It's Reindeer Day! 

Check out all these fun activities you can do with your students!

 On the last day of school before Christmas break, we have our annual Reindeer Day celebration! Out in our first grade neighborhood, we have set up Reindeer stations that our students can roam through at their own pace. We have games, activities, crafts, food and music! Here are some different types of stations that we've had. And, of course, we couldn't do this without the help of our amazing parents! We send out a sign up genius so they can sign up to help out so all we have to do is just walk around and monitor! 

                                          Reindeer Antlers 

                                                            Reindeer Pancakes

 

  Face Painting 

                                          

                          Reindeer Magnets or Ornaments

Pop cycle sticks, magnets, green ribbon, student pictures, red pom-poms, glue, chip trays, and googly eyes. 

                                       Reindeer Ornaments

                                             

Pin the Nose on the Reindeer 

                                           Jingle Bell Toss

                                     

                                    Reindeer Ring Toss 

                                     Jingle Bell Necklaces

Jingle bells, red/green/white pony beads, chip trays, and necklace string.

If you want your students to enjoy some reindeer books...here are some suggestions! 

Here are some writing craftivities that you could have your students do:  

                                 Olive the Other Reindeer

If you're interested in my Olive the Other Reindeer resource, click here. 

                        Reindeer Research and Reindeer Diary 

If you're interested in my Reindeer Research resource, click here

If you have a student that doesn't celebrate Christmas, you can have them write a Reindeer Diary instead of an Elf Diary. 

I hope you have a wonderful and Merry Christmas!  Remember to enjoy your students this week! 

Love, Kara 

We're Wrapped Up in Christmas... and Math too!  

These past few weeks, we did a LOT of fun activities for Christmas! I can't wait to share them with you! 
We read a lot of great stories, we learned about Christmas traditions around the world, we decorated Gingerbread Houses, we had Reindeer games, crafts and dancing! And the best part, we got to enjoy Christmas together as a class! 

One of my favorite activities we did for math was called: Merry Christmas Bow Math. I gave each pair of students a bag of Christmas bows, a divided chip tray and their math templates. 

They had to sort the bows, count them, graph them and estimate how many bows were inside the bag. After graphing the bows, they had to answer some questions and problem solve about their bows. Last, they worked with each other to write Christmas bow story problems for addition and subtraction. Here are some of the pics from our activity: 

The students had four templates they had to complete.
Estimating how many bows were in their bag:

Graphing their bows with different colors: 

Problem Solving with their bows: 

Writing Story Problems using addition and subtraction:

I also created a Christmas Bow Math Roll and Add and Roll and Subtract using dice: 

We had so much fun using Christmas Bows for math! This was an excellent filler to do the last few days before Christmas break. If you are interested in checking out my math packet, click below!
Have a Merry Christmas! :)
Love,
Kara 

Merry Christmas Bow Math: Counting, Sorting, Graphing and Problem Solving

                                                      Veteran's Day Activities 

Don't you just LOVE Veteran's Day? Getting to celebrate our heroes and our loved ones who served in the armed forces is so rewarding! Here are some fun and easy Veteran's Day activities that I have done with my class. 

Make Red, White and Blue Hats for the ceremony! Click here for this freebie and enjoy! They are really easy to make and they look super cute! 

Here is a Veteran's Day poem that we sing. Click here

I have a theme center in my classroom that I change out every two or three weeks. This week is my Veteran's Day Theme Center. I have posters of all the branches of the military on the bulletin board. I have Veteran's Day books to display, Bald Eagles, Poppies in a vase, plastic army soldiers, tanks, planes, jets, helicopters and flags! The students love going to this center and getting to play with all the fun things! 

                                    

                        Here are some of the posters up close: 

Here are some writing craftivities that we do during the week of Veteran's Day: 

If you're interested in checking out my Veteran's Day craftivities, click here.  Have fun!

Love,

Kara 

Scarecrows In Autumn 

I LOVE teaching about scarecrows, autumn leaves and corn during November! They are so fun and the students absolutely love all the stories!  Check out all the scarecrow, autumn and corn fun that you can have with your students! 

In this packet students will learn about the scientific method, the 5 senses, autumn, types of leaves, scarecrows, seasons and growing Indian corn with hands on engaging activities in reading, writing, poetry, math and science! Included are lesson plans with mentor texts, craftivities, interactive notebooks, science investigations and vocabulary cards. It's jammed packed full of FALL FUN! I can't wait to share it with you! Grab your Apple Cider and read on! 

I've created 16 days of lesson plans including mentor texts, materials, directions and examples. (And cute graphics of course!)

There are vocabulary cards to help your students understand the new words for this season. These cards include autumn words, scientific method, types of leaves, corn life cycle, parts of corn, and parts of a leaf.  All of these cards are in the lesson plans and there's always a fun activity to follow up with them.

I've also created interactive notebook activities in math, science and poetry. I LOVE using interactive notebooks because it allows me to make observations and anecdotal records of how the students understood the skill... and the students LOVE them! They bring their notebook to my table when they are finished, and I grade it right there! Easy!

Interactive Science Notebook

Interactive Math Notebook

Interactive Poetry Notebook

I couldn't forget about craftivities!!! These are so much FUN and the students LOVE making them! And, they make your hallways look so beautiful and festive! In this unit there are four craftivities: My Leaf Man, Corn in the Cornfield, My Fall Tree and My Scarecrow Adventure. All of these craftivities are explained in detail in the lesson plans. 

Craftivities

To expand these craftivities I've included expository and narrative writing pieces with brainstorming, first draft, and final draft templates. The students write an expository piece about Autumn, and a narrative piece about their Scarecrow Adventure.

Also included in this packet are fun and engaging science investigations: Using your 5 senses in Autumn, We're Going Leaf Hunting, and Growing Indian Corn. All of these investigations are explained in the lesson plans and have either an interactive notebook activity or a student observation log to expand it in more depth. Growing Indian corn is my favorite. The students get to predict and hypothesize which natural resource that their Indian corn will grow the best (water, soil or sand) and record their observations in a student journal. My students LOVED this investigation and we even entered it into our science fair at school in November! 

                                            
Another one of my favorites is the Leaf Investigation. I took my students outside to the playground and we hunted for leaves. We made leaf rubbings, labeled the parts of a leaf, made a Leaf Man and graphed our leaves. This was so much fun and so much learning that goes along with it! And, the best part was... we got to go OUTSIDE!!!!!!

Isn't science fun? I just love using science investigations in my thematic units. With mentor texts, craftivities, interactive notebooks, writing and investigations... who wouldn't love school? I wish I was in first grade again! If you are interested in checking out my Scarecrows in Autumn Thematic Unit, click below: 

                Scarecrows in Autumn: Thematic Unit 

                                             Happy Fall Ya'll! 
                                               Love, Kara 

                                    

Teaching With Thematic Units

As many of you know, one of my favorite things to teach in my classroom is thematic units. For me, this is the simplest way to teach by incorporating all the curriculum together. You may be teaching reading, but you can certainly read a science or social studies book during your reading time, or you may be teaching social studies, but the students may be writing an expository piece during that time.  In my mind it's just good teaching and it just makes sense. I've taught this way for 22 years now, and my students learn so many skills and much much more by me teaching through the themes. Before I plan my thematic unit, I ask myself these questions:

1.) What are my science/social studies TEKS and what part of the semester do I need to teach them?
2.) What are my reading/writing TEKS and what part of the semester do I need to teach them?
3.) What kind of hands-on and engaging science investigations and experiments can I add to this thematic unit to make it meaningful?
4.) What mentor texts do I need to incorporate into my reading/writing/science/and social studies time that go with my theme?
5.) What kind of craftivities can I have the students make to ensure that they are learning the TEKS and skills?
6.) Are there interactive notebook activities that I can incorporate to assess my students?
7.) What holidays or special occasions are coming up that I can incorporate my themes with?
8.) Does this theme require an outside lesson and what materials do I need to gather?

Wow! That's a lot of things to consider when planning a thematic unit! But, let me reassure you, after you have taught one thematic unit for several years, it becomes second nature to you. You get better at incorporating your subjects, and you can do more with it. This is where I am now, so I can teach outside the box and go above and beyond than I used to do. I can do more hands-on activities, more in-depth questions, and more technology.

In my classroom I have a theme center. This is where I change out the center according to what theme I'm teaching. I change it out every two weeks. My students get SO excited when they walk in the door Monday morning and notice I have changed my theme center. They cannot wait for me to show them all the new and exciting games, books and materials that they can interact with at the new center. It's like Christmas every two weeks for them! Here are some of my theme centers from my classroom:

All About Me/What is a Scientist: August 

Apples/Community Helpers: September

Maps and Columbus/Owls/Bats: October

Native Americans/Rocks and Soil: November

Christmas Around the World: December

Obects in the Sky/Weather: January 

Presidents: February 

Texas: March

Rainforests: April 

Oceans: May 

Other things to consider when teaching in themes is what kind of math manipulatives can I incorporate? For example, when teaching about apples, have the students use apple erasers and real apples to sort properties. Or, plastic animals, holiday counters or food! 

When teaching Rainforests, use plastic rainforest animals to sort, graph and measure.
When teaching Christmas Around the World, use candy canes, marshmallows, or assorted nuts to count, add, subtract and problem solve.

Another important hands-on and FUN way to incorporate themes is by having an end of unit celebration! This is where the students get to have a TASTE of the THEME!
For Columbus, the students can celebrate by eating
Sailboat Jell-O.

For Rocks and Volcanoes, the students can celebrate by eating Dirt in
a cup! 

  

For Fairy Tales, have a Fairy Tale Ball and the students can eat a castle cake! 
 

Or, you can have the students celebrate by making a project that they can take home!
For Oceans, the students can make an Ocean in a Jar.

I hope you have gotten some great ideas about how to incorporate your TEKS or standards into themes. Your students will LOVE it and they are so fun and create a lifelong passion for learning. By teaching themes cross-curricular you are free to mix and match the subjects as you see fit and have fun at the same time!

If you are interested in checking out my thematic units, click below. These units include craftivities, investigations, vocabulary cards, lesson plans, mentor texts, interactive notebooks, edible experiments, and much more.

 Enjoy!

From Seed to Pumpkin: Thematic Unit

Birds of a Feather: An Owl Thematic Unit 

1492: A Maps and Columbus Thematic Unit 

All About Me: A Back to School Thematic Unit

It's Raining Cats and Dogs! A Weather Thematic Unit

Rockin' Inside the Earth: A Rocks and Soil Thematic Unit 

Once Upon a Time: A Fairy Tale Writing Unit 

Ocean Commotion: A Thematic Unit 

What's Buggin' You? An Insect Thematic Unit

How Does Your Garden Grow? A Plant Thematic Unit 

Apples are A Peeling: A Thematic Unit 

Rainforest Research: A Thematic Unit 

Texas Our Texas: A Thematic Unit 

How Cold Can You Go? An Arctic Thematic Unit 

Love, Kara