I’m a slacker so here’s a picture packed post!

Hey fellow teacher friends! Hope your week is going well… one more day ‘til FRIDAY! Woot! I have slacked in the picture department, so I figure I should post a couple of things we have done around the room. We did an alphabet scavenger hunt around the classroom and the next day the kids got a new letter and looked through magazines to find pictures that began with the first sound of their letter. I just LOVE to pieces the “fone” picture! I think it was my fav!

We did our self/friend unit last week and then made self-portraits that turned out to be A-DORABLE! They’re out in the hall with a poem we read that I didn’t get a pic of yet. The kids really enjoyed figuring out how to do their hair! And I <3 the 2nd person because she gave herself pink fingernails! So cute!

Our first Science Unit was with heat so we made a chart about what we knew about heat and then watched a BrainPop, Jr. We discussed what we learned from that video and added (in red) what we learned from the video. Then we did a fun experiment in our journal. We were exploring heat with our mouths and M&Ms (can you say INSTANT hit?!?) We put an M&M in our mouth and recorded our experiment and its findings. This is Roxanne’s journal:

We played a game from Cara’s Place Value (just a plug for it because it’s AWESOME!) I am a teacher who loves these types of activities as a whole group lesson and then transferring it to a Math Tub so we did ours individually and I set out 10 bags (20 in all-10 brown bags, 10 white bags-since I have 21 students) with different objects in it (unifix cubes, keys, links, little animals, counters, beans, poker chips, etc.) They went around the room and did each bag while recording their numbers. I usually do something like this (with skittles last year) but I think this recording sheet was so much more helpful for them to transfer that number to paper. I saw a major difference in their understanding of it after this activity.

To continue with place value, we made number rockets (you have to check out this Alien Counting song… I will have to get the singer’s name because it is HA-LARIOUS! That’s what sparked this rocket activity. Each kid rolled a die and placed their first number in the tens place and second roll in the ones place. They then decorated their rocket and on the back of their number, they drew their tens/ones to visually see it. They were pumped about it and this will go in a Math Tub once everyone is completely finished. Some of them turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Here is my example on the promethean board and another student’s front:

Here is a finished rocket:

 

So our district has implemented SSR (or DEAR time as it’s known in my room.) We are working on 5 minutes of sustained silent reading to help build fluency for the new STARR test Texas is going to this year(our goal is working towards 15 min. by the end of the year). I pick one student to read to BEVO (Hook ‘em Horns!) everyday. He is our pillow pet. This picture was too cute to pass up and share with you because drumroll… I have my own JUNIE B JONES IN MY CLASS! Doesn’t she look JUST like her?!? I can’t post her face front on but she’s got the glasses and yes… she literally dresses that Junie B-ish every day! Too precious! Check her out as she reads Splat the Cat to Bevo!

Last pic share… PROMISE! This one particular writing mini-lesson, we used Bevo to help us describe things. Here he is so you can get a better look at him. I did my best (which is all I can ask for—that’s what I tell my kids). I am by no means ANY type of artist… I’m lucky if I can make a stick figure look decent. So anyway, drew Bevo while the kids ate breakfast and then we sat down and described him. We talked about how important it is for our reader to get a good picture in their head of what you are trying to tell them and how describing words can really help the reader see what the author is trying to share in their mind. This is what we came up with:

I had them close their eyes after we completed our chart so I could read their words to them. As I read the words to them the neatest thing was watching their faces picture Bevo in their mind. Their faces were so surprised that their words described him so well. Too precious! Most of them said they could picture him perfectly in their minds. I then set them lose to describe something to a reader.

I hope y’all have a HAPPY Friday! I know I will! We’re making apple frogs, applesauce, bobbing for apples, and finishing any last minute apple stuff! Gotta get some grades in there too and computer lab! Should be a packed day!

Reading groups

We start our reading groups this week and since I have 6 non-readers, I realized I needed a new way to document them instead of just putting it in my 5 subject spiral that I use for each of my groups. So after searching the web for a guided reading/running records sheet and not being able to find one like I had in mind; I made this. It's pretty self-explanatory and I'm hoping it works for me the way I envision it going. I will keep track of their progress as they move levels, each book we read that day, the date, and I personally like to keep track of how long I met with each group. The skill box is for what we worked on during our meeting. And then there are 6 boxes for each students name to be placed on--which track accuracy, wpm, and comp. I figure this will be easier than keeping track of 6 papers for each student during the group and can be transferred to one page as our intervention team needs. In the past, I was having to go through and copy each page out of the spiral and then mark out the other students names for documentation. Not fun.

These next sheets are our district standards. Our Reading Coach gave us these at the beginning of the year. I just made a smaller document so I could tape it in my binder for quick reference as I am reading with kids. I used post-its last year but our levels and fluency changed this year (they were WAY too high!) so I made these. You can get them here and here.

 

I will have 6 groups this year since I am planning to break up my non-readers into two different groups. Our literacy library is huge and has what appears to be a wonderful resource book that I plan on using to help these babies along. We'll be starting with letter recognition, then letter sounds, and work our way up from there. I will meet with them every day of the week during our FOCUS time (15 min each) and then during our reading group time (which I do during our independent math work--I find they are much more independent during this time and there are not as many interruptions. I personally like to walk around during their independent reading work that we do in our Response Journals and help students and check their understanding.)

Anyone out in blogger-land care to share how they track reading progress/interventions? Or share how they do their reading groups?!? I am always wanting to get better with this.

Classroom Tour...

Y'all... 19 days in the school year and I *FINALLY* figured out my schedule for the AM. Crazy sounding, right?!? Well, this year has seen some changes and now we have breakfast in the classroom and "FOCUS" time at 8:00-8:45 to give us time to work with kiddos. Problem has been though, starting at 8:00 is fine if the kids were done eating and for kids who are independent enough to do things on their own... us, not so much. So we've been doing writing journals and then starting calendar. Going smoothly now and we've been doing Cara's wonderful Calendar Companion (check it out at her TpT store). I blew mine up using PowerPoint and then wrote in the titles for the boxes myself. The kids heart this a lot more than doing it up on the ELMO. We bring our binders down to the floor and do it as we complete the calendar on the wall. The kids have told me they like doing it this way as well--as opposed to their desks. *Sorry for the sideways-sloppy-ness of my writing... I got a little lazy when writing it.

Our calendar wall (we do this with the calendar companion.) I have two helpers and normally we circle the partners in the ones place and write odd/even. We just didn't this morning.

Here are our class agreements (rules) and our awesome clip chart (that you can get here). This is a modified version of Cara's at the first grade parade. Next to it is our schedule, which has been changed since I took that picture in August-but you get the idea. The kids, and other teachers, really love the chart and I just love the idea of it. I've always used a clip chart system where they start on top and move down if they don't make good choices and then they can move back up. But this one seems to work so much better because it rewards those students who are always making good choices and helping others. I don't know how many girls I had last year that stayed on our top color all year and never had to move down--until one of them wanted to know what it was like to move her clip. of course the only way was down and she started making choices she knew would make her move her clip down, just to see what her mama would say if she came home with it moved down.

On to the rest of the classroom... Hope you enjoy taking a sneak peek into my home away from home! Sorry the pictures are so bad... I took the pics while the kids were at the library and didn't turn my classroom lights on :/

Chapter Books, Series Books, Non-Fiction/Fiction Library

Fiction books Alphabetized by Author, Seasonal Books (green basket). I put the books we read as a class in the green bucket after we read them and they can read them during DEAR time or when they are done with their work.

Markers, Extra Crayons, pencils, construction paper

Completed Work Folder... has worked amazingly well this year!

Reading Nook/Safe Place

Promethean Board and Centers

My counter area for my reading/data/teacher info, etc.

teacher desk... kinda messy, so excuse it... it's Friday! ha!

back wall with restroom, fiction/nonfiction part of library, Sherlock (class pet), tubs.

Carpet Area, reading group activities, Sound Cruncher, and Centers

Promethean Board, Class Agreements, Alphabetical part of library

side wall of room that houses more reading group activities/my seasonal books

Tubs (Math and Reading), Browsing Box, magazines

Word Wall, Going for the Gold Clipchart, Schedule, Units

reading levels

Happy "hump day" blogger friends! Hope your week is going well! We are in the full swing of things and I'm getting super excited to see my little ones start to get some things! I heart when the light bulb goes off or when you see kiddos using strategies you taught them--all by their lonesome! 

So we've been testing like crazy and I finished reading with all my babies... I've got my work cut out for me this year as I have the lowest class in the grade. 13 out of 20 are under where they are supposed to come in from kinder... 6 non-readers y'all who just aren't pumped to be at school and don't have the best attitudes about learning things just yet--praying I can reach them and spark some interest. 

Anyway, documentation is something that is always fun to try and find forms for, so I thought I'd share what I use for tracking my reading progress throughout the year. I color-code my reading groups so I can visually see/change them quickly. I typically have 5-6 groups each year. Our district requires us to track our accuracy, reading level, fluency, and comprehension. The column for PSI is to help with interventions and targeting what to teach (beginning sounds, vowel sounds, ending, blends, digraphs, etc.) so if you don't want that column, just delete away. (here is a screen cap of what mine looks like... it's uploaded in Google Docs with Excel, so the fonts and stuff were removed... you can play around with it and make it fit your needs though!) Anyway, click here to download the document.

 

quote of the day from Dacoda, "Ms. Prince, is this like center time or something?" (as we are playing a math game for our lesson)... "Kind of Dacoda, this is how we learn in math..." He runs back and tells his group, "Guys, this is like center time, but we're learning!" haha... gotta love it! 

102 minutes...

That's how long it took for the planes to hit and for both towers to fall down.That's how long it took for the world to change and for a whole nation to be left with broken hearts. As I watch live coverage now in my living room, I am still brought to tears in the same way I was 10 years ago as a 17 year old senior in high school.  

That unforgettable Tuesday morning still feels like yesterday. I sat in my Pre-AP Advanced Law Studies class. My teacher left for a moment... when she came back, she turned on the TV. Both towers had been hit. We watched the coverage until it was time to switch classes.

My next class was FCS. I walked in the room to see 3 firefighters sitting in front of the TV watching the events unfold in NYC. I felt honored to be sitting in front of heroes--knowing they would be doing the same thing in that moment without hesitation. 

The rest of the day was heavy. During lunch, I rushed to watch the news. By that time, the towers had collapsed. I cried.

I remember thinking how strange it was that there wasn't a plane in the sky to be seen-- that alone made the threat more realistic since I lived about 15 minutes away from the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.

We were all scared in Dallas. We were told they were targeting all the WTCenters--and we had one in downtown that was right off a major highway in the heart of a city.

Our volleyball game was postponed that night as well.

I, like many Americans, was confused and scared. I was a 17 year old kid who didn't understand how people could hate a nation and could perform such a horrific act against people they had never met before. 

I remained scared until I watched the first Yankee game after the attacks. I saw the strength/unity the city of New York displayed that night. It brought a sense of healing for me. It was such a beautiful display of people joining together to begin a long and painful healing process.  

I'd always wanted to visit New York--only b/c I wanted to go to the top of the WTC. I went there back in November and I never understood the massiveness of the twin towers until that moment. I saw the foundation of the memorial fountains in the ground. It was an emotional experience for me to say the least. I can't wait to go back to New York City and see the beautiful fountains opened and eventually a completed Freedom Tower.

I remember you.... even though we never met, I remember ALL of you! You are always in my heart and in our nations heart. May God continue to comfort  your family and loved ones and know that you are NEVER forgotten.

prayers and froot loops...

Happy Wednesday... and boy am I glad it is! Woo-these kids have me tiiiiired this week for some reason. I spent my awesome 3 day weekend with the bestie taking 6 month pictures of her sweet baby boy, Issac! He is too dosh-garn cute for words... don't cha agree?!? :)

 

Anywhoo--If you are the praying kind {and even if you're not} PLEASE send some prayers up for some RAIN! and the people here in Texas who are losing their homes and everything they know to these crazy wildfires that are breaking out. The other day 22 fires started and there have been so many people whose lives have been turned upright because it's too dang hot here. We're not even allowed to park on the grass anymore for fear of starting a fire in the grass. In my town there have been at least 7-8 families who have lost their homes. In a town called Bastrop (about an hour and a half) over 300 people have lost their homes to the biggest wildfire in Texas HISTORY! God bless those sweet people. I couldn't imagine... anyway, we're gonna be writing to our volunteer firemen tomorrow to thank them for all their hard work and for being heroes in our community. With no rain in sight for at least 10 days and temps heading back up to the 100s, it looks like they're still in for the long haul.

Wanna leave ya with a little mid-week pick me up for 1-to-1 correspondence... my favorite way to teach math-- with FOOD! :)  *edit: just realized that I spelled Fruit Loops wrong in the title... if that bothers ya, shoot me an email at kristanp03@gmail.com and I will spell it FROOT Loops in the title for ya!

Don't forget those prayers... they are heard and desperately needed! Thanks y'all! 

creating young writers

Almost two weeks down... can't believe how fast time flies! I have definitely been WAY over-prepped and haven't gotten to half the stuff I made copies of or half of the fun ideas I had planned... but I guess that's not a bad problem. I'm still trying to get the hang of our schedule and when to stop/start different subjects. We switched our recess time from 2:30 to 2:15 so that I could come back in the room and not be all flustered about trying to get our new planners that the entire school is implementing into the kids backpacks with notes from the office and all that in their Take-Home Folders. Stressed out teacher is what that equaled. Today was better with going to recess earlier. Me likes.

We're off to a good start in our writing process. Last week they did a free write before I taught them anything (so I could evaluate where we are in the process) and I was a little uneasy about it after day one. We read Arthur Writes a Story and then worked on starting the writing process by thinking about what we know. *great book for this concept b/c Arthur starts off with his own idea and then changes his story based on other peoples because he thinks it will make it better. In the end, it turns out that his story was not really believable and his class/teacher liked his original idea better.

After reading Arthur and discussing our own ideas/trusting ourselves, I modeled how this works for the kids. I brainstormed ideas that I know about, we talked about creating an image in our mind and then drawing it on our paper. After a day or so of that, we switched our focus onto really labeling our illustrations and writing a short one/two sentences about our picture--then going back to adding more pictures/labels/sentences when we think "we're done--we've just begun". (this was pretty neat because I got to share my story about hiking in Yosemite this summer and then got to show the kids video of the waterfalls/river there when they asked if I went swimming in it--all of them were so amazed since they had never seen one before! Way cool to share that experience with my kiddies).

We did circle maps about ourselves and today we discussed different topics we can write about and why we write. Made this for a visual for the kids to reference whenever they are at the, "I don't know what to write about stage."

 

Happy Friday to all you amazing teachers out there! :)