Living and Non- Living Song

This song is a pretty good learning tool. The first part goes over the rules ( does it breath? does it need food? ect.). The second part is a different song that gives examples and applies the rules. It also has the ALCOS at the begining ( SWEET!).

For an activity I planned to have them fold a paper into forths and give me two examples of living and non-living things.

Another idea is to teach them to play 20 questions and apply the questions from the song to figure out what it is. 

Read Works

http://www.readworks.org/

This is a pretty neat site. You search for lessons by grade level and skill. For example 1st grade, main idea. All the lessons start with you reading a recomended book, then doing and activity together and finally independant work. Cycle of instruction at its finest! All the work sheets are there for the printing. I normally adapt the work sheet portion to avoid using all my copies, and to practice writting!

Conjuctions School House Rock

Fun and Easy

Adjective School House Rock

Have fun!!!

Hangman Alternative

I always played hangman in school.Of course it is not always considered politically correct to play hangman any more. It was fine when I went to school, but with all the more gruesome versions played online (some include swinging corpses) I understand the hesitance.

One neat alternative is called snowman. It can just be drawn on the smartboard. For each wrong letter you draw a circle for a snow man. The traditional game give you 6 wrong guesses ( 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 head, 1body) that gives you room for 3 snow balls, 2 stick arms and 1 hat. 
Another one is drawn with a person holding onto some balloons. For each wrong answer a ballon is popped. Once you start looking for alternatives for the game you start to find millions of them.

OW and OA long O song

This week we are teaching the ow and oa. I found this cute song from Heidi Songs. She is a big supporter and multi-sensory learning. A lot of her materials include song and dance. Most of her stuff is geared toward pre-school and Kindergarten, but our first graders can still learn from some of it.

If you look her up on YouTube she also has some great first grade sight word songs.  If you look on her web site she has a mixture of free downloads and stuff to buy.

Cute Quick Valentines Center

Valentine Sight Words   can be a fun way to spice it up. The link gives you detailed directions but basically the sight words All, Am, Be, I, My, Please, Red, See, Two, Want, Who, Yes, You and the Valentine words Hugs, Kiss, Mine, Love, Sweet are put on index cards (I have tons)  and put in a box. Wham! Fun with sight words!

Music for the Classroom

Songs from Kids Know It

Kidsknowit.com is a great resource. It has links to games, songs and videos for all subjects. This link is to their songs. Some songs are geared toward older students but there are a few gems, such as the one on butterflies and parts of a plant under the heading biology.  The link to the full website is on the links bar underneath the description of the blog.

Force

This is a simple video on Force. It also includes gravity and a cave man. What more could you ask for :-)

ee and ea with a giraffe

Meet Geraldine the giraffe. She (and the teacher) do a great job of introducing the sound then giving examples in words. The teacher does have an English accent, but nothing that would do harm to our American students. This video is the ee.

This one is for ea.

IXL Website 1st Grade Games and Practice

This is the first grade page of the IXL web site. There is a really cool quiz to assess weather they can recognize the tens and one pieces and add them quickly. Its under the heading place values. I see this as a really good tool to practice and assess the basic skills needed for some of the more complicated stuff.

Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How

This is a great video for young writers. During our center rotation, those at seat work also have a journal to do.  This video has really help them remember the five 6's (even though on is an h) and incorporate it into their writing.  We sing it before we break into groups. Now that we know the words we also dance. Rock (and write) on!!