Rewind.

These last few weeks have been moving in fast forward, so it’s time to stop down and rewind just a bit :) To sum it all up, we learned about apples, made applesauce, learned about all things moon, and know more about spiders and arachnids than we ever cared to know. My student teacher started on Tuesday and I love her big. She was observing in my room 2 days a week during the Spring, so I’m SUPER excited to have her back. She’s a natural, so that makes me happy. And, she’s the most helpful, sweetest person EVER. In a year where I’m facing more classroom challenges than ever before, I’m feeling SO very blessed to have her on board with me :)

Now, let’s get down to business. Here’s a little ABC order apple activity I put in my stations a few weeks ago.

While I’m down with Daily 5 and all, I had to make some SERIOUS changes to the way my literacy block is structured. I’ll tell y’all more about that in a different post. In the meantime, you can download the ABC order activity, activity sheet, and a few more literacy activities by clicking on the pics below.

I was inspired by my dear friend, Abby, to introduce labeling and talking about Johnny Appleseed and apples seemed like the perfect time to throw it in to the mix! We made construction paper apples and then labeled the parts.

This past week, we learned all about Spiders, Fire Safety, and Clouds. I’ll share all of our cloud activities in a separate post because there’s lots to include!! I used the Fire Safety Unit from the ladies of Made for 1st Grade and the kids were in LOVE!!! Such a GREAT unit, so you definitely wanna check it out!!!

As for spiders, we had lots of fun with those little arachnids, too!!

We started the week with a little spider labeling and thinking maps.

Grab the printables here…

My kids worked on matching subtraction sentences during math tubs this week and they did an awesome job! They used buttons and spider rings for counters. The download is included in the “My Spider Brace Map” printables.

We also did a little spider syllable sorting and a stamp-a-spider {stamping chunk words on spider legs} during our literacy block…

You can grab the spider syllables below. I don’t have the stamp-a-spider template, though. I used Power Point to create them though…just added a circle for the body, two little dots for the eyes, and then created a table of 8 rows to cut for the legs. I typed the chunks inside the spider body so the kids would know what kind of words they had to create. Does that even make sense?!?! HA!

We also worked on graphing and problem solving this week, too. After talking to some of our 2nd grade teachers, I really want to make sure my kids know how to read and interpret graphs and answer some of the questions that go with them. The longer we work on them and practice, the better!!

Alright. There we go. A nice little rewind of the last few weeks learning! I’ll be back on Tuesday to share some of our cloud activities with y’all! In the meantime, have a GREAT Monday!!!!

Apples & Happy Fall, Y'all!

Happy Fall, Y'all! Is anyone else a little excited about the new season?! Pumpkin patches, apple cider, Halloween, Fall festivals...ohmiword. I can hardly contain myself! HA!

I've recently had an influx of emails requesting some of my apple themed documents I promised to share when I posted about our week of apple fun last year. Sorry for the delay! These aren't anything special, but if you're interested in adding a few things to your files, here ya go!

Here's the recipe for the applesauce we make every year. IT's SO stinkin' GOOD!!!! I like to send this home with my kids the day we make it in class!

After we make our applesauce, I like for the kids to label the items we used to make it. Since this won't be the last time they see some of these things, it's good for them to know what they are!

We also read a lot of non-fiction text about apples and their life cycle. I like for my kids to sequence the life cycle after we read about it and here are the picture cards we use to do so! I give each of my kids a large sheet of construction paper folded in half and a sequencing sheet. They cut out the pics, label each one, and glue it inside their folded piece of construction paper. Easy breezy!

Another fun little activity I put in my Math Tubs is this little non-standard units of measurement with apples! Of course, we don't use real apples for this one. I like to buy these...

I put them in a little baggie and then have the kids measure different items in the classroom with them {glue bottle, pencil, paintbrush, scissors}. After they measure and record, I let them choose other items in the classroom to measure {if there's enough time left!!} They LOVE this one!

Our week of apple fun starts Monday, so I'll be back with more apple themed activities next week to share with y'all!! And I'll be back this weekend with a recap of some fun things we've been working on in the classroom the last couple of weeks!!

Happy Fall, y'all!!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

My kids this year are SO very much into non-fiction stories. I LOVE IT!!! We started our week of apples with a KWL. I set out this little KWL and fill it out with the kids as we go along…

After reading a few short non-fiction books about apples, we filled out the “What You LEARNED” apple and had the kids complete their own KWL to keep in their Reader’s Response Journals. They LOVED this activity! I told them to choose 1 thing from each apple to write down.

KWL Printable: APPLE KWL

And we labeled the parts of an apple…

I also had the kids fill out their own version. I found it on Mrs. Nelson’s Apple Unit Page.

We also start out the week by adding new poems to our poetry folders. Since we were talking about apples and Johnny Appleseed this week, we added 3 new apple poems to our folders. I give the kids a week to take their poetry folders home and practice reading poetry to their families. The following Friday, I have a “Poetry Parent” come in and pull kids one-by-one into the hallway to recite their poems aloud. If the kids are able to recite their poems {from memory}, they get an Oscar! They also have the choice to opt out of poetry recitation, but they very RARELY do!

Click the link below to download the apple poems I created for our poetry folders.

APPLE POEMS

MATH TUBS & WHOLE GROUP ACTIVITIES

I set out a few apple themed math tubs for the kids to work on this week, too.

Click the links to DOWNLOAD the math tub activities.

Odds & Evens Apple Trees

Apple Pie Addition

Just Ripe Math

3 Way Apple Math

POPCORN WORDS {aka: Sight Words, Words To Know, Wow Words}

Again, I forgot my camera to take pics of this one, but this is just a really simple high frequency word puzzle activity that the kids really enjoyed. I gave them a list of words to find, and they matched up the apple puzzles to make the words. They used the “I Know A Bunch Of Words” recording sheet to jot down the words they created. I placed the apple puzzles in a basket underneath our ficus tree :)

Click to download.

APPLE {High Frequency Word} PUZZLES

At the end of the week, we kicked off fall, and said “goodbye” to summer by making applesauce with the kids.

OMG…SO GOOD!!!! My class smelled like FALL all day!

After we started the applesauce making process, we followed up with a few different activities.

*Labeled the objects and ingredients we used to make the applesauce.

*Sequenced the steps to making applesauce. They colored, cut, and glued the pics in the correct order.

*Weighed, measured, graphed apples according to teacher direction.

We made stained glass apples for our windows, too! I used clear contact paper and tissue paper for this activity and the kids were LOVING every single second! I’ve got an artsy little group of girls that love stuff like this! They all “oooohed” and “aaaahhhhed” once they were hanging in the windows. I have to say that they really are pretty dang cute! I don’t wanna take ‘em down!

At the end of the day, we celebrated the end of another week with our special applesauce snack. My favorite part was when one of my sweet girls said, “I don’t like this applesauce, Mrs. Carroll. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE IT! This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth!” So dang cute! HA! As they were finishing up, I had the kids conduct a survey to find out who did and didn’t like the applesauce. They had to record and graph the data and then we talked about our results before we left to go home. Happy to say that only 1 little guy didn’t particularly enjoy the flavors.

After they ate their applesauce, I handed each student a recipe to take home to their parents. It was a FUN, apple filled week in First Grade!!!

You can download the applesauce recipe, apple measurment activity, applesauce labeling sheet, and apple sequencing activity by clicking HERE.