Featured Teacher Tuesday

I hope you have started to love Tuesdays as much as we have! It’s another week of Featured Teacher Tuesday!
FeaturedTeacher2.png
Our Featured Teacher this week is Melanie Ebersole from Momma with a Teaching Mission!
LogoTpT.png

Melanie Ebersole is a 1st Grade departmentalized Literacy Teacher. She is also the Mom to 4 young children, 2 boys (ages 10 and 6) and 2 girls (ages 7 and 1).
20150926_175911.jpg
Melanie is currently in her 3rd year of teaching. She teaches at a school with approximately 700 students in Maryland. She worked in Human Resources for 5 years before finishing her teaching degree and pursuing her dream of teaching. Melanie always wanted to be a teacher, but with life happening, wasn’t able to pursue completing her degree until after having 3 children. You can read more about her journey HERE.
Melanie has a passion for departmentalization. She did a guest blog on Rachel Lynette’s Minds in Bloom, you can read HERE! She also wrote another guest blog post on a blog she collaborates on Who’s Who and New, you can read about Why Teaching in a Departmentalized Classroom Rocks HERE. You can also read more about departmentalization within the primary classroom on her own blog HERE.

Besides running her blog, Melanie is also a TpT author! You can find her store at Momma with a Teaching Mission.

Some of her newest products include…
MissIndependentCVC.png
Miss Independent CVC No Prep Printables. These are perfect for building your students independence stamina when working with CVC words.
NBTBundle.png

This bundle pack is perfect if you are teaching the common core. So many different options for games, homework, formative assessments, or warm-ups.

20151106_075648.jpg
This is the 2nd edition in homework packs’ that Melanie has created for her own classroom, that turned into a TpT project! You can find the 1st edition here! Her students love this daily homework pack, and it is simply a review of 1st grade material. Homework can be a hot topic, but these no prep pages take students only a few minutes a night!

You can follow check out Melanie’s social media accounts here--


Thank you for joining me for this Featured Teacher Tuesday! Please check out Melanie Ebersole & don’t forget to join us next week for a new featured teacher!

Have a great week!

January Pick 3 Linky Party

 I am so excited about this linky party since I love Pinterest! Here's my top three for January.
I just purchased a new journal to use to write these verses each day. I love the idea of spending time writing the verses while working to commit them to memory and just meditate on them daily.
 Start the New Year off right by meditating on God’s Word. Here is our new Scripture writing plan for January! We are excited to have you join us as we dig in to the Bible as we kick off a new year. Share & enjoy! - www.wholemagazine.org:


I love this snowman rhyming activity! I have them printed, laminated, cut, magnets on the back, and in bags ready to go for next week's centers! I teach a combination first/second class this year. My first graders will be working on these in their center rotations.
Build A Snowman activity for rhyme and beginning sounds. Fun for winter-themed centers!:

I found this glyph the other day and have it ready to go. I love the differentiated aspect for having the children write about their snowman!
fun snowman glyph freebie:

Click HERE or on the linky image at the top of the post to find other January Pinterest Picks! Have a great month!

Featured Teacher Tuesday

Happy New Year!


FeaturedTeacher2.png

We’re starting 2016 off by featuring Kendwy Valdez from BuggyForFirst

Blog Button.png

Kendwy is a first grade teacher in the state of Massachusetts as well as a wife, mother of two beautiful girls and pastor.  
IMG_0129.JPG
Kendwy has been teaching first grade for four years.  She started working in an alternative school right out of high school in order to pay for college.  She was a biology major with a pre-med concentration, but 3 months into the school year she realized that what she desperately wanted to do was teach.  So began her journey to obtain her teaching degree even if it meant changing her biology major after 2 ½ years.  Her motto became “I didn’t choose teaching; teaching chose me”.

After many years in education and a burning passion for teaching, this past summer she finally decided to take the plunge and she opened up her TPT store and started her blog at BuggyForFirst.  Her blog is currently undergoing a facelift and will soon look “legit” :)  She is excited for what is ahead for this coming year. You can read about her goals for this year: Plans and Goals for 2016

Kendwy works with a big population of ELLs.  She believes that every student can be successful with the proper supports put in place.  Language should never be a barrier for learning.  As a second language learner herself, she is very aware of the challenges that many of her students face and makes it a priority to bring engaging and high quality instruction to all her students.  She uses the 7 step vocabulary process to teach vocabulary.  You can grab the posters from her store.  They’re a FREEBIE :)
Slide1.JPG

Her most popular product to date have been The Reading Comprehension Passages for ELLs and Beginner Writers.  There are two packets available: The Blends and Digraphs Pack and the Long Vowels Pack.  
Slide1.PNGReading Comprehension Long Vowels.png
She will be adding an R control and Diphthongs packet soon, so make sure to follow her store to know when it becomes available.

Have you played Scoot! with your students yet?  You have to!  It is so much fun and engaging and the kids are LEARNING! :)
Slide2.PNG

This packet has over 100 pages of fact fluency activities.
Slide1.PNGScoot Fact Fluency.png

If you don’t already follow Kendwy, you can find her on most social media platforms.


Follow her blog through Bloglovin’.  Her blog will soon have a pretty pizzazz look to it, and she would love to have you join her on her journey.

Have a great week!

Math Monday: 1st Grade Magnitude Lessons

Happy New Year!
Sylvester, New Year'S Day, Fireworks, New Year'S Eve
We spent Christmas and New Year's in Indianapolis with my husband's family, including a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo for Christmas at the Zoo!


Yes, that's my husband touching a dog shark!
Okay, back to real life ...

My first graders are learning about estimation when looking at a group of objects and then decide if there are 3, 30, or 300. Or perhaps there are 7, 70, or 700 M&Ms in the bag. Or perhaps 2, 20, or 200 pencils in the box.

We started by using this Smart Board activity I found on Smart Exchange. Do you know of Smart Exchange?? If not, it's free to join! Download Smart Board activities to use in your classroom. I love it!

Anyway ... here's a glimpse into the activity, along with the link.
Estimation Station

This week we plan to complete some of these activities in centers and small groups.

These are in my magnitude pack. Click on the images or here to find it on TpT!
Magnitude
We finished up our lesson with sorting these candy pictures by 2, 20, or 200. We made category headings in our math notebook and then the children cut, sorted, and glued them down under the headings. Click on the image to download your own!
Here's links to some of the fabulous magnitude activities I am using this week!
Magnitude Mini Unit for Primary Grades

Reasonable Magnitude

Magnitude

I hope you have a great week! Check back tomorrow for Featured Teacher Tuesday!

Back to Top