Daily Five Minilesson idea on ch with a freebie...

Hey everyone!  I'm gearing up for a new week and I thought I would share one of my Daily 5 ideas with you.  My district uses the Treasures Reading Program, and this next week we will be studying ch and tch spelling patterns.  Now, I don't know about your class, but in my class there are always students who confuse the sh and ch (tch) sounds during spelling.  I thought I would create a poster to help my class remember the look and sound of ch.  Well, my ten year old son always goes around the house singing this song he made up about french fries.  LIGHTBULB!  My class needs fluency practice and our rule is ch and tch...why not use my son's song and create a song (poem) poster for my class to learn. 

Click here if you would like to download a free copy from my TPT store.

Then I had another idea...create a word practice or word sort game for my Working with Words area. 

 I think I am going to go with a word sort using three fry boxes...one marked sh, one marked ch and one marked tch.  I will write the words I want to put in the word sort on yellow popsicle sticks that can be sorted.  I am going to be creating a printable with the words on paper for those that need a quick printable activity as well as a self-check chart.  I will get those uploaded as quickly as I can get them made...

If you would like to download a free copy of the poem you can get it here from my TPT store.  The printables to go along with it will be part of a kit, that will be available for purchase later this week.  I hope everyone has a great week!

That was a short week? Surely not!

We had a great time back together this week in class.  We shared what we got for Christmas...how we celebrated New Year...it was awesome! 

We are working on descriptive writing next week, so I thought I would re-visit the idea of mental images by having the class make Five Senses poems about New Year.  It worked great!  At one point one of my little monkeys had me laughing so hard I had tears down my cheek.  She couldn't come up with a line for "Smells like..." and she came to me to help her get some ideas.  I asked her, "Where were you at?" "Gramma's", she replied.  So I talked to her about how when I visit certain places I notice that they smell differently...(is it only me, or does anyone else love the way all Hallmarks smell).  I explained that because we all use different smelling candles, soaps, cleaners, etc. we get used to our own house and sometimes when we enter someone else's house we notice a floral, fruity, etc. type of scent.  So then I ask (and boy did I walk into this one!) "What does Gramma's house smell like?"  I expected the response of flowers or cookies, but her prompt reply was "Dog!".  I immediately started laughing, as did she, and we decided to simply write "Smells like Gramma's house." and let the reader create their own imagined Gramma's house scent.

On a different note, I am making some new posters and things for around my room.  I know I looked every where on the web for a set of cards for my Daily Five Pocket Chart Choice Cards, but I couldn't find any that I absolutely loved, so I made some.  I thought I would share for those of you that want them too, so here they are!  Click here to be taken to my TPT store for the free download.

Magic E lesson and ideas...

We have been working on the vce word pattern in our room since before Christmas.  I had seen a few ideas on Pinterest about ways to use paint sample cards for literacy...hey a little elbow grease and a trip to Wal-Mart and I have new manipulatives to play with...I'm in!  So that's what I did.  I made a trip to Wal-Mart and picked up all different kinds of sample cards...solid squares, rectangles with graduating degrees of a certain shade, and these really cool Better Homes and Gardens ones that have a hole to punch out.  I'm assuming that you are to try to match paint or coordinate, but being a teacher I saw a word family slide waiting to be born!  Here is a picture of the final project, along with the ideas that it inspired (sorry it's sideways...I always forget to turn the phone I use to take the pics!)

To make this slide, simply punch out the hole in two Better Homes and Gardens sample cards (save the pop-out circle for later use).  Turn the two cards back to back and tape together.  I just used scotch tape, which we all know won't last 30 seconds with a group of first graders...wait, what am I thinking...they won't even make it two seconds!  So when I make them for my class I plan on getting some of that cool, decorative duct tape to bind the edges together.  Anywho...once they are taped, simply write your favorite word family to the right of each hole.  Then take one of the graduated tint sample card and write a different consonant in each box.  *Word to the Wise* Slide the strip into the card and write the consonants through the punch out...this way you guarantee the letters will be the right size.  Instant word practice.  Kids can make their own, or you can send them home for practice...who cares if they come back...they are free and take about a minute and a half to make!

*Sidenote-you will notice in the picture that I have also made a set to use for Magic E practice...that has been part of our New Year review this week, and I decided to make one at the same time.

This idea started those creative juices flowing and I thought..."Hmmmmm, what could I use those circles for?"  Well, we made glittery Magic E's on index cards today and the plan is to have them use their Magic E cards to find words around the room that they could try to add the E to and make a new word.  So, I finally found a way to use those foam snowflakes I bought.  I put the short vowel words that we had written down from the book "Hop on Pop" onto address labels and stuck them on the snowflakes which I posted around the room...but our Magic E's were too large.  :(  Then WHAMO!  I have all those little circles and popsicle sticks...what if I make Mini Magic E's on popsicle sticks?  Excellent!  So I got out all my stuff and started putting them together.  Then I thought, but what if I want to use these on book print?  LIGHTBULB!  I have all these little round dot labels that someone donated and I thought, "Eeny Meeny E on the other end would be great!  Multi-tasking manipulatives...love it!"  Here is a picture of how they turned out.

My class will be using the Magic E Wands and the words posted around the room to do a whole group word sort.  I am going to give them a recording sheet to write down which words can make a new word with Magic E and which words can't. 





Here is a picture...if you would like me to send you the master, leave a comment in the box with your email address and I will send it to you.

We will check back in on the carpet to compare notes before doing our next rotation.  Happy teaching this week everyone! 

Going back to school...

Tomorrow is our first day back.  I just spent the afternoon and early evening making sure everything was just right for my class's first day back.  I am excited and a little nervous about our day together.  I hope everyone has a great day at school tomorrow!  Good Luck!

From Christmas Comes Winter-Manipulatives That Is!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  Mine is soon to be over...we go back to school on Wednesday, but...good news!  I was so excited to get a message that I have my first follower!  Thank you! I hope you are the first of many to come! 

After creating my lesson plans this week I started to plan for my centers.  I have to admit I think my brain is still on vacation, because I couldn't think of one thing that I thought my kids would just be over the moon about, so what did I do?  I went shopping!  That's right! I loaded the whole family up and went to Wal-Mart...nothing like a little grocery shopping to stimulate the creative juices!  As soon as we entered the building, the boys (husband included) ran to the toy section to check out the newest Legos that Santa hadn't been able to fit in his sack.  I however went to see what was left of the clearance holiday stuff.  Boy did I hit the jackpot!  Most of their holiday items were 50% off.  I found some snowmen ornaments that I will use in my Working With Words center after adding letters to their bellies.  I think I will do a Words in Words pocket chart activity using the words New Year...maybe I'll add Happy, if there's not enough letters to make at least 10 words.

This inspired me to make a new version of our BAM! game.  I'm going to call it "Oh Snow!".  I have painted craft sticks white and put a sight word on each one.  I wrote "Oh, Snow!" on just a few.  For the activity, students can pull a stick out of the container and try to read the word.  If they read the word correctly, they get to keep it.  If they pull out the "Oh, Snow!" stick they have to put all their sticks back.

I made thegame storage out of an empty sugar free drink mix container.  I peeled off the shrink-wrap ad used a permanent marker to draw in the face.  I took an old snowman sock and pushed the toe up inside of itself and glued it to the edge of the lid.  I made it into a hat by tying a piece of yarn around the open end of the sock to make the bobble at the top.  I used left over pieces of foam stickers from the kits below to decorate the container.

Another great find were foam ornament sets that I will save for my class to make next year.  They didn't have a price on them, so I went to scan them and whoa baby...they were 75% off!  Can we say awesome!  I soon found out that all their Christmas craft kits were 75% off. 

I found these packages of 36 snowflakes for $1.24 per package. 

I am going to put a piece of packing tape in the middle of each so I can make a re-usable word sort using our Treasures spelling rule each week in January.

Why packing tape?  You can write on it with a permanent marker, then when you want to erase it, just use a white board marker to scribble over it, then wipe off!

I also found these foam stickers for the same price...$1.24.  I bought some Christmas and some winter.  The winter ones came with mini-snowmen that I will use with these big snowman ornament crafts for matching activities...again, using packing tape to make them changeable each week to match our focus each week.  They came with little hats too.  I haven't figured out what to use them for yet, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

This week we will be matching nouns written on the small snowmen to the big snowmen labeled person, place, thing, plural, and singular.  Next week we will be matching verbs to their tense-        present, past or future.

Last but not least, I found a super-awesome new crown to wear during small groups.  During the beginning of the year I wear a crown and talk about letter land and queen I who always gets her way...so when I wear my crown I can't be interrupted.  Great visual for the kids during small group time.  I know I look a little crazy, but my son was taking the picture while laughing which of course made me laugh...and then I couldn't stop.  Anywho!  Have a great week back!

New Year's Graphing

I have finalized my plans for the week back for New Year's math.  On Wednesay we are going to make a pictograph of the kinds of gifts our favorite gifts were...electronics, toys, books, movies, games, other.  On Thursday we are going to make a bar graph where we were at when the New Year came...I am going to let the kids make the tabs, but I thought we would start with in bed, at home and at a friends.  I am also going to poll the teachers in our school and let the kids compare the results for our class and the school's teachers.  On Friday were are going to do a larger graph on the Smart Board of what we were doing when the New Year came...such as sleeping, eating, dancing, talking and make a class graph.  I am going to give each student a smaller version of the blank graph and we are going to go to the playground and poll 23 students each and make a tally graph of their responses.  When we come back together we will create bar graphs from the tally graphs and compare the results of each of our polls.  Some vocabulary we will be discussing are bar graph, tally graph, compare, contrast, poll and results. 

Sorry...no pics, but if you would like copies of the masters I have made, please leave me your email in the comment box and I will send them to you!

My first blog entry! Happy New Year!!!

Well, I'm not sure what has made me decide to create a blog for the things I do in my classroom.  I think it was all the wonderful blogs I have been looking at over Christmas Break.  My break is now about to be over and it is time to think about what I am going to do with all my little classroom monkeys when I get back to school.  For those of you reading this, I don't have any pictures to go along with my ideas (my memory card reader is in my classroom and I don't feel like leaving the house to go get it!), but I hope you find the ideas I have been tossing around helpful.

Our first grade team has decided to review procedures the first week back.  Our first week is a short week, so that means we will not be doing a unit out of our basal reader.  I have tried to overplan for the first week, but I have decided to do lots of fun New Year's themed activities.  There are some really great things that you can download for free right now on TPT. 

Like this math game from Froggie Went A Teachin that you can get here.

Here is a curriculum unit from Learning Foundations that you can get here.

Or here is a set of writing templates for writing your New Year's resolutions...you can get it here.

There are several more, I would suggest going to http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ and doing a search for "happy new year" or "ring in the new year" and look through all the wonderfull resources they have available.

For morning work we will be alpabetizing a list of New Year words, doing a words in words activity using the words New Year, and writing sentences for a set of New year pictures (that I have yet to make).  For whole group reading we will be discussing how we celebrated the New Year, what is a resolution and what kinds of resolutions kids can make.  We will be writing and editing our New Year resolutions and making a cute little craft using circles and triangles to create our face wearing a party hat.  We will also have a chance to write and share about our favorite Christmas gift.  For math we will be graphing where we were when the New Year started using a pictograph, what we were doing when the New Year started using a bar graph and creating different patterns using New Year party hats and recording our patterns on paper and sharing our findings with the class.

Some other random ideas I have had (but I don't know how I will use them yet) are:  timelines, stages of life (human), time, New Year around the world, repurposing (making old things new)...if you have any good ideas you would like to share, please comment here.  I would love to hear from you!