The Polar Express Book Companion

This past weekend I was 86ing old documents from my computer and I stumbled into a book companion I've flirted with for a few years but never seem to wrap in time for the holidays!  I decided to hop right on updating clipart and adding new (more relevant to my current teaching style) activities.

This 41 pager is PACKED full of reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, crafts, and math activities!

In the Reading Comprehension section you will find large picture cards for a whole group retelling and a sequencing cut and paste to provide students with individual practice.  There is also a beginning, middle, and end graphic organizer for students to use to retell the story through pictures and summarizing.

Finally, there are 3 variations of the story map.  Each map asks for characters and setting but they differ in requesting problem & solution, plot & conclusion, or main idea & supporting details!

The Vocabulary section provides words that are used in the story and extension words such as "caribou" to extend your students vocabulary on beyond "reindeer".

There are puzzles and mini-vocabulary books for students to practice using the language of the Polar Express!

There are 2 very simple crafts available in this book companion.  The first craft is a gift that you can print on contrasting paper and allow students to decorate.  Add the narrative writing prompt to the front for a fun little holiday display!  The second craft is a ticket that students can cut out and use to "board" the Polar Express!  Each year I put the tickets on a string and have my students wear it while we read the book and watch the movie.  This makes for an awesome and extremely adorable keepsake!

To round out the pack and provide cross-curricular themed activities I added some math activities!  In it you will find common core addition, subtraction, and data based games for your students to participate in.

The addition and subtraction activities include a battleship game, part-part-whole game, ten frame game, and story problem game with work mat.  There are also printable numeral cards and printable manipulatives for students to use to build models for each problem!

The data activities include 3 questions where students will collect, represent, and interpret information on a graph, and tally chart.  There are also sets of questions for students to answer about their data sets!

Last but certainly not least, there is a FREEBIE in the product PREVIEW on TPT!  Just click PREVIEW and scroll to the end to snag this sequencing activity for FREE!

Tomorrow's Alphabet

B is for wood, tomorrow's bridge!

Q is for princess, tomorrow's queen!

Have you ever read Tomorrow's Alphabet by George Shannon?

Click here to check it out on Amazon!

Do you struggle with enrichment idea's for your highly performing students?

My "go to" enrichment is usually reader's theatre but that gets stale and this book is a great break from all those plays.

Student books look like this.

After reading the book with your students you can discuss idea's for different letters.  I tell mine to start by writing the alphabet into the first space on each page.  Then to go back and think of idea's for each letter.   Here are a few books we've started this year:

At the top you can see Imani has "A is for egg, tomorrow's alligator!"

"P is for egg, tomorrow's penguin!"

"D is for puppy, tomorrow's dog!"

I love using this high order enrichment activity with my high performing students during MTSS (formerly RTI, formerly 30 minutes of the day where I got to teach an actual subject, formerly a gigantic headache...I lie, it still is a headache).  Pick it up for FREE from my TpT store today and let me know what you think!

Click here to get this activity from my TpT store!

Finally, I wanted to share a new video with you for Fun Friday.  One of my favorite teacher friends found this one after she did the Dino Stomp one day.  We're thinking Flash Mob?!  Enjoy the Sid Shuffle with your class this week!

Room on the Broom

So last weekend I was wandering through the children's books in Target looking for book for my friend Rachel's baby shower when I came across Room on the Broom (click here to check it out on Amazon).  As I stood in the aisle reading, idea's came steadily flowing into my head about ways I could use this book in my class.

If you know anything about my digital products you know I stick to games and activities that can easily be incorporated into centers.  I've never tried a book companion before.  I've also never purchased clipart.  I use whatever I can draw out myself.  So this is a whole new venture for me and I'm SO pleased with the way it turned out!

This companion is 46 pages with both literacy and math activities.  Common core standards are included in each section.

The literacy activities include:
-rhyming word game with a recording sheet
-readers theatre with puppets
-2 writing prompts about monsters and friendship
-2 worksheets that include word searches, ABC ordering, and a maze
-2 word building activities

The math activities include:
-place value matching game with recording sheet
-number puzzles students can practice counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, & 10's
-number word matching game with recording sheet

There are 9 separate activities in this packet with multiple versions of several activities to help provide differentiation.  If I were to price out each activity individually they would cost at least $14.00 but you can get them all in this packet for ONLY $8.00!  Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Click here to check out Room on the Broom Companion Activities!

I know I like to test before I invest sometimes so I'm providing you with this story map FOR FREE! Say what?!

Click here to download this story map for FREE!

Finally, I recently set up a Facebook fan page for The Curious Catfish, click here to follow me on Facebook!

Where The Wild Things Are

Last week we retold Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak to focus on retelling and sequencing.  After reading the story one time students illustrated their favorite part and then we put them in the proper sequence.  Students noticed that some of the important events were missing so we left spaces on the paper to fill them in later.

The following day we filled in the missing illustrations and completed a shared writing to retell the story.  Once we completed our shared writing we read our retelling to check for missing information and hung it in the hallway.

Finally, students cut out strips sequenced and glued them down.  When they finished sequencing they illustrated their favorite part and we hung them all in the hallway for everyone to see!

We ended our Where The Wild Things Are week watching a reading on YouTube:

What I Learned in First Grade!

Every year I ask my students to reflect on everything we've done this year and to recall everything we learned together.  This year I developed a little writing activity with a planning sheet and writing papers which I'd love to share with you below!  We started out discussing and listing all the things we did and then they started telling me things they learned to do this year.  I attended a math workshop this year and really beefed up my math instruction so I was really excited that a lot of the things my students called out were math related!  My workshop instructors would be so proud :).  I like to hang these up in the hall all summer and then read them at the beginning of the school year with my new students so they get a little peek at what's in store for them in first grade.

They put check marks over each fact as they use them in their story/report.

Work in progress, I love how she spells echolocation!