Stone Soup: A Literacy & Community Unit

Do your students read Stone Soup around Thanksgiving?!

I have done this unit 4 of the 5 years I taught first grade and both my students and I L-O-V-E it!

I always complete this literacy unit the week before Thanksgiving and we tie in the relation between the holiday of giving thanks and the importance of community and helping one another. I find that these books exemplify the thoughts of coming together and helping one another. Many students can also relate the feasts shown in this book to the feasts they have themselves on Thanksgiving!

There are so many versions of the Stone Soup folk tale, but the four I choose to compare, contrast, and dive into are by the following authors:

Marcia Brown

Ann Mcgovern

Jon J Muth

Jess Stockham

They are each a little different, but share the same sentiments of sharing, caring, and working together for a greater good!

For each book, I included some story responses, writing prompts and read aloud lessons that we have discussed over the past few years.

The story responses touch on sequencing, inferring, vocabulary development, comparing/contrasting, and story elements. While the writing prompts are a mix of opinion and contrasting stories!

There are also a few crafts included as well a recipe and parent notes in case you want to re-create the stone soup experience for your students!

You can grab everything you need for a stone soup mini-unit by clicking the image below:

Download the preview to see a closer look at what's included in this unit!

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Free Pumpkin Number Match Center!

Apple cider donuts, picking pumpkins off the vine, hayrides... that is what Fall is all about, right?!

I am feeling oh, so in the season and thought I would make this free center for you younger students to practice their number sense!

Students simply count up the seeds (or better yet, identify the number in the 10s frame without counting!!) and match it with the numeral. 

I also included a recording sheet where students will write the number word after matching!

Simple and fun!

To download your free center, click below:

Enjoy!

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Apple Math! Math Games for the beginning of the year!

Last fall I was inspired by a field trip to the pumpkin patch to make some math games that I "creatively" called Pumpkin Math.

They were a fun way to tie in pumpkins to our math block and they were a big hit in my classroom.

Thinking along those same lines, I wanted to make something for the month of September that was similar. We learn all about apples and Johnny Appleseed at the beginning of the year, so I thought I would make 6 more math games and title it, Apple Math! Again... the creative juices must have been flowing when I thought of these titles ;)

Since I will be using these centers and games at the beginning of the year, I made them to align with what we will be teaching at that time.

Here is an example of the activity, Adding Apples!

There are 18 different task cards in which students add red and green apples to find sums within 10. There is also a recording sheet for them to record their answers. I included the little apples for students to use as manipulatives, but I also know I have some cute apple buttons and pom-poms at school that my kids will love to use!

Another activity is our book of story problems:

We work on story problems all year long so my students can get used to the real world application of math. It also gets them used to solving the problem, showing their work, and writing the equation. These are addition and subtraction within 10 and are a great starting point for story problems at the beginning of the year.

These are just 2 of 6 different activities for students to complete. To read about the others, just click HERE!

This unit as well as ALL my other math units are on sale for the rest of the day!

Happy Christmas in July!

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Fallin' for Autumn Freebie!

Fall is here folks!

My oh, so FAVE season is in full swing.

Unfortunately, I live in Vegas now... and there is no such thing as Fall... no cool crisp nights, no orange, red, and yellow leaves, no raking and jumping in leaf piles!

Oh well... 

I do love getting to show pictures and share my Autumn memories with my students during this season. These Vegas kids know summer... they know allllllll about summer... but Fall... that's my domain!

  

(source)

Ahh... New England memories...

As I was reminiscing about Fall last night I decided to make some writing prompt cards that I will be using during Daily 5 over the next few weeks! Since I love Fall and I love all y'all, I decided to make the free! Just click the image to download them from my TPT store!

 

My bloggy friend, Ashley, also has a great resources page full of Fall/Autumn items on her website, The School Supply Addict. Click the button below to go to her Fall page. If you haven't been to her site before, beware... you will spend hours there! She has organized so many fabulous resources for you!

Last, but not least, go link up with Christine at The Crazy Pre-K Classroom, to share your Fall Freebies!

Happy, snappy Fall to you all!

Corny... I know...

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In Awe! 500 Follower Giveaway!!!

I am in awe...

 Last Saturday around 2:00pm I reached 500 followers!!!

I am so thrilled and I love all of you ladies n gents so much that I went all out for this giveaway! Seeing as we are getting into the Fall season, and being that I am from Salem, MA, I thought it would be fitting to have a Fall/Halloween themed giveaway!

I called on the big dawgs.... the real big dawgs.... and they answered! These ladies are some of my ALL TIME favorite bloggers in all the land. I would've never started creating products or blogging if it weren't for them. Many thanks to these inspiring women!!

First up,

{Abby}

 (source: The Inspired Apple)

Abby has donated The Candy Corn Bandit. This is such a fun idea! Your students will be making predictions while trying to find out where this bandit went and what he looks like. All the while you are traveling all over the school! Anything to get my kids up and movin'!

Next,

{Rachelle}

Rachelle has donated "A Halloween Unit" to the giveaway! This huge unit is jam-packed with Halloween activities!! Some of my favorites are the "guess what we're being for Halloween" class book and the paper plate scarecrow craft!

On to, 

{Teri}

Teri's craftivities?!? Yah... I'm obsessed. This little pumpkin pack is no different. It is so stinkin' adorable I can't even contain myself! She always has the best activities to go along with her picture perfect crafts!

Then came,

{Kelley}

Have you checked out this woman's morning work?!? If not, you need to! She has the perfect September morning work packet to keep your little ones busy n learnin' in the morning! All the activities are aligned to to common core and I swear my kiddos are smarter because of these activities! She just, just, just came out with her October pack - and you can be one of the first to have it!

and next,
{Stephanie}

Are those witches adorable or what?!? Steph's creative craftivity also comes with an original poem and some how-to writing prompts! I am super excited about this pack!

Last, but not least,

{Me}

You can read more about this mini-unit here, but I kinda love it! There are loads of activities I can't wait to do with my kids!

Enter away & good luck to everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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One Haunted Halloween & Pumpkin Patch Kids!

Happy weekend everybody!

I am so excited to have finally put all the finishing touches on my new {One Haunted Halloween} packet!!

There are 7 fun activities in this packet. If you click on the picture above you can see a preview and a detailed description of the pack, but I wanted to highlight a couple of my favorites:

First, is this little craftivity:

"Who is hiding there you ask? Who is the classmate behind that mask?"

Students draw a picture of themselves and then cover up their eyes with a mask. On the bottom portion they write about themselves and try to guess who is who! We did a version of this last year and it was a big hit! I hang them up in the hallway so other students can guess too! *My packet comes with the face & mask templates, writing sheet, and a map-it-out brainstorming page*

Another Halloween favorite is this EASY & fun skeleton strategy game:

*click the image to read how to play*

Both activities are in my new packet and I cannot wait to use them with my kiddos!!

In the Fall spirit, I also have my Pumpkin Patch Kids mini-unit we will be breaking out soon!

[Some of the activities include]:

Digraph spin, Even & odd activities, roll a Jack-o-lantern subtraction game, and a punctuation board game

 

Until next time,

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