Pete the Cat Saves Christmas Inspired Activity & FREEBIE

This week we kicked off our Geometry unit by learning about plane shapes. I LOVE teaching about plane shapes because first graders LOVE manipulating them and there are just so many hands-on activities to do. And, of course, if you can throw in some seasonal activities it just ups holiday spirit and level of engagement in your classroom! So, I pulled out this Santa Pete activity from TpT store:

I created the recording sheet the night before we completed the activity in class. You can find it for  FREE here. 

Another plane shapes activity that my students really enjoyed was when we played "Mystery Matheticians" and solved some shape riddles. Shout out to Reagan Tunstall -this activity comes from her Guided Math Units. 

The kiddos had so much fun, I decided to let a little mystery spill over into our Reading/Language Arts block. This week we were writing 5 Senses Poems. So I came up with a Mystery 5 Senses Poem activity. 

This picture is of the mystery poem I created as an example. I forgot to snap pictures of the kid's sticky notes, but some were hilarious. The class split into groups. Each group had to fill out five sticky notes, one for each of the five senses. Then, the class read the poem and tried to guess "What is it?" There was a kinda foul odor in the boy's bathroom and one group went to town with it. Their sensory poem was about the boy's bathroom! Ewww. I suggest using sentence strips in place of sticky notes. 

Are you fortunate enough to have Ipads in your classroom??? My campus has a rotating Ipad cart schedule. Here are two great apps you should know about: 

The first one is called SeeSaw. My class used See Saw to illustrate plot elements and then record a voice over explaining the illustration. Then, we used it again to illustrate a connection we made to a story. My favorite conection was one a student made to Cinderella. He drew the wicked step mother and himself riding a bull. His connection was that the stepmother didn't let Cinderella do anything she wanted to and his mom refused to let him ride a bull!! In th pic below a student is recording the plot of Cindy Rocks and the Three Bears. 

I recently learned about an app called Chatterpix Kids. The app allows you to take a picture of an object and record a voice over. Add a mouth to the picture and the picture "talks." You can also add props and clothing. My girlies at home LOVE IT (they are 3 and 6). I think my class can use the app to take a picture of a shape fill-in and then record a voice over explaining which small shapes were used to fill in the large shape, or to snap a picture of a solid shape and talk about it's attributes. The possibilities are endless. 

Happy holidays!

#TBT Pete the Cat Themed Easter Celebration

Our Easter celebration was such a success last year that I plan to try to replicate it this year! Click here to read a throw back post about our Pete the Cat themed Easter celebration! Click here to check out this Easter resource on TpT.

Five for Friday

I'm back for Five For Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Here are five bits of randomness from my week...

ONE: We learned about veterans. 

The Veterans are... can... have...is a FREEBIE from Cara Carrol.  The acrostic poem is from Rebecca Johnson at First Grade Fascination. I can't recall if this comes from her blog or her TpT store because I've had it for a couple of years. I just free handed some tracers to make the Marine. The yellow buttons are actually the dot on the lower case i dye cut. And the star is the top part of a book mark dye cut from the work room.

Have you read a book called, H is for Honor? If you haven't you should get it for next Veteran's Day.

We read the book and added the words to our anchor chart about veterans which made completing the acrostic poem waaaaaaay easier. I saw the book at our school's Scholastic Book Fair for $4.99. 

TWO: Turkey Takeover. The second graders at my school read Turkey Trouble and then disguised their own turkeys. They went all out! Can you believe how great these turkeys turned out????

tree

ninja turtle

Mulan

Mario

wrestler John Cena

Batman

Ariel

I think the tree and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are my favorites, but they were all sooooo good!

THREE: Pilgrim Pete. We just started a unit on shapes. So I figured out how to make Pete wearing a pilgrim's hat out of plane shapes. You can find the template here. 

FOUR: This happened. The kiddos were creating new shapes using pattern blocks and writing a description of their designs. Read this description.

I asked the little guy to read me his description. He read, "It's a sun with blue stripes." Guess we need some more work on those S-blends! He he. 

FIVE: Neighborhood patrol. Ok, so this didn't happen at school, but it did happen during the school week. That counts, right???

My neighbor is a Houston police officer. He bought his daughter a squad car for her birthday and customized it by adding real police lights. He snapped this pic of his daughter and my daughter, Evangelina, pulling over my daughter, Isabella, in her Barbie Jeep. Priceless...too stinkin' funny.

Have a great weekend!

Pilgrim Pete {A Shape Activity for Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving}

This week we started our shapes unit. We kicked things off by learning about plane shapes (2-D). Does your school have BrainPOP Jr.? There is an awesome cartoon in which Annie and Moby talk all about plane shapes! First, we brainstormed things that looked a triangle (sign, pie, pizza slice, sail) and a circle (whole pizza, ball, moon, clock) to add to our triangle anchor chart and our circle anchor chart, then we watched the BrainPop Jr. and took the quiz. Next, we discussed the triangle and circle in terms of straight sides and corners. Then we spent some time using pattern blocks to fill in shapes. We're just getting started, BUT...

I am soooo excited to have just finished and uploaded my Pilgrim Pete Shapes Activity to TpT. My firsties love Pete the Cat and they love building new shapes out of pattern blocks! So, just in time for Thanksgiving I created this activity which is inspired by the book, Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving by Kimberly & James Dean. 

Even though our shape unit will be finished before Christmas, I'm busy working on a Santa Pete shape activity pack too! Because kids love Pete and kids love shapes!