Featured Teacher Tuesdays: October 6

Hi! I'm so excited to share Featured Teacher Tuesdays! Each Tuesday check back to see another first grade teacher to be showcased! Find someone new to follow, along with some great products, and even greater freebies!

This week’s featured teacher is Samantha Gibby and Lisa Fain they are The Primary Sisters!

Just like their name says, they are two sisters who teach first grade at the same school in a small town in NC. They feel so blessed to get to teach with each other every day. Their TPT adventure began last summer. As they were sitting in a hot tub at the Outer Banks, they began to think of resources they needed to best compliment their words their way spelling instruction. You can check out some of the their short vowel word work packs in their TPT Store.

So since July they have been busy creating products, and they said no one told them how addicting it can be. Especially when colleagues come in and say, okay this is great, thanks for making this! Even though they are far from their first TPT million, the excitement of creating materials that meet their students needs has been the force that keeps them going. Samantha and Lisa are married and both have 3 children. Their oldest sons are in college at NCSU and Appalachian State, but they are still busy with their other teenagers who cheer and play football for their local high school. They enjoy being active in their churches, traveling, feeding the football team each Friday night and surfing the internet. They feel so blessed to be on this awesome journey and are thankful for the wonderful teacher friends they are making along the way. These sisters are always looking for ways to make learning fun and hands on. One of their newest products is a Halloween themed Boo game working with sight words and math printables working with sums up to 12. Check them out here.

Enjoy these freebies. Students will love these hands on CVC word wheels.

AND Sight word Roll Say Keep is a great addition to any literacy station

Follow The Primary Sisters!

Check back next week for another Featured Teacher Tuesday!

200th Post! and math groups

This is my 200th post! Can't believe it! It's been such a fun journey!

Now ... down to business. I live in central VA, but am NOT a Virginia Tech fan! My family is from Ohio and my granddad was an Ohio State graduate, making it easy to become an Ohio State fan early on! Love this picture from the end of the game last night!

Okay ... now really down to business! :)

I have taught 1st grade for the last 6 years, but there's been a bit of a change this year due to the closing of a school nearby. We have many new children, which tipped numbers in our first and second grade classes. I am teaching a combination first/second this year. So, there's been a huge learning curve on my end!

Math goes like this ...

 We come in from lunch and read a book together. It's going to change in the upcoming weeks from my reading to them to them picking their own book.

 Calendar and Math Wall goes together. I have a calendar helper, who gets to choose someone to help him/her with the tasks.

We split into grade level groups. Thankfully, our guidance counselor is teaching math with me this year! She's amazing and I'm blessed to share my space with her daily! We each take a grade level and go!

This week my second graders are working on rounding. We jumped into our unit by watching this video.

Then we read and talked about this book, Coyotes All Around, a MathStart book.

We are working in our interactive notebooks ... notes went into our notebooks.

 We colored and cut out our flowers to put into our notebooks.

 We glued down the center of the flower so we could lift up the petals to write the number each is rounded to.

 Here's what it looks like when we lift the petal flap.

Today was the first day of rounding. By the time we finished the first flower, my kiddos were rocking it out and could do the second flower on their own!

Click on any of the pictures above or HERE to download the activities we put into our interactive notebooks today!

Happy short week of school, y'all!

How Do You Do Birthdays?

Celebrating birthdays at school is extremely important! It is a way to show your children they are valued. You don't have to spend a lot of money ... we already spend a lot of $ ... to make it feel special to your little ones.

I always begin at the dollar store and rarely use candy or food since I prep my birthday bags at the beginning of the school year so I don't forget anyone's day!

Bubbles - they come three in a pack!

 erasers

 pencils

My children love the wristbands they can earn throughout the year. These are fun to get for your birthday!

 Do you know those great stickers that many pediatricians have to give out to their kiddos? My youngest especially loves them! I kept the back of the sticker after our last visit to check out how to get some of these for my students. SmileMakers has an amazing supply of various stickers! I found these birthday stickers - 100 for $5.99 - so they will last for several years! Click on the picture below or here to check out their supply!

I found these fun bags at Hobby Lobby this summer!

 Everything gathered on my table, ready to assemble bags.

 First bag ready to go!

I would love to hear how you celebrate birthdays!

Setting up the *new* classroom

We have several new teachers coming to our school this year, due to a school closing nearby. So ... I moved classrooms. Since I've been teaching summer school, I have been able to unpack, organize, arrange, and rearrange.  Here's what it looks like so far.

I found magnetic hooks in the spring and they are perfect for hanging my sight word cards on and placing on the air conditioner! I need to get some more for my sight word phrases!

Tubs of books and a "friend" to read to! Along with our 3 school wide rules.

Inside my closet. Most classrooms in our building have a closet. This will be my first year to share a closet - to the left of this first picture is my teaching partner's space! 

This is also inside my closet - across from the counter in the above picture. I'm trying to take advantage of every inch of space since I will have 25 desks in my classroom!

One of my favorite ideas is to tape my crafts to the inside of the cabinet doors. They stay there neatly so I don't lose them from year to year.

Another one of my crafts, along with a peek into one of the cabinets with books.

 

I still have 17 days until returning for our first professional development day! Hope you have longer than I!