This year our new principal created and introduced a school-wide fact fluency program that focuses on   fluency and flexibility in thinking about numbers and the equal sign in all four operations.  Going through the program, students are required to solve for missing addends and parts (or the whole) of an equation in all positions by understanding part-part-whole relationships . The first few stages involve addition and subtraction beginning with fluency of facts within 10.   Here's a fact fluency freebie for your firsties (woahhhhhh alliteration overload!) that can help support understanding of the equal sign and finding the missing number in subtraction equations with zero.  Cut out the pieces and have your friends match the missing number with the equation it belongs to.  Enjoy! Click on the picture to download from Google Drive. I also came across this post from Teaching in Progress about word problems.  She posted a great visual and freebie that has helped me ...

UPDATE:   I love first-grade!   I think I should actually change that to "I love first- graders " because they're so stinkin' adorable.  I'm especially in love with the sweet smiles and " Good morning Ms. Chin! "s I'm greeted with every morning. I taught 4th grade for the past two years, so this is my first time actually teaching 1st.   I'm learning so much about phonics, reading, and basic math from this experience which honestly has made some  most days a SERIOUS struggle.  I've had about a million and a half realizations and " Oh righttttt, they're only six years old. " moments, but overall I know this year is off to a great start and it's going to be a blast! We had our first field trip to the National Zoo this week and the kids had so much fun!  We researched gorillas for our non-fiction writing this quarter and we were so excited to see the gorillas at the stinky ape house.  (Although some of them were over dra...

Hello!  I'm currently at the beach in Duck, NC enjoying my last work-free weekend with this absolutely breath-taking view: Can you believe this place?  It's beautiful !  My friend's parent's dream was to own their own beach house one day and they made it a reality a few years ago.  Their home is like a jungle, and her mom likes to call it, Where The Wild Things Are .  (Yes, she is a teacher!) On a separate note, I just learned about the awesome Donors Choose Community, Caring Classrooms .  It's such a great idea and way to get the word spread about new classroom projects in need of funding.  I just donated to a project for a classroom to get a puppet show about accepting others' differences.  How cool!  I didn't know that you could create projects that weren't just for school supplies, books, etc.  Anyway, that project has ALREADY been funded because of how generous everyone in this online community is.   I'm going to leave here on thi...

Is it August already?!  Where did the time go?  If your school is like mine and they make you move classrooms each year, then I'm sure you'd agree that the packing, moving, and unpacking process is a huge PAIN.  That being said, I'm trying to keep everything as simple as possible and I'm keeping the superhero theme.  Hooray! Here are a couple things I already have for the decor: Name tag labels for either the door or bulletin board. - TPT link here - Back to school picture frame!  This is my first time doing this and it was super fun and easy to make! - TPT link here - Picked these borders up on my most recent trip to Lakeshore.   I wish I had seen these last year, but I can't wait to use them in my classroom! - link here - I can't wait to get into my room and start setting up!  Unfortunately that won't be for a couple more weeks, so in between babysitting and laying by the pool I'm going to try to prepare myself by readi...