Day of Silence...

Heartstrings

Hello Everyone,
As the news from this Friday continues to  envelope us, my heart is absolutely breaking for those affected.  As a mother and teacher I can't keep my heartstrings from becoming loosened, tangled and frayed to think about those precious, innocent children.  When I turned on my phone yesterday as I was leaving school, I had texts from both my precious boys telling me how much they love me. They both knew that this tragedy would hit home.  As their mom, those words helped to untangle those heart strings. I love these boys, and my husband, of course, more than anything.  That is what is important. Thank you, sweet boys!  You are my heart! 
As a teacher, I strive to let my kiddos know that I love them as well. It is, of course, a different kind of love, but it is a love that makes me want to protect those little hearts and help them grow into the people God intends for them to be. Most of the teachers I know display that same kind of love.
 I pray that my kiddos get the chance to grow up. I pray that they will not ever feel alone. I pray they know love.
Hold your loved ones close to your heart.  Grasp your students heartstrings and pull with that uncompromising love that we have all been given.

I love you, my Jordan and my Toby!
 I love you VIK's.
Blessings of peace to the families in Connecticut.

Hugs to all.
Nancy

I'll be back later with "school stuff."

Grinch Alert!

Hello Everyone!

Awesome day in First Grade today!!  It was all about the adjectives!  We continued our week-long study of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" taking today to learn all about adjectives. We learned our adjective song, and then brainstormed all the words we could think of to describe Mr. Grinch, both for the beginning of the story and then again for the end of the story. 

We practiced our review "words to know" for the word work component of our Daily 5 using green paint chip samples! 

Later, after specials, we discovered that Mr. Grinch had visited our classroom while we were gone!!!  We discovered a green glitter trail on the floor all the way to the room!  When we went inside and found a note written by the green guy himself!! He left the ingredients for making Who Pudding!! After making that special treat, we wrote more adjectives!!!

 Grinch activities including the Adjective activities and the Who pudding recipe are included in my Grinch unit!
Click here if you would like your own copy

Can't wait for tomorrow!!

Stop by again for a peek!

Joyfully!
Nancy

(That Green Guy) Math and Text Connection

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back for a peek!  We have been enjoying that timeless story "The Grinch" this week and I wanted to share a little bit of what we've been up to.  Today we played a fun whole group game that I call Grinch Triple Toss.  We needed to practice our addition strategies as well as adding three addends, so I made a huge work mat ( a snowflake shape cut out of a round plastic table cloth) and wrote numbers 1-10 on some green (of course) paper plates.  We used three large pom poms to toss on to the numbers and talked about the strategies we would use to get our sum.  The kids had a recording sheet to show their thinking. So fun!

Tomorrow we'll reinforce subtraction skills with the same idea!!(Grinch Toss and Take)

We also worked hard on our text connection ideas for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."  We reviewed what each connection meant and then created our little heart books connecting all our connection!  As one of my kiddos said, "It's all about the heart!"  Enjoy the pics.

We used green pencils for recording of course!

Made a large snowflake from a plastic table cloth

kids take turns tossing pom poms and then working on the addition problems

Make a ten and then add the 7!!  Yes!!

 For your printables of these two activities, click here

Our Text Connection anchor with The Grinch looking on!

for my grinch unit , click here


Thanks for stopping by!!
We are having a great week!

Joyfully!

Nancy

Reindeer Games

Hello Everyone!

Rudolph is one of my favorite winter characters. As I was planning for the week before our winter break, I decided I needed something fresh and cross curricular. This unit includes ELA and Math activities that coordinate with the objectives we want to cover at this time of the year, all centered around Rudolph! Take a peek at some of the things included.

8 page mini book - nonfiction

Patterns included

balancing addition equations activity

mystery picture clues include addition!

For your free 30+ page printable, click here!! 

 I can't wait to do these activities with my kiddos!! Hope you will enjoy them as well. 
As always, thanks for stopping by for a peek!!
Have a great rest of the weekend!!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Stuck!

Hello Everyone!

We were stuck on "Santa's Stuck" this week.  We made our way through all the fun activities from our unit including learning a fun new song, brainstorming what we would do if Santa was stuck in our chimney and what other things get stuck, created our reader's response craft connection, learned through math tubs and science.  Here are a few pics. Sorry there aren't more! We were all way too engaged to stop for pictures! :)

Looooove some of the kids' responses!!!

Love some of the creative responses!

Here's just a quick Santa word search-click here

click here for the Santa's Stuck unit! :) 

Excited for Grinch week next week!!  Stay tuned!
Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!!
Joyfully!
Nancy

Life Size Fact Family Practice

Hello Everyone!!

Welcome to our Window on Wonder!!  We had a lot of fun today practicing our addition/subtraction strategies and number sense by seeing the relationship of "fact families."  Earlier in the week, we  manipulated cubes to understand related facts. Then we moved to pictures to see related facts. We learned a little chant about fact families. Today we put our whole bodies into the process.  I picked up some Santa and elf hats from the dollar store (of course!) and printed off some numbers to glue to the hats. The Santa hats had numbers and the elf hats had the signs. We took turns building the four number sentences using 3 numbers and the signs. Having the kids actually move made the number sentences come to life!!

If you want to try this, click here for the poem and the numbers!

I plan on printing all the pictures and putting them along with the hats and a recording sheet in a math tub next week!!  Can't wait!!

Thanks for stopping by!!
As always, thanks for your support!!

Joyfully!
Nancy