1st Grade Geometry

Like most #teacherbloggers and #teachersofinstagram, one of my favorite things about teaching has always been creating engaging lessons. I enjoy taking what is needed from an objective and finding creative ways to make the content memorable for students.  It's what pushed me into the role of instructional leadership.  As an Instructional Coach, it's only one piece of my job but certainly still my favorite.

Recently, I was able to write the lessons for our first grade team during their geometry unit. There are so many amazing teacher created resources at our fingertips. That being said, I speak to teachers regularly about knowing the demands of their objective (TEKS) before searching for resources. Creating these lessons for our first graders allowed me to put that practice into play!

Using a formula of  TEKS study + our Madeline Hunter Lesson Cycle + Amy Lemon's Magic of Math Geometry Unit and Amy McDonald's Regular and Irregular Shapes Math Mini Unit ... our firsties had a great time!

Anchor Charts

 

I used a combo of the vocabulary cards from the Magic of Math Unit linked above as well as a few of my own to create each anchor chart.  You can download a copy of the 

roll, slide, stack labels here!

Student Work

  

Math Flashcard "Monstage"...with Freebie!

Well earlier this year I posted here about storing word wall flashcards into our daily binders.  After cleaning out my own first grader's binder, I realized that I never posted the math flashcard pics and printable!!! This one actually took me awhile to figure out. I knew that I wanted to use the super cute alien/monster duck tape.  I also wanted to figure out how to incorporate the word monster or alien into the label.  The results....

So I did have to explain to my firsties what a montage was, in order for them to pick up on the "mon-stage" reference.  I really don't think they were as concerned at that point with the words as much as they loved the super cool duck tape! giggles

The labels turned out too fun!

(Graphics & Fonts by: Springhill Graphics, Kevin & Amanda)

Of course you can grab your own set of labels by clicking here!! They are made to fit Avery 5163. 

If you've got another fun idea for a play on the word monster, alien, or space that would work for flashcard storage...I'd love to see your comments. Perhaps I can re-vamp for next year!

Math Strategy Posters...Plus My NEW Favorite Thing!!

Oh my word...I am all giggles over our campus' newest purchase! A COLOR POSTER MAKER!!! I am completely obsessed and having to pace myself to keep from running every single glittery printable that I can get my paws on through the thing. It is just amazing! (more on that in a minute...)

I don't post very often about math.  I have a huge passion for literacy and I'm sure that's evident by my previous posts and TPT products.  The other reason, is that we team plan on my campus.  My fabulous first grade teammates do a wonderful job of covering the other subject areas. A week or so ago we created anchor charts for our addition and subtraction strategies. My chart paper is quite large and I was worried about finding a spot to hang them on my shrinking wall space.  I figured it was the perfect opportunity to put the new poster maker to use! Soooo...I created a set of printables with the strategies.  Check them out...

You can get them HERE in my TPT store! ($2)

(Graphics & Fonts by: JW Illustrations, Melonheadz, DreamlikeMagic, Print Candee, Kevin and Amanda)

*Unfortunately at this time, I will not be able to make any custom changes to the strategies.  Sold as is.)

Now back to my new obsession.  Time for the magic...

Oh my!! Just amazing.

 And a perfect fit for my space! (Sorry for the pic quality on this one!)



Since I'm in a math-y kind of mood, I can't leave you without a freebie.  Here's a little doubles poster that I made to add to my meeting board!

You can get your own copy by clicking HERE!

(Graphics & Fonts by: ErinBradleyDesigns, DreamlikeMagic, Small Town Clipart, Kevin and Amanda)

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week and is looking forward to an upcoming break!

Random Glitter... (Anchors, TPT, & Snowmen Freebie)

Ok, just a quick drop in to sprinkle a little glitter...

Here are a few of the anchor charts my firsties and I created last week:

Our Shared Reading objective was text evidence and inferences.  We had just discussed schema the previous week.  I created a short text passage with our polar bear theme leaving out the topic.  Here are the before and after shots.

Here are a few of our anchor charts from math and science...

As requested, the Work on Words bin labels are now posted in my TPT Store! for only $2. Check them out!

And finally...this week we are working on main idea and details using "Snowmen at Night!" Click HERE for a free response sheet that I whipped up after school today!

I hope that everyone is off to an awesome short week that only has 3 working days left! giggles!!!!!

Farm Fun and Freebie

Hello blogging friends! It's been a while! I've LOVED stalking all of the amazing Thanksgiving ideas and activities the last few weeks.  My firsties had their little hands in many of your wonderful ideas. Just before Thanksgiving we actually had a "farm week" this year.  Farm day is something that our campus typically does for the Kindergarten Cuties but for the first time, we were asked to participate as well! Then the challenge...ok farm theme and the objectives sequencing and retelling, writing effective leads, even/odd numbers, and soil. Alright I'll admit, the soil part wasn't that much of a stretch because it fit mud perfectly but I did have to flex my creativity muscles for the other objectives! Here's a bit of we what did...

We used Mud Walk by Joy Cowley for Shared Reading.

We sequenced the story.

We created characters to act out the retelling. (Thanks Pinterest!)

We also retold Mud Walk by using animal crackers as our characters and chocolate icing as our mud!

We used a barn graphic organizer to focus on writing leads and wrapping up our stories (endings). We used the story Giggle, Giggle, Quack for our writing.

 For Math I created an even and odd gameboard. My students rolled the dice, moved that number of spaces, stated the number, and identified the number as even or odd.  Click below for your copy of the game.  I actually created 2 versions of this game to share...one has numbers...and the other is blank. Feel free to write in your own numbers, addition sentences, word wall words, etc...

                            Click here for Even/Odd Game.      Click here for the blank farm gameboard.

(Graphics by DJ Inkers. Fonts by Kevin and Amanda)

And lastly, a couple of pictures from the actual farm day! My firsties had a BuuLAST!

Wooo...that was ALOT...now on to Fancy Nancy Splendiforous Christmas and a Campus Wide Grinchmas!!!