My Little Monsters!

October is the grand start to my favorite months of the year. The nights get cooler, leaves start changing color and are falling everywhere, decorations are abundantly displayed in homes and stores, the aromas in the air are infatuating (it is so difficult not to eat all those delicious baked goods), and children everywhere are so gitty.

I am looking forward to all the pumpkin activities and investigations we will be doing this coming week. This month lends itself to so much math and science, and I do love both subjects so much. I know my kiddos will have a blast! (I will post all about it later.)

Here is a look at our t-shirt, pencil, and trick-or-treat bag for the month. They came out so cute! Just take a look at my little monsters.

Cool Franky t-shirts

Cute pencils!

Ready for the candy!

What Halloween goodies do you do for your kiddos?

I L.O.V.E. the Daily 5

I am in L.O.V.E. with the Daily 5. I haven't fully implemented the Teacher Station, because I want to make sure the others stations are running as smoothly as possible.  Not only is it important for me that they be able to work independently, I want them to feel good about they are doing and capable. Read to Self and Read to Someone went a lot smoother than I anticipated. And just like most Daily Bloggers have sated, They do prefer Read to Someone. I will be adding some form of response that they can work on as a team, but I haven't found one that fits my needs yet.   

Word Work
My students are loving the Word Work choices. My kids get to practice making words, including their weekly spelling words, in a variety of ways. The choices are nothing new or out of this world and they are probably something you do already. All I know is they are very hands-on and they love it. The following are some of the choices they have. I also have some store bought file folder games I will be introducing in small groups.

If you want a FREE copy of my Word Work form click HERE.

Listen to Reading
As I have mentioned before, my kiddos need extra support this year. I feel that is why they are so attached to the Listen to Reading Station. They have the choice to listen to the traditional read along or to follow along with some old Leap Frogs that I've had for a while. I added a splitter to the Leap Frogs so that 2 kids can listen at the same time and they love that they get to interact with the story. When done they know to do the response form. I found these simple and very useful FREE reading response forms by Lauren over at Miss Augustine's Kindergarten. They are a great way to introduce them to responding to their listening. I will be differentiating their difficulty as they get better.

Work on Writing
At first I was somewhat confused about what exactly this entailed or what it looked like. I didn't want it to be another Writer's Workshop (I do and love WW, but I wanted this to feel and look different). I found a couple of ideas that are really working for my kiddos. The first came from Mel over at Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations. All you have to do is have a box full of stickers. The kiddos get to pick any sticker they want and as many as they want. They place the sticker on the left hand side and must make a sentence to go with sticker. I have my kiddos do their sentences in a small notebook. At this time of the year, I expect them to have spaces, punctuation, and phonetic spelling to the best of their abilities. The notebook will also help me see trends, improvement, and needs that I can address at WW. It is so simple and yes she is right; the kiddos go bonkers for those stickers.

The other choice they have is a September journal with some choice topics inside they can do in any order. The cover came from Alma over at Mrs. Solis's Kinder Class. The writing prompts came from Jen Jones at Hello Literacy.

 One can use the words from the box, the other student is still sounding out.

Finally, I have used these Class Notebooks in the past and my kiddos always love them. They have the choice of I Lost My Tooth, My Birthday, My New shoes, My New Haircut, and I Got an Owie. They get to write on any of these topics. Their friends get to respond to their writing on the back. It becomes a class book that kids want to read again and again. Every month I remove the sheets from the folder and put the work into a binder by month. At the end of the year they can't believe the amount of growth they have made, and they find it hilarious to see their first writings. I know my kiddos are going to love these!

There are so many amazing ideas out there in Blog-land and TpT. What do you do to help your kiddos during Daily 5?

Fluency Practice

It has been a very tiring first two weeks of school. I have spent most of my time setting up some rituals and routines (still working on these), getting to know each other, and ASSESSING. We have many district mandated assessments, as well as some I do on my own that provide me more immediate feedback on where my kiddos are and what I have to work on. 

After some anecdotal observations and my own assessments, I knew my work this year was going to be a challenge. I have the whole spectrum, but half of my kiddos are not anywhere near where they need to be by the beginning of first grade. Don't get me wrong, my firsties are very sweet and I L.O.V.E. them. They try so hard and are very eager to try new things. I know they will make great strides by the end of the school year.

One of the areas I know I had to tackle immediately, was sight word automaticity, writing, and fluency practice. I'll discuss sight word and writing strategies later. Our district uses Treasures by Macmillian/McGraw-Hill. Every week students have three main readings (sight word practice, main selection, & paired selection) plus other support literature. After looking at the selections for the first unit, I selected some texts that I thought would give me the biggest bang for my buck. I typed up the texts and every week am adding a new passage to their fluency folder (a simple file folder), along with a poem that gives them easy rhyming and sight word practice. I got them from Deedee Wills and Janet Dintelman over at Mrs. Will's Kindergarten (She has tons of great stuff!). The folder also includes a form for parents to date and initial after their child did the reading.

If you want a copy of what I send click HERE.

They have all week to practice the passages, and I test them on Friday. I am speechless at the remarkable improvement I already see from many of my students. Students who couldn't even track are now pointing accurately and reading words that three weeks ago they couldn't. The strings of random letters during writing workshop begins to have spaces, sight words, and phonetic spelling that I can actually decipher. Parents have come up to me and told me that they have seen tremendous growth already and are so happy to hear their child read.  What I did is not anything magical or out of this world. It is simple hard work by my kiddos and LOTS and LOTS of practice. I see light at the end of the tunnel and it makes me smile.

What do you do for fluency practice?

Zero the Heroine

It has been an awesome, yet very exhausting, beginning of the year. After leaving my 5th graders, I had to do some quick adjustments to the immediate needs of my firsties. They are so cute. They are eager, enthusiastic, and love dancing and singing. I can feel that it is going to be a great year!

Today is our 10th day of school, and it is time to bring out Zero the Heroine. Every year I have done Zero the Hero, but it finally dawned on me that Zero could be a girl. I really want my girls (and boys too) to feel powerful, secure, and strong in math. I contacted Laura from MadeByDI, and asked if she could make me a girl version. She was awesome and worked with me to make it just the way I wanted.

The bag is my attempt at being "crafty". I need to redo it. That is where every 10 days we find a letter from Zero the Heroine and special treats to share. I have done cheerios, M&Ms, Life Savers, etc. On the 1st 10, we discuss the fact that there aren't enough treats for every one and what should we do. They always say we should save them for the next 10. On the 20th day of school, we will have a total of 30 treats. I begin to introduce to them making equal groups of one and even begin to discuss remainders. By the end of the year, many of my kiddos are very good at hands division and remainders. 

After we read the letter, we always do the chant. I have no idea the original source, so please let me know to give proper credit.

If you would like your own copy of the chant and letter, click HERE.  

One other thing I always do with my kiddos is sing the "Count by 10's", Musical Math, by Heidi Butkus. They L.O.V.E. it! It is amazing what a song can do.

I hope your year has started out with a bang. IF your still on vacation mode-Enjoy!

It is coming along...and a FREEBIE

After the last pictures of my room

     

I was starting to believe that my room would never come together. A solid week later, I feel much better.

 This bulletin board is located in the front of the room. I placed my voice level chart and my learning objectives here because I wanted them front and center. My school has been highly encouraging learning objectives and the voice chart was wonderful last year. I just had it go with this year's theme. You can get your copy of the voice level here.

The very cute and colorful learning objectives are from Teaching with Peace. 

These are my WBT (Whole Brain Teaching) rules and clip chart bulletin. If you like the owl behavior clip chart, you can click here for your copy.  The rules are a free item over at Teaching With Style. Believe me they are sooo cute!

 This is my Daily 5 bulletin. I have the bigger pictures for quick reference, and the smaller pictures I am using them in a pocket chart where students and I can move the clips. I may end up with the big clip chart and pin the pins there. I am not sure. If you want your copy of this adorable Daily 5 clip chart click here for your free copy from Second Grade Discoveries.  Miss Bily has lots of cute ideas and resources, so head on over and take a look.

 This is the beginning of my Writer's Workshop bulletin. I am not done, but my process chart is and I love it! I got it from First Grade Glitter and Giggle. Click here for your copy.

 This is my calendar bulletin board. I do it religiously every day. The blue chart is where I will be doing a pattern when counting by multiples of 2, 5, and 10. We will then add 3s, 4s, and 11s. Place value I work on as much as possible. It is a very important foundation for math as they progress through the grades. I found that Calendar math is a very powerful tool that provides the much needed repetition, review, exposure, practice, and challenge. The group that just left me after 5 years had 17 out of 20 scoring advanced in our state testing, and believe me when I tell you I know Calendar math had A. LOT. to do with it. I will post about my firsties math journal as they begin to work on them.

And last, but definitely not least is my CAFE bulletin. And yes, they had to be owl themed. I am weird that way. I will be posting pictures of my kiddos reading right under the title and the descriptors for each letter will be placed as they are taught. The letter headers are a free item from Alissa Manning-Telisak. The posters are a free item from First Grade OWLS. Her room is adorable. I really like her decorations and she has tons of owl ideas and resources. Aahh! she inspires me. 

I looked everywhere for owl labels for my in and out pencil cups and couldn't find any so I made my own. Click on the picture for your FREE copy.

 
As you can see, I have been very busy acquiring all things owl-both free and purchased items- from fabulous teachers. Every year I try so hard not to go overboard with time and money--well I failed at both, but I L.O.V.E. my room. Are you ready for your kiddos?