Which witch?

Aren't these just adorable??

I totally stole this cute craft idea from Ms. Leslie Ann over at Life in First Grade! Well, not totally. I bought some Halloween scrapbook paper from the dollar bin at Target. I cut each sheet in half and that's what we used for the dresses. She now offers patters, but we didn't use them. Also, Ms. Leslie Ann ended up tying this craft to a sequencing activity. I went another route and had my kiddos further experiment with descriptive writing. I asked them to write 3 or 4 sentences describing what their witches look like.

Then I displayed the witches and their writing on a bulletin board. (I made sure they wrote their names on the back of each item.) The small pink square on each witch is a number I added using post-its. When people walked by they could read the descriptions and try to find the matching witch. After noticing the number, they would fold up the bottom half of the description and check the number on back. If the number of the witch they thought of was the same as the number on the back of the description, it's a match! 

My sweet kids had SO much fun showing these off to the older students and making them guess which witch was theirs! If you want to give it a try, feel free to download the writing sheet. I did make a few design changes because well, that's what I do. Always perfecting... never satisfied... I'm sure next year it'll be something even different!

Best wishes.

I love Love Bugs...

Isn't this time of year just wonderful?! Everyone is working hard on keeping their New Year's Resolutions, school is back in full swing, and love is in the air!! 

By this time in first grade, students have pretty much mastered nouns and verbs. We have moves on to adjectives, but still need some practice. It just so happens that I have the perfect activity to help reinforce some Common Core Literacy standards while incorporating a little bit of art... the Love Bug!

I begin by giving the students a black piece of paper. Then I pull out my box o' scrap paper (you know you have one) and encourage students to choose "Valentine's colors." Next I tell them they will be using their imaginations to make a Love Bug! Of course they ask what that is! I tell them I don't know because they haven't created it yet. I mention that it may have wings and it may not. It could possible have 2 legs, but maybe 3! Perhaps it has an antenna, 2 heads and a huge smile! I even say that it's possible for a love bug to have parts from many different animals! Oh, and I also mention that these sweet new beings probably don't have scary features like long claws and sharp teeth. Now that their creative juices are flowing, I ask them to begin making a body. After they will decide if their bug has a head or if their Love Bug's face is actually on the top of their body. Last, I encourage students to make their Love Bug have parts of all of their favorite animals! I suggest adding details like stripes and polka dots (made by my hole punch). A heart or 2 can usually be found somewhere, too! By this time I can hardly stop them!!

The next day, after the excitement has settled, we share our Love Bugs with each other. After, I ask them to compare and contrast their Love Bug with their shoulder partner's Love Bug. We take a few examples and move on to the writing.

The main activity we do with our Love Bugs is to write in great detail. We review what an adjective is and refer to our adjective anchor chart. Then we brainstorm a new list of adjectives that specifically describe our bugs. Last I give the students some sentence beginners. I feel like they happily complete these sentences because they are so proud of their cute creations! 

This is the final result...

The sentence beginners I give them are, "This is my Love Bug. It is special because it has __________ and __________. It also has __________. My Love Bug likes to __________. I love my Love Bug!" Each blank must contain at least one adjective. It is not shown here, but I later have students highlight each adjective. Then we count and compare!

If you would like, I'll make the writing paper available for FREE... tomorrow. I accidentally left my zip drive at work. Gasp!

Finally... hot off the press!

And while we're on the subject, I've got a fabulous set of Valentine's related centers that also reinforce many Common Core standards! There's even a sorting center about adjectives! Check them out on TpT. Get them now so you'll have plenty of time to cut and laminate!

That's all for now... I want to get some blog stalking in before bed time!!

Best wishes,

I think I jinxed myself...

After how proud of myself I was for my blog's first week accomplishments, I have totally slacked!! But it's not my fault! The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I mean summertime, BBQ, family, friends, food AND fireworks!! Does it really get any better?? Well this year we decided to have everyone over at our place... last minute! Nothing like cleaning, baking and getting sucked into a Law & Order: SVU marathon (gets me every time) to tear you away from Blogland for a while. But now I'm back!!! And I went shopping! I'm REALLY getting into creating resources for my classroom. The bonus is that you can use them, too! Whenever my mind stops racing with possibilities and I can actually concentrate on one thing at a time, I'll have MANY new goodies for you!


And so that I'm not always promoting my new products, I thought I would take a few minutes and share some great ideas I have learned along the way. I tried so many new things this year! Unfortunately, I did not always remember to keep track of where the idea came from. So, if you notice I forgot a reference, PLEASE let me know. Gotta give credit where credit is due!


One of the most noticeable changes I made this year was to incorporate anchor charts into my themes. I usually begin with a mostly bare bones looking chart and add to it as we learn. Here are a few from this year...


I couldn't find the blog where I originally saw this simple anchor chart to introduce adjectives. Then we reinforced the idea by pinning adjectives to our frog.

Cute little St. Patty's Day chart

This is from our nocturnal animals theme. It's put together by so many different tid bits from here and there. Next year, I will formally put a unit together and make sure the anchor charts are in color. It would just be cuter that way! I wish I was at school so I could tell you where I got the adorable can/have/are worksheets from. If you know, do tell!!

Not really an anchor chart, but a follow up to our lessons on graphs. We made this circle graph about our birthdays. The students answered the questions I had written. Then they also wrote their own comparison sentences on sticky notes and we added it to our chart.

There are sooooo many more things I want to share, so keep coming back! Now I'm off to clean and bake (again)! Oh, speaking of baking....

I made these delicious little beauties for the 4th. I know, I know... they're not red, white and blue. BUT they are ridiculously tasty! If you're interested, you can find the recipe here. It's from a non-teaching blog, but I was still willing to give it a try ;)

Enjoy your weekend!

Best wishes,