Five for Friday - October 9th

I can't believe it's almost the middle of October. How did that happen? I have totally neglected this little blog. I've been taking tons of pictures, but I just don't have the energy to do anything with them! Props to all the teacher-mom bloggers out there. I did not realize how exhausting this double life would be. I am loving being back at school, even though I miss seeing my little Zoe Monkey all day long. I know she is having fun at daycare and I love my little class of firsties. Here's a peek at what we've been up to this week... I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party!

Monday afternoon we went on our first field trip to the local fire station. They were so excited and had a great time! The fire fighters did an excellent safety presentation and then we got to tour the fire station. We got to sit in a fire truck AND squirt water from the hose! How fun! We also did some work in our interactive journals about fire safety. I think we have drilled those safety rules into their heads after this week!!

It was all about fall, Thanksgiving, and some Halloween this week. I pulled out all my fall books and the kiddos just ate them up. We made fall patterns using some fall/Halloween foam shapes. We made counting by 10s turkeys and had our school-wide Thanksgiving lunch where we sported our turkey hats (idea from Miss Kindergarten).

Guided Reading and Math are in full swing and so far it's going pretty good! My kiddos love play-do, so whipped up this fun word work centre. There is a mat for each letter. They have to make the uppercase and lowercase letters and then there is a picture that corresponds to the sound the letter makes (a - make apples, b - make bees). I just put them on TpT tonight {here}.

Whipping out my fun tools to start reading off on the right foot. Witch fingers and laser pointers have been a big hit so far!

In writing we are writing personal narratives about a time we got hurt. These are our "ouch" stories. We will make our good copies look like a large band-aid!

I have been doing problem solving at least 3 times a week. So far we have only been doing addition and subtraction to 10 (result unknown), but learning a bunch of strategies such as draw a picture, use tally marks, use a number line, use a ten frame, and act it out! I hope to do a blog post soon about problem solving and the different types of problems we will be doing. We do some whole group practice on whiteboards and then do an individual problem in our journal.

Here's a few examples of our journals. Right now they just have to show work (picture, tallies, etc.) and a number sentence. Soon they will also have to write their answer with a number and word (ex. 9 acorns).

Science is in full swing. We have been doing a bunch of work on the four seasons and will be starting some SUPER FUN weather activities after the long weekend. We started off with our question chart... what do we wonder about weather or seasons? We're going to touch on these questions as we continue our learning this month.

Here are some of our Science interactive journal pages. The season wheel was a big hit.

And here are some kids enjoying the Explore Tubs (early finisher activities for Science). These girls are dressing up the boy for different weather!

These kids are learning about light and shadows AND are telling very creative stories! :)

These adorable girls are playing teacher while they match up the seasonal activities. Find this activity on TpT {here}.

You can read more about my Season & Weather Explore Tubs {here}. The only thing I did differently was put all of the topic books into a big tub (kind of as it's own tub) and just put the activities into the tubs. They have been a huge hit! :)

Happy Thanksgiving my Canadian friends! Enjoy your three-day weekend. I know I will! :)

Daily Schedule - Guided Reading {What is the Rest of the Class Doing?}

I have done several posts so far about what I do with my guided reading groups and how I schedule that time. You can read those posts {here}, {here}, or {here}. Today I am going to share what the rest of the class is doing while I am working with a reading group. Here's a look at my daily schedule. Each group goes to to rotations a day (about 15 minutes each). I pull a different reading group during each rotation. At the end of the day I just move the station cards down to the next group. You can find my Guided Reading cards {here}.

I do my own version of Daily 5. I have four stations: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Listen to Reading. I don't do Read to Someone because we do this during Buddy Reading. I do allow students to read with each other during Read to Self time though. Some students enjoy this; others would prefer to read by themselves. I let them choose. I split up my students into four groups of mixed abilities. I write these groups on the group cards. I only change these groups a few times a year (unless there are personality conflicts with some students).

Because I see each of my reading groups a different number of times per week, I don't put myself as a rotation. I put my card at the bottom and use my animal group labels (get those at the bottom of this post) to show which groups I will be pulling that day. If I don't want to pull a group and just want to do some individual running records, I won't put anything that day! This makes it very easy to be flexible with my time. So the students that I pull for reading groups will miss their activity that rotation, but they'll get to do that one again in two days so it's not usually a big deal.

Here are a few ideas of what the students are doing during each of these rotations. The following pictures are a mixture from my last three years in first grade--three different classrooms, three different schools, but similar set ups. Once I get my new Science Lab room set up, I'll show you how each of these areas will be set up this year.

Each of my students gets a book bin. In their book bin they keep about 3-4 guided reading books from our guided reading time. These books are on level and have been previously read with me. I switch these books out as we read more in our groups. They also keep up to 5 books from the classroom library. These are purely interest books. Even though I do have the level on each book in my classroom library, students are not required to pick books at their own level. I also let my students switch their books out anytime they are on Read to Self. I don't seem to have any problems with students wasting their whole time picking books--they are usually pretty quick to pick their books and get reading!

Another station is work on writing. In the past I have done this mostly as free choice writing in their journals. This year my plan is to focus on printing practice the first month or two of school. Students will have a printing book they will work on; then there will be some fun letter formation activities to do when they are done a page or two (such as car tracing letters, dry erase pages/books, Wikki Stiks, etc.). Then once students are more familiar with the routines, I will start to introduce journals and some other writing options (such as letters to classmates, lists, stories, etc.). 

I plan to keep word work the same as in the past. I have about 8 or 9 activities available at a time and students can choose whichever activity they would like to do for that rotation. They must complete the activity and clean it up before moving to a new activity. I will use my shelving unit below to house the different options. I fill these tubs with a variety of games and centres that focus on letter names/sounds, sight words, or other phonics skills. You can find a variety of word work activities in my store {here}. I change the centres out whenever I feel an activity is not getting picked or I want students to work on a different skill.

This is Dot the Letters from my Back 2 School Word Work Centres.

Letter formation with play-dough is always a popular activity.

Zingo! is a fun word recognition game.

You can read in more detail about how I set up my listening station {here} or {here}. But the main idea is that I have 6 mp3 players and about 80 different books. I put all the books on all the mp3 players, so students choose a book to listen to, grab an mp3 player, find the numbered track, and listen to the story. If they finish the story? Get a new story and listen to that one. I don't do response sheets or anything. The listening part is the valuable lesson and it would probably take most of them the whole 15 minutes to complete a response! I keep each mp3 player and headphones in a separate basket and all the books in one basket.

I let all of my students choose where they want to work during this time--tables, floors, classroom library. Where ever they are comfortable. Someone reading to self can sit beside someone doing word work, as long as they are both doing their job! This system has been working for me for a couple of years now and I can't wait to get it up and running again next time!

I'll be back with Guided Math time next! :) See you soon.

Dollar Tree Ideas {with freebies...}

Every teacher loves a good ol' shopping trip at the Dollar Tree! Last time I was there, I found a few goodies that would make awesome math and literacy centres! First up, I found these cute spinners! There are four in a pack and they have numbers from 1-8.

I made a cute recording sheet to use as a quick and easy math centre. Super Spinners! The student spins the spinner and writes the number in the first circle. Then they spin the spinner again and write that number in the second circle. Then they solve the addition sentence and write the sum in the last circle. Super easy to prep and lots of fun!

I had seen this idea from Teacher Tipster before {watch video here}. Love him! He took a puzzle with a back, then on the back of the puzzle pieces he wrote addition or subtraction sentences. On the back board of the puzzle he wrote the answers. So I picked up some super simple puzzles.

I made some super simple puzzles that would be good for the beginning of the year. One is matching ten frames and numbers. The other one is matching dice patterns and numbers. An important number concept we practice lots at the beginning of the year! This can be made with any concept though... addition, subtraction, base ten blocks, number words, shape names... The possibilities are endless!

Here's a quick sight word game I whipped up to use in my guided reading groups. This makes a fun and easy warm up activity. I bought a couple sets of a match game. 

I printed out some sight words on little mailing labels and stuck them to the tiles. Simple sight word match game ready to go. I make the students read each word as they flip them over. You can adapt this to any word list and any level. You could also do compound words or contractions.

Another fun find was this Fruits & Numbers domino game. One side of the domino has a number and the other side has some fruit. Thought these would be perfect for some addition practice.

I made a recording sheet so that students could choose a domino, write the number in one circle and count the fruit and write that number in the second circle. Then they add the numbers together and write the sum in the last centre. Not only does this practice addition, but also counting/subitizing the fruit.

Lastly, I found some monster gift boxes that I knew would be awesome for something!! I didn't know what exacly, until I got home and a fun literacy centre idea hit me!

And so the Monster Munchies were born! My original idea is to use it as an activity in m guided lesson groups to practice letter sounds. I would take a few sounds that we are working on, spread out some of the picture cards on the table, and ask students to feed the monster something that starts with "s". They would have to find a picture of something that starts with that sound and feed it to the monster.

I created a recording sheet to go with it as well so it could be used as a literacy centre. Students would write the letter on the monster's tummy, draw a picture of something that starts with that letter, and write the word below it.

I made a few different packs of cards to target different skills in each guided reading group. Some of my lower level groups still work on alphabet sounds. Some groups need to focus on vowels (different vowel sounds and difference between short/long vowels), and some are ready to go onto digraphs.

If you don't have any monster boxes, each pack has provided you with some different options: use a gift bag, a paper bag, or a plastic container. There are four different monster pictures you can print out and attach to a container or bag of your choice.

There are three different options for each pack:

{1.} The teacher/leader calls a letter and the student must feed the monster something that starts with that letter.
{2.} Students sort all the picture cards by the letter monsters. (3 pictures for every letter.)
{3.} Students write a letter on the monster's tummy, draw a picture of something that starts with that letter, and write the word below it.

Here are the packs available. Alphabet Sounds: includes a letter monster and three picture cards for each letter sound. This focuses on beginning sounds (except x is ending sound). $3.00 on TpT. Click the picture to check it out!

Vowel Sounds: includes a letter monster and three picture cards for each short vowel sound (a,e,i,o,u) and long vowel sound (a,e,i,o,u). $3.00 on TpT. Click the picture to check it out!

The last pack is a freebie! Digraphs: includes a digraph monster and three picture cards for each digraph (ch, ph, sh, th, wh). Free on TpT. Click the picture to check it out!

That's it for my dollar store find. Let me know if you've found anything good lately!! :)