Headfirst - a blog for primary teachers by a first grade teacher

Phonics is not the most exciting subject to teach or learn. However, we know that it is essential to beginning reading instruction. We also know that it takes fewer repetitions to learn a concept when it is done in a playful way. Anytime I can make phonics instruction playful, I know it is going to stick with students better.

Q and U together are called a consonant digraph. Rarely do we find a Q without a U so teaching this digraph helps students read. The wedding of Q and U helps students see that these letters go together to make the /kw/ sound.

The Wedding Day begins with an invitation to the wedding on students' desks in the morning. This invitation is editable so you can put in your own time and place.

During reading time, I gather the guests on the carpet in rows, some on the bride's side and some on the groom's side. I read the story to the students in a very dramatic way of course! The kids really get a kick out of it!

After we read the story together, I give students their own copies to color. Then we read it together.

I pass around the guest book for all to sign.

After that we write qu words on the wedding cake. I display them in the hall.

The storybook goes in my classroom library. It is a favorite with students.

To see this fun resource in my store, click below!

Wedding of Q & U

We are halfway through 2nd quarter in my 1st grade classroom. That means we are halfway through my 2nd Headfirst Math Unit. Here is a page from my lesson plan binder.

One of my favorite things about using this on the computer is that this page is clickable! You can click on the topic and be taken right to it instead of having to go through all the pages to find the math lesson you need! Each lesson has sets of worksheets that go with it. Plenty for in-class and homework and extra practice if needed. You can use the lesson for whole group or small groups. Many have partner activities and math mats for kids to get hands-on activities.

Here are the math vocabulary cards that we learn and review. I have them as 1/2 sheet size as a math word wall and as 1/4 sheet size on a ring to practice like flashcards.

Here is some independent subtraction math fact practice. I used this as an activity for the whole class and then put it in my math center after they knew how to play. My desks are in groups of 4 so each had a set of cups and lollipops to sort.

My team felt our students had a pretty good handle on subtraction already with the way we taught number bonds in my first unit so we skipped that and started with turn around facts and fact families. This was the first year that I have felt confident that my students have mastered this math strategy. Here are the reasons why!

Students love linking cubes. I have a set that I keep sorted by color at all times so when I pull them out, I can give students 5 of each color. They also love using whiteboards, so before I gave them the cubes, I modeled with the cubes and had them write their turn around facts on their whiteboards to hold up. I also like this activity because it begins to show students that the equal sign means that both sides are equal and it's not just what comes before the answer. Instead of just understanding 3 + 4 = 7 they understand that 3 + 4 = 4 + 3.

Using this worksheet after they got to play with the linking cubes was a nice way to tie the hands-on and paper-pencil activities together.

The kids enjoyed this Turn Around Facts craft. Just have them tract their hands and arms on brown construction paper, fill in turn around facts on the leaves and color, cut them both out, and glue the leaves to the finger branches.

Once we got an understanding of turn around facts, we got into fact families.

I think the most powerful part of this topic was using the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I read the story to them first. Baby is the smallest number, Mama is the middle number, and Papa is the biggest number. It was a great way to link literacy with math!

The students helped me chose the numbers. I helped to make sure the numbers would work. Then they took turns holding the cards to make the facts.

Each time we used the Papa, Mama, Baby cards, we filled out a page in our Fact Families Book.

We played this partner game several times during our fact family study. The 1st student spins the top spinner to find the Papa number and puts it by Papa on the house mat.

The student's partner spins the bottom spinner to find the Mama or Baby number and puts that number on the mat.

Then they figured out what the third number

was. As I was circulating, I had to point out several times that they needed to switch the Mama and Baby numbers. I saw some Aha! moments which is so awesome!

On the carpet, we used this mat in a page protector with dry erase markers to practice the fact families.

Here are some of the worksheets we used.

Next up was our study of Doubles Facts. Memorizing doubles facts is a helpful skill for students to have. There are some really cute YouTube videos that I've used in class. Here are two of them by Harry Kindergarten.

I made a copy of this for each student to put in their binders to refer to when needed.

We loved playing Doubles Bump. Partners use one die and each uses a different color of marker. The player rolls the die and doubles it. The goal is to cover as many numbers as you can. If one partner gets the same answer that is already covered, she can bump off her partner's marker. When all are covered, whoever has the most numbers covered wins. I made this bump game so that you can see the number even while it is marked. I have some other bump games that once it is covered, you can't see what it is which makes it hard for first graders to remember which numbers are where.

After doubles, we moved on to doubles plus 1 facts. I'm not totally convinced that this is an appropriate skill for 1st grade brains. They understood the concept when the doubles facts and the doubles + 1 facts were side by side, but when I removed that crutch, it was much harder for them to use the doubles to solve doubles + 1 facts. My team and I decided to throw out the grade on the original test because so many of our students did not use the skill when solving the problems. They instead tried to use fingers, number lines, and subtraction instead.

Here's the flashcards that are in the unit: