Ms Firstie

The best time of the year as an elementary teacher! Chatter fills the air and smiles shine brightly at the anticipation of a class elf appearing in December. You can have your class choose their name or choose one from them. Your class elf can leave this in a visible location while doing something silly to get the students attention! Enjoy this kick off to a cheerful time of year!

Do your students love to learn about different professions? I love to imagine who my littles will become when they grow up. Allow students to search different career opportunities such as astronauts, botanists, and geologists through researching on PebbleGo. They can also use sources like Epic to complete research.

This colorful PDF presentation includes the name, attributes, and real world examples of six 3D shapes including cube, cone, sphere, rectangular prism, cylinder, and triangular prism. Incorporate these slides when introducing 3D shapes to your sweet class!

How fun is it to incorporate images into learning? This document has the definition and kid-friendly images to teach cooling, heating, melting, liquid and solids. Students love recognizing characters like Olaf to gain a better understanding of their learning!

Do your students need more guidance in organizing their facts learned from a nonfiction text? Look no further! Students can use this resource for help organizing their thoughts, modeling their understanding of nonfiction text features as well as guiding their next steps. Students must not forget when they finish a book, they don't toss it to the side for the next. Fiction and nonfiction alike, they need to investigate what happened so well that they could retell it to a friend.

Students love interactive games! These can be used with a fly-swatter and two lines of students to go against one another. They could also be used in table group points to play a review game. Regardless of how you play, allow students to demonstrate their understanding of 2D shapes. This resource will be downloaded as a PowerPoint.

Spring time is here! It is about time for April showers to bring May flowers. As students become weather watchers, teach students how to access a site like Weather Bug using their current location. This can become their responsibility each day that science time starts in the classroom and begin to chart - kind of like a bell ringer. At the end of the 10 school days, discuss what was noticed including patterns, unusual weather activity for your area, etc. This could also lead into what clothes sh

Do our students truly understand why we celebrate specific holidays? Allow students to complete this activity whole group or independently at the end of the unit. This activity lines up with the TEKS "I can explain the significance of various community, state, and national celebrations."

Yay for 2D shapes! Once students are familiar with 2D shapes and their attributes, allow individual students and/or table groups to review various shapes together. You can find my free resource for a 2D shape organizer that students can fill out along with their teacher.

TEKS 4.10A: The Sun and Water Cycle As students dive deeper in their understanding of the water cycle, guide students in how to appropriately research reservoirs. Page 2 could be an extension for students once they have a well-rounded understanding of a reservoir. Print double sided and enjoy!

As an administrator, how are you building up your staff members? I don't know a teacher that doesn't love a mid-day pick me up. Grab a rolling cart, collect soda from your PTA and surprise your staff with drinks on a Friday!

Have you ever taught your students how to retell across their fingers for a fictional story, like the characters, setting, BME? When I transitioned from fictional stories to nonfiction, I noticed students attempt to touch and tell their story across their fingers. Unfortunately, it does not always work this way. So, I created an ideal anchor chart to model retell during nonfiction read alouds and lessons! The idea is that with repetition, students will be able to visualize and/or create this in

This is a great sorting activity to wrap up a unit on appointed vs. elected officials! This assessment would reveal students understanding of content taught.

Use this resource as a check-in tool! This sort can help you as a teacher differentiate student skills to adjust your small groups.

Ready...set...RESEARCH! This activity allows students to search safe online platforms such as PebbleGo to learn more about United States (U.S.) symbols. This activity could be used for the U.S. or your specific state!

As students work with numbers into the thousands, allow students to represent their knowledge and understanding of place value with this station activity. Students can use this as an intervention with tangible tools to support them. Students can also use this as extension at teacher table with numbers beyond grade level. Either way, it's a favorite! This station has been used in a protection sheet for a dry erase marker to make it user friendly. It has also been used with multiple dice so that t

What teacher does not have a checklist/to-do list on their desk? Our littles need this structure, too! For a middle of the lesson teach point, pass out or provide a place in the classroom for these checklists. Students can take responsibly for their writing. When in small groups, you (the teacher) can also circle a check or "x" for what is present or still needs improvement before publishing.

This scavenger hunt is best completed on SeeSaw! Upload this PDF to your class SeeSaw, provide instructions and off students go. This could be completed as an intervention to simply identify insects on a learning walk or as homework for an extension that students find the insect and draw the life cycle of each one.

This sort has several benefits! To name a few, students will work on their cutting, pasting and sorting skills as this should be completed independently. Another benefit is the opportunity to check-in with students based on their current knowledge and understanding of this unit of study. These results could help guide your small group interventions and extensions.

Are caterpillars inching across the jar sitting on your desk? Students LOVE this time of year! As you discuss the different types of life cycles, have students review using this tool. You can print this resource or attach it to SeeSaw for students to draw a picture, label and instantly share learning with parents!