First Week of School Activities and a FREEBIE!

My first day of school is in less than one month. 29 more days.

The countdown is on.

It is not as exciting as the countdown that happens at the end of the year, but I know a new school year is just around the corner, so I might as well start getting excited!

(No worries, I am not a freak... I fully intend to enjoy every.last.second of my summer as well)

As the new year approaches, I wanted to get my mind (and printer) ready for those first days of school. I opened up my files and VOILA I found my first week fun unit.

It is always a hit and helps my new batch of first graders get to know one another and their classroom better.

There was only teensy weensy problem. The unit needed some major updating! It was actually one of the first units I ever uploaded to TPT, so please forgive the old looks and say HHHEEEELLLOOOO to a new look:

This product has all the same great material. It is just updated with some new clipart! I also added a few new activities that your students are sure to love.

Here is a part of the mini-book my students complete throughout the week:

It also still includes one of my favorite activities that we complete after we read My Mouth is a Volcano! by Julia Cook. It is a must at the beginning of the year!

There are 11 total activities for your students to complete during those first weeks of school. The list is as follows:
- My new class mini-book (boy and girl version)
- Writing response: “One important class rule is….”
- All About Me! Brainstorming map
- Things I am good at! Brainstorming map
- Ice breaker: “Find someone…”
- Partner activity: Classroom Checklist!
- Library Exploration: My Book Hunt!
- This Year vs. Last Year Venn Diagrom
- Summer personal narrative – organizers and writing paper
- Things I love about my new class – organizer and writing paper
- “My Mouth is a Volcano!” craft and writing activity

 I also decided to make one of the new additions to the unit a FAN FREEBIE on my facebook page. This is a classroom checklist for you students to complete with a partner. It is a fun way for them to get to know the classroom and their surroundings a little better!

In order to grab your own copy of the checklist, make sure you click the picture above and it will send you to my facebook page. When you are there you will click on "Fan Freebie" shown below:

 If you already like my facebook page it will take you to the freebie! If you don't like my FB page yet, you just click "like" and then it will take you to it! EZ-PZ!

Also don't forget, if you already purchased this item, just re-download it on TPT and you will get the new version!

Have a happy, happy weekend everyone!

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Writing Through the Seasons {Spring}!

TGIF!

Although.... for most of you it is already Saturday!

This will be short & sweet because I am exhausted.

If you are familiar with my Writing Through the Seasons packs then you will be excited to hear that I  finally finished my Writing Through the Seasons {Spring} pack! 

I wanted to show you all a little *sneak peek*

In the pack there are plenty of Spring themed writing prompts (narrative, informative, and opinion):

I also added 2 crafts with writing activities:

Parts of speech flip books:

and more!

You can click on HERE to head over to TPT and check it out.

Before I go, I wanted to let you know that TPT is having a HA-UGE sale on Sunday (and I am extending it to Monday). My shop will be 20% off and if you enter the Promo code: SUPER you can receive another 10% off your purchase!

Thanks to the amazing Ashley Hughes for the button!

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Holiday Scratch n' Sniff & Reindeer Writing

My Christmas countdown is ON! Is yours?!?

We started a few holiday activities today and let me tell you, the kids were SO excited! I picked a few of the most exciting ones to highlight this evening.
 

First up: Holiday Scratch n' Sniff 
 

Peppermints, gingerbread cookies, cinnamon and some pine needles (or just a green marker and some imagination).
 

That is all you need for this holiday activity! My first year teaching, my friend, Carisa, introduced me to this and I knew I had to try it. I made a few adaptations over the years and I tell can you this is a BIG hit in my class! The kids loooove it!

First, you put some holiday scents into unmarked containers. This year I chose peppermint candies, crushed gingerbread cookies, cinnamon, and a Christmas tree. Now... in the past I have crushed up the peppermints and added them to an unmarked container as well. This year, I don't know what type of dang peppermints I got, but these ones would NOT break... I tried everything... except a hammer...and that is mostly because I don't have a hammer at school. Soooo I just glued a whole peppermint candy to the paper. 

You can also see that the Christmas tree is clearly not real. Parks and I aren't getting a real Christmas tree this year due to the fact that we have a teensy-weensy apartment, but thankfully, many of my students already have one. I just had them draw a Christmas tree and they wrote down some words to describe it on their own.

[In the past, I would snip the ends of a few branches off the tree and bring those in.]

Now, onto the activity...all students need to do is dab a little glue in each box and "sprinkle" the holiday scents onto the paper. Once each scent has dried, students lightly scratch each box and sniff away! They think this is hilarious and I love watching their faces as they smell each one. Afterwards I have my students write down some adjectives to describe what they are smelling and they try to guess what each smell is. It is a simple little activity, but it brings a lot of giggles and my room smells like Christmas for the rest of the day!

How can you beat a room that smells like Christmas and is filled with the sounds of little kids laughing?!? You can't! It is amazing.

 

 This one cracks me up...

Christmas tree - "smells super good"

Cinnamon - "smells excellent"

Peppermint - "it's kind of good"

Gingerbread cookie - "smells bad"

After it is all said and done, I reveal the mystery scents and we all have a goooood ole time!
 

Some other scents I have used in the past:

-Candles: this one is easy, you can find SO many holiday scents. Just hide the label and have students take turns smelling!

- Peppermint oil (one drop goes a longggg way)

- Nutmeg

- Ginger

- Crushed sugar cookies

Activity 2: Reindeer Writing

At the end of the day, we made these cute little reindeer writing activities:

 

^^Tee hee^^

 I told my students that Rudolph was taking a vacation for Christmas and they needed to write a how-to piece for the other reindeer to "step up their game" and become the new Rudolph! My phone died before my kiddos were finished (Santa is bringing me a snazzy, new camera for Christmas), but they thought that the new lead reindeer had to be strong, smart, funny and one little guy said he had to be "a good guider through the winter night."
 

If you'd like to get your hands on either of these activities, they are in my Sleigh Bells Ring Pack!

{This pack is currently on sale for only $3.50!}
 

The next few weeks will be jam-packed with more fun activities, but for the next 48 hours, I am going to unplug and enjoy family, friends, and a relaxing deep-tissue massage. Have a splendid weekend everyone!

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Sleigh Bells Ring!

Deep breath. . .

I can finally relax and enjoy my Thanksgiving mini-vacation in Chattanooga!

My holiday centers are up:

{Sleigh Bells Ring}

There are 4 math and 4 literacy centers to help your little ones through the holiday season! Here are a few highlights:

(Place Value Penguins)

I use these adorable little place value penguins for many games in the winter time! Student can simply match and record,  or play many partner or whole-group games like Quiz-Quiz trade, mix-n-match, memory, Go Fish!, you name it! Cards like these are a must for place value practice in my classroom. Once we dive into place value (usually in late December), I have themed cards like these for each month. My kids always need as much practice as possible when it comes to tens n' ones!

(Rockin' Reindeer Writing Prompts)

 Students can make this EZ-PZ reindeer and answer one of three writing prompts. I included a narrative prompt, an informative prompt, and an opinion prompt for you or your kids to choose from! I didn't have any light brown construction paper, but I think if I did I would've made the reindeer's head the light brown to help differentiate from the antlers - but you get the idea!

Here is a preview of the rest of the activities in my pack:

 Two last things for you...

(1)

Teacher's Notebook is throwing a ginormous 3-day sale this weekend (Saturday - Monday) and everything in my store will be 25% off and TN is giving you an additional discount at checkout!!

[My TN Store]

(2)

I am giving away my new pack to the first 2 people who can remember what my favorite Thanksgiving food is!! Leave your emails!! I will email the winner's by Friday :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

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Going Batty!

A three day week for the kids.

22 parent-teacher conferences.

Report cards right around the corner.

Lesson-study with my first grade team.

Organizing 140 QSI results to make intervention groups.

I am going BATTY!

Thankfully, my favorite craftivity designer, Mrs. Cupcake, has got me covered! 

We are learning to identify the main topic and key details of non-fiction texts and this morning we read allllll about bats! 

I had been waiting for the perfect time to use her little freebie and today was it.

Are they not the cutest bats you've ever seen?!?

Tomorrow we will use her writing templates to write all the fun information we learned.

Click on the picture below to snag your own copy before Halloween is here!

I hope everyone's conferences are going well! I only have 2 more tomorrow - WAHOO!

Happy hump day!!

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I had a Dream...Craftivity!

I am linking up with Denise, over at Sunny Days in Second Grade, for Show and Tell Tuesday!!

The topic today is MLK Jr.! 

I was at work last night "cutsifying" (real word?) an MLK Jr. packet I had started and used back in January. I even added...wait for it... a CRAFTIVITY! I think I am getting better at them... practice, practice, practice!

What do you think?!

That MLK was a cutie, huh?!

UPDATE: See it in my classroom HERE

Anyways, he is just one of the fun activities I added to my lil packet. 

My fave, fave, fave book to read aloud is Martin's BIG Words by Doreen Rappaport. The last two years my kids even teared up at the end... which causes me to tear up, and we have a sweet little cry fest and talk about how great MLK Jr. really was! It always amazes me the depth of understanding those little 6 year olds have. 

LOVE!

After we read the book aloud and have many in-depth discussions, we create our own book of BIG words. Well, I "cutsified" that too. {Thanks, Nikki from Melonheadz}!

 

They come out pretty adorable last year, but thanks to the makeover, they will be a lot cuter this year.

If you want to check out my packet & craftivity, click HERE or HERE.... or HERE!

(They're all the same link... just didn't want you to miss it) 

;)

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My Mouth is a VOLCANO!!!

 

My Mouth is a Volcano is one my favorite books to read at the beginning of the year to help curb the interrupting and blurting out!

This year I made a cute little craftivity to extend our learning after this read-aloud. We always talk about why it is important not to interrupt others and what we can do if we feel like we might EXPLODEEEE with words while someone else is speaking. Since I love to chatchatchat, this concept is very familiar to me and I see little Susan Moran's all over my classroom at the beginning of the year! Our words are very important to us you know!!!

I recently uploaded my "First Week Fun" packet on TpT with some cute activities for the first week of school and my little Volcano craftivity is in that packet!

Here are some of the other activities in my first week packet:

 

 You can see a closer preview at my {TpT store}!

Susan

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Free Kite Craftivity!

Morning everybody!

I was busy last night making a cute little kite craftivity that I am going to use for a beginning of the year bulletin board! It started off as "Flying into First", but I also added "Kiting into Kinder" and "Soaring into Second" so others could use it too!

I'm no Teri, over at A Cupcake for the Teacher... but I think it came out pretty cute!

It also works for the end of the year & I added writing prompt ideas for both the beginning and the end of the year! It is in my TpT store for free, if you'd like your own copy!! Let me know what you think!

Have a great weekend :)

Susan

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Art & Academic Night & A Math FREEBIE!

Our Art & Academic Night was last Thursday night and we had so much fun!

Here's a little peak into our night:

A few months ago I found these adorable little owls on pinterest and since our school mascot is the owl I couldn't resist doing them with my students!! It is funny to see each of their personalities in this lil craftivity.

We displayed our poetry books on our desk (from Natalie Kay's poetry pack here) and our non-fiction books we created (from my All About Book templates). 

On our board I kept our poe-tree anchor chart which I stole(borrowed?) from Cara Carroll and my inspector fix-it who helps us with all sorts of grammatical errors! 

There is also our pasta butterfly life cycles I posted about here.

I meant to take a lot more pictures but I was running all over the place like a crazy person before the parents came... whoops!

Last week we also worked on this Balancing Equations freebie I made.

After our testing (why did I notice this AFTER and not before?!?!) I realized my students had a very difficult time solving equations like this:

4 + 7 = 5 + ____

So I pulled out the balances and some cubes and we practiced, practiced, practiced, until their light bulbs turned on! [*We used this term all year & the students loved helping their classmates turn their light bulbs on... it is kinda adorable!]

 Click on any of the worksheet examples below to download my freebie!

Now I must go eat breakfast and lay by the pool for the rest of this lazy day :)

Have a great SHORT week!

Susan

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