Me And MY First Grade Gang: 2011

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Friday Freebie and Penguin Packet Give Away!

Happy New Year!!! (almost!)

I just finished my new Penguin Activities packet and I'm excited to share it with you! I'm giving it away on New Year's Day to 3 lucky winners!!! Come check it out at my blog by clicking on the pictures below.

I am also giving away a super cute math game for K-2! Just click below to download your copy!

There is only Love,

Chinese New Year Freebie!

These are two variations of a Chinese New Year class graphing activity...hope you love them!

Click here or on the pic above to download your copy.

And in case you missed it, I have a Chinese New Year pack on TPT and Teachers Notebook, too!

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday night!
Jennifer

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Sale and a Freebie!

Hello Me and My Gang Friends!!
I am officially out for the holidays! Help me celebrate with a sale in my

TPT and Teachers Notebook Shops!

TPT

Teachers Notebook

AND....In case you missed it back when I posted about it in the fall, I thought I would re-post now that it is a bit more appropriate!

I hope you will love the freebie and if you do, leave a comment below!

Just click on the picture to get your pack!

And for those of you that still have some school left, hang in there! ((Hugs))
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Jennifer

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

What can you do after your holiday party?

I don't know if parents come to y'all's parties but they do at my school. If you're lucky when the party is over they take their darlings home with them. So what do you do with students who stay for the remainder of the day? I have a GREAT solution! Addition wheel races!

A couple weeks back I saw Ginger Snaps post on multiplication wheels which I had COMPLETELY forgotten about. I did multiplication wheel races with my third graders back in the day and we had a blast. I made addition wheels today for my students. If you aren't familiar with them here's how they work: Draw a donut shape and place numbers around the inside. Then place another number in the center. Students line up and take turn adding the number inside the donut hole with the center number. They place their answer outside the circle.

After a student writes down an answer they pass their expo marker to the person behind them and go to the end of the line. Now, if I have a student writes down an incorrect answer someone else in the line has to fix it. They simply cross of the wrong answer and write the correct answer next to it. When we race I usually have only three or four students in a line. Students are NOT allowed to whisper or call out an answer or let another student know their answer was wrong. As soon as all of the answers are written down and correct that group wins. I don't write the same numbers in each wheel when we race because I don't want anyone stealing answers. It's a great way to get students to practice addition facts.

I drew snowmen on my whiteboard today and made the bottom snowball the addition wheel. We had so much fun!

*notice the wrong answer!

*If you don't have a whiteboard you can laminate some butcher paper or poster paper and cut out your wheel and use dry erase markers to write. We are going to practice some more tomorrow and race with some of our neighbor first grade teachers on Friday after our 8 am party. (Yeah, pray for me!)

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Gang up on Winter Freebies!

BRRRR it is getting COLD outside! We have been thinking about all the incredible resources out on the web right now for the holidays and thought you all might appreciate a packet of resources for after winter break. Thinking about planning for January is just not on the top of our lists but if we had a packet of great ideas ready to go we would be in good shape!

So before you shut you classroom doors and head home to spend time with your family~ pull out one or two of your tried and true WINTER favorite activites! The Teamies are compiling a Free Winter Packet!

If you are interested in adding your item to the packet please email your activity and the following information to meanmygang@gmail.com and add Winter Favorite to the subject line.
Please include the following: Your First and Last Name & Your Blog URL.

Each entry will be credited with your name and blog information.

(This is a great opportunity for ALL you new bloggers to get your name out there:)

We welcome ALL grade levels and ALL subjects. The packet will be organized into categories once all of the entries have been submitted.

We will be taking entries until December 28th.

We hope to have the FREE packet up the first week in January!

For All of your hard work we will also be putting every person's name that submits an activity into a drawing for a $15 Target Gift Card!

YIPPEE! After Christmas SHOPPING!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Free Addition 0-12 Timed Test!

I am so excited to be joining the Me And My Gang team of first grade writers! I'm Rebecca from over and Teaching First and Me and My Gang was one of the first teaching blogs I found this summer! I look forward to sharing ideas with you and getting to know you all better!!

To celebrate, over at my blog right now I'm giving away one of my top selling products from my TpT store!

For all those still teaching another week or two, I have my elf project free to down load on my site, too!! I hope you'll come visit!
There is Only Love,
Rebecca

New Authors

Hello Blogger friends,

Recently MMG has received many emails from fellow teacher bloggers asking to be added as authors. In the last few months we had not accepted any new authors due to the time constraints with school being in full swing. Now that we feel we are in a good groove with school, we have decided to add new authors. If you are interested in being an author please email us at meanmygang@gmail.com.

The authors at MMG are what make this blog possible. We are so grateful to all the teacher who continue to share their wonderful ideas and we look forward to adding new authors to our gang soon.

Stephie & Monica

Monday, December 5, 2011

Gingerbread Pirates

This week is "Gingerbread Pirate Week" in our first grade community! We just finished a fun unit where we created a gingerbread village with our students. Now we are continuing this gingerbread theme by having a gingerbread pirate week. Our spelling pattern this week is "ar". I have seen many units on "ar" with pirates. I borrowed some ideas and adapted them for our gingerbread pirate unit.

On Monday, when the students came in, I introduced the theme of the Gingerbread Pirate week by having some fun Scrappin' Doodles clip art up in our morning message. We then brainstormed some "arrrrrrrrr" words in pirate voices. Next we read the book: The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup.

This was fun because we have read SO MANY different gingerbread stories in the past months. While reading we listened for more "ar" words. Then we read a poem, did a word sort, and played some "ar" games! You can find everything we did by clicking on the pictures below. There is also a template to put together a gingerbread pirate and write "ar" words on his stomach!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Wild and Crazy Week

It was a wild and crazy week for me and I'm glad it's over! (And that it's rainy here in Texas!) Even though my creative juices have been nil this week I did manage to create a few math items to use next week. Click on the pictures to download and head over to my blog to find an additional fact family freebie!

And a frosty math sheet

Have a great weekend! Jennifer

Monday, November 28, 2011

Gingerbread Subtraction Card Game

I have a great subtraction card game that my first graders are LOVING! It requires a deck of cards with the face cards removed to play, and I found some adorable gingerbread playing cards for just $2.00 at Joann Fabrics. They inspired me to make this game! Click on the picture to go to my blog and download it for yourself!

Friday, November 25, 2011

So Thankful, Word Work ideas & a Black Friday Sale!

I have been a busy girl making word work games for my kiddos. I made 18 different games so far that go along with the Kindergarten & 1st grade Core Curriculum. It all started with a sight word game I created. I saw how much fun my students had learning & that was it. I couldn't stop & my kiddos can't get enough. They want to play this every day BUT they only get it once a week, maybe twice if their good. This is by far the BEST creation I have come up with up to date! Check out the contraction game I made for FREE!

I linked up with Rachele & Natalie over at What the Teachers Wants thankful linky party. In case you missed my So Thankful post check it out here!

I just put EVERYTHING in my TPT STORE 15% off for today only! Shop till you drop!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Caps for Sale! A New Twist! ALSO Gingerbread Correction!!

FIRST, I corrected the links for my gingerbread activities! Please click on the pictures in that post to go directly to the activities!!

NEXT! Hey everyone! I just taught a wonderful lesson incorporating goods and services as well as counting money! I read aloud the book "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina, and as a class we discussed different elements, such as how much the caps were sold for, the difference between the country and the town, and finally if a cap was a good or a service. I then created a practice page for my first graders to practice with! On this page they have to decide how much to sell their cap for (under $1.00). Then the students cut out coins and show this amount of change two different ways! This sparked a really interesting discussion about what was expensive and cheap, and what they would sell their own caps for. It was a great social studies lesson, and if you click below you can go to my blog to download it for yourself!

Monday, November 14, 2011

I've got a new look!

I've got a brand new look! You'll have to come and check it out and grab my new button.

Jennifer

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Label It Christmas! and a freebie!

Just in case you missed the post on my blog this weekend,
here is what I have been working on:

Find it on TPT and Teachers Notebook.

This time I included 15 color mats for stations and 3 B&W ones for student/whole group use

Here is an example of one mat included in the pack:

And because I love you guys, here is a holiday labeling freebie to celebrate my newest listing!

Just click on the above picture and download your free copy. It is not in the labeling pack, it is just an extra mat with a graphic I got with the membership I won to Graphics Factory from the Moffat Girls!!

If you like it, leave some love below! =)

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Gingerbread Fun!

If you are ready for some Gingerbread activities and a great Writer's Workshop lesson on verbs, check out my blog! My first graders are in the process of creating a "Gingerbread Village" so many of my posts will now be incorporating gingerbread men! I have posted a couple to get started. Click on the link below to download them for yourself on my blog!