inflectional endings: ing!

So, I've been super bogged down at school lately...I know, hard to believe with the holidays approaching and all!  We have been working on lots and lots of skills and activities, but I sadly haven't had time to write about them :(
     I am going to break that trend of not blogging!  This week, we have been working on adding chunks to the end of words to make new words.  Tomorrow will be adding ing.  Mine always try to sound it out (which I am totally thankful for the effort--it just doesn't turn out so well with that particular chunk!)  So, this is what I have planned to tackle that skill:

     We're going to start with some practice with what ing sounds like.  I thought of a bell (ding ding!)  I am going to go over that sound annoyingly a bajillion times with them.  I made a bell graphic with the ing chunk to hang to remind them if they ever get stuck.   You can grab it here:

For my kinesthetic (sp) learners, I;m going to have them *pretend* to flick a bell as they say the sound ing!  ing! ing!  I even found an app for the ipad..it's called "Bell for Christmas"  you can tap the belll & it dings--FREE!  We will ding-a-ling to our hearts content to start out with.
    Then, I have a Smartboard balloon pop game.  They click on the balloons to reveal a word.  Next, I'll have them write "ing" with the "rainbow" pen next to the word.  My other kiddos will be working on white boards or boogie boards writing their words + ing too.  I will probably have a quiet bell-dinger to remind us to add ing each time too.  lol, why waste a perfectly good free app?!  As soon as I figure out how to post Smart notebook files, I will post the pop game.  Until then, shoot me a message or comment with your email if you want it.
    After that, I made a little foldable for them.  They will think of 4 different words to neatly write on the flaps.  Then, they will add ing to make a new word.  On the inside of the flap, they will write and illustrate a sentence using that new word.  Click the pic to grab yours for free!
 And lastly, I found a cute Between the Lions video "without an ing" we can watch. I think we will be just about ing-ed out after all this!!

    Sorry this post is so short, but it's waaaaay past my bedtime & I gots to rest up for thparkly vampires tomorrow night!!!   

Catching Up..Field Trip and a Rafflecopter Giveaway!!

This post is all about a field trip, and a freebie. The rafflecopter is at the end of this post.
First things first: Field trip.  I decided, instead of me being the only photographer in the group; I'd give my students that job too.  I armed each of my parent volunteers with a camera or an iPod, and talked to the kids about what type of pictures they were looking for.  They were on a scavenger hunt.  Looking for pictures of things they used their 5 senses for.  Things they saw, smelled, heard, tasted, and touched.  They came up with some fantabulous pics.  I printed them out & we debriefed the field trip by going through their photography.  We sorted them into a tree map in the hallway, and it was truly one of the most successful field trip projects I've tried.  If you'd like the tree map headers, I've posted the link below.  lol, I'll post it as soon as I figure out where I saved the file!

I also made a field trip survival kit for my team.  Basic supplies: bandaids, baby wipes, napkins, kleenex, plastic bags, advil, chocolate.  You know, the essentials!  I put these labels on the front & they saved the day more than a few times...click on the pic to grab the labels.  Thanks to the 3am teacher for the cute background!

We had our first field trip of the year a few weeks ago, and I think it went smashingly well.....as far as field trips go!   We all know, the kids look forward to these for months, but I usually dread the organized chaos involved.

This time around, we went to the Oil Ranch located in Hockley, about 45 minutes outside of Houston.  It's a sprawling bajillion acre ranch with TONS of things for my little explorers inquirers (gotta use those IB words!)  They have trains, hay rides, animals, pony rides, petting zoos, indian villages, mazes, bouncy thing -a-ma-jigs, playgrounds, picnic areas, sno cones, pumpkin patches, lakes, and a  partridge in a pear tree.

I wish I could post pics of all the fun my little guys had, but y'all will have to settle for one of me and my counterpart in crime first grade, Miss French.  We had such a great day; the weather was beautiful and I had so many awesome parent volunteers.  Our day ended with the excitement of each of my students getting to pick their very own pumpkin--oh the excitement!!  I think our bus ride home explains it all....

Now, Rafflecopter.  In honor of me being an absent blogger, I'm giving away an item for every week I slacked off and didn't blog.  Yay for you!  As of now, there will be four winners...so put your name in the hat, tell your firends, and blog about it!  I'll draw 4 winners on the 17th!  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bad Blogger....baaaaaaadd! And November currently

It's November currently time with Farley.  Here goes...
So, this weekend has been a sports-filled schmorgesborg!  Started off with the Texas Tech/ TU game.  Wreck Em, they didn't, but it was still a great game!  I know, I'm supposed to loathe Texas Tech and Texas alike, but there is a special place in my heart for those Red Raiders.  My twin brother went there, so I root for the Tech-sters too...Guns Up!

Then, it was WFTDA National Championship weekend.  I got to watch some gret Roller Derby, but this afternoon, the Championship bout between Gotham and Oly, WOW!  I am definitely gonna have some new derby-crushes after this weekend...sorry Smarty Pants.

And the cherry on my sports coma weekend: ANOTHER win from my Houston Texans over Buffalo!!  7-1!

Lastly, there's the new Zac Brown Band album.  Newly burned off of I-Tunes...LOVES IT!

Oh yeah...I'm having a Rafflecopter giveaway...see the post here & enter to win.    

BOOOOOO to you!

I love games!  Remember that October secret-santa-esque game we play at school....BOO?!  Well, Cynthia over at 2nd grade pad has created a bloggy-version.  Here's how to play.  Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers.

Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out.  Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them. 

Lastly, leave them some love by offering them a goody from your store as their "treat."

 

Here is my list of "must-sees"

Lynda, over at Curls and a Smile.  She has a bajillion innovative ideas AND she is a dear friend of mine from high school....Go Mustangs!! 

Dede, you can find her at a Series of First Grade Events.  Love the blog name, but more importantly....her blog has thparkles!!

And last, but wickedly not least.....Kaitlyn at Wicked Fun in First!  She's new to the blogoshere, she's got some cute ideas AND she loves her some Tom's! 

Happy Boo-ing!!! 

 

OCTOBER CURRENTLY!

So, my Farley blog-stalking has finally payed off.....here's the October version of currently. Check it out, and head on over to Farley's blog to see 'em all!  And when you're finished there, you should go see one of my lovely first grade teammates, Miss French over at Wicked Fun in First.  Why?  Why not?!  She's a new blogger, with a whole lotta wicked-great ideas to share :) Oh yeah, she likes to go bike.  And she loves her some Tom's...... 

A Bad Case of the "That's not fairs"

How many times a day do you hear that one?  Ever since I started my leveled reading takehome books; I seem to be hearing more and more of it!  The higher the level, the more awesome the duct tape on the binding becomes: ie, if you can get up to a level j or k...you get super mario brothers duct tape or * justin beiber* duct tape.  Anyways, the "That's not fair" it's been a flying!  I decided to take a band aid to it.  Wha? 

  So, I started out by asking if anyone had a boo-boo on their arm.  Amazingly, we had someone with a cat scratch.  Miss Curtis had a fix for that....Angry birds band-aids!  I asked if anyone else had a boo-boo; someone had a paper cut on their finger.....WAIT, I have to be FAIR--band-aid on your arm.  Another one, cut on the knee.....WAIT, I have to be fair--band-aid on your arm.  ETC, etc, until we got through everyone; and Miss Curtis had to be fair, so everyone got a band-aid on their arm, no matter where their boo-boo was.  This fell into an awesome discussion about how silly it was for me to put a band-aid on someone's arm, who had a cut on their knee.  Does it make sense, NO!  This point was really driven home to my kiddos.  My point to this whole discussion was, in school, being fair doesn't always mean that everyone gets exactly the same thing.  I got them to see that being fair meant that everyone got what they needed to be successful.  We're not always going to get exactly the same materials, or learning method, but I will ALWAYS make sure you get what you need to be a better student. 
Like magic, I haven't heard a peep out of the "That's not fair" crowd today.  This was a really effective lesson, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is working with leveled groups of any kind. 
Happy Monday :)

Place Value and Patterning fun!

Well, it has been quite the busy week in first grade!  We had some visitors from St. Thomas University who came to observe some of the fun things we do at Herrera.  We finished up our TPRI testing, yay!   We continued with place value, and moved onto everyone's favorite--patterns!  We had our first fundraiser, a cotton candy sale--huge success!  

Here are a couple of things we did with place value.  I found this activity from Babbling abby....LOVES her!  Basically, each kiddoodle got 2 jumbo marshmallows, 2 rounded toothpicks, some froot loops, and a recording sheet.  We also started out writing our numbers with white boards; this gave us a little more practice before we got to the recording sheet.  Who doesn't love practice when food is involved?!  I called outnumbers, "3 tens, and 2 ones."  They had to build the number on their marshmallow-toothpick creation using froot loops.  If that was my number, they would stack 3 FL on the "tens" marshmallow, and 2 on their "ones" marshmallow.  Then, they wrote the number.  Pretty simple, and they were all successful!  The next day, we moved onto hundreds-tens-and ones.....BIG TIME(and it meant THREE marshmallows!) *gasp*

For patterns, this was pretty much review from kindergarten.  We got into growing patterns, and a few more complicated patterns.  Then, I let them build using some spooky halloweenie things from the dollar store.  I let them use the ipods to take pictures of their patterns--that's how we recorded them.  Who'd have thought that plastic cockroaches and eyeballs could be so entertaining?!

Lastly, a workstation makeover for any magnet type station you might have.  I used my build a word and sorting centers.  Usually, I have them working on cookie sheets--either hung on the wall, or at thier desk.  Today, I taped them underneath their desks (which are metal) and they were able to sort upsidedown.  I would make sure you go over proper behavior, but mine didn't have any issues--they just thought it was the best time ever!!

have a great week!  Oh yeah, is it wrong that I'm blog-stalking Farley....waiting for her October currently?