Smitten with First

Search Results for: writing

Cactus CRAZE and a FREEBIE!

Who else is swooning over all things cactus? I'm sure by now you've all seen the cactus classroom obsession. Isn't it just about the cutest thing EVER? I mean HEL-LO CUTENESS!  One of the many things that I love to teach during the first few weeks of school is our classroom climate + kindness + how we are going to treat each other. This is such an important thing to establish right off the bat. Like SO important! … [Read more...]

My First Day was a Piece of Cake!

Hey y'all! Who is already prepping their first day of school?!? There is nothing better than the first day of school! So much excitement and butterflies!!  I love to send my students home with something to show off our learning from the first day. As a Momma, I always ask my oldest..."how was your first day?!" I love hearing all about what they did! Over the past few years, one thing that my class always makes to show off … [Read more...]

Back to School Icebreakers plus a FREEBIE

Who's already prepping for their back to school week?!? One of my very favorite things about the first few weeks of school is getting to know my students,....and my students getting to know one another. I just love it! They are so eager and excited about their new classroom, teacher, and friends! I put together several fun and interactive icebreaker activities, as well as interactive team building activities and games to use during those first … [Read more...]

Make it Stick with Place Value

This week in math we have been working with place value from 100 - 120.  I don't know about y'all, but once numbers go past 100...place value gets a little tougher for the younger students. I wanted my students to have as much expose and practice to numbers as possible so that these numbers would not be so tough for them. Let's face it, worksheet practice just isn't going to be enough for our students - they need activities that are going to get … [Read more...]

How to Catch Santa FREEBIE!

I love Jean Reagan's whole "how to" book series. They are THE cutest ever! When I came across her, How to Catch Santa, on Amazon...I knew I had to get it! It is just as precious in real life!  Last week we read the book and then came up with a plan on how we would catch Santa if we could. I got so tickled at some of these!!  Afterwards, my students wrote out their steps of how they would catch him on this little … [Read more...]

Elf FREEBIE!

December is by far my most favorite time of year....EVER! I love crafts and all things Christmas, so tying that into any lesson in my classroom makes me giddy! I wanted to pop in and share a quick, FREE elf drawing and writing activity with you all. These are great to use after your classroom elf makes their appearance, a follow up activity after reading an elf book, or for a quick writing! I always like to complete … [Read more...]

Catching up and beginning blends!

Y'all! October came and went. For real. Between fall parent conferences and life itself....blogging just didn't happen. So, I am going to do some MAJOR catching up today! There's a lot, so let's get started.  In math, we learned about time to the hour and made these fun little sunflowers to display analog, digital, and word form.  In writing, we learned about complete and incomplete sentences and created these free … [Read more...]

Apple and Pumpkin Freebie!!

Hey y'all! I wanted to stop in real quick and share an apple freebie that I made several years ago in case you missed it.  You can read more about how we used this apple craft (2 years ago) to describe apples and sequencing applesauce here.  We have also used this apple craft when learning about pumpkins.  We wrote adjectives to describe pumpkins using this writing paper. I printed the face on orange paper … [Read more...]

Interactive Character Traits

In reading last week we identified character traits. I absolutely LOVE teaching character traits...especially when we have activities that get us moving! We started our week off watching this Brain Pop Jr video. After watching the video we generated a list of words that describe different characters in books we have read throughout the year. Afterwards, I had my students tell me words that described the outside of me and the inside of me for … [Read more...]

What’s the Scoop? (Main Idea and details)

This week in reading we are learning about identifying main idea and details. Main idea and details can be one of those concepts that is tough for little learners annnnd not so exciting to teach. To get my students excited, I packed our reading time with lots of hands on and interactive learning.  We started off watching this Brain Pop Jr video about Main Idea. Next, I gave each of my table groups different picture cards … [Read more...]

Back to School Read Alouds (Part 2)

Who's excited about their 3 day weekend!??!?! Me too! There's just nothing better than a 3 day weekend after the back to school hustle!  Last week I shared several of our first week read alouds. If you missed it, you can read about those here. Today, I want to share a few more of my favorite back to school read alouds with you all.  First up, Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun by Maria Dismondy. It is such an amazing book … [Read more...]

Back to School Read Alouds (Part 1)

Last week we hit the ground running with back to school read alouds. I am a huge believer in making time to read aloud books to our students. It is such a special moment for them. Seeing the excitement and expressions on their face is one of my very favorite times of our day. Just think...the read aloud that you provide to your students might just be the only book they have read to them all day. We started off listening to You're Finally Here … [Read more...]

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