My Teaching Ideas
Teaching Ideas


On this page you will find appealing ideas I use while teaching first grade. Also included here are web pages I've found helpful in the past.

Take Home Book Pack

One thing that I have put together and parents have found helpful is the Take Home Book Pack. For each book pack, I highlighted unfamiliar words throughout a book. Using the words that were highlighted, I created a concentration game, a word find, and gave activity ideas for extending the story.

Some of these ideas are; whenever you turn a card in the concentration game you should say the words, choose a highlighted word and write as many rhyming words for it that you can think of, put two of the rhyming words together to make a "Hink/Pink", draw and color a picture about your "Hink/Pink", reread the story together with your child, ask your child to retel the story, and have your child draw a picture of what could happen next in the story.

I was very lucky when putting these together to come across a great pack in the dollar store. Inside each pack I have laminated an instruction page and concentration cards. I fill each pack with all the materials I think a student may need to make it interesting and fun.

Lunch Bag Giving Tree

Materials Needed:
Lunch sized paper bags
Leaves
Ideas for giving back to the community
Scissors
Glue sticks
Book: The Giving Tree

Instructions For Lesson:
  • Read the book; The Giving Tree to the class and discuss how the tree gave to the boy and why.
  • Brainstorm how students can give back to their community or the people they love. They can say things they have done or things they will do.
  • Tell students they will be making their own Giving Tree.
  • Demonstrate how they will write how they will give back on leaves. Tell students to color the leaves.
  • Demonstrate how they will then attach the leaves to the end of the paper bag trees. (teacher can have these prepared ahead of time or let students complete.)

    Instructions for Tree:

  • Open the paper bag.
  • Holding the bag from the open end, cut down all the folded pleats to the first crease line to make strips.
  • Continue cutting around the bag approximately the same width.
  • Having the strips at the bottom, grab the bag below the flat base and twist, twist, twist to form the trunk.
  • Then twist the strips to form “limbs” and attach the leaves.

    I love to get creative and use items around the house to make learning games or activities for my students. Some of these are below.

  • Salted mixed nuts is a making word game. Students choose a bag of letters and use these letters to create words. Then they write the words down.
  • Compound Cooler has word puzzles that need to be matched. Once the pieces are matched, the word must be written on the white board and then the player will say the word.
  • Peanut's Initial Sounds is a game of beginning sounds. Puzzles are in the shape of a peanut. Each puzzle is of a word that is cut apart after the initial sound.
  • Slip Strip is an addition game. Two students play, one across from the other. One student calls out the problem and the other student answers. If the answer is right, the strip is raised up to the next problem. If the answer is wrong, the strip slip all the way down.
  • Odd and Even is a game where students place odd numbers in the odd can and even numbers in the even can.

    Click here to view a math activity that is participated by our whole school.

          I am really enthusiastic about pocket charts. I have used them to teach math and literacy. Some of my literacy ideas have been matching upper and lower case letters, making words and then writing them, matching words to pictures and then writing them, matching pictures to blends and then completing a blends worksheet, poetry - putting it in order and reading it(then drawing about it), matching vocabulary words from our story to definitions then doing a crossword puzzle, matching words with pictures then using them in sentences, and matching ending sounds or beginning sounds to pictures then writing down the words under the correct sound.

          In math I have used pocket charts for identifying shapes then making a picture using the shapes, number order, counting from 1 to 10, matching number to number word, skip counting, addition and subtraction, and patterns.

          I have also used pocket charts to encourage my students to follow directions. I will give them specific directions for a project and they will use the materials provided. Then they will check the answer chart to see if they have followed directions correctly.

         I'm always searching the web to find new and interesting ideas for teaching. Below, I have listed some of my favorite sites.

    4 Blocks Teaching

    On this page you will find ideas for teaching using the 4 blocks model.

    5 Ways to Teach Fluency

    This site is really helpful for a teacher who has beginning readers.

    Learn To Read

    Some more help for early readers.

    Picture Book Links

    A great site to visit favorite childrens books and authors.

    StoryStarters

    A great site by Laura Numeroff with story starters.

    First Days of School

    A great site to look for ideas to start the school year.

    Bears Unit Plans

    Working with older buddies, primary students become experts on the eight species of bears.