Work Together Weekend Blog Hop

Hi all!!  A group of us bloggers from Who's Who and Who's New have gotten together to celebrate Labor Day weekend!!  Hopefully you all are enjoying a GREAT 3-Day weekend!!  We are SO grateful for the break after our very busy first week of school!  This weekend, we're here to share how we encourage our kiddos to work together in the classroom.

We've been busy doing LOTS of activities to get to know each other, build friendships, and talk about the importance of working together.  One activity that we LOVE for this is reading the Crayon Box That Talked.  This story is wonderful to show how working together can accomplish great things.
The fun little activity shows how pictures look much better with many colors versus just one color.

Taking time at the beginning of the year to have our kiddos get to know each other is so important!!  Here is a fun FREEBIE you can use in the classroom!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oqs3dO-goOSVcyYjN0S1d6eUk/edit?usp=sharing

We're also having a sale in our store to celebrate the long weekend!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/First-Grade-Buddies

Now, you can hop over to Bonnie Kathryn at Kinders and Beyond for another great tip and freebie!

http://bonniekathryn.blogspot.com/




Sunday Smogashbord 6.8.14

Happy Sunday! 


We are linking up with Fabulous in First today!  

We have F-O-U-R more days!!!  We are very excited about this!

We just wanted to share really quick about our end of the year gifts.  

This is what we have ready for our sweet little kiddos to say goodbye:




And one last random bit to share…
Look at this cute little page I found in one of my kiddo's journals!!  It's a "text conversation."  Don't you love the multi colored speech bubbles.  Just love this.  


Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  

It's a Celebration!! A Learning Celebration!

This was a BIG and BUSY week for us!!  This year was the 2nd time we've held a Learning Celebration for our kiddos and their families.  We began our Learning Celebrations as a way for our kiddos to show off their hard work and discuss the learning that has taken place throughout the year with their families.  We modeled our idea after Student Led Conferences.  However, we hold them in group settings so it helps to save time at the end of the year!  We wanted to show you how it all works, as we know teachers are always looking for different ways to help students and their families connect.  
We send home invitations offering 2 different dates and time options for our families.  In the classroom we get to work preparing materials, setting our agenda, and have the kiddos practice going through their work.  Here's the order we use and pic of our kiddos "practicing."




You can get this FREE Summer Reading Bookmark here!



You can grab our At the Moment pack here!

This year and last, we've had many parents express great appreciation for the opportunity to see their students "shine!"  The kiddos LOVE the chance to show off their hard work!

Thanks for checking out our special celebration!



Spring Has Sprung and Games are Fun! Blog Hop

What classroom is complete without some fun games?!  We've got a few favorites here to share with you.  Come hop along with us and grab some fun FREEBIES!

We love using these fluency games for a quick skill building.  We've made them in a projector form to use with the whole class and in a playing card form for small groups. These games can also be great to throw on an iPad and use in a small group.   Right now, we have 3 versions: Nonsense Words, Sight Words, and Number Sense.  Here is a pick into our classroom to see the games in action:

Our SPLAT Number Sense Fluency has been super for improving our kiddos mental math skills when working with numbers.  They are gaining more accuracy in quickly naming 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, and 10 less than a given number.  This game is broken down into numbers 1-30 and numbers 30-120.  This allows for differentiation and growth.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Splat-Number-Sense-Fluency-Practice-Games-875678
In our BUZZ..Nonsense Word Fluency game, kiddos are practicing to read nonsense words fluently.  This has been great for encouraging our kiddos to read the whole word instead of chunking out the sounds.  This has GREATLY helped our DIBELS testing scores as our version of the test gives a greater emphasis on reading the whole word.
 Here is a FREEBIE Nonsense / Real Word Sort you can grab!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonsense-Word-Fluency-Practice-Activities-657353

Our Bounce Sight Word game uses the Dolch sight words. There is a Pre-Primer, Primer, First and Second list for both the card game and projector game. 
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Fluency-Game-Bounce-687953

Here is sample FREEBIE you can grab from our Bounce Sight Word Fluency game.  This freebie is the projector version of one of the sight word lists. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4oqs3dO-goOOEpLR1gtclR4Qmc/edit?usp=sharing
Another favorite game type resource in our classrooms are our Math Bags (math centers).  Below you can find the Original Math Bags for grades K, 1st, and 2nd.  Each complete set has a sample freebie you can grab.  The sets are also sold individually in our store.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Bags-for-1st-Grade-THE-COMPLETE-SET-30-Common-Core-Aligned-Math-Centers-749488
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oqs3dO-goOWWdEdUlMN2Jqcm8/edit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Bags-for-2nd-Grade-THE-COMPLETE-SET-30-Common-Core-Aligned-Math-Centers-924110
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oqs3dO-goON0ZuN3NMNERiQms/edit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Bags-for-Kindergarten-COMPLETE-SET-35-Common-Core-Aligned-Math-Centers-980713
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4oqs3dO-goOeDB5SEZielc5VEU/edit

Enter our Giveaway to grab a Complete Math Bag Set - You Choose the Grade Level!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can also grab all of these fun game products for 20% in our store right now!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/First-Grade-Buddies
 

Head over to see Abbey at A Teacher Mom to grab another super freebie!
http://ateachermom1.blogspot.com/2014/03/spring-has-sprung-blog-hop.html