Sneak Peek Sunday {April 4-8, 2016}

Hi friends! Just a quick jot tonight to share my lesson plans for the week.

As I prepare to watch the season finale of The Walking Dead with my yummy dinner of Trix cereal, I thought, "I can post about my fabulous upcoming week and put off thinking about the horrible things that are going to happen on TWD." Like, I don't even want to watch because I just know I'm going to freak out! 

Anyway, this week is the week back after Spring Break. And boy did these days fly by! But I am excited to see my kiddos and get back into the swing of things. 

Here you go. 

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This week we begin our study of the Human Body. We don't use any one curriculum to teach Science, so we just pull together a couple of different things. We really LOVE all the School House Rock videos about the human body! Here is a YouTube Playlist I made: 

We are also on Lesson 25 of Journeys which consists of the following skills:
- understanding characters
- summarizing
- pronoun contractions
- synonyms
- ou, ow words
- ai, ay, oy, oi words

We will be using many of the activities in my Lesson 25 Interactive Notebook, available on TpT.

And here are my Guided Reading Lesson Plans: 

The sorts and builds are these: 

 I give my high group (reading at DRA levels 26 and above-in FIRST GRADE!!) harder, two syllable words with the spelling pattern so they are challenged. They do really well!

The synonym game - I pass these cards to the kids and they have to make connections. We talk about the words and how they are similar to each other. Then we do the sentences with context clues.  

Grab a copy of this week's guided reading plans with all the above goodies HERE.

I'll be reading the book Frederick, by Leo Lionni to discuss characters. We will talk about how Frederick chooses to spend his time before Winter and how he differs from the other mice. 

We are also working on Text Evidence. I found this AMAZING set from Miss DeCarbo on TpT. 

Go buy it now because it's awesome!

As far as contractions, I've created this simple scoot: 

Grab it for free HERE. 

In Math, we are starting our Geometry Unit! It's so fun learning about shapes and I have made brand new centers that I can't wait for my firsties to try out!

The unit consists of 10 lessons. Take a look HERE. 

Here is a peek at the centers:  

Grab the centers in my TpT store.

You could also grab the BUNDLE. 

Well that's it! I hope you can use some of the freebies. Have a great first week of April!

Lesson Planner: How I Plan and a Chance to Win!

Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing great!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this on Instagram.

Always a working lunch... 

Many comments were made about how they loved this and wanted to know how I create it. So I thought I'd share!

I start with a blank template. I created my lesson planner using (of course!) PowerPoint. 

I just inserted a table and made the boxes fit my needs. I added my name and the date. Then I created Month at a Glance pages, months, and then duplicated enough pages to stretch my entire year. The file came to 101 pages, 2 page spread per week. 

I also included some blank pages in the back for faculty meeting notes and next year ideas.

And then I printed out the entire file, two sided. Ran it through my binding machine, and bound it for the year. 

Speaking of binding machines, mine is awesome! I got it at Office Depot. It's a Swingline Pro Click.

You can buy the spines and precut paper, too, if you don't want to invest in the machine. 

This little machine is perfect for how I use it. I've bound a lot of things!

So after I've printed and bound my planner for the year, I'm ready!

I take the blank planner book with me to grade level meetings with my team for planning. I write plans in pencil. 

Not pretty, I know. 

Then later on I type up my written plans in the blank template I made in PowerPoint. It really doesn't take long and I suppose I could just keep the penciled plans and use them, but it's not pretty!! And there are no pictures! 

Print them out and all that's left is to glue them on top of the penciled plans for prettiness. 

And that's it. Easy peasy. 

Now you have a chance to win this for yourself! A bound, personalized hard copy and the digital template! 

Enter the rafflecopter here: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winner will be chosen March 11.

Don't want to wait? 

You can buy the file here, complete with instructions and pictures on how to make it your own. It's on sale this week for half off! 

Click to purchase.

Thanks for reading!

Five for Friday! {March 4, 2016}

Hey guys! Happy Friday!

I had a very busy week so I'm excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

My week started on Saturday when I presented at West Baton Rouge Parish Schools Mini LaCUE conference. I presented on creating HyperDocs using Google Docs. You can check out the presentation and work through a first grade HyperDoc {HERE}. 

The best part? I got to hang out and catch up with my friend over at Pelicans and Pipsqueaks, Kristi! 

She rocked her presentation on QR Codes!

I also got to play a game of Breakout Edu which was a lot of fun! A room full of adults trying to unlock 5 different locks whilst rummaging through a librarians stash of seemingly unsuspecting loot. 

We eventually solved it (after 44 minutes!) and discovered the culprit behind the missing eBooks on MackinVia. I can see its uses in a middle school or high school classroom in regards to technology. I was trying to think how my 26 first graders would do when told to go look through a pile of stuff for clues. I will definitely have to read up more on this activity!

I got another project posted on Donors Choose! I'm asking for 10 tablets to complete my collection in the classroom. If I get this one funded, I will have 1:1 in my room! I'm so excited about the possibilities! 

Please share if you can! 

It was Read Across America Week! I made shirts for my first grade team. 

Don't we look great? 

You can read about how I made them and grab a template {HERE}. 

The kids loved making all things Seuss this week. My favorite? 

Jennifer's Directed Drawing of the famous cat from First Grade Blue Skies. 

They are just fabulous little budding artists!

And that's all for this week! Have a great weekend!

Celebrate Reading Week! A T-Shirt Freebie!

Hi y'all! I hope this Monday was fab for you! Today I posted this pic on Instagram and had some questions so I thought I'd share the template I used!

Since this week is Read Across America week, I made these shirts for my fellow team members in first grade. 

It was so simple and took about 1 hour of my life to design and make all 4. Add in an additional 20 minutes for shopping for the supplies and this was the quickest project I've done in awhile11

First, I bought this

Avery Dark Fabric Transfers

Found it in the crafts section near the fabric. I also know it can be found near the office supplies with the labels.

I got this pack of 5 sheets for about $10 at my local Walmart. You can find it HERE on Amazon for $8.99. 

Then I headed over to the men's department at Walmart (because the women's shirts are too fitted!) and searched for some red short sleeve tees. Bought 4 Fruit of the Loom tees for a STEAL at $4.72 each. 

Red Short Sleeve T-Shirt

Then I just designed the pic in PowerPoint. There is this new awesome feature in PPT 2016 called Draw. It means you can draw. 

On the slides. 

Directly. 

Yeah-free form and all that jazz. I'm really excited for it!! 

Draw in PowerPoint

This was done just using my finger-yeah, my last name got a little sloppy but I was so excited!!

From there I just printed out the designs onto the Avery transfers-BEST THING ABOUT THE DARK FABRIC TRANSFERS-------

You do not need to flip the image before printing!! 

Just print. Trim. Peel the backing. Lay on shirt, top with the included tissue paper. Iron on the shirt. 

Presto-manifesto, you've got a simple homemade Seuss inspired shirt for the birthday celebrations Wednesday!

Sound like something you would like to do? 

Click {HERE} for the template designs. I've made slides for Teachers 1-10. 

Teacher 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ,7 8, 9, 10

Thanks for reading!