1st grade common core/curriculum

I am homeschooling my son, and I am researching to find the standard common core/or curriculum for 1st graders for all subject areas such as mathematics, science, writing, reading, spelling, language arts, history, and arts.  I would like to know if any of you would recommend me or suggest me books I may purchase to base the lessons. Or even websites would be quite helpful.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Fabiana

Matching Pattern

I wanted to work with matching and identification of patterns with my son but could not find many activities available, thus I decided to design a few exercises for him to practice. I designed 5 sheets to correlate to each day of the week. Each day has a different theme: hat pattern, winter clothes pattern, transportation pattern, bugs pattern and reptile pattern. 

The aim of the exercise is for a child to color the following pictures in the exercise.

There are plenty of exercises to enable a child to practice sequencing of images. It is a great exercise for eye coordination.

The document is available on teacherspayteachers website, the following link directs to download the activity - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Matching-Patterns

If you download these exercises please make a comment or suggestion. Thanks :))). 

World wall

I finally finished our word wall and the picture bellow is a sample of how it looks like. I put it together last night and when my son woke up he was delighted with the pictures and told me it looked very beautiful. 

The words I have already introduce to my son and he knows how to write are: see, my, is, friend, the, I, name, look, at, me, cat, pig, dog, hat, bat, love, you, men, man and up.

These are some of the words I will work on: am, little, to, a, have, we, like, he, for, me, with, she, they, of, are, that, do, go, from, what, said, was,  where, come, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, red,  yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, white, brown, black, pink.

I always try to formulate a sentence every time I teach him a word, so he can also learn how to put it into context.


Bring to my awareness if you have any suggestion or word to add to my wall. Thanks!!!!

Rhyming words with phonetics

I have been researching extensively to discover efficient tools to teach my son how to read. I had begun working with him intensely to teach him how to utter the phonetic sounds of the alphabets. The following link is the song I play every day for my son with the intent for him to learn about phonics. This song is quite cute and very easy to learn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGpsVmWLRFA.
He often asks me the spelling of words, and instead of spelling the requested word, I ask him to repeat the word and think of the sounds he is making. He is becoming very good with recognition of words, and he is extremely proud of himself when he deciphers the name of the word he sought to understand :)).

I read in some teaching websites that the best way to teach your child to read is by not teaching them how to spell words, but to teach how to pronounce the sounds of the alphabets first. Once they are mastered in this matter, spelling becomes easier. Hence, the reason I am focusing on phonics a lot.

In addition, to the work we have been doing, I made a flip books to help him learn how to read. I made 4 books for the familiar words "at", "en", "og" and "an". I wrote the vowels in different colours to teach him awareness of the difference between vowels and consonants. I used construction paper and markers to make the flip books.

We worked with these books today and I was extremely delighted with the results; I highly recommend the use of my book.  I asked my son to pronounce the sound of each letter presented in the book, and repeat it as many times as he needed to be able to recognise the word he was saying. Working with rhyming words are important tools to develop the child's reading skills.


Instructions to make the flip books:

1 - To make the cover, take a construction paper and fold it in half making a rectangle shape. Then bring the endings together and fold it again.

2 - With the paper folded, cut a thin string on the side that is closed to divide the paper in half, and to make two covers.

3 - Meanwhile take a white construction paper and write just one word for example cat, and then just the first letter of the other words you would like to have. For instance "m" to make mat, "r" to make rat, "b" to make bat. I suggest to write the vowels with a different colour so the child can differentiate what is consonant and what is vowel. Afterwards glue the written word onto the cover book.

4 - The next step is to glue the top of the written letters on top of the first consonant of the word written.

5 - I also recommend to write the final word onto the cover page.

The words I used for my flip books were:

"at" - mat, rat, bat and cat.

"og" - log, fog, hog, frog and dog.

"an" - tan, man, can, fan and pan.

"en" -  ten, men, pen and hen.

I am also doing for words ending with "ig" (big, dig, pig and wig), "et" (jet, net, pet and wet), "ip" zip, dip, sip and rip), "ot" (dot, lot, pot and cot), and "ug" (bug, mug, rug and hug).

I found these flip books very useful and a great tool to make my child be familiar with reading. Once you explain and set the path they can do it on their own. It is something they can carry along in a long journey, or even just going to the supermarket. If you desire you may laminate it and bind the books to last longer. You may also add more letters to any group as you feel your child is progressing and ready to be introduced to new words. The words can become more complex as they grow and will develop their reading skills.

I also would like to recommend an incredible website that I used today to support his learning and add in support in the form of improvement in the process of being familiar with phonics. http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f

Let me know what you think about the aforementioned please :). If you have any questions feel free to ask as well.  Thanks :)))))!!!!

Penguin Calendar

I do apologise for not updating my blog lately, however we moved in to a new flat thusly the Internet wasn't working. All is well now and I am happy to be back :)).


We now have a bigger space for our teaching room - I am really excited about that :) - I will soon post articles about classroom management as I need to organise the space. It would be amazing to receive any suggestions from you all :).


As I was unpacking the boxes I was struck by the idea for decorating our new teaching room. Hence I decided to start with a calendar. I designed a cute 12 months Penguin Calendar, one for each month of the year. Each month has images that represents an important event occurring in that specific month, for instance, February is Valentine’s Day, April is Easter, December is Christmas, and so on.

This calendar can be used in the classroom and home where the students engage daily with the teacher to fill in dates, days of the week, the weather, holidays, and birthdays. It also can be available individually for each student in order to help them organize their daily routine such as homework, holidays, and activities during the month. Additionally, it is a great tool to make the parents aware of their children’s schedule.

This package has 25 pages which includes: 

 The 12 months calendar;

 Printable months of the year; 

 Printable numbers for the days of week – simply print multiple copies; 

 The following phrases: Today is, Yesterday was and Tomorrow will be; 

 Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; 

 Daily weather condition options: sunny, windy, snowy, rainy and cloudy; 

 Holidays stickers; 

 Birthday table.

This I suggest the calendar to be laminated for longevity sake, and has the possibility of sticking the months of the year or the dates via the use of blue tag or Velcro(ing) the numbers.

I uploaded the calendar on Teacherspayteachers website, to download follow this link please:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Penguin-Calendar

If you purchase this product please let me know what you think about it!!!! 

Thanks Fabiana

Animals opposite flashcards

I designed a set of animals opposite flashcards that can be adapted to kindergarten and 1^st grade, as well as ESL students.

The animal flashcards can be used when teaching opposites to the children, coupled with  introducing Animal species. The purpose for making the flashcards realistic in nature was to enable children to understand the lesson in a real context.

Another activity that I led using the flashcards and I humbly recommend is to ask the children to divide the cards into groups of mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, fish and amphibians. With the caveat that after repeat use they should know the animals in the compounded categories aforementioned and be able to parse the animals. I also wrote the name of the animals under the picture for spelling, writing and reading purposes.

If you download this activity will you please leave me a comment or suggestion :). 

I couldn't attach the file, I needed to post it using slides. If you would like a PDF or powerpoint version  please email me and send it to you.

Thanks.

Fabiana

fabilavina@gmail.com

Fish

Last Friday I  taught the fish specie to my son. Instead of teaching him at home I choose to take him to visit the Shedd Aquarium - http://www.sheddaquarium.org. It was free admission at the aquarium last week, thus when we arrived, there was an immense queue. We waited for 2 hours in the line to get inside; the waiting was tiresome but as soon as we started explore, it was totally worth. We have been to most of the museums in Chicago, and the aquarium is on our top 5 list :)))))). I took many pictures but I selected the best ones, which I hope will demonstrate to you the beauty of this specie, and how much fun we had.

There are thousands of fish at the aquarium from all over the world: Amazon, Australia, Asia, central America, Africa, and so on. The following images exhibit spider crabs, octopus, crabs, lobsters, star fish, and many more.

                              

We also saw piranhas, lungfish, paddlefish, and others.

The seahorses are very cute!!!!! The otters are great swimmers!!!!!!

We saw an electric eel (black one) and discovered that it generates up to 600 volts of electricity, whereas the humans are less than 1 volt. There was also a moray ell (yellowish one).
Furthermore, we learnt that the catfish travel the entire Amazon following network, and the biggest ever catfish caught was on the Amazon river, and it was approximately 10 feet high.
Below, there is a picture of an orange fish and my son's hand touching the glass, this fish was an interesting one :))))). He thought we were feeding him, he would open his mouth and touch the glass every time we put our finger there. My son was mesmerise with the fish, he said it was like the fish wanted to talk to us.
As well as many other types of exotic fish, we saw many turtles too.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to the aquarium was to be able to see the jellyfish. I think they are one of the most divine, although deadly, creatures in the entire sea life. It was sheer bliss to observe them.

What made it more magical was the peaceful room selected for those who desired to watch them. There was classical music playing in the background, the lights were low and the people were quite. It was like everyone was hypnotised by the jellyfish. The way they move is like in slow motion, giving you the chance to analyse every tiny movement made by them. I hope the pictures I took can show you how wonderfully beautiful they are.

I love corals, they are so beautiful and colourful.

My son enjoyed the fiercely sharks very much, he was looking forward to seeing them the whole day. They are enormous and very scary indeed, however, fascinating. 

There were also many types of rays at the aquarium, which you can see on the images below.

We all love the clownfish, hence here is a dedicated special space just for them :))))).

Although it was an aquarium, there were also some reptiles such as the iguana, chameleon, green frogs, and blue frogs, which I had not seen other than in photos. As well as the terrifying anaconda!!! This snake was massive, we couldn't see her face, just the body, which was very large.

We found some insects too. There was a big cockroach, and various giant ants.

My son was very excited and eager to know everything about the fish. Throughout our visit he asked me many questions about the food they eat, the way they breath, the position of the eyes, and many more. To be honest with you, I was absolutely pleased with our trip to the aquarium, because my son discovered everything by himself. He was very curious and didn't stop one second asking me questions. He was also searching on the computers they have available at the aquarium to find out more about this category.

I greatly recommend parents/teachers to take the children to visit the museum if they are able. It is extremely educational, and if they have studied this subject matter in books already, it will reinforce even more what they have learnt.  It is an unforgettable experience, where they learn science, marine biology, respect for the animals and humans too.

Alphabet Maze

I downloaded an alphabet maze from Tot School website: http://totschool.shannons.org/?p=5254. Its a quick and easy activity to recognise the letters. Accessing the link will enable you to download the maze, there is one sheet for each letter of the alphabet. This task is something your children can do by themselves and you just need to monitor them. 

The website recommended to use Do-A-Dot markers, but as we don't have it, we used a normal marker. It also suggested to point just upper case letters, but to make it more challenging I asked my son to circle the lower cases as well. 

Before starting the exercises, I instructed him to use the marker to circle around the upper and lower case letter of the first letter circled in black ink on the first line. I also told him to go through each line, as this way he wouldn't miss any letter. Each sheet took him approximately 3 minutes to finish.

I was really pleased with him because when he finished the exercises, he checked it to make sure he got all the letters circled, without further instruction. He enjoyed doing it by himself, especially when he got the answers right :))))))!!!

The alphabet wall

My son and I created this wall throughout the process of learning the alphabet. Every time he would learn a letter, he needed to draw the upper and lower case letter using construction paper, and stick it on the wall. As well as designing a craft that would remind him what the letter stands for, such as "A" for apple, "B" for boat, "C" for car and so on. We have completed the alphabet thus we thought in posting it on our blog to share the idea with you all. Thanks!!!!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!!!!!!

Summer

I printed a copy of free summer words to put on our wall to show words and things that are common in the summer. I found it quite useful as we can also use it as a matching game to practice spelling and recognition of letters. I had an idea to make the sun to emphasise that the season is summer, and to design the rays of sunshine, I used the words that I printed. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Summer-Word-Wall-Words-FREE

Word family

I highly recommend an activity I printed out from the Teachers pay Teachers website. It is a free worksheet that you can print out from this link:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Kindergarten-Word-Family-Independent-Work-at-word-family 


This activity is designed to practice the -at word family with reading, spelling and writing words from common short vowel word families. We worked with recognition of the sound of the letters. The website suggested to do this activity in a week but we did it in one day, as it was short exercises and he was doing quite well and managing to complete all the exercises required. Great worksheet, I approve.


I couldn't make a copy to upload on my blog for you all to see it, but if you click on the link above you will be able to connect to the page.

Alphabet

I printed out some activities to apply to my son's learning, and I was cutting the papers to laminate. I asked my son to throw away the strips we wouldn't use. Suddenly he said to me: "Mom look, I made an "A"!!!!" He got very excited and started to create other letters and he managed to design the: V, W, A, K, X, F,L, H, E and T. He was really proud of himself for making this activity alone. 

I was also very pleased with him for having the initiative of starting an activity that helps him to improve letters recognition, as well as sounds and familiar words. This is something the children can practice and doesn't cost anything. If you have enough strips they can also make sentences.

Alphabet Letter Matching

I found a wonderful printable alphabet letter matching at Miss Kindergarten website, which you can print it and laminated it so the children can play whilst learning. The website is great and worth visiting, the link to its website is attached.  


It is a great game for children to match the lower-case onto the upper-case letters.