Pushing Through Spring Fever…

It’s been a week!  We had 3 days of state testing, torrential downpours, and a field trip!  Although I don’t envy the “big kids” for their grueling and stressful testing days, it sure is tough on the little ones to be silent, restricted, and cooped up without any recess! Ack!  We are all SO relieved to be done! 

Now that we are in the last few weeks of school it is time to amp up the novelty while learning! We need to stay interested and engaged all the way to the end.

Our focus in math last week was revisiting fractions.  We took off one shoe in small group and “converse”d (Punny?) about the different questions until we came to a consensus in fraction form.

We also created fractions based on the letters of our names.  The fraction of vowels in our names.  The fraction of curved letters.  The fraction of tall letters.  The kids really loved to compare their name fractions! 

Since we wrapped up our second round of place value a couple weeks ago, I put out some spring place value activities for math tubs. 

This one is  perfect because students choose a number from a bag.  (I used hundred chart numbers 50-120)  Students had to feed the bunny with tens and ones carrots.  They each fed their bunnies and then

Another fun place value game was camp comforts Challenge.  Students were racing to 120 by spinning and marking out the amount on a hundreds chart.  They tried to get in as many wins as they could before the timer went off to rotate!

We will be working out of my Camp Number Sense unit because it really digs deeper into our first grade math concepts!  It’s perfect for the end of the year!  

 I haven’t been blogging as much about our math journals this year, but we do them every single day!   They continue to be a favorite rotation of our guided math block.

I collected the journals last week to catch up on checking them over!  It’s been longer than I would like to admit! 

During our guided reading rotations students made compound “cool”aid.   Having a couple little props makes students excited about their day to day routine and keeps my management problems at bay!  

I also added another compound center that I had from my I {heart} literacy unit. On day one, students just matched and read the words.  The next day I introduced the recording sheet, and students recorded the compound words.

Last week I FINALLY completed two of the three packs of tracers that have been on my to do list since LAST summer.  My students begged to do them at the writing center, but I decided to make them a fast finisher activity since the demand was so high.  I made 4 of the write on wipe off binders that students can take to a fun spot in the room.  They read and trace their words. 

 For some needed review, I had some of my kids read this short vowel poster book during reading groups.  They were so pumped that they were rhyming and reading quickly.  Having these done and ready for next year is going to help so much when we are introducing each word family, blend, digraph, and vowel team! 

I have the corresponding pages to these short vowel books up as an anchor wall near my guided reading table. 

We also use these flipping for phonics books as a daily review of learned sounds.

Our rainbow namebows are up in the room and just as bright and happy as can be!  This year I used astrobrights paper for the rainbow strips!

This was my favorite Earth Day yet!  We created these repurposed paper bag books.  We still have a few more activities to finish up Monday and Tuesday, but these are such treasured little books already!

Although it is getting late on Sunday {sob} I still have a LONG grocery list, heap of laundry, and math lesson plans to do.  I will also be laminating and making these May story starter sticks tonight!  
Is it really going to be May next week?!?!?!?!