Teacher: AnJolene Martin

When I teach multiplication in my class, I make sure that memorizing its facts is not the most important step.  I want them to memorize them naturally, because thy’ve worked with the numbers so often that it becomes solid in their awesome little brains.

 

This set of worksheets allows me to teach multiplication in several different strategies, really understanding the different forms that the little “x” sign can mean! For example, most of us know that a student can look at the “x” sign and say “groups of”, like “3 groups of 8”.  But did you also know that it could mean “rows of” or “jumps of”? This really allows students to practice these concepts through drills (which are sometimes important but NOT the priority focus) so that they can become very familiar with what multiplication means.  You can grab a copy here or by clicking on the photo.  I hope you enjoy this in your class!

My class loves working on their spelling words, because I try to keep the activities around spelling fun!  (You know we try anything to make the boring stuff engaging).  I think there is an important balance between spelling being meaningful and creative for better understanding and to develop better spellers!

I decided to make these templates for my class.  There are 5 different sets, so that I can rotate them to keep things interesting.  The most important thing for me is for students to recognize the phonics rule for each list I give.  What is the pattern?  I also want to know that they can break it into syllables, recognize the consonants/vowels, and be able to test themselves.  Here is an example of a Monday/Tuesday for the Colored Pencil Weekly.

I decided to have some fun with this.  In addition to this Colored Pencil Frenzy, I think categorizing or sorting is an important and meaningful skill as well.  Sorting by number of letters, alphabet, syllables, and figuring out which Words I Know versus Words I Need to Practice.  An example of this one is below:

There are three more sets of ideas along with this packet (you can click on any of the pictures or find the sets here).  Another set includes Artistic Weekly, where students get to finally use those fun materials like highlighters, crayons, markers, etc. to practice their words.  There is also a Ordering Frenzy, where students can place their words in ABC Order, and finally, a Team Spelling set, which is so much fun!  On Monday, the student will create a word search of their words.  Tuesday, their partner gets to do the word search they created!  Wednesday, the student creates a Word Scramble, and on Thursday, their partner completes it!  This one is much fun.  I know what you are thinking… what about the student who forgets/ doesn’t do their homework? I just make a copy of another student’s work and give that to who needs it!

I’m hoping you can share your use with these in your own class and how you made them your own!  Happy hunting!

 

Well, I finally got this project up and running in my classroom, and I loved it!  The students had so much fun making these.  My Fiction Mobile went over so well, I wondered if I could create options for non-fiction books.  I have a small group enrichment group of students that crave science books and biographies.  I decided to make some templates I know could be useful.  This one pictured below is more of a general template that can be used for several types of non-fiction books.  Using Main Ideas & Details, students can show their knowledge on just about anything!

Some of the other templates I created were for Sports, Biographies, Animals, Questioning/Summary, How To/Sequence, Compare/Contrast, and more!  You can check out the preview here!  If you want the fiction option, you can check that out here!  Also below is a picture of the bulletin board I did to go along with our story!

There are a few legendary book report activities I remember growing up, and one of them is the Cereal Box Book Report (along with others like a mobile and a diorama).  Whoever came up with the idea beats me… but if there’s one thing I know it’s that teaching approaches/activities that stick around are meaningful and help students learn.

When I was thinking about having my first grade class do this, I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I created my own.   My students, who are very advanced, yearn for science books.  Animals, Biographies, History, and Sports are just to name a few.  The product I created covered each of these areas and more, and when I started using them in class, I was blown away! (Pictures of student samples to follow soon in the Gallery)

If this is something that you feel like you can use in your classroom, you can find my product by clicking the My TpT Store at the top or by clicking here.  I just had to get this idea out there because the close reading is amazing!  So many skills are demonstrated while having fun.  I also have a fiction version I am almost done making!  I’d love to know how it goes in your class!

In my 1st grade classroom (most above level), we just finished reading Magic Tree House’s Night of the New Magicians.  I wanted to teach my students some of the main reading strategies they would need to tackle a chapter book, since most of them are reading these!  I got the idea to select a few pieces from each part of the unit we did and display them on the board.  This is a combination of two FREEBIES and two paid purchase items.

These reading strategy posters are fun and cute!  I can’t believe they are FREE!  Same with these reading strategy graphic organizers!  So fun to get students thinking on their feet.

I also purchased a Night of the New Magician pack that walked my students through vocabulary and comprehension questions.  For an added Phonics and Grammar component, I used this pack here.

At the end of it all, I wanted to assess students’ understanding with a hands on project.  I created this Book Report Mobile Project to assess their comprehension and story element skills.  We had a blast and the students learned SO MUCH!