Fun in First

A Teaching Blog by Jodi Southard

Fall

We are Pumpkin Detectives

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Today my students became Pumpkin Detectives.  I enlisted some parent volunteers to help with our pumpkin rotations. 
I split the students into 4 groups. Two of the groups became Pumpkin Detectives.

 We weighed our pumpkins, measured the circumference, measured how tall our pumpkins were with cubes, and predicted the number of seeds.  

 

We kept track of our information and the students wrote down their findings on their own recording sheets.

The students came up with words to describe the outside of their pumpkins.  Then, it was time to cut the pumpkins open.  The students felt the insides and came up with adjectives to describe the inside of the pumpkin.
Finally, we began counting the seeds.

*I HIGHLY recommend laying down cheap plastic table cloths over your desks or tables and do everything right on top.  Clean up was SUPER easy!  We just rolled it all up and threw it away.
I found that the best way to do this was to scoop some out for each student and have them start putting the seeds into groups of 10.  The group I was working with had 663 seeds!!!

The other two groups rotated between making a Pumpkin Book and completing a pumpkin craft.  Then, we switched and the other two groups were able to become Pumpkin Detectives.

The students had a lot of fun and even though it still smells like pumpkins in my classroom, it was well worth it.
You can download the Pumpkin Detective recording sheet for FREE by clicking on the picture below.

Hopefully, I get a chance tomorrow evening to blog about my new Fluency Fun for Everyone packet.  I am LOVING this differentiated fluency packet and have been using it in small groups!  You can click on the picture below to head on over to my TpT store to check it out.

November Games Galore

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Isn’t it crazy that we are over halfway through October?  It has gone by so fast and November is baby due date month!  Oh my goodness!  We still have SO much to do!
Anyways, I did get a chance to finish my November Games Galore NO PREP Math & Literacy Games packet.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Games-Galore-No-Prep-Math-Literacy-Games-for-November-1505647
 
This packet contains 5 Math and 5 Literacy Games intended for partner play as well as 2 whole group games (November Bingo &  Football Next Number Scoot).


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Games-Galore-No-Prep-Math-Literacy-Games-for-November-1505647
 
All of the games come in a black and white version, but some also come in full color if you would prefer to print them off and laminate them for future use.

 
You can check these out by clicking HERE!
 
Don’t forget that if you have already purchased the Games Galore Bundle, you can go and redownload it to get the November packet for no additional charge.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Games-Galore-The-Bundle-1458011
 

Our Columbus Day Voyage

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For quite a few years now, we have been doing a Columbus Voyage with our first graders.  I blogged about it 2 years ago HERE.
This year I’m at a different school and fortunately I work with some amazing 1st grade teachers that jumped right in and wanted to do this voyage as well.  We did have to adjust some things due to the fact that we have more than double the 1st graders than we did in my other school.  It just didn’t seem like a good idea to have 115 1st graders going into 7 different classrooms to trade items.  Instead, we put all of our trading items in a large conference room and our recess aides helped to trade with our students.
First, each student was given a snack bag to represent our food on our long journey and we decorated our Columbus Day hats.
Each student was also given a bag of 7 trinkets (bells, beads, jewels, and mirrors) to use as trading items.  Then, we began our voyage as explorers and we walked around the outside of the school for our 2 month voyage across the ocean.
 
When we reached “land,” we met the Native Americans and traded our trinkets for items from the New World.

 
We took all of our new items back across the ocean and to our classroom to begin working in our Columbus Day Voyage booklets.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Columbus-Day-Voyage-357224

 
It was a lot of fun and the students loved it!  You can download this packet for free by clicking HERE.
 
We also completed this short Columbus Day booklet if you want to check it out.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Columbus-Day-Book-343456
 


Parent Teacher Conference Time and Must Have FREEBIES

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Parent Teacher Conferences are right around the corner.  The beginning of the school year has gone by SO fast!
I am wanting to try something new this year and have my students complete some Self Evaluation prior to conferences.  I came up with these forms for us to complete next week.

 

I compiled all of these forms, made them EDITABLE, and put them into a FREEBIE for you.  You will also find the following forms:

 

 

 

Click on the picture below to download this FREEBIE from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parent-Teacher-Conference-Forms-FREEBIE-1482952
I also wanted to remind you of another FREEBIE that I have available in my Teacher Pay Teachers Store.  T
hese How Can I Help My Child Succeed in School? pages are perfect for Conference time.

 

 

 

Are you gearing up for Parent Teacher Conferences?

Nonfiction in October

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I LOVE all of the fun topics to teach about in October!  It’s a time of year when I can’t wait to pull out all of my nonfiction books and do tons of read alouds.  One of my students this week said, “Wow!  You always have a book about everything we are learning about.”  Ha!  Well, yes I do 🙂
I created this Nonfiction in October unit and have been working away at it for the last couple of weeks.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-in-October-1478159
 
This past week, we have been learning all about bats using this packet.
 
We read our information page and worked on text evidence by highlighting our answers in the text.

We created anchor charts.
 
 We also worked a lot with vocabulary.
 
 
The other topics included in this packet are:

 
 This 100 page unit will easily carry you through October.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-in-October-1478159
 
 This packet is on sale in my TpT store through the weekend.



We Are Going Batty!

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Things have been batty in 1st grade.  We have been busy, busy, busy reading tons of fiction and nonfiction books about bats.  It’s always fun learning more about bats and sorting through the myths and facts.  We created this anchor chart on Monday.
We thought of things that we knew about bats first. Then after reading a nonfiction book, we added our new learning.
The students also filled out their own charts for things that they “wondered” about bats.
The sheet above will be included in my upcoming packet “Nonfiction in October.”
Yesterday and today we worked on writing about bats and creating our own bats.

 
We’ve also been reading a lot of fiction bat books and using my new Fun with Fiction {Bats} packet.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fun-with-Fiction-Bats-1465998
Reading fiction and nonfiction books about bats has really allowed my students to distinguish between the two.
 
We will continue learning about bats all week.  I’m hoping to have my latest packet finished soon, which includes tons of resources for teaching about bats, spiders, fire safety, owls, and pumpkins. 

 
How can you not just LOVE October?