I Heart 1st Grade...Happy Valentine's Day!!

    I was on Pintrest last week looking for some cute ideas for a Valentine's themed writing activity as well as rummaging up all of the previous year's Valentine writing ..... and I just didn't like anything. I wanted to do something different! I usually have the kids write about someone in their family whom they love and care about or write Valentine's Day cards and teach letter writing.  But I was randomly looking through pictures from past vacations and saw a picture from high school (holy moly....THAT was a while back!) of me in NYC and I was wearing an I Heart New York t-shirt.  Then it came to me!!   I HEART first grade!  So that's what we made this week...stories about all the things we "heart" about 1st grade.  These were super easy to do and look SUPER CUTE!  I just matted the stories on red construction paper, printed out copies of the text "I" and "First Grade" (Font: Curlz), and di-cut the pink hearts.  I matted the "I", the heart, and "First Grade" on another sheet of red construction paper, and then cut around the edges, leaving a little tab at the bottom to glue the story to.  Love them!!

It's a Proper Noun Dah'ling....

I will never forget coming to observe one of my teacher friends, Miss Pressly, at a school where I had just been hired about two years ago.  I was sitting to the side of the room and Miss Pressly was teaching on proper nouns.  She mentioned a word and asked her class what kind of word it was.  Immediately, the entire class put out their hands in a "oh honey, let me tell you what I heard about so-and-so" fashion and said, "Why, it's a proper noun, dahling!" in their most "proper" voice possible (with a little hint of Southern Drawl, of course).  I about died.... It was hilarious!  I was super impressed... not only because it was creative, but because ALL the kids knew what a proper noun was. Too funny!  Miss Pressly had taught the kids that proper nouns were "proper" words, so they always needed a capital letter.  I still use that trick to this day, actually, but I just made this proper noun game this week to further aid in my little ones' understanding of proper nouns. 

PS:  The first 5 people to comment on this post will receive this game for free!!  Rules:  Give one tip for a teaching resource you would like to see us make, and of course give us your email.:) 
     - Beth

Compound Word Addition

Cup is a word....cake is a word....put it together, got a compound word!  Cupcake! (clap clap) Cupcake! (clap clap) Cupcake! (clap clap) Haha!  That is my cheesy compound word song...but for some reason my kiddos always love it!  Although I have touched on compound words from time to time in shared reading, they are a 3rd nine weeks standard in our school district, so I haven't taught them explicitly yet. I wanted a fun new game to put in my Word Work center for Daily 5 that practiced compound words, so I came up with "Compound Word Addition."  I wanted to harp on the concept that, although a compound word can be made up of up two separate words, sometimes the meaning of the compound word itself  can be completely unrelated to the two words that make it up.  Click the picture to download Compound Word Addition.  DOWN is a word.... LOAD is word....put it together, got a compound word! Download!  (clap clap) Download! (clap clap) Download! (clap clap)  Haha...sorry I had to do it!       - Beth

Safari Money Match

So...do you ever feel like whenever you make stuff for your classroom everything is always girly?  For the past few weeks we have been learning about money, and I decided to make an interactive money match game for my kids. Although I love cupcakes, flowers, and pretty pink things, I don't really think my boys do!  Click on the image to download a safari themed money matching game that you can use in your classroom (your boys will love it!).

                  - Katie