Responding to Literature

I'm always amazed at how deeply a first grader can dig into a text to search for meaning and make connections.  My favorite stories to use for responses to literature are Dr. Seuss books.  I'll be honest with you, my favorite books to use for anything......ever....are Dr. Seuss books.  This month our book of the month was The Curious Garden which followed a double month long study of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.  In each story the physical environment changes for the better in one and the worse in another to teach children the importance of taking care of the world around them. My students completed a response to literature, or RTL as I lovingly (lazily) like to refer to them, illustrating the change in the environment when Liam begins taking care of the plants, and they wrote about connections they made to the story or made comparisons to The Lorax.

Before and after RTL's are a fun and different way to get your students thinking about the story they read and comparing the beginning and end to see how characters and environment have changed.  Grab a free copy of my before and after RTL below!

Click on the image to download

If you are interested in checking out The Curious Garden one of my closest personal and work buddies Cheryl Saoud over at Primary Graffiti has created an amazing Literature Unit and Freebie to go along with it!

Click on the image to go to Primary Graffiti

Click on the image to go to Primary Graffiti's TpT store!

Finally, I just wanted to share a little silliness.  One of my students made me a paper watch during "me time" last week.  When I asked him why he made me a watch he said it was because I never know what time it is :)

Walk Like an Egyptian!

 This year our school theme was The Global Manatee Mission.  You'll never guess what our mascot is :)  Each grade level was assigned a continent and the teachers on that grade level got to choose a country to represent.  First grade got Africa and I chose Egypt.  All year we've been learning about life in Egypt, creating artwork, reading books, writing in hieroglyphics, decoding hieroglyphics, and making paper pyramids; ancient Egypt is particularly fascinating to 6 and 7 year olds.  If you have a brainpopjr subscription check this out! http://www.brainpopjr.com/socialstudies/ancienthistory/ancientegypt/.  Last week we had a Global Manatee Fair where classes presented to each other and then Thursday night we invited all the parents in.  Everyone had passports that were stamped in each classroom that they visited.  There were treats, games, and activities going on in each room.  It was a lot of work but it turned out to be very fun and we had hundreds of people show up!  Check out a few pictures below and grab a make your own paper pyramid for your class!

I got this idea for a King Tut Mosaic Collage from : The Art Fairy

 Students have been decoding and writing hieroglyphics all year using the yellow pictures next to each letter on my word wall.  It's been so much fun I might keep this one going.

Word Wall hieroglyphics

For our presentations all the students wanted "Egyptian Eyes", even the boys!  It was awesome :) 

Download your own paper pyramids below!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Hey everyone!  I will be hosting a teacher appreciation sale on my TpT store from Monday May 7th to Friday May 11th!  You'll receive 20% off all my products until the 11th and you can receive an additional 10% off with the promo code:  TAD12  if you snag something up before May 8th!

I hope you all have a fantastic Teacher Appreciation week, you deserve it!

Check me out at:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jessica-Ehlinger 

Fishing centers

I've been working hard to create a lot of fishing centers for my class (because they seem to enjoy catching things with a magnetic fishing pole).  For a couple of years I've had fishing for sight words but more recently I've been trying to focus on math.  I'll be honest, it's my weakest area.  Pinterest and blog hopping are always an inspiration and I've definitely purchased my fair share of TpT materials.  Fishing for dominos came about when I found mini dominos at the Dollar Tree and wanted to make an assignment to use them with.  During the last week of school I always do a camping unit and wanted to make the domino activity camping themed so I married my love for fishing games to it :)

Here's a little preview, it even comes with printable dominos! 

You can find this on my TpT store @ http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Domino-Fishing

Another activity that came out of this big math camping/fishing game kick was Fact Family Fishing.  Students catch a fact family fish, illustrate it on their recording sheet and then write 2 addition and 2 subtraction equations that are true and belong in that fact family.  My first graders LOVE this game and it's helping them to remember that the biggest number always goes first when you're subtracting!

This activity is available on my TpT store @     http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fact-Family-Fishing

This is just a test :)  I've uploaded 7 units (3 math and 4 reading) to my TpT store.  They range in price from free to $5.00.  You can find a link to my TpT store at the top of my blog!  Please stop by and let me know what you think.  Be gentle, I'm new to this!  I created a little preview for my Fishing for Sight words game (with the help of my best teacher friend Cheryl Saoud at http://www.primarygraffiti.blogspot.com/).  Hopefully I can get it to post below.  Remember, this is just a test!