With the mercury rising and summer fresh on our brains, I prepared a fun freebie for my final core center of the school year. This set of centers begins working towards 1st grade standards.
I kept this set of centers similar to The Secret Garden: Diggin' Through Core (my more recent center) but ramped up the complexity to the terms of 1st grade standards.
I felt this file was best as a freebie since it's a bit too easy for 1st grade at this point in the year and could be challenging for some kindergarteners!
Link in first Graphic
I truly hope you enjoy! I'd be honored if you would take a minute and rate this freebie product!
I might actually slide this post in on Friday, only minutes before Saturday begins! Here's my week in review...
This week was Police Appreciation Week. As a wife of a police officer, I decided to use Mrs. Hoffer's cute mini unit to inform my kids police officers. We read Officer Buckle and Gloria which is one of my favorite stories! In addition, we watched the Brainpopjr video on Community Helpers. With a collection of ideas from our learning, we complete our can, have, and are chart. The final page of the book contains a class photo of the kids wearing their police hat. They have been successfully sent to various stations and units across my city!
This week was filled with excitement. We dove into our newest core centers, putting to work our addition and subtraction strategies and tools. Place value blocks were a blast. Click the first image to see additional previews.
I just love their little minds at work! The video camera was a hit this week. I pulled out the video again during our daily sight word practice. You can grab the freebie here. Before playing sight word games, the kids review their sight word rings. Take a look...
We also worked on our school wide book of the month. A stuffed python was given to each teacher to build excitement for the new book. We will have a snake assembly in two week which is over the top exciting. Verdi has been the talk of my classroom for days and our Kindergarten hallway is growing full of responses and bulletin boards full of bright colors.
The talk of the week went to our bean seed which began sprouting. This process began a few weeks ago. We hung our seeds in the window. Each kids received several seeds. At first sign of rot, I pulled the seeds from the windows. The kids looked their seeds and their teams seeds. Luckily most had one seed that began to grow roots. After observations and creating a journal entry, the kids planted their seeds. This week we started to see sprouts. During this process, I had one of my seeds hanging in our reading room. The kids came to some great conclusions on why it only began to grow roots but not showing signs of sprouting. It didn't have nutrients from soil, no true sunlight, no additional water. Today we arrived with shrieks. You'd have thought Justin Beiber enter my classroom. The plants had grow so tall over night!!!
If you've followed on with my instagram account, you've seen some of these images and many more. If you aren't a follower yet, please link here and check Primary Graffiti out! The videos were posted earlier this week on my Facebook Fan Page. There are additional videos that can be seen. If you aren't a follower and would like to see more, link here.
Okay, I think by the time this post, it will be officially Saturday. Oops, I did it again! Sorry, I'm a night owl!!!! Don't forget that you can link up with Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching each week for Five for Friday too!
After the showers comes May Flowers!!! The follow up to our previous set of centers has guided my kids to the following standards! Link in the first graphic!
Sprouting Parts (Addition and Subtraction)- K.OA.4
1. Ahhhh, it's Saturday and my prepared post has yet to go live. Booo! It was my goal to come home last night and add a few additional pictures before posting Five for Friday. A turn of afternoon events led to a student breaking their radius and ulna at field day. Worst nightmare!!!
Before
After
On a positive note, 18 other students had a remarkable experience. Here are a few snapshots from our afternoon fun!!!
Notice Gangnam Style Dancing!!!
2. This week began with Cinco De Mayo. Although time as past, I found a wonderful packet worth a look for next year AND a video that made me laugh!!!!
Gladys from Teaching in High Heels has amazing units for her little learners. I always enjoy the background support for teaching various holidays which are part of my state social studies standards. If you get a chance, take a peek, purchase and save, or place on a wishlist!!! Click graphic to link.
3. We've been diving into learning about the life cycle of plants. My kids began with bean seeds which are doing amazing, and planting Mother's Day bulbs for a Gladiolus Mix! They were thrilled to take home their plantings and painted pots!
4. We truly were in Mother's Day overload this week. Besides painting pots and transplanting their sprouts, Publix came out with premade cakes for the kids to design.
While my students were being pulled to design the cakes, I worked with the remaining class on an activity from TpT. I found a cute file that just so happens to be FREE! Within the unit, you'll find an acrostic poem recording sheet for the word MOTHER. The kids and I brainstormed a list of words for each letter. We just so happened to have a buddy group of students from 4th grade that put their brains to work too! My kinder kids decided which words they'd use to describe their mother and made a torn picture portrait! They turned out so cute!
Don't you just LOVE!?! You can find this file from Bright Concepts 4 Teachers! Link here! I just love the organization of Jaime's blog. You can find the link here!
5. We finally began our Summer Countdown. The kids are having a blast!!!! We've checked off Art, Bubbles, Career, Experiment, Fitness, and Game Days. I don't have pictures of all but I do have the days for ABC!!! Link here to grab a copy!
Happy Appreciation Week! I hope you find yourself with lots of love notes from your kiddos! Mine have been showering me with letters, cards, drawings, and paintings. Teachers Pay Teachers is having an Appreciation Sale! I love a good discount, don't you? I just love this graphic! Thanks Hope King!!!
Here are some files that may assist in the start of a new school year!
