Moved to First Grade

Hello, bloggy friends!  I have recently been moved to first grade due to changing enrollment numbers at our school.  I was wondering if any of you could give me names of good first-grade blogs, songs that are great for first grade, and TPT products that you have found to be useful for teaching a diverse group of first-graders.

Thank you in advance!  Please leave me a comment below.  :)

My Four-Legged, Furry Friend

Hi everyone!  I never understood, before, the joy of owning a dog.  Ava is the new addition to our home.  She is such a sweet girl!  I'm planning to make a book about her and share it with the students once I get back to school.  It will be very simple, sort of along the lines of "Ava is eating," "Ava is sleeping," "Ava is running," etc.  Since the beginning of the year is a time when we talk about ourselves and our hopes, likes, and dreams, I thought it would be a great time to talk about Ava.

Does anybody know of some really good dog books to read to kindergartners?  Please leave me a comment below.

Rhyme Time

Hi all!  I've been doing some cool rhyming songs for my classroom and wanted to share what I'm doing with all of you.

When I was a little girl, I loved doing Patty-Cake-style songs.  I did them at school.  I did them at home.  I did them in the car.  I just love them!  Dr. Jean has a very awesome version of "Miss Mary Mack" on her CD Totally Reading.  The neat thing about this song is, beside the fact that your children are learning how to rhyme, they're also crossing the mid-line (which is great for building synapses in the brain) and they're learning how to cooperate.  There's a song by Raffi called "Willoughby Wallaby Woo" which is basically a name rhyme song that I did a lot at the beginning of the school year.  I thought about it, and figured why not do it in April?  The kids went nuts for it and were singing "Willoughby Wallby Wennifer, an elephant sat on Jennifer," substituting all their names, when they were at centers.  Talk about magical!  I love hearing them sing when they're at centers.  Another song that I do a couple times a week is "Make a Rhyme, Make a Move" by Jack Hartmann, where the students are singing and dancing.  It's on the CD Hip-Hop Alphabop 2.  I've seen Jack Hartmann do this at conferences and he mixes it with a little rap flair.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much teaching stuff I have.  I've been teaching for over 20 years, so I have over 4 rooms filled with teaching stuff.  A couple months ago I was going through my stuff and found these unusual-size big books that are the best treasures!  They're the "Pat the Cat and Friends" series by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins, published by DK.  They're not available new anymore, but you can get them used on Amazon and from other sources.  They're really great for teaching rhyming!  I like them so much because they tell little stories about characters in whatever particular word family you're learning about.  These books led me to thinking more about word families and how I could help my kids learn certain patterns.  I decided to make Word Family Half-Size Guided Reading Books where the kids could color, write sentences, and highlight or circle the rhyming words.  Check them out if you want on TPT!

I really love it when people leave me messages, so feel free to comment about rhyming or  current projects that you're working on.

Valentine's Week Freebies

In pre-k or kindergarten, have you ever noticed that your kids have problems telling you the number that comes before another number?  It's so weird!  9 out of 10 times, my kids can tell me a number that comes after, but you should hear the answers for what number comes before.  Today I tried these heart number lines with the kids:

Number Line Strips Valentine by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I just cut them and laminated them.  They worked really well, and not only for more/less but also for helping the kids understand which way you go on a number line when you're talking about a number that's less than or greater than a given number.

I made a worksheet to go with it, for independent practice and for assessment purposes:

Number Line Worksheets Valentine by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Later this week, I'm going to have the kids read this book, which takes them step-by-step through the process of making a Valentine's Day card:

Valentine Card 3 by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

My Valentine Card Big 5b by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I also have a Valentine's Writing Folder on TPT.  I think this folder is really sweet because it saves me from having to spell Valentine words many times around the classroom, and it helps the students to be self-reliant.

I hope you have a lovely week!

Snow Days & A Freebie

Happy snow days, everybody!

We have had a pretty big snow storm here in Maryland. My husband took a time-lapse video of the snow falling in our back yard. He has described it to me and it sounds pretty cool. Here it is:

That took about 28 hours for those 28 seconds. That's a lot of snow, isn't it? Our county has closed schools all week so far. 

Here is the view from our front porch:

When we finally do go back, I plan to read this book:

Snowmen at Night

I love connecting the children's experiences to learning. I really want to find out what they did over their long break and how they played in the snow. Of course we are going to write about it and draw illustrations to match our writing. This book is especially wonderful at capturing children's imaginations with the beautiful illustrations and rhyming text. When I was little, I often thought snowmen had their own secret life at night, just like in this story. A few years ago, I read this story to my kids and they were really interested in how the snowmen did all these secret games when nobody was looking. Then I had the cutest little girl raise her hand after we finished. When I called on her, she said "Wait a minute... Snowmen don't HAVE feet!" It was funny to me that out of all the things that the snowmen were doing, that she focused on that one element. I still use that phrase today with my husband whenever something is strange.

I also just made these winter vocabulary cards. I plan to put them in the writing center so children can make their own little stories and books. You can download it for free with the down arrow link. Enjoy!

Vocabulary Words - Winter by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Stay safe and warm!

Subitizing Snowmen

Hi all!  I'm in Orlando, Florida today at the NAEYC conference.  I will be presenting a session this Saturday morning at 8:00am, so if anyone's around and wants to stop by for a quick hug, I'll be there.  Also, I put up a new free product on TPT for December, if you'd like to take a peek:

Subitizing Snowmen

I realized that some of my children really need extra practice with subitizing.  When you use these, you just flash the cards really quickly.  It's not a counting activity, it's just for them to visually recognize (from the position) how many are there.

Have a great night!

My Almost Halloween Post

Hi, everyone! Happy almost Halloween! My kids have been loving this book that's really the classic 5 Little Pumpkins finger play. We have been using this story for subtraction. Here we are holding our pumpkins over our faces while doing the song (because I have not gotten picture release forms back yet)!

Here's a little video if you'd like to hear how the song goes. My ESOL kids know all the words to the song now. If you leave the pumpkins in Math center, it's really sweet to watch the kids singing and talking with the pumpkins.

So, my county decided that this year we would do addition and subtraction in October! :) Yikes! Some of my kids don't even know their numbers yet! I have to play catch-up and surround them with numbers all day long, especially for those that didn't have pre-K. My kids have also really expressed an interest in all things Halloween-y this year. Hence the creation of my Halloween Addition Cards.

I found that the party store has spiders and bats, and the grocery store has candy corns and pumpkins. I haven't done the ghosts yet (you can see the ghost clip art in the product), but I'm thinking of using white marshmallows. The thing that I like about the candy corns and the pumpkins is that they are not mushy like chocolate candy. I put them in Ziploc bags, ten to a bag, and the kids can use them during math class for problem solving, then take them home and ask their parents if they can eat them.

You can check out the Halloween Addition Cards HERE

I would love to get messages from you and find out how it's going in your classroom!