Davy Crockett: American Folk Hero FREEBEE!

Ginny recently did a fun activity with her first grade team. This post shares how they organized the event and what Ginny did in her room. There is a free print out for Ginny's activity.




My daughter in law, Ginny, is teaching first grade this year. A few weeks ago she told me about something cool they do at her school to teach the Folk Heroes to the first graders. Here’s how they do it.

• There are 6 teachers on the team.
• Each teacher was assigned a folk hero according to their social studies standards…Ginny got Davy Crockett.
• Each Friday, they rotate classes and teach their folk hero to that class. They go to one class each week.
• All 6 classes will rotate through Ginny’s room while Ginny’s kids are learning about a different folk hero from each of the other 5 teachers.
• In 6 weeks, they have learned all about the folk heroes, but each teacher had only one prep!

I helped Ginny get a few ideas together. You will be able to download the entire freebee unit  at the bottom of this blog post. First, I did a little research to find out about Davy Crockett. Then, I created a power point that she could show on her smart board. You could also print the pages and create a book!

I made a log cabin step book for the Davy Crockett Time Line. The children cut apart the sentences about Davy Crockett.

We read and sequenced the sentences. As we read each sentence, we decided the sequence.  HEADS UP!….Next time, I think we will sequence the pictures first! That way, we can just talk about the pictures, refer back to our power point as needed, and sequence the pictures.

Then, they took each picture and matched it to the sentence. AGAIN, next year after the pictures are sequenced, we can read each sentence and match it to the correct picture.

Davy Crockett Step Book…If you aren’t sure how to make a step book, you can watch this video clip to see how!

You will find the sentences and the pictures in the freebee.

I also included a few other options, like this cut and paste Davy Crockett labeling activity and this Davy Crockett Tree Map, depending on how much time you have.

Easy Games to Develop Number Sense

Kids love math games. After the peek at my week, I share several math games that help to develop number sense--at the conceptual level!

I didn’t do a Peek at My Week last week….we had fall break!  So, I’m back this week to finish up our unit on Food. 

Last year we did a book study on “Worksheet Don’t Grow Dendrites.” It was a great reminder of all the things we did that were truly developing brain power! Splatter Guards, from the dollar store, make great puppets! The kids loved acting out the song “Five Little Chefs”. Why did we do it?

• It teaches concepts of print.
• It teaches words, letters, sentences.
• It teaches number combinations.
• It teaches counting on.
• It teaches….
• But most important…it grows brain power, the kids love it! They remember it! They know those combinations!

We are working on our phonemic awareness skills.  First we practiced it in large group…then, I can do it as a center or if they aren’t quite ready, I can do it in small group. (This is from the food unit. Link below)

Lots going on in math!

Love these math attack games! It is a super easy way to DI for number. Each child has a card that tells them what to do. It looks like this….We glue them to the front of a library pocket. The pocket is great for holding their cards.

Then, they spread out their cards and do whatever task is on their card!
If you want to read more about them, go here for another blog post with more details.

Love this pizza game….Here’s how you play…

• Give each child a game board and some pepperoni.
• Roll a dice and invite the children to count that many pieces of pepperoni onto their game board.
• Roll the dice again. How can you make your pizza have that many pieces? Do you need to take some off? Do you need to add some? How did you figure it out?
• For example, if they have 5 pepperoni pieces on their game board and they roll a 3, they will need to take 2 off. If they roll a 6, they will need to add a piece of pepperoni.

It’s a great game for teaching where numbers are in relation to each other, counting on, counting backwards.

We are moving right along on our number study. Each week for one of the math mini lessons, we focus on a given number. We tell everything we know about that number. Then, the following week, the kids record it in their math journal as a have to center, or they can do it right along with you.

We are moving right along in our DI math units.  This is one of the activities from unit 2. Here is the scripted lesson that we use. See the bottom of the plan? One plan…all 3 groups!
Here’s how to play…

 

This activity, from our Food unit, is a great little assessment to see if children understand how many more they need to make 5. They spin the spinner, put that many gumballs on the fives frame, and then see how many more they need to make a 5.               

Here are the units that I used to plan for this week.