1st Grade Harcourt Storytown Spelling Activities

I don't teach first grade, but my school-bestie does and she asked me to create a weekly HW booklet to send home for her kids to practice spelling homework with. Of course I said I would love to! Okay, I'll admit it, though. I had an ulterior motive... if I could train the first graders to do homework a certain way, when they got to second grade (and used the Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe Boards I created for my kids) they would already know how to do some of the activities.

1st Grade Harcourt Storytown Spelling Activities

Every Monday they will write their words 3 times each. Unlike the boards, these words are already written and give kids a clear, concise space to do so. Also, the clipart is adorable ;-)

The activities vary from week to week otherwise, so kids won't get bored and feisty. Here are a couple examples:

I CAN Statements for Virginia SOLs

In order to post daily objectives for reading and math (in a way that my students can actually understand what we're learning) I create these "I CAN" posters to hang in my classroom. They use the current Standards of Learning for each subject, and break down the SOLs into separate (and sometimes multiple) pages for sub-SOLs. I used the Grade 2 Curriculum Framework as inspiration, but used kid-friendly wording.

In addition to posting them, I think I'm going to print them onto address labels to stick to file folders containing the activities that correspond to each lesson. This way I can be sure that EVERY SINGLE PART of every SOL is covered.

National Children's Dental Health Month

This month, my students had several fun activities planned around TEETH, and ended the month with an egg-citing experiment about the effects of drinks on children's teeth.

I love that movie! But I digress... What Effects Do Drinks Have On Teeth? is a fun week-long experiment where students will collect data on what happens to eggs when exposed to various drinks. I will warn you that the cups smelled bad by the end of the week, but my kiddos really enjoyed it. The parents at our Academic Fair enjoyed it, too. So did our school nurse. She gave each of my students a toothbrush and toothpaste, and our school counselor used an entire lesson to teach the proper procedure. In my packet, I also included a how-to writing prompt on brushing teeth.