Apples! Sweaters! Pumpkins! It's Fall, Y'all!

OMG OMG OMG I'm SO excited about Fall! As much as I am a summer girl to the core, I do so love me some Fall. Well, I love the beginning of fall. Then when it starts getting to be about 50 or below, I would gladly give it back and trade it for 90° weather. But I'm loving it now.

I am apple-obsessed. I just think apples and fall and all things cuddly {in Olaf's voice} lend themselves so well to school activities! Especially little ones, like my firsties. I actually think all teachers are apple-obsessed, as cliché as it is.

So, I am finally starting to be comfortable enough in teaching first grade that I can veer off of the manual path and start creating my own stuff for the standards I am required to teach. We just kicked  off a HUGE apple unit with tons of goodies and fun stuff, and we did this little math ten frame activity last week that was so adorbs. Of course, I borrowed this idea from here, but I adapted it to fit my needs. Love. It's just a little review game to help students visualize numbers and getting to ten using the ten frame. They just toss a bean bag onto the apple and then whatever number they land on, they fill up the ten frame with the apples. Then we talk about how many we would need to get to ten. It's a cute review activity, but of course it isn't my idea. It's from...duh. The First Grade Parade. {Stalk much?!}




We're also starting to learn about Author's Purpose, and I've been seeing a ton of the "Easy as P.I.E." charts. I'm created my own version and then created this sheet to go along with it. My buddies are going to be reading their own leveled books and then determining the author's purpose with this sheet. I love that I can tie in these things with my apple unit! Hooray! This is the first sheet of a packet that I am in the process of creating that will have oodles of reading response activities. My first *firsties* TpT product! How exciting!!  But you can click here to download this guy for free for now. :) I'm so excited about this because it's my first original idea. Finally. Wait. Actually it isn't because I didn't come up with the easy as P.I.E. Dagnabbit! Ugh. I digress. I'll get there, I suppose.


Let's see, what else? Oh yeah! My FALLing for Number Lines craftivity and mini lesson. We're starting to compare and order numbers and that means....number lines! Hooray! I love number lines because they are such a great visual tool for our buddies to use when counting. Love it.
So, we're doing some number line stuff with mini apple erasers and number lines.  Also not my idea, just adapting another one from TFGP. Ugh. I need to stop using so much of her stuff!! :)




We had our apple tasting party and we graphed our data, then analyzed the data together as a class. We've been learning about least and greater than lately, so this was perfect to tie right into our little math lesson.




We've had so much fun this week - and it has plum worn me out. I LOVE teaching these here little fellas, but dangit - they sure can suck the life right out of ya! I tell you what, teaching first grade is NOT for the faint of heart. They need one of those surgeon general warnings on the teaching contract!!! I'm major struggling with listening, talking, and following directions.

More on that later.

For now, I want to enjoy the fact that we had a successful kick off to fall with our apple unit. :) Pumpkins, leaves, and more fun fall stuff to follow!







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