Freebies galore and what we've been up to in literacy :)

Happy Monday! It's the last week before spring break - thank the Lord. Here's a peek at what we've been up to in first grade, plus a few freebies! :)

Today we started using my Woodland Animals non-fiction unit for our new unit of writing. My class loves anything non-fiction, so they're so into it! We read "Squirrels" (I got this pack of woodland animal books from Scholastic last year, they're the perfect level for them!) and practiced some note taking with this jot page I created. Tomorrow, we'll do the same thing with a video aloud.

Jot Page by mrsg1stgrade

Font is A Cupcake for the Teacher, border is Krista Wallden.

This is the book - it's a Pebble book. We read it aloud, stopping and jotting every couple of pages. I plan to use this paper for each woodland animal read aloud or video aloud. We have a district assessment that uses a very similar format, so it's also great practice for that!

If you don't own "Fix It Up" by Growing Kinders, you are missing out! We've been using her packet as morning work recently and it aligns perfectly with our Sitton spelling program! Love!

I especially love the "checked by a friend" piece :)

First Grade Buddies have the cutest Earth Day class book that I just purchased. We actually tied it into our mini-unit on mental images! I found a great YouTube video with pictures to go along with the song that the class book is based on, "What a Wonderful World". I played the video without broadcasting it onto the board once, allowing the kids to get mental images, turn and talk about their images, and create a list of images, then we viewed the images in the video. The kids really enjoyed it! We followed up by drawing our mental images for the class book. 

Watching the video the second time through...

So adorable!

How sweet is this?!

Here's a link to the YouTube video- make sure you run it through once on your own, advertisements always pop up and sometimes they're questionable :)

We've also been working on blend books by Abby for the past few weeks. They are the perfect addition to my literacy centers!

I have also been utilizing a new app on our iPads! 

Voice Recorder

We've been using this app for fluency practice! My kiddos have each been working on fluency over the past few weeks, AND I wanted to have new additions to our listening center, so, they've been recording themselves reading just right books on the iPad! This app allows you to save it to the iPad, upload to Drive/Dropbox, and create a new title for the recording. SO simple for them to use!

Last week, we created Teri's cute little chickies, and this week we're using the making words activity during literacy centers. The kids love these kinds of activities!

Finally, here's another little freebie for you! I created this Scrambled Sight Words game for my kiddos. 

Scrambled Sight Words

In action!

Whoops, forgot I had made another freebie for you guys, but I can't find the pic of this in action today! This is a part of my math daily 5 this week, since we're practicing counting coins. I have numbered plastic eggs (on clearance now after Easter! Yes!) and filled them with random amounts of coins, so here's the recording sheet to go with it if you're interested :)

Egg Hatch Counting Coins

Lastly, I just won this awesome unit from Khrys at Keepin' It Cool in Kinderland! Ahh, so excited!

Go check her out!!

Hop on over to Classroom Freebies to link up and grab more great freebies!