First Grade Reading Sites

I recently compiled a page of some of my favorite reading sites for young children. They are filled with interactive stories, phonics and sight word practice, and more! You can visit my page here. Some of my favorite pages are ABCya!, Storyline Online, and Starfall.

Refrigerator Phonics

I found this fun refrigerator magnet game at ABCya! that your children can use to practice spelling their word wall and phonics words. You can also have your child pratice their words in a fun way by buying cheap plastic magnetic letters at your local dollar store. They can practice their words on the refrigerator or on a metal cookie sheet.

First Grade Math Games

Each week our class visits the computer lab to practice our math skills. To make life easier, I created a Sqworl page of some of my favorite first grade math games. You can visit this page to have your students practice various games over addition, subtraction, skip counting, measurement, patterns, graphing, time, and more.

Welcome to First Grade!

Here are a few pictures of my classroom this year. It is similar to what I have done in the past but I got rid of some things (like my giant teacher desk) and organized even more to make it feel more open.

Affirmation Station

At our campus, we use Capturing Kids' Hearts as a part of our discipline and guidance plan. As a part of that process, students are taught how to receive and give affirmations - both verbally and in writing. In the past, my students wrote the affirmations and would place them on the corner of the receipients' desk. Other people in my school have used bags to place the affirmations in but I have found that I do not have enough room for this in my class. So, this year, I am trying something new. In our class we will have an "Affirmation Station." In the station, each student will have a pocket (a library checkout pocket that can be found at most educational supply stores) with their name on it. At the station, there will be various colored pencils and index cards for them to write their affirmations on. The students can write affirmations as morning work, when they finish work early, or at stations. The affirmations will then be put in the receipients' pocket which can be picked up during Reading Workshop and Literacy Stations or at the end of the day.

We Are Going to Have a Ball In First Grade!

Fellow teachers, in case you are looking for a back-to-school bulletin board idea, I want to share this idea with you. I am going with a gumball theme on one of my hallway bulletin boards with the saying "We are going to have a ball in first grade." My sister drew a huge gumball machine on several pieces of posterboard and I made several colors of gumballs from construction paper. Each student's name will be written on a gumball as a way of welcoming in this year's new little first graders.