Just found the First Grade Power Pix Language Arts material during Spring Break. Wow, I'm excited to try it out. Since I have been using power teaching for over a year, I have already made up a lot of gestures for the language vocabulary. Your gestures look good, but, some not as good as mine. Also, some of the vocabulary I use is specific to the first grade language arts teacher's manual, and not necessarily the language of the standard. My introduction to language arts vocabulary is very similar to yours, but, I especially like the Critical Thinking section because it adds connections to material they have already learned. Thank you! Thank you!

Diane ... please keep us updated about your experience with the Power Pix for first grade ... I'd be especially interested to hear about any tweaks or improvements that you come up with!

HI Diane! Yes! The power pix ARE exciting:)!!! I think that you can improvise and use your gestures that are better for you. And you're right--the Power Pix are for the California State Standards and not your curriculum adoption. Hopefully your Language arts curriculum is aligned to the state standards, but as we have found out curriculums are not without fault. Our school has just finished aligning our curriculum to the standards (a major task!) which included finding out what was missing! What an eye opener! We have done the process of "filling in the gaps" as it is important for us to make sure that we are hitting all the standards--especially the essential standards (those that we have determined are absolutely essential for students at each grade level to master). That's what I love about the Power Pix. They are the major standards, and it has helped me in the areas where our curriculum is weak and we needed to fill in those gaps! Enjoy, and let us know how it goes!!!

I just got done reading through the 1st grade math power pix and am excited to use some of them with my class this year. I also went through to tweak several of them; at my school they need to align to the Common Core Standards. I do have a question about the critical thinking portion: can you explain to me how students play the games "Together/Apart" and "Compare/Contrast?" They sound simple, but I was unable to find an explanation in the document. Also, are there other ways you have incorporated the critical thinking piece?

Emily, two things go to scrapbunny her blog has common core standards in math. Then your tweak is done. There is a thread on this site you can back scroll and I believe you will find help. If not ask again, were all here to help.
Annette