Wonders McGraw-Hill Unit 1 Week 1

Hi Friends! We had a very busy first week back with our kiddos! Next week we are starting unit 1 of our new reading series. We created a packet to help us follow along with our new series. It's a freebie!!!

FREEBIE!!!!

Bring on the technology!!!

Hi friends! We don't know about you, but our classrooms have been SUPER busy these last few days. Coming back from winter break is usually a fun time in first grade because they come back a little more grown up and it always appears to be a little more calm in class. However, 2013 has started a little chaotic and overwhelming. We decided to relieve our stress this past weekend with a fabulous and oh-so-frugal shopping trip!

Check out Brittany's cart! 

There were some fabulous deals to be found! $2.53 for these adorable sandals from Kohl's!  Shout out to one of our coworkers over in 2nd grade for sharing this total steal with us!!! Thanks Rachel! 

 As you all know, shopping is one of our favorite things to do. We are always excited when we manage to find an awesome bargain. But at this moment, we have even bigger news! Even better than any discount... Are you ready for this???

Cue Fireworks please!!!

Tomorrow Brittany is getting her very own SMART Board!!!!

On that note! Tomorrow our classes will all be hanging out in the same classroom while this gem is being installed! We are in the middle of an author study on the talented, Jan Brett! Don't worry, we plan to blog about it when we're done!

Please feel free to download this quick, little "Long Vowel Challenge." We are finishing up long i and are still working on "flipping the sound."

Long I Vowel Challenge

Also, below you will find the same activity for long a words. It served as a nice review for our firsties!

Long A Vowel Challenge

We are happy to report that when we write our next post we'll both have SMART boards! Hooray!!!

Whole Brain Teaching and PB&Js

We are teaching the phonics pattern LONG A with the "sneaky e". We have been practicing the flippy dolphin (flip the sound) as a reading strategy for awhile so our students are already familiar with both long and short vowel sounds. One of our sorts this week is a called "PB and J Pairs" students need to find the short and long vowel match. We found peanut butter and jelly cards at the Dollar Tree (LOVE THAT PLACE). Each long a word has a short a match. Example: Fat/Fate. Just in case you don't have time to stop by the Dollar Tree we are attaching a remake of this sort using clipart. Also, the please feel free to download the recordings page by clicking the link below.

PB & J recording sheet

Peanut Butter

Jelly

P.S- We do a WHOLE lot of WHOLE BRAIN teaching. This requires a WHOLE lot of movement and cooperative learning. If you aren't using WBT we suggest you stop reading this blog immediately and look it up. It will change your life! We would never go back. Our students love it has made a world of difference in our classrooms!!! To teach the "flip the sound" strategy we simply use our hand. We face our hand upwards and say its short vowel sound then flip it over to say the long vowel sound. It works with words too!

Whole Brain Teaching

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Manic Monday Freebie!