Thursday, September 19, 2013

SMART about 1.MD.1

As I have begun teaching first again...this time around with Common Core by my side, I eager to create fun SMART board lessons that are aligned to Common Core, but still engaging to the students. 

This week we were working on Common Core standard 1.MD.1.  This standard asks kids to arrange items from smallest to tallest, tallest to smallest, longest to shortest, and shortest to longest.  At first, I thought this was easy.  Then...dun dun dun...I came across this question.

 
Three friends compared how tall they are.  Sasha is taller than Lynn, but shorter than Dawn. Write the friends/ names in order from tallest to shortest.
 
WHAT?!?
 
 
We worked on it for a while, but I decided a SMART lesson was in order.
 
I  came up with this lesson called, Help Pack Billy's Backpack.  In this lesson, students have to choose which supplies go into Billy's backpack based upon clues that are given, similar to the problem above.  If they are correct, the supplies are sucked into Billy's backpack.  If they are wrong, the supplies bounce back out.  On the last slide of the lesson, there is a link to a free worksheet that I created to help assess students understanding.
 
 







First Grade Pinspiration

Well who hasn't been inspired by Pinterest?!

Whale Spout Sidewalk Chalk Photo, this gives me some ideas. . . . . . . . . .

This summer I was pinning away and came across this little gem.  Since my class theme is the Ocean and we are called the Wonderful Whales, I thought this would be super fun and cut to do with my students!

Here is our finished product!  I am super pleased with how it turned out!  The kids loved it too...isn't that what is most important?






 
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

A Summer to Spout About

What did your students do this summer?  Want to find out and make a cute project all at the same time?

Well...here is a project to spout about!

This summer I went to Mexico.
This summer I went to the zoo.

I went to Lego Land.

This summer I went to the movies.
 
Click the picture if you would like to do this project with your students!  ***Makes a cute bulletin board titled A Summer to Spout About!)