Money Book Bags

There are 19 Money book bags- I only used 10 of them as part of my lesson however the extras were available to students during math stations or for fast finishers.

We completed a Math Expressions unit a few days early so we took some time to do a mini social studies unit on Money. Math Expressions uses coins A LOT in first grade. The book bags were a way to continue to explore money from a social studies point of view. We all began with a venn diagram comparing pennies, nickels and dimes. We looked at color, value, president, the year the coin was minted, shape and size. Students then worked in pairs to complete the book bags. After reading we regrouped and brain stormed a list of money vocabulary - value, cost, mint, coin, dollar, penny, nickel, dime, quarter, spend, save, buy, cash, bill, sell, bank and price.

Students also had the opportunity to create their own coins or dollars. Originally this was only for specific books but I ended up having all students do this during a Math Station. We talked about what we see on coins and dollars- a year, a president, a building or other symbol.

Book Bags TpT

Book List 
A Dollar for Penny - Julie Glass
A Dollar = $1.00 - Carey Molter
A Penny= 1¢ -  Carey Molter
A Nickel = 5¢ -  Carey Molter
A Dime = 10¢ -  Carey Molter
A Quarter = 25¢ -  Carey Molter
The Penny Pot - Stuart Murphy
Benny's Pennies - Pat Brisson
All About Coins-Pennies
All About Coins- Nickels
All About Coins- Dimes
All About Coins -Quarters
Ice Cream Money-Sharon L. Young
The Class Store- Sharon L. Young
Twenty-Five Cents- Sharon L. Young
The Shopping Trip-Sharon L. Young
Dollars- Mary Hill
Quarter- Mary Hill
Making Money- Sharon Holm

Fantastic Scholastic!!

My students receive Scholastic News but even if your school doesn't get a subscription for each student you can still read them online or by projecting them on the smartboard. There are even ways to interact with the online version and the site will also read the text aloud.

Here is the link to the first grade magazine but there are magazines for grades Pre K to 6th as well as subject specific magazines for middle schoolers.
Scholastic News Online 
All the issues back to Sept 2010 are archived. If you are looking for a group read for a themed unit this is a great place to check out!
Archived Issues

Free book downloads from Scholastic and the Institute of Medicine. Victors Garden focuses on healthy eating. 

Victors Garden

Maps and Globes Unit

Me on a Map- I live in City, State, Country, World

Paper Plate Globes and Writing

Cardinal Directions NSEW Compasses

3D Cardboard Map of a City

Just completed our maps and globes unit. I took two weeks to teach about cardinal directions, the difference between a map and a globe and how and why we might use a map. If we had the time my class would have loved to just lay on the rug and play with maps and globes all day. They were incredibly interested in where things were and how long it might to take to get there.
Activity List:
Paper plate globes (photo)
3D cardboard city map (photo)
Me On A Map
There's A Map In My Lap
Treasure hunt
Daddy Are We There Yet? (Math connection- use Cuisenaire rods for subtracting 10)
Compass roses (Math connection- symmetry) (photo)
Scout Letters- I received 2 scouts (similar to Flat Stanley)from a 3rd grade class in MPLS. My class was curious about how they got to us, how far they had to travel etc. Each child wrote a letter back to the third graders about our town and community and drew a map showing how the scout got to us.

TPT resource
I originally got this for free but now it is listed for a dollar... http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Map-Skills-Powerpoint