Fall Pinterest Ideas for Your Classroom

I was browsing Pinterest and I found some really amazing ideas to use for my fall classroom.
My firsties are going to love these activities and decorations.

STEAM activities...yes please!

Schooling a Monkey (don't you just love that name?) has some STEAM pumpkin activities to do in the classroom.

How am I going to fit all this in?

:)

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It's Been So Long

Hello All!

I have been gone so long. September was a crazy month here as I am sure it is for all of you too. We had our first day of school, curriculum night seven days later, assessments...assessments...assessments, and now I am preparing for Parent Teacher Conferences. 

I know I am not the only one who seems to think they are treading water. :)

And now we are into our Halloween questions and comments. 

"Do we get to wear our costumes?" "When is Halloween?" "How many more school days until Halloween?" "Are we going to have a party?"

I love my firsties, but wow!!!

I have a couple freebies for you all.

I hope you enjoy them. 

The first one is for quick Fall writing.

In Fall...I can...I can't

There is a Venn Diagram included.

Click on the image to take you to the product in my TpT store. 

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Meetings

Today I had two meetings. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I was only in the classroom for about an hour and a half.
Our first meeting was a data meeting. We went over our AIMSweb results and discussed who needed to be serviced and pulled out of the classroom and who would benefit from staying in the classroom and not be pulled out for services.

Who uses AIMSweb?
We are thinking about moving to STAR. We are already using STAR in second through fourth grade.
Who uses STAR in Kindergarten and first grade.

I think the whole school should be on the same assessment system, but I am not sure how STAR will work for my littles.

My second meeting was our Writing Committee.
We are working on our K-4 writing curriculum. Last week we gave a benchmark assessment for each grade. We used Informational Writing in all grades. It was very interesting to see all the different writing that came in and what we did as administrators of the test.

Everyone of us gave little hints, guidance, modeling, or something else in addition to the script we were suppose to read. It is so hard to sit back and let them "be". We all know we have to do it in order to get the best and most reliable results, but it is soooooo hard!

We discussed how the assessment worked, how we could tweak the rubric to fit our school's needs, and what we needed to do next.

When we meet next, we are going to go over some of the writing pieces together, choose some samples for the school, and score them.

Two meaningful meetings in one day! Woot Woot!!!

Have a wonderful day!

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Writing Workshop Celebration

We had our last Writing Workshop Celebration today. 

They worked so hard. 

We use Units of Study by Lucy Calkins. 

We have used this approach for years. 

We have had to adjust it along with her to align it to the Common Core Standards.

 I really enjoy teaching writing this way.

They started out with their "small moment".

We looked at a couple authors that we absolutely LOVED!

Tedd Arnold, Leo Leoni, and Eric Carle were a few of the authors they wanted to "write like".

There were elipses, strong beginnings and endings, juicy adjectives, showing not telling, among many more strategies they wanted to use for their writing.

They were so proud of their writing.

We had the parents and our second grade friends come in to join us. 

So much fun!!!

We have a walking "community" field trip today AND a school-wide picnic. 

It's going to be a beautiful day!

Have a wonderful day!

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Letter Writing Freebies

We are writing our Pen Pal letters.

 I have found that it is hard for some of my firsties to follow how to write a friendly letter....no matter how many different ways I try.

I made up these three letter templates to help them out. One is very basic with labels for them to follow and the others are the templates with no labels. 

I gave these to the kiddos who needed just that little bit of guidance. It helped them so much.

They are all in my TPT store. I have linked them at the bottom of each picture.

Koala

Letter Template with Labels

Cardinals

I hope they help your kiddos as much as they helped mine.

Don't forget about my giveaway! It ends January 18th at midnight!

Some lucky follower will win this!

 (well something like this :)
Enter HERE.

Have a wonderful day!

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Winter Freebie

I am in the middle of my Winter Unit. 

I couldn't wait until it was finished to post a freebie. :)

Click HERE to go to the link on my TPT page.

Or HERE if you want to download it from Google Docs.

It's two writing pages. In Winter, I Can...and In Winter, I Can't.

I thought it was Thursday all day. I missed an appointment with my new TA 

(it's a good thing she is a friend). 

AND that means I have "lost" a day from my vacation. 

Have a wonderful day!

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Holiday Unit and Freebie

PHEW!!!! I just finished my Holiday Unit. YIPPEEE! 

I am so excited!!!!

I am posting my Holiday Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Here is your FREEBIE!!!

Holiday Freebie

ENJOY!!!

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I never thought I would do it!!!

In honor of reacing TWENTY followers....

I set up my own TPT store! : )
My first item is a Birthday Page for those Birthday Books we all make for the kids.
I was using one from hmmmmmmm....well it was in the classroom when I started! HA HA!

This one is cuter and the kids can write as much as they want. I will adjust it to add a page without lines. I was just so excited to get this one on there! YIPPEEEE!

Thanks to all of the creative teachers out there who have inspired me to be creative and share.

Happy Birthday Page

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Work on Writing

We had our first extended time for Work on Writing.

The kids were fabulous.

What does your time look like?

What do you have them work on if you already have a Writing Workshop time?

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Naming and Action Parts

I tried to fix the link. It works on my computer. Hmmmm... Any suggestions?

This is my first attempt at a FREEBIE!!!
This is a fun activity to put into a center. I introduce naming and action parts of sentences along with the nouns and the verbs. We talk about how important it is to make our writing interesting.
I hope this works.
The only thing I wish I had changed were the directions on the last page. Oh Well!
Click on the picture to download. I hope you enjoy it! Naming and Action Parts Activity.

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Literacy Camp

Literacy Camp with first and second graders. We had a Literacy Camp day. Oh, it was so much fun. We put up our tents and set out our blankets for reading and writing.

It turned out to be such a beautiful day.

The students chose which "stations" would be featured for the day.
Science: Observing and writing about the butterflies the second graders had hatched.
Non-Fiction: Reading
Story Telling: Writing
Books sorted by different genres and authors.

We are going to do so much more next year. We are planning a "campfire" Morning Meeting. S'mores and so much more.

There were two classes participating this year. Next year, we have two more joining us already.
It was a great way to wind down, have fun, and still be working on things that are important in first grade.

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