Fancy Nancy Friday

  This week was super long--complete with a child with a stomach bug, 3am wake up to a child that could not breathe, and croupe...ick!  No one wants to hear about all those FUN things.  So...let's just get a little fancy!
Our firsties have been eagerly awaiting their chance to share their Fancy How-to Writing at a "fancy tea party."  And...WOW!  It turned out exceptional...spectacular...extraordinary!  Maria will fill you in with all the details.  But here is a little sneak peek!

1. Ooooh la la, ladies!

2. Ooooh la la, gentlemen!

3. Ooooh la la, table decorations!

4. Ooooh la la, delectable cookies! (thanks to Maria's mom!)

5.  Ooooh la la, teachers!

So lucky to have this amazing team!

Now--centered around all these beauty-fun were some great writing, math, and reading lessons!  But I will let Maria fill you in all that goodness.
Here's to Five for Friday!  Happy weekend everyone!

Starting to Get Fancy--Five for Friday

We are working hard to get ready for our "Fancy Tea Party" to show-off our fancy writing.  The Yellow Monkeys started making flowers to go in vases on the tables.  The flowers showcase numbers that are ten more and ten less.

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I saw some super cute birds on Projects for Preschoolers.  Since we were reading Mole and the Baby Bird this week, I decided these birds would be perfect for a following the directions activity.

If you want the direction sheet that I used-just click the photo!

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Our Green Chimps were struggling with week with the concept of ten more and ten less.  So Natalie and I decided to move backwards--analyzing the hundreds chart.  We started creating our own.

Then we had them color each row and cut up each row to create a "puzzle."  We think hope it was successful and they are ready to move on!

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Cincinnati has an amazing zoo!  Each Thursday in April they host "Tunes and Blooms."

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I have never taken the time to figure out how to make one of those great signatures that everyone in blogland has.  So Maria did the work for me!  And I just absolutely adore it (that's a fancy word for like a lot)--gotta love Fancy Nancy.

More or Less Freebie!

I'm linking up this week with some take it and make it math.
This week we were working on ten more and ten less.  I wanted to make something hands-on.  So here we go...

 I took some old dominoes and turned them into some little puzzles.

Our firsties will get a baggie with one of the little "puzzles" in it.  They will put it together and fill out this worksheet (click to grab it for yourself):

I created a worksheet to continue this learning.  You can click on it if you would like it for your class.

Em

Five for Friday...well, Saturday

SORRY!  I'm a day late. So... that makes it my "Five for Saturday."
  But last night I was busy turning my basement into "Gertie's Playhouse!" Much like Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Here is my version (well, a couple of the characters):

I guess that would be my #1 this week.  I have been trying to clean house, recreate a tv set, and live normal life :)  So worth it...there was a lot of happy squealing this morning when Gert saw her "playhouse."

 #2--I found my "Tippy Toe Chick Go" diagram.  My husband drew it for me last year just as a "real world" reading connection to our story.  I just think it is so cute.

 

#3--I saw this picture last week from Tally Tales:

 We were also doing missing addend, so Natalie and I thought we would give it a try.  Wow!  They did such a wonderful job with missing addend this week.  We were so impressed.  So thanks to Tally Tales for the great idea.  I did create this worksheet to go along with each egg.

#4-We worked on the /ow/ sound this week like "cow."  I have enjoyed doing word ladders with our firsties.  Some can do it alone, others with partners, and then we do it together with our Green Chimps.  Here is the latest one:

Click on the image if you would like to use it!

#5--My teammate Karen and I decided to start partnering up our reading groups on Thursdays to share the books that we read during the week.  We each read a different Henry and Mudge book this week and then our students shared.  It is a lot of fun to see such great reading happening.

I will have a house of guests in about 90 minutes!
Happy weekend!
Em

Listening and Some Tippy Toeing

Anyone read Tippy Toe Chick Go?

It is such a cute story!  My husband drew a really spectacular (one of our Fancy Nancy words this week) diagram of Tippy Toe's solution but I just can't find the image on my computer.  I will have to search some more and then share it.

I was inspired this week by Katherine Marie's photography.

I am in love with her cute little chicks!  I had to do something with them.  Hmmm...
We decided that we needed to work on the listening standards with our Green Chimps.  Listening has been a challenge all year (next year...we will jump on that right away.  Our brains are already formulating a plan).
I turned these cute little chicks into a listening activity.  Here is what I came up with:

If you would like it, just click on the image! To do this activity, you need:
one large circle for the body
one triangle for the beack
two little circles for the eyes
one sheet of paper to glue and draw on
Here are some images on how the chick turned out.

Aren't they adorable!?!!

My amazing teammate, Karen, also completed a chart to describe Tippy Toe's character in the story.  These were the answers from our Green Chimps!!! It was exciting to see how well they did.

This was a fun "take and make" activity.  So I am linking up with 2nd Grade Pad to share this.

Have a good Friday!
Em

An April Week

Enjoying "New Girl" as I write up this post!  I love listening to my husband laugh until he is almost crying.  So here we go....

Our Fancy Nancy unit has started.  Maria and I are working on "shades of meaning" and it seems to be going well!  We are using paint chips to show that as the colors get "richer" and "deeper," so do the words.

Mrs. Wills Kindergarten had a post about skip counting by 5s with cherry blossom trees.  Natalie and I found that our Green Chimps really need to work on skip counting by 2s.  So we changed up our cherry blossoms a bit.

Happy April weekend to all!
Em

Time to Assess

This week we needed to do a quick assessment on high frequency words.  We always test our firsties after our 6 week unit to find out what words they have mastered.  Typically, I flip through cards to do this assessment.  But this week I decided to make up a quick powerpoint.  Each slide is set up to show for 3 seconds (since they are sight words) and then it changes to the next word.  WOW!  This was so much easier for me.  I could take notes on what they actually said and when they quickly self corrected themselves.
You can click on the picture to download the powerpoint.  You should be able to just change the words to fit your needs because I know you don't want my Reading Street Unit 4 words.

Hope this helps!
Em