New Position

I am now officially an English Language Learner Teacher. When I was an Instructional Coach one of my responsibilities was to work closely with our ELL teacher and guess what I totally feel in love with ELLs. When an ELL position opened up at my school I had to jump and take it. I am so excited for this new position and looking forward to this new journey.

 

Here's a picture of my classroom this year. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

It's been a while since I have blogged. It was a very busy year. One major change was that I moved schools. I'm still teaching but now I teach at my neighborhood school. It's really cool seeing my students not only at school but in the neighborhood riding their bikes or playing outside. My daughter started Kindergarten and I couldn't resist the opportunity to teach at her school and I get to see her cute little face every day there.

First Day of School AM. Look at that cute face!

  

First Day of School PM. She had a fantastic 1st day!

Here are some pictures of my new classroom. 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Print and Go

It's almost time to celebrate Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite holidays. I would like to introduce THANKSGIVING PRINT AND GO. It's a brand new resource in my store that's part of my Print and Go Series.

Here's a peek of what is inside of this resource.

 

 

 

 

 

Grab this resource in my TpT store here.

 

 

 

Check out Turkey Day too!

 

 

 

 

 Have a great time learning about Thanksgiving!

 

Subitizing

My students love to SUBITIZE. Subitizing is like quick images. It is simply the ability to quickly identify the number of objects in a set without counting.

 

 

Perceptual Subitizing is the instant visual recognition of a pattern such as numbers in a ten frame. Conceptual Subitizing involves recognizing smaller groups and adding them together, for example “I see five dots on the top row and 4 dots on the bottom row. So, that is 5+4 =9.

 

I'll show my students a dot card, ten frame, a domino, etc. for about three seconds because I don't want my kids to count the dots. Then I ask them what did they see. My kiddos come up with answers like "I saw 6 dots, I saw 4 dots on the top and 2 dots on the bottom, I know 4 and 2 is 6, I saw 3 groups of 2, I saw 2+2+1+1, I saw 4 missing, 10-4=6. 2 x 3=6." Yes, even some of my 1st graders are multiplying using this technique. It's amazing how their number sense has improved tremendously. 

Here are some of the different Subitizing cards that I use in my classroom.

 

 
If you want to try Subitizing you can pick up this resource here.

Thank you for visiting and have a fantastic week!

Apple Day

We had a BLAST this past Friday celebrating Apple Day. After learning all about apples we rotated through 15 apple stations as a culmination of all that we learned. I don’t know about you but I only have like 5 minutes (maybe like 20 but it goes so fast) to teach Science so this a great way in order to review all that we have learned about apples. The stations are spread out around the classroom and they get to choose wherever they want to go. Most of the stations I limit it to three students. Before we start I go over the directions of each station and then they were off. Here are some pictures and descriptions of some of the fun that we had during Apple Day.

Here is how I setup the stations. I copy and prep everything and put them into folders. Then I use the folders for signs. It works out perfectly.

                                                     

 

 

Apple Day Crown

We created crowns first thing in the morning. My kiddos absolutely love crowns. It’s so funny how the boys go around saying that they are the king!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Life Cycle

For this station the students color and cut out the apple life cycle. Then they glue it in order on a sentence strip.

 

 

 

     

 

 

The Parts of an Apple

The students were given an apple and discussed the parts of it. Then they labeled an apple.

 

  

 

 

 

     

Apple Observation 

We had some whole apples and some cut in half. The students observed the apples and answered some question about them.

 

 

 

 

Apple Volcanoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did this station together. Can we say it would have been a mess if we didn’t? This was their favorite activity. Beforehand I created a hole about halfway in the apples using an apple corer. Then we put the apples in a bowl. The students put one spoonful of baking soda inside of the apple. Then I poured red tinted vinegar in each. Guess what happened next!!! Super fun

 

 

                                 

 

    Apple Q-Tip Skip Counting

 A few of my kiddos love to paint so here is where they hung out. They used Q-Tips and paint to create “apples” on the baskets.

 

 

 

 

 How to Make Applesauce

This was also a favorite station. We made applesauce in a crockpot in the morning. It so was yummy! 

 

 

                                                                            

   Johnny Appleseed

      We have been reading about Johnny Appleseed so the students were about to write a few sentence about him on the tin hat pattern. One of my kids wanted to wear it too. He wanted a double crown.

 

 

 

 

 

 Apple Patterns

The students had to figure out the AB, ABC, AABB patterns on each card and find the correct apple.

 

 

 

  

 

Apple Taste Test

Another yummy station. The students taste tested apples, applesauce, and apple pie and decided which one was their favorite. Apple Pie won!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Make 10

Students had a chance to review Make 10. We have a test on it soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 Apple Measurement  

The students loved measuring each other with apples.

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Addition

At this station there were different addition mats so that the students could make addition number sentences.

 

 

 

  

 

 

Apple Torn Paper Craft 

This was the most relaxing station. I spent some time there myself. My students had to tear construction paper in order to fill in the apple pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Apple Graph

I cut up red, yellow, and yellow apples.  I had kids taste one of each. This station was hilarious. I had so many kids coming back to this one over and over again. The green apples were the favorite!

So that was our day. It was super fun! For clean-up I just put the extra copies and materials back in the folders and then it’s all ready for next year! Apple Day can be completed in one day or over a week. If want to have an Apple Day, you can grab a copy here. Or you can pick up Pumpkin Day here.

Have a great week!