on my product and you can see a more detailed description of each standard that is assessed.**

There are, of course, some Common Core standards that are not addressed in this unit such as all the writing standards and reading standards. I use my guided reading groups to assess all reading standards and writing rubrics to assess the writing standards. Basically, the phonics and math standards are the only ones that made sense for me to turn into "quick checks."

If you think these will work for your classroom, go ahead and click on the cover below to see more!

Happy Sunday! :)

3

Writing Reviews in 1st or 2nd Grade: Opinion Writing Fun!

If you have been following my blog for awhile, you may know that teaching writing is my FAVORITE subject to teach in 1st grade. I have a feeling I would love it in kinder or 2nd grade as well. My students' writing gets longer, more detailed, more persuasive, more informative, more interesting to the reader. I truly love the transformation from our beginning writing in August to the fiction stories with characters, problems, solutions, and more that we write in June.

It inspires me. It really, really does.

My three years in Vegas I had a shorter writing block and a shorter day than I do here in Massachusetts, so naturally I had to make a few tweaks and changes to my writing curriculum. In Vegas, we would spend a trimester each on writing personal narratives, writing informative texts, and then writing opinion papers. I used my Common Core Writing for 1st Grade for most of my core lessons and units and then would supplement with seasonal writing prompts and writing crafts/activities using my Writing Through the Seasons pack. All were Common Core aligned, my students got it, bada-bing, bada-boom.

This year, with 1 hour and 20 minutes to teach writer's workshop each and every day, I needed more. I could have continued to supplement with writing prompts and fun crafts with writing pieces, but I wanted to add more substance to my previous units. I wanted to take it a little further - and I am glad I did! We, of course, still continued to use seasonal writing prompts and even did a few, fun crafts, but my students got a much deeper knowledge of all three common core writing standards this year than ever before.

I am lucky enough to have the full Lucy Calkins writing curriculum at my new school for the first time and I was able to use that to create a pacing guide with my team that worked for our first graders. I also know from past experience, that while I love Lucy... I need a little more. A little more structure and guidance. A few more options. You might feel that Lucy is enough and then you are one, lucky teacher to have her! But me... I needed a bit more.

In the spring, we started teaching opinions. We expressed our opinions, wrote our opinions, and provided numerous reasons for them. We also spent some time writing persuasive letters to our principal and our parents. Most of the lessons and activities came from Lucy mixed with my Let's Write an Opinion unit. After we completed that unit, we started writing reviews. My students became critics on all things around them and learned to express their opinion and give a "star-rating" to all sorts of different things.

We had a blast doing this! It took our opinion writing a bit further and got my students to dig a little deeper. They were able to argue (the polite way) their opinions and were even able to persuade others to change their minds. It was so much fun!

I didn't think to snap that many pictures as we were completing this unit, but here is one of kiddos' paper reviewing the movie, Frozen. He loved it... shocker ;)

This, month long unit, sparked my creativity and I created a detailed opinion writing pack to help you teach your students how to write reviews:

Inside this unit:

- Getting Started: a detailed outline on how I teach the unit
- What is a review? anchor chart
- The parts of a review mini reference posters
- What can we review? anchor chart
- 3 different activities for students to practice reviewing: a toy review, food tasting, and plenty of different review cards
- 2 different 1st grade "exemplar" student samples
- Graphic organizers to map out student thinking
- Writing templates to pick and choose from
- Class book ideas
- Individual and partner editing checklists
- Individual and partner revision checklists
- Writing reviews rubric

A few samples:

A few anchor charts and to help students reference throughout the unit.

Just one of 3 different activities to help students practice reviewing things! There are 3 more sheets of review cards, along with blank ones for you to fill in reviewable items. My kids loved doing these as warm up activities and they can be used for quick writing prompts as well. The other 2 activities are a toy review and a food tasting. I can tell you the students loved all three!

 Some of the "parts of a review" mini reference posters to use throughout the units. I also typed up two different student examples from this year and put them into this unit for reference. They are exemplar pieces, but the students love seeing what they are striving for by the end of this unit.

 Plenty of graphic organizers, paper choices, as well as class book covers to use as you please throughout  this unit.

 Like in all of my writing packs, this one also has editing and revision checklists (individual and partner choices) as well as a rubric at the end to use for assessment purposes!

My kids and I truly loved this little unit and if you like the set up of my other writing packs, I think you will enjoy this as well. Click on the picture above and download the preview to see more of what is offered in the unit. 

As always, Happy Writing!

1

First Grade Common Core Language Standards - Part TWO!

SO happy to announce that part two of my Common Core Language pack for first grade is FINITO!

I have worked so hard on this bad boy and I wanted to highlight a few of the activities inside:

Meet the Capitalizing Crew! This is a fun spin on learning all about capitalization. Carly, Chris, and Chloe will help your students practice beginning capitalization, capitalization of names, and capitalization in dates. There are a few fun activities to use with this crew and some printable practice pages.

Roll, Spell, and Cover! This game is already in use in my classroom and my kids are loving it. This helps my kids sound out words phonetically drawing on what they've learned so far this year. Students roll a die, find a word that corresponds, spell it and cover! There is a short vowel board, a long vowel board, and a digraphs board.

Be a Wordsmith! The second half of this pack is all about vocabulary! I encourage my students to become wordsmiths and not only find and define interesting new words, but to use them as often as possible!

Categories: Students spin the spinner and sort words into different categories based on their meaning. There are 3 different game boards.

 Root word, Prefix, and Suffix anchor charts!

 After learning all about prefixes and suffixes, students make numerous little flip books and create sentences with each word.

 List it: Students practice using commas correctly with this activity! Students will pull a picture card and create a detailed sentence using the three items in the picture.

 Multiple meaning match-ups! Students dive deeper into vocabulary and match up these words with their two different meanings.

These are just a few of many different activities in Part 2 of the pack!

Feel free to click any of the images in this post to check out more about the pack.

For those of you who don't already have Part 1, I bundled both parts together at a discounted price.

 

 

Oh yah.... all 3 of my units are ON SALE through Monday (11/18)! Click on the covers above to see them :)

Have a great week!

1

First Grade Common Core Language Activities and Printables!

If you follow my facebook fan page, then you know I have been working on this for a while!

I actually started this product in March, but with all the end of the year hoopla, I could never get around to finishing it - until now, that is!

I am proudly presenting:

 

The last two years, I struggled finding ideas, activities, and printables for ALL the Common Core language standards for 1st grade. There are a lot!

Piece by piece, I created activities, games, and practice pages for the first batch of language standards. This pack is already 128 pages jam-packed with ideas and it is only Part One of what will be a two part pack. There were just too many standards to put them all in one pack!

The standards I was able to include in this pack are:

L.1.1a - print uppercase and lowercase letters
L.1.1b - common, proper, and possessive nouns
L.1.1c - singular and plural nouns with matching verbs
L.1.1d - personal, possessive, and indefinite pronouns
L.1.1e - verb tense
L.1.1f - adjectives
L.1.1g - conjunctions
L.1.1h - determiners
L.1.1i - prepositions
L.1.1j - types of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory)

Here is a little peek at what's inside:

For each of the standards listed above, there are anchor chart, activities/games, printables, and extension activities for your students to learn and reinforce the language standards!

 

A closer look:

 A few verb games... 

**NOTE: the creativity must have been flowing when I came up with "The Verb Game"**

Picture cards are just a sampling of the charades center cards I use when learning what verbs are. "The Verb Game" is a board game that helps students practice using the correct verb tense.

 

 Connect Two!

I use this as a center activity to help students connect sentences using different conjunctions. They cut out the puzzle pieces and try to make as many sentences as they can that make sense!

Where's My Puppy?

After learning what prepositions are, students create this little book about a lost puppy! They must write a simple sentence using a prepositional word or phrase to describe where the puppy is!

Those are just 3 of many, many games & activities included in the pack.

 

I am putting this pack on SALE through Tuesday, so feel free to snatch it up in my TPT store:

[Click HERE!]

 

2