Smitten with First

Teacher Week ’15: Classroom Tour

I LOVE Teacher Week! I love reading all the posts! I am back today with a classroom tour. I posted it right before school started, so you can read all about it here. There are several freebies for you too! There are still a few more days to link up if you haven't already joined in on the fun. You can link up on Blog Hoppin', share on our Facebook page, your Instagram, or even on Periscope.  Happy Teacher … [Read more...]

Catching up with Back to School activities

Since I am not one to cook, much less prepare a meal ahead of time, I wanted to catch up on our back to school activities that we have done the past few weeks. Bare with me as I let the pictures do most of the talking. Here are a few of my favorites to do each year.  Last week we read If You Take a Mouse to School and completed this text connection.  You can find the mouse templates plus the writing stem here and … [Read more...]

Classroom Tour with Free Decor and Posters

As you may have read in my last post, it was time for some MAJOR change in my classroom decor this year! Here's a little peek into my farmhouse chic inspired classroom. Over the summer I came across the most adorable shiplap inspired wood bulletin board paper at our local teacher store, and knew I had to use throughout my room. This will be our reading board where we display any reading craftivities, anchor charts, etc. Wood paper by Pacon … [Read more...]

Free Classroom Decor Posters

This year I decided to completely change my entire classroom decor. I have been in the same classroom for 6 years and decided it was time for some change. For the majority of those years I had a Dr. Seuss themed room. Last year I changed things out here and there with different colors and patterns and it worked great, but this year I wanted something calming that created a home feeling. I created a few new posters to match my new decor. Y'all … [Read more...]

Phonics Friends

One thing I absolutely love to teach (besides math) is Phonics. I don't know about y'all, but when I was in 1st grade we didn't have different spelling rules and fancy names like digraphs, diphthongs, etc. Vowels were vowels and consonants were consonants, and spelling was memorized. That's how it was in my neck of the woods anyways. Needless to say I was lost when I first started teaching 1st grade! I was trying to remember the names, … [Read more...]

Fairytale Freebies

I am back to share a few fairytale freebies with you all.  This week we did a fairytale unit and the kiddos have really enjoyed it. We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears by James Marshall and wrote what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story on index cards.  We just folded them in half to create flips.... We also read The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall. I love how they … [Read more...]

Word Problems

Happy Hump Day friends! We have 2 more hump days until we are out for summer and this lady is every bit of ready. I love my job. A ton. But, being home with my babies can't come soon enough!  This week we have worked on word problems. I ended up creating a few things that I really wanted my class to use while tackling this skill. It is a tough one for the littles.  To jazz things up I told the kiddos that they would … [Read more...]

David Shannon

Do you use a basal to guide your reading curriculum? My district uses Journeys, and although those stories are great, my kiddos were ready for something different. After wrapping up our Journeys stories we moved right into my very favorite author study! David Shannon! His books are a hit every single year.  We started off with a very well known one. A Bad Case of Stripes. After reading, the kiddos had to make a connection to the … [Read more...]

Adverbs and Teacher Appreciation Sale!

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here.... I caNOT get that song out of my head! Raise your hand if you STILL love School House Rock! It's good stuff! Last week we worked on adverbs. They can be so tricky for little ones. Are they adjectives, or adverbs, or do they describe a noun, maybe they are a preposition....oh, it is just confusing for them! We started things off with Brain Pop and School House Rock. They save the day every single … [Read more...]

Gettin’ our Measurement On!

Hi friends! It has been a while! Angel baby has been so sick the past week and is just now getting better. He is cuddled up with the hubby at the moment, so I was able to sneak away for a bit to share a few measurement activities with you all.  Last week we started our nonstandard measurement unit. It is one of my favorites every year! We started off by discussing what estimating is, as well as nonstandard versus standard forms of … [Read more...]

Math Journal Tidbits….

I've had a few ask about our math journals, so I thought I would do a quick post to show you how we use them and tie them into our math word wall. Our math curriculum coach shared these with us and seriously y'all, I don't know why I never did this before!?! I stalk Target ever summer waiting for their composition notebooks to be on sale. When they are, I snatch up a class set. I am not picky about them all matching, so I usually just grab … [Read more...]

Suffix Freebies!

We are working on suffixes -ed and -ing this week in phonics. I wanted to pop in and share a few freebies with you all.  I don't know about y'all, but figuring out if I need to double a consonant, leave it alone, or drop the e before adding -ed and -ing can be all kinds of confusing! So many rules! Can I get an amen?! So, to clear the mud, we have been working our tails off understanding the rules. Here's what we went over. and over. … [Read more...]

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