Tracin' and Eatin' 3D Shapes

Wowzers! We've been so busy in first grade. Of course, I know you all have been. It's crunch time to be sure these babies are ready for second grade. Right now, my biggest fear is that they aren't ready. We've learned so much, but there's so much left to learn/review in these last few weeks. 

We have been working with 3-D shapes. Here, my kiddos are working on building and repeating their shapes. My trick to help them remember that once they built the shapes, they couldn't come apart was to sing "Stuck Like Glue". I'm thankful they don't remind me how horrible my singing is. 

 To make things fun, I headed to the Dollar Tree. You know, that place teachers can afford to shop at. I searched for 3-D shaped snacks. Then, I headed home to make new sheets to match the snacks I was able to find. This was a hit, and I only spent $6 on the candy! That's a win-win in my book!

You can click either picture to snag a free copy if you're able to use it. If so, I hope you enjoy! 

Before I go, I want to direct you to a great giveaway. Kelly from First Grade Fairytale is having her fabulous 400 follower giveaway. 

 

Inspiration Monday

Oh yeah! This is how my day started! One of my little kiddos brought me a bag of chocolate. So sweet! :)

There are only four days until Spring Break. I'm really going to make it. We had a pretty good Monday. I think I'm mostly excited because I had an idea. I'm sure most of you already thought about this, but it's just coming to me. I think my brain processes all of the difficult ways before coming up with the easiest way to work things smoothly in our classroom. 

Click the picture to check it out.

Spring Syllables, a new activity I made, inspired me to figure out a better way to set up the activities I have for my kiddos to do during Word Work. After taking the time to create, laminate, and cut out an activity, I really want my kids to enjoy it and take care of it. 

I have been storing activities in the large envelopes. I don't know why, but I just don't like them. I don't like file folders either.

This is what I came up with. It's a two pocket folder. I glued the directions to the front cover. 

The left pocket holds all of the cut-out pieces in a Ziploc bag. 

The right pocket holds the half page recording sheets. 

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I don't like having to look for the master copy when all of the recording sheets run out if it's an activity my kids really like and use a lot. My solution for that is to leave a master copy in the folder with the activity. I drew a yellow line on it with a highlighter since yellow highlighter doesn't show up when it's copied. 

If you want the activity to be a self-checking one, you can glue the answer key on the back. I just put it there as an example since I correct their papers. 

This is what the activity looks like in action. There are 8 words for each syllable. 

Yes, that makes me excited. I really think I'm going to like the way it works. I hope so anyway. 

Each Monday, you can link up your inspirations with Fun in 1st Grade.