Short E Literacy Activities...TpT!

Click the pic to get my Short 'e' literacy activities. On SALE now! And if the Heat wins tonight, I just might extend the sale, which includes everything in my store and my Math Madness packet for $2.

**First three to comment get a free copy! :)

Last Week in Pictures

Here's a look at what we did last week in pictures! 

Our reading story was Jan's New Home, so during social studies, we talked a lot about the differences and similarities between the country and the city. We made a venn diagram to compare and contrast these two places and then each student picked which they liked better and we did a little writing activity.

We discussed what the theme was and then identified the theme in Jan's New Home

While we were reading the story, we realized that the author never said why Jan and her family were moving, so we brainstormed possible reasons why they could be moving. 

Friday after tests we read The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, which went along perfectly with our reading and social studies lessons

We made Chinese dragons in honor of Chinese New Years

Is it too early to break out valentine's centers?? Maybe, but my kids and I were ready! They are loving these centers. 

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! :)

Center Ideas

I spent the morning copying, laminating, and packaging my fairy tales and winter math and literacy centers and I thought I'd share how they turned out. If you're anything like me, seeing a visual of centers helps me understand how the work. You can find these centers here and here.

ABC Order

This is my favorite activity. We've just started tally marks, so my kids need lots of practice with this.

This activity focuses on dimes and pennies.

These compound word activities will be at my word work center next week. 

I also created this comprehension/phonics sheets that correlate with the Phonics Tales! books by Scholastic, which are *fantastic* I copied these front and back and plan on using them at my reading center. If you use these books in your classroom and would like these sheets, I'll make them into a packet and share as a freebie. Just let me know! :)

Fun Spelling Strategies...TPT!

I've just uploaded Fun Spelling Strategies onto my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I use these in my word work center and my kids love them! This unit includes 10 different task cards(strategies) and the recording sheets. I put all the task cards in a box and the kids pick one to do at that center. It's a favorite in my classroom and really helps with spelling and decoding words. 

Click here to get it on SALE!

Some new anchor charts and a CHEAP center idea!

After being sick the week before Thanksgiving week and then being out all last week for Thanksgiving, I'm missing my kids and classroom very much! And to matters worse, I haven't been in a creative mood at all these past two weeks, which would have been the perfect time to make some great centers. But no ideas would come to me....until today. Wouldn't you know? The very last day and I'm finally in the mood to create! haha :) I've made a couple of anchor charts to introduce this week's skills. I also make charts with my kids so they understand them more, but these are just reference charts that I thought I'd share.

This idea is not mine! But isn't it great?? I had this saved on my old computer, so I don't know where the original idea came from. If you know, let me know and I'll credit them :) 

Is she scary?? My mom cannot look at this one without laughing. She says she looks scary. Maybe the hair is a bit much? I tend to go overboard on drawing hair HAHA :)

I'm determined to start poetry! I've been wanting to for the longest, so I'm hoping it goes well.

And now for the cheap center idea. I found these Christmas trays at the Dollar Tree for (of course) $1. I created a label and word cards and made this cute, inexpensive sound sorting center. There's a recording sheet to go along with this activity after they sort the sound. The labels and cards are included in my Christmas center packet, which hopefully will be on TPT later this week.

Close up of the tray with labels

How I package my centers

Several of you have asked how I store and organize my centers so I thought I would do a post about it to show y'all. This is what I do with the centers I get on Teachers Pay Teachers and also mine that I create. This is what works best for me so maybe it will help some of you!

I buy these white envelopes at Walmart. You can get the ones that have the metal prongs that close them, but I have found that these are quickly torn off! So I get the ones with the sticky back. To solve the problem of the kids tearing off the paper and forever sealing in the contents of the center, I tape the flap down with clear packing tape. 

I tape ( I use a lot of clear packing tape in my classroom!) the cover sheet for each center on the front, make copies of any recording sheets that go along with the center, include the rest of the materials and you're done! 

The finished product!

Super simple, but neatly organized and it works! :)

A few classroom happenings

After having review week last week and having only a two day week this week due to Fall Break, we are going on two weeks of no reading story. Y'all have no idea how ready I'm (and my kids!) are ready to get back to a story. We need structure in first grade! These two days have given us the opportunity to get in some Halloween activities though and  I'll share those tomorrow! Here are a few things that we've been doing.

We created a character spotlight on the witch from Room on the Broom. Then at the reading center, the kids had to fill out the same graphic organizer on another book. We are loving Room on the Broom. To see the literary companion for this book, you can click here

We made a bubble map of the penny. This was inspired (aka totally copied) by the always fabulous Cara

This was a bubble map that we created during the last story of our reading series, Animal Park. I forgot to take a pic of it to share with all your Reading Street teachers out there so it's a little late!

This is a new center that I'm using. I found a pic on Pinterest of something similar and didn't pin it (hate when that happens!) Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies blogged about something similar and it may have even been her pic that I saw. You can buy these, but I just made my own using clip art. You just cut out the middle, laminate, and you're good to go! I was a little hesitate to just put these out with several word lists and not have the kids write anything, but they did great! Didn't have anybody playing with them. They used them correctly and they were a hit! 

Be sure and check back tomorrow for some really cute Frankensteins!! :) :)

Smelly Spelling! Freebie!

Here's a center I came up with to use next week at my word work center. I call it Smelly Spelling! The kids will write their spelling words with scented markers. Here's the recording sheet if anyone would like it! :)

Smelly Spelling

The Big Blue Ox and more Reading Center Pics

Our reading story this week is The Big Blue Ox. I had never heard of this story until I started teaching with Scott Foresman Reading Street, so if you don't use this series, you might not be familiar with it either. It's about an ox that acts like a human and helps Mom and Pop go to town. Can you tell that our sound skill is short 'o' this week ??? :) Here's our Big Blue Oxen (sidenote: do not go into the plural form of 'ox'...wayyyy tooo difficult for a first grader to understand! :D)

I also did a new center today called Silly Pens Center. I found four pens at the Dollar Tree that had different color balls on the end and we used these to write spelling words at our word work center. I usually don't let my kids use pens, but I thought this would be a good motivator to write spelling words nice and neatly and it worked like a charm. I had some of the best handwriting today. Go figure! :)

Our comprehension skill this week is setting. My kids get that this is where and when the story takes place, but I'm having a hard time getting them to tell me where specifically. All of their answers are either outside or inside, so we created a helper chart (this is what I call anchor charts in my classroom) to help with this. It helped a ton at the reading center when they had to name the setting. 

100th Post Means a Freebie!

In honor of my 100th post on Life In First Grade, I'm uploading one of my newest centers, Autumn ABC order cards. Let me know if you have any download problems! :)

abc order

Roll A Sentence Template

Here's the Roll A Sentence template if everyone who would like a copy :) It had a mistake in the pic, but it has since been fixed! Enjoy! :)

Roll a Sentence

Center Ideas

I've been trying to find the time to sit down and create some new centers and I was finally able to do that today. I'm still working on a couple, but I thought I'd take a break and share a few with y'all :)

Fry Sticks

We've been learning a lot about Fry Phrases here lately, so I've been trying to come up with activities that center around this. 

Sound It Out Ipods

 I'm lovin' these! I bought CD cases at the Dollar Tree (can't beat $1!) and got the Ipod accent pieces at a teacher supply store. I made cases for out first three phonics sound and plan on putting these at the Word Work center.

Monster Munch Bags

I got this idea at a workshop I went to this summer and found it in my idea book, so I decided to make it. I made 4 different monsters out of 2 bags. I colored coordinated the word cards to match the color of the monster. That way one bag can house two activities instead of just one. 

Roll A Sentence

I found this idea on Cara's absolutely fabulous site way back when. When I went back to find out how to make it, I realized it dealt with adjectives, nouns, and verbs. My little darlings aren't quite ready for that, so I changed it and made it about determining if the group of words they roll is a sentence or not since this is our grammar skill for the first couple of weeks. I'm a little worried if this will be too hard, so we'll see. If anyone wants the template for this, just let me know and I'll email or post it :)