[crickets and tumbleweeds...] and Martin Luther King, Jr. - a math and literacy pack

I think that's all you hear when you come by my little blog anymore.  Life's still crazy hard and I mostly feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants all.the.dang.time.  Whatevs, right?  We all have hard stuff.  Thanks for sticking with me.  I really hope to spend some time in the next couple of weeks updating my blog and old products and getting some of the new stuff up on Teacher's Notebook and perhaps (hint, hint!) a few FREE resources only for those who actually read this poorly neglected bloggity blog.

I just uploaded the pack I've been using with my class this week (and will continue to use next week) about Martin Luther King, Jr.  It's a dandy pack chock full of literacy and math for first grade (CCSS aligned).

You can find it at Teachers Pay Teachers (click on the image).  It's $5 and has at least 5 days of activities.  We're on day 4 and still have a bunch of material left to use (we spend between 30-45 minutes a day on this).

I'm also giving away ONE copy of this pack tomorrow morning - all you have to do is leave a comment with your email right here on this post before midnight on January 15, 2015.  I'll choose one winner from all the entries (and really, there are only about 3 people who actually still read, so your chances are pretty darn great!) and send you the file in the morning.  

[Word Builder] Martin Luther King, Jr.

Time for my little monsters to be word detectives!

Most of them LOVE to create new words using the letters from other words.

This week, with our study of Martin Luther King, Jr., I thought I'd give them a word builder using his name.

If you'd like to use it, the image is linked to the PDF download.

Let me know if this is something you'd like to see more of.

Have a great week!

[genuine writing] Snowman Poems

I saw this idea over at Mrs. Jackson's Art Room (scroll down to March 26, 2011). . .

. . .and loved it so very much!

We're working on direction following and detailed drawing, so this fit in perfectly!

After our snowmen pictures were complete, we used this poem form (there are 2 poem forms per page) to create our snowmen poems.

With this poem form, the first line is a color word, the 2nd line is the noun, the 3rd line is an ing verb, and the last line completes the poem with a sentence about the noun ending with an adjective.

Word Choice was a big deal for the verb and adjective portions of the poem, giving each student a semi-original (is that like semi-homemade?! lol) poem to display with his/her snowman art piece.
A couple of my favorite poems. . .
White
Snowman
Giggling
My snowman is sparkly!

White
Snowman
Melting
My snowman is grumpy!

My kiddos LOVED this activity!  It was a quick, fun, meaningful activity that will look awesome displayed in our hallway.

Happy Writing!