FREE Ideas for Writing Lists

The countdown is on. I'm about to begin another exciting year with my wonderful first graders!
I have 2 days of summer left not counting my weekend. I can't believe how fast it has flown by.
I'm excited to begin a new adventure!

One of the first things I like to do with my firsties in writing (after procedures have been established) is to write lists. It's a fun engaging activity. I try to find things they can connect with.

(It's a good thing I teach first grade because I draw like one. I am NOT an artist!)

 Here is a fun little picture chart that I put in my writing center to give them ideas. I like pictures because some of my littles can't read all that well yet. It even helps them springboard their own ideas from the pictures.

Very EASY prep, just print the picture chart on card stock then laminate. There are 2 different writing pages for the kiddos to write their ideas on.

I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine.

Click HERE for a free download.
THANKS for stopping by!

Press Here

My kiddos absolutely LOVE this book by Herve Tullet.

Have you read it? It's an interactive book that has the reader pushing dots, shaking the book, and blowing just to name a few of the things you're asked to do. Magical things appear on the next page as you do as you're told. I think I need to order another one because they are wearing this one out!

My firsties LOVED it so much they wanted to write their own. I've got to say, I think they turned out pretty amazing. I couldn't take pictures of them all but here is one I'll share.

You've got to LOVE any book that gets kids reading and writing!

Happy Sunday everyone! Thanks for stopping by.

A Hodge Podge of FREEBIES

Hey everyone, I hope you're all having a great Thursday.

I'm happy to announce my GIVEAWAY winners!

Congrats to Crystal and Marybeth!

Thanks to EVERYONE who commented!

I've been making some practice sheet here and there for different things and haven't got around to posting them. So I thought I'd post them now. This is very random and I hope you can use them either now or next year.

I used these to introduce 'How to Writing'. They are also a great sequencing review. Click HERE to download.

We've been working on counting to 120. So here are a few practice sheets. There are 4 'Fill Ins' and 4 'Start and Stop'. 

Click HERE to download. 

 This is a little game I re-made. Now it goes to 120. My kiddos LOVE playing it. 

Click HERE to download.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you've found something you can use in your classroom.

Come back tomorrow for news of my upcoming SUPERBOWL SALE!

Writing Awesome Class Books GIVEAWAY!

One of the things my kiddos LOVE doing is writing class books. And for a while now, I've been trying to put a packet together of some of the class books that my class writes. Sorry it's taken me a while to get this finished but IT'S FINALLY DONE!!

I LOVE connecting writing to reading. This packet has 8 suggested picture books you can read and then springboard from there to write a class book.

There are reproducible student pages and a book cover page for each class book. You can make 9 class books including an acrostic poem and letters to the Tooth Fairy. You can check it out at my TEACHER NOTEBOOK and TEACHER PAY TEACHER shops. Just click on my sidebar.

We just finished our class book called 'The Best Part of Me' and it turned out great. We read the book by Wendy Ewald. 

We had a great discussion about self-respect. We picked a part of our body and wrote why it was our best part. Then I took photos of each child's best part to go along with their writing. Here are a few examples:

 And of course, the teacher has to add her page to the book as well.

I haven't had a giveaway in a while. So I thought is might be fun to give this new packet away. To enter all you need to do is leave me a comment before Friday night (November 15th) midnight (Mountain Time). I'll use the random number generator to pick 3 lucky winners! Be sure to include your email address.
Good Luck!

Congratulations to Marybeth, Becky and Cherie!! They are the winners.

THANKS everyone for all the great comments.

Who Am I?

I don't know about your kiddos but mine LOVE pictures of their teacher especially when the teacher was a kid like them. I guess it helps them connect to you. I'm not that keen about flashing my mug shots around but if it pleases and helps my kids feel connected I'll do it.

One of my favorite things to do on the first day of school is introduce myself to my little darlings. To do so, I read a book about myself that I wrote. It's a very simple little book that I made on the computer in word before I knew anything about publisher. I uploaded some pictures and added some text. I bound it with the plastic comb binder. It's pretty 'Mickey Mouse' but my kiddos love it. It's an easy enough text that most of my firsties can read it. Their favorite part is the picture of me when I was in first grade. It's the one on the cover page. Here's a few of the pages from my book. It's about 12 pages long.

I leave it in our class library for most of the year. I love to refer to it when I'm teaching about writing and becoming authors. It's also my springboard for autobiographies and biographies.

We also play a little game on the first day after we read this fun book.

The game is called, 'Don't Eat Mrs. Peterson'!

Again, I made this on the computer by uploading some of my 'YOUTHFUL' pictures.

It's a fun one to play on the first day. I put the kids in groups of 3-4. They place a small candy like Skittles or M&Ms on every square. Then one player turns around and covers his eyes while the rest of the group chooses a square to be 'IT'. Then he turns around and starts taking the candy pieces off each of the squares. When he touches the candy on the square that is 'it', the other players yell "Don't Eat Mrs. Peterson". Then his turn is over. He gets to keep all the candies he earned. Players take turns. I let my kids play for a certain amount of time. They LOVE it!

What do you do to introduce yourself to your class?
I'd love to hear about it.


P.S. Don't forget you can now follow me on facebook by clicking HERE

Mystery Capsules

I don't know about you but I'm doing everything I can think of to keep my kiddos engaged. I don't want the spring-fever-school-is-almost-out bug to get them. We only have 23 more days, but who's counting, not me! It's business as usual in my room at least for a few more weeks.
We did a fun little writing activity yesterday that I thought I'd share. I found these capsules at Wal-Mart in the toy department last summer for my grandkids and they thought they were pretty fun. Well, the teacher in me had to think of a way to use them in school.

They are gelatin capsules with a sponge shaped creature inside. When you soak them in warm water, the capsule dissolves and the sponge creature appears. I bought several packages for my class. There are dinosaurs, ocean animals, insects, and forest animals.

I wrote a little note and left the capsules laying in a pile for the kids to find after lunch. 

Here's a copy of the note:

The mystery began and they were excited, engaged, and enthused to see if they could break the spell.
Each firstie chose a capsule and placed it in the warm water and watched to see what pet emerged.

Then they started to write.

Even my kids who don't like to write very much were very engaged and writing. It was a fun activity and everyone got a new pet to take home!

If you'd like to download the letter and writing paper, you can click HERE.

Thanks for stopping by.
Happy Friday tomorrow!

Postcards and Letter Writing

I am teaching postcards and letter writing in the next few weeks. I like to start off by reading lots of books. Here are some of my favorites:

LOVE this book. A little girl writes letters to the Tooth Fairy and she write back. Very high interest for first graders.

Great book with fun pictures. Polar Bear writes to his friends which are bears living in other parts of the world. Goes great with a geography unit too.

A fun book with lots for familiar characters.

After lots of exposure to letters, we do some interactive writing together and write letters to other classes in our school. I also introduce postcards and we do a few postcards together. Then I set up a basket full of stuff animals. (I have tons of beanie babies) During writing time the kiddos can write a postcard to a stuffed animal. They LOVE it. I'm excited to participate in the postcard exchange this year. I heard about it this summer over on Mrs. Saoud's blog called Primary Graffiti. We will write a postcard to 49 states and get a postcard from all 49 states. I know my kiddos will LOVE it. After awhile, we start to write letters to each other as well as family and friends outside of the classroom. I have to give a little reminder speech each year about NO mushy-gushy writing and to only write NICE things. Those boys just DON'T like getting those love letters :)

Here are some of the forms I use for the letters and postcards. I hope someone can use them. Click on the picture to download. Graphics are from Melonheadz, Scrappin Doodles, and KPM Doodles.

I LOVE your comments!
Have a great rest of the week.