Five for Friday 10.16.15

Hey everyone! This has been a super odd week for me with a day off of school, parent teacher conferences, and two half days... but it didn't mean that we weren't just as busy in first grade! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share some of the fun I had this week.

We've been doing a big spider study for the last week and a half and my kids are SO into it. At conferences this week, so many parents were asking about our spider unit because their kids have been going home and telling them all they've learned. I love that! We kicked it off with a little spider graph that asked, "Do you think spiders are cool or creepy?" Note: I did not agree with the majority of my class. ;)

In keeping with our spider theme, we made this super cute Spider Sums to 8 craftivity from Wild About Firsties. We brainstormed all the ways to make 8 as a class and then each student picked one number sense they wanted to represent with their spider legs. 

I guest posted on my lovely friend Mrs. 3rd Grade's blog the other night as part of her 30 Amazing Teachers series and shared about a cute little Halloween gift I'm giving my first grade teammates this week! Click here to see how I put it all together (there's a link to the free gift tag I used from Eighteen25)!

Now that I'm teaching first grade, I'm teaching a lot of sounds, digraphs, vowel teams, etc. that I never had to teach in kindergarten before, so I was lacking a lot of resources to go with those phonics skills and struggling to find any printables that worked for my students. So, I did what any good teacher blogger does... I made my own! Included in this pack are 5 no-prep printables to go with the  -ck ending sound digraph (-ack, -eck, -ick, -ock, -uck). Students will read the words to practice fluency, highlight them in each word family, write and label pictures, read sentences, and write/illustrate their own sentences using -ck words. I tested these activity sheets out with my students and it really helped them with their spelling and fluency because they were interacting with the words in so many different ways. I just uploaded it to my TPT store... click on the picture to find out more!

One of my favorite things about fall is... hockey starts! Hockey is my absolute favorite sport and I root hard for my Coyotes! I got to go to the home opener earlier in the week and had a blast!

I'm so glad Friday has arrived! I am ready for a weekend! Hope you'll link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for more Five for Friday fun!