Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Early Release
SO TIRED!! Early release days are exhausting to me for some reason. I think the difference in the schedule and the kids' excitement just does me in. We don't have our regular break for specials (it's just 15 minutes on an early release day), we have lunch in the room, and we don't take a recess break, so, while I love my little firsties, I don't get much of a break from them on early release days. Not a complaint, just an explanation for being tired.
The daylight savings time switch also probably contributed to the tiredness as well. It's not fun losing an hour of sleep!!
Anyway, enough whining!
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Reading: The Itsy Bitsy Spider
This week in reading we've been reading a story version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." Of course this means we're singing it as well!
FIELD TRIP!!
Writing: We're finally finishing up our penguin writing!! I'm so ready to start a new project. Today we did a short writing activity on writing a make-believe story so that our last finishers could finish their final penguin copies today. The kids had to fill out a graphic organizer from Imagine It on writing a make-believe story. They then wrote their story from their graphic organizer. I'm really hoping to start our leprechaun writing tomorrow or Thursday. St. Patrick's Day is almost here!
Math: Using a quick draw to add a 2 digit number to a multiple of 10. The kids seem to really be catching on to this quickly. I'm thinking that we'll start some bigger numbers soon and also do subtraction and word problems using the numbers. If the kids do well with this, we may do an extension project on adding 2 digit numbers to 2 digit numbers (using quick draws most likely).
Here's an example of how quick drawings can be used as the kids get older and add more difficult numbers:
Social Studies: We've started our landforms and map unit and today we worked on the landforms section in our landforms booklet. We also read our Time for Kids issue about women and their jobs since March is women's month. We learned that girls can do any job that boys can do! : )
Plickers: These are assessment cards that the kids can hold up for me to scan with my phone and I can find out where the kids are in their understanding. We tried this out today with a couple of questions and while I like using this, it seems a bit time-consuming. It might work better for older grades. The kids seemed to like the novelty of it, however, and it might be something that I use every so often to draw their attention in.
FIELD TRIP!!
Our trip to Mrs. Hanes!!
MMMM!!
This video took me FOREVER by the way!! I have not idea what was wrong but it seemed like everything went wrong while I was trying to edit/upload this video. Happily, it is finally up - sorry it took me so long! It's not as perfect as I'd like it but after the 4th time reediting the entire thing I decided that it was better to just get the pictures and video up to share instead of taking the chance of it failing me yet again! Phew! Technology! : )
Friday, March 6, 2015
Friday, March 6, 2015 - The end of our first full week in a LONG time!!
It's a beautiful day in the 1st grade neighborhood!!
Thank you Ms. H. for the cute pictures above. It was N's birthday and Ms. H. brought doughnuts for our class to share at lunchtime. Thank you for the DELICIOUS coffee!!
What we did today:
Reading: We finished the 2nd week of "I think I can" in Imagine it. We sorted some more /aw/ sounds in words and we also sang "Down by the Station" and listened to "Orange Blossom Special." The kids really enjoyed both of these videos and asked to see both again.
Math: Adding 2 digit numbers to 1 digit numbers using a number line. We found the first number on the blank number line and then used bunny hops to skip up the correct number to add the 2nd number.
Special: PE - Tae kwon do! Some of the kids got to break boards today in PE. Exciting!
Extra Special: Surprise! An extra guidance special for us! I never can remember when we have this so it's always a nice surprise!
Lunch for me: Today our staff had a chili/soup cook-off to support our local Arts Council and I donated money to the Arts Council (ever the musician) so I could be a judge in the competition. I've got to say that I probably won't be a food judge again anytime soon. The food was ALL SO DELICIOUS!! But after trying 11 different kinds of chili and soup, I did not care if I ever ate chili again. : )
No, really it was all so good, but I rarely eat a whole lot at lunch so I think I just was not used to having an actual meal and I was really done eating after about sample 4. Uggh.
Recess: Inside today. Bummer. It was beautifully sunny, but it was just way too cold and I also suspect that it was probably pretty muddy after the rain we've had. So we did several Just Dance Kids videos from YouTube. The kids went CRAZY when I put this one on:
It's a beautiful day in the 1st grade neighborhood!!
Thank you Ms. H. for the cute pictures above. It was N's birthday and Ms. H. brought doughnuts for our class to share at lunchtime. Thank you for the DELICIOUS coffee!!
What we did today:
Reading: We finished the 2nd week of "I think I can" in Imagine it. We sorted some more /aw/ sounds in words and we also sang "Down by the Station" and listened to "Orange Blossom Special." The kids really enjoyed both of these videos and asked to see both again.
Math: Adding 2 digit numbers to 1 digit numbers using a number line. We found the first number on the blank number line and then used bunny hops to skip up the correct number to add the 2nd number.
Special: PE - Tae kwon do! Some of the kids got to break boards today in PE. Exciting!
Extra Special: Surprise! An extra guidance special for us! I never can remember when we have this so it's always a nice surprise!
Lunch for me: Today our staff had a chili/soup cook-off to support our local Arts Council and I donated money to the Arts Council (ever the musician) so I could be a judge in the competition. I've got to say that I probably won't be a food judge again anytime soon. The food was ALL SO DELICIOUS!! But after trying 11 different kinds of chili and soup, I did not care if I ever ate chili again. : )
No, really it was all so good, but I rarely eat a whole lot at lunch so I think I just was not used to having an actual meal and I was really done eating after about sample 4. Uggh.
Recess: Inside today. Bummer. It was beautifully sunny, but it was just way too cold and I also suspect that it was probably pretty muddy after the rain we've had. So we did several Just Dance Kids videos from YouTube. The kids went CRAZY when I put this one on:
Uggh. NOT a fan.
Reading Buddies: Our 4th grade buddies came to see us again. It's been so long!! We LOVE to see our 4th grade reading buddies and they do such a good job helping us practice our reading skills.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
C is for cookie!!
What a fun day! We spent 2 hours this morning touring a Moravian cookie factory and becoming temporary cookie tasters. Boy did we enjoy our job! The kids and I got to taste taste 6 different flavors, including lemon, sugar, chocolate, black walnut, ginger, and butterscotch. My personal favorite would have to be the sugar cookie! : ) The class favorite? A tie between chocolate and sugar. Most of the kids DID NOT like the ginger cookie. I think it was too strong of a taste for such young palates. : )
LOOK FOR A VIDEO OF OUR FIELD TRIP SOON!
TOO TIRED TONIGHT!!
Reading: Most of our reading time today was taken up by our field trip, but we did get to manage to complete a worksheet on quotation marks. The kids had to identify a speaker and what they said and then they had to put quotation marks in the correct spots.
Math: Today we sat on the carpet in a circle as a group and talked about using unit tens and ones to add 2 digit numbers to one digit numbers. The kids seemed to pick up on this quickly so I did some work with them on adding 2 digit to 2 digit. We then went back to our seats and did a math worksheet on 2 digit numbers added to 1 digit using quick drawings and ten frames. Tomorrow we'll do the same problems, but show addition using number lines.
Social Studies: We continued with our George Washington unit today. We didn't do any of packet today but we did finish discussing George Washington's life by finishing our powerpoint.
Our read-aloud for today: Don't Eat the Teacher.
C is for cookie!!
What a fun day! We spent 2 hours this morning touring a Moravian cookie factory and becoming temporary cookie tasters. Boy did we enjoy our job! The kids and I got to taste taste 6 different flavors, including lemon, sugar, chocolate, black walnut, ginger, and butterscotch. My personal favorite would have to be the sugar cookie! : ) The class favorite? A tie between chocolate and sugar. Most of the kids DID NOT like the ginger cookie. I think it was too strong of a taste for such young palates. : )
LOOK FOR A VIDEO OF OUR FIELD TRIP SOON!
TOO TIRED TONIGHT!!
Reading: Most of our reading time today was taken up by our field trip, but we did get to manage to complete a worksheet on quotation marks. The kids had to identify a speaker and what they said and then they had to put quotation marks in the correct spots.
Math: Today we sat on the carpet in a circle as a group and talked about using unit tens and ones to add 2 digit numbers to one digit numbers. The kids seemed to pick up on this quickly so I did some work with them on adding 2 digit to 2 digit. We then went back to our seats and did a math worksheet on 2 digit numbers added to 1 digit using quick drawings and ten frames. Tomorrow we'll do the same problems, but show addition using number lines.
Social Studies: We continued with our George Washington unit today. We didn't do any of packet today but we did finish discussing George Washington's life by finishing our powerpoint.
Our read-aloud for today: Don't Eat the Teacher.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Good times to be had tomorrow!!
Woohoo! We're headed to the cookie factory!
I have never been there before, but I'm excited to go. I've wanted to for a while, but I will say that I'm not that thrilled with Moravian cookies. Don't get me wrong! They ARE delicious, but they aren't that tempting for me. Now sugar cake on the other hand...
MMMM!
What we did today:
Reading: Today we continued with our unit titled, "I Think I Can." We finished reading our story about The Little Engine That Could. We also learned some more about trains and practiced our /aw/ word sounds and spellings (au_, aw, al).
Here is a song we starting learning today about trains:
It's by Elizabeth Mitchell, a children's song musician. I LOVE her music. It's so simple and mellow.
Guided reading: In guided reading today we started reading, Not Enough Snow, a book I printed from readingatoz.com (our school has a subscription - LOVE this site!!). We started with a picture walk, the kids then read the book to themselves after we made some predictions, and then we did a practice TRC question. I found some generic TRC question stems teacherspayteachers.com that are ready to fill in with book titles and character names. We talked about restating the question in our answers, using details, and documenting with page numbers. We're working on it! If they can just continue to get better with this written comprehension portion I think we'll really see their reading levels take off by the end of the year.
Math: Today we did some whole class learning by practicing using the flipchart I made of 3rd quarter concepts. We're practicing word problems that include addition and subtraction of multiples of ten (such 70 - 30). The kids are getting better at coming up with math strategies to use, especially the quick drawings. I would like to see them think about the hundreds chart and number lines a little more, but this really just tells me that I need to show these more often (I tend to automatically go to the quick draw).
We also started talking about 1/2s and 1/4s today and how to draw these on shapes. And we are also continuing to work on doing ten more and ten less of any number up to 120 in our heads. Today we also played a math game (sorry, no pictures!) on comparing numbers. I paired the kids up and they took turns rolling 2 die. They wrote down their numbers and then compared them using <, >, or =. I think it was a hit.
Social Studies: Still working on George Washington... The kids seem to really be interested in this unit. We had a short discussion today on why George Washington wanted us to be independent. The kids were shocked that we had to pay taxes to England but not get to pick our leaders in the government. I at first thought this would be way over their heads, but they really seemed to get it, which even showed from their work on a worksheet where they had to write facts they had learned so far about George Washington. The president rap song also continues to be a hit and they ask to play it at least once more each time.
Other: Our special today was computer. We did recess indoors today because it was only 39 degrees. We tried to play gonoodle.com but, again, something was up with the internet connection or something, so I played some Just Dance Kids videos off YouTube. We also spent some time this afternoon working on our George Washington word search and reading silently to ourselves (ten minutes is the MAX that we're able to do this quietly right now).
Out of the habit of doing: That crazy snow! I've realized that I've gotten out of the habit of reading aloud. The missing school days have really hindered my maintenance of good habits. Well, and I've also run out of Junie B. Jones books to read. I'll have to find another series for the kids to enjoy. I also have bought A TON of books from ebay for our classroom library!! I'll have to dig through those and find some to read out loud.
No centers today. Where does the times go?
Check out how cold it was here 2 weeks ago! Bone-chilling cold for us. And that was the true temperature and not even the wind-chill.
Good times to be had tomorrow!!
Woohoo! We're headed to the cookie factory!
I have never been there before, but I'm excited to go. I've wanted to for a while, but I will say that I'm not that thrilled with Moravian cookies. Don't get me wrong! They ARE delicious, but they aren't that tempting for me. Now sugar cake on the other hand...
MMMM!
What we did today:
Reading: Today we continued with our unit titled, "I Think I Can." We finished reading our story about The Little Engine That Could. We also learned some more about trains and practiced our /aw/ word sounds and spellings (au_, aw, al).
Here is a song we starting learning today about trains:
Guided reading: In guided reading today we started reading, Not Enough Snow, a book I printed from readingatoz.com (our school has a subscription - LOVE this site!!). We started with a picture walk, the kids then read the book to themselves after we made some predictions, and then we did a practice TRC question. I found some generic TRC question stems teacherspayteachers.com that are ready to fill in with book titles and character names. We talked about restating the question in our answers, using details, and documenting with page numbers. We're working on it! If they can just continue to get better with this written comprehension portion I think we'll really see their reading levels take off by the end of the year.
Math: Today we did some whole class learning by practicing using the flipchart I made of 3rd quarter concepts. We're practicing word problems that include addition and subtraction of multiples of ten (such 70 - 30). The kids are getting better at coming up with math strategies to use, especially the quick drawings. I would like to see them think about the hundreds chart and number lines a little more, but this really just tells me that I need to show these more often (I tend to automatically go to the quick draw).
We also started talking about 1/2s and 1/4s today and how to draw these on shapes. And we are also continuing to work on doing ten more and ten less of any number up to 120 in our heads. Today we also played a math game (sorry, no pictures!) on comparing numbers. I paired the kids up and they took turns rolling 2 die. They wrote down their numbers and then compared them using <, >, or =. I think it was a hit.
Social Studies: Still working on George Washington... The kids seem to really be interested in this unit. We had a short discussion today on why George Washington wanted us to be independent. The kids were shocked that we had to pay taxes to England but not get to pick our leaders in the government. I at first thought this would be way over their heads, but they really seemed to get it, which even showed from their work on a worksheet where they had to write facts they had learned so far about George Washington. The president rap song also continues to be a hit and they ask to play it at least once more each time.
Other: Our special today was computer. We did recess indoors today because it was only 39 degrees. We tried to play gonoodle.com but, again, something was up with the internet connection or something, so I played some Just Dance Kids videos off YouTube. We also spent some time this afternoon working on our George Washington word search and reading silently to ourselves (ten minutes is the MAX that we're able to do this quietly right now).
Out of the habit of doing: That crazy snow! I've realized that I've gotten out of the habit of reading aloud. The missing school days have really hindered my maintenance of good habits. Well, and I've also run out of Junie B. Jones books to read. I'll have to find another series for the kids to enjoy. I also have bought A TON of books from ebay for our classroom library!! I'll have to dig through those and find some to read out loud.
No centers today. Where does the times go?
Here are a couple of new items we have now in our classroom:
The first is a phonics game mat I bought off of Zulily. It's a little to low in level for my kids right now because it focus on letter sounds. But I think it would be a perfect game in a center at the beginning of the year.
The second is a calendar my pastor's wife made. It's hanging on the back of our classroom door now. Cute! All of the pieces are made using buttons. : )
Here are some pictures of our writing time in February. We were working on an informative writing piece about Martin Luther King, Jr. The kids listened to a story about Dr. King, then they filled in a graphic organizer using 4 facts, and then they had to write 6 sentences, including a topic and closing sentence.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Monday, March 2, 2015
A brand new month!
I CANNOT believe it's already March! I feel like the year has flown by!!
What we did today:
Reading: We started the 2nd week of our Unit 7 Imagine It. This week we are reading the story of The Little Engine That Could. We're learning about perseverance and never giving up. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!
We're also learning the /aw/ sound as in hawk. This sound is spelled both "aw" and "au_." We did several word sorts this morning as a whole class on the Promethean board.
Guided reading: The kids in my reading group practiced reading independently this morning. I completed two Dibels assessments (I actually finished all my group's TRC's last week! Even with only 1 1/2 days of school! Woohoo!) and then I did reading conferences and had my group to select books from our classroom library based on their reading level. They put these in their book baggies for the week. My plan is to eventually do this for the whole class so that I can make sure every child is reading quality books on their level. And so we don't spend so much time looking at books/selecting books and not reading.
Math: We're still comparing numbers. The snow has really pushed us back. I've kept pushing our lesson plans forward so it feels like we've been comparing numbers FOREVER! My impression is that most of the class is doing well with this. I focused on listening to individual kids use the terminology "greater than/less than" today in whole group and several of them seemed to be able to state this correctly, which I was not expected. We then did a worksheet where the kids had to correctly cut out the hungry alligator greater than/less than and glue it to the correct place between the numbers. I haven't checked these yet, but I'm interested to look at how they did.
Social Studies: We're still plugging away on our George Washington unit even though it's March. Our next unit is about maps and we really should move on to that because of time, but the snow, again, through us off. I made A LOT of copies and I even got folders for the kids to use in this unit. The kids are so into it and we even have 2 mini books to read with it (sneaking in that reading component whenever we can!) so I really don't want to move on just yet and waste what we've already done. Look for these folders to go home at the end of the week (unless we have MORE SNOW!! AAGH!!).
Recess: WE GOT TO GO OUTSIDE TODAY!! AND WE DID NOT FREEZE!! WOOHOO!!
Tomorrow: Jump Rope for Heart after school
Wednesday: Field Trip to Mrs. Hanes cookie factory : ) Mmmmm!!!
A brand new month!
I CANNOT believe it's already March! I feel like the year has flown by!!
What we did today:
Reading: We started the 2nd week of our Unit 7 Imagine It. This week we are reading the story of The Little Engine That Could. We're learning about perseverance and never giving up. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!
We're also learning the /aw/ sound as in hawk. This sound is spelled both "aw" and "au_." We did several word sorts this morning as a whole class on the Promethean board.
Guided reading: The kids in my reading group practiced reading independently this morning. I completed two Dibels assessments (I actually finished all my group's TRC's last week! Even with only 1 1/2 days of school! Woohoo!) and then I did reading conferences and had my group to select books from our classroom library based on their reading level. They put these in their book baggies for the week. My plan is to eventually do this for the whole class so that I can make sure every child is reading quality books on their level. And so we don't spend so much time looking at books/selecting books and not reading.
Math: We're still comparing numbers. The snow has really pushed us back. I've kept pushing our lesson plans forward so it feels like we've been comparing numbers FOREVER! My impression is that most of the class is doing well with this. I focused on listening to individual kids use the terminology "greater than/less than" today in whole group and several of them seemed to be able to state this correctly, which I was not expected. We then did a worksheet where the kids had to correctly cut out the hungry alligator greater than/less than and glue it to the correct place between the numbers. I haven't checked these yet, but I'm interested to look at how they did.
Social Studies: We're still plugging away on our George Washington unit even though it's March. Our next unit is about maps and we really should move on to that because of time, but the snow, again, through us off. I made A LOT of copies and I even got folders for the kids to use in this unit. The kids are so into it and we even have 2 mini books to read with it (sneaking in that reading component whenever we can!) so I really don't want to move on just yet and waste what we've already done. Look for these folders to go home at the end of the week (unless we have MORE SNOW!! AAGH!!).
Recess: WE GOT TO GO OUTSIDE TODAY!! AND WE DID NOT FREEZE!! WOOHOO!!
Tomorrow: Jump Rope for Heart after school
Wednesday: Field Trip to Mrs. Hanes cookie factory : ) Mmmmm!!!
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Finally!!
School is back on tomorrow! Over the past two weeks, we have been to school 2 1/2 days. That's right. 2 1/2 days!!!!
I have bumped my lesson plans forward so many times I can't even remember what day I'm officially teaching anymore!!
Anyway, I know I have not been great about posting and I would like to get back in that habit. The last two months have been crazy busy with assessments. At least it has seemed that way. I feel like every time I turn around there is another assessment I have to prepare, give, or record.
I also have really been trying to be better organized. I spent the 3 teacher workdays we had (on those EXTREMELY cold days!) labeling and organizing everything in the classroom. I still have some things to do; I want to sort through the books on my bookshelf and organize the sink cabinet, but much of the room looks much better. Or at least, I can find things quicker. It's a work in progress! : )
Anyway, I want to start posting more pictures and videos again. We have a field trip this week, so that will be another opportunity for pictures. But until then, here is a video of our Valentine party, which the kids LOVED!!!
We kept it VERY simple: special cereal for snack, mini-cupcakes in the afternoon, watching the Valentine Charlie Brown movie, and time to pass out and open valentines.
Short, sweet, and simple.
School is back on tomorrow! Over the past two weeks, we have been to school 2 1/2 days. That's right. 2 1/2 days!!!!
I have bumped my lesson plans forward so many times I can't even remember what day I'm officially teaching anymore!!
Anyway, I know I have not been great about posting and I would like to get back in that habit. The last two months have been crazy busy with assessments. At least it has seemed that way. I feel like every time I turn around there is another assessment I have to prepare, give, or record.
I also have really been trying to be better organized. I spent the 3 teacher workdays we had (on those EXTREMELY cold days!) labeling and organizing everything in the classroom. I still have some things to do; I want to sort through the books on my bookshelf and organize the sink cabinet, but much of the room looks much better. Or at least, I can find things quicker. It's a work in progress! : )
Anyway, I want to start posting more pictures and videos again. We have a field trip this week, so that will be another opportunity for pictures. But until then, here is a video of our Valentine party, which the kids LOVED!!!
We kept it VERY simple: special cereal for snack, mini-cupcakes in the afternoon, watching the Valentine Charlie Brown movie, and time to pass out and open valentines.
Short, sweet, and simple.
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