Check out our Folder Holders!

Good Morning!  Just wanted to share with everyone our cool little folder holders we have been using.  This idea was courtesy of Jaime from What's the Buzz in 1st?  She shared this idea this summer and when I saw them I couldn't WAIT to make me some.  Well, I did and we have been using them (and loving them) so far.  This is what ours look like:

My kiddos keep their folder holders in their book boxes and at the start of each week, we add our words to them on index cards.  Here is what they look like as you open them.

Jaime suggested using velcro dots to help them stay closed - so I added those too.  Here is a picture:

And peeking out of one of the pockets is a student's word cards.  So far we have had 10 words.  Here is a picture of one of my kiddos words from their nifty word holder.

I have to tell you WHY I love these so much.  Not only do the kids get practice writing their words, AND a place to store them.  But we can use these cards for so much more than sight word practice.  In small groups we can:

find a word with (5) letters.

find a word that starts with..., ends with.

find a word that rhymes with.....

find a word that has the /i/, /o/, etc. sound.

find a word that is a noun, verb, adjective.

sort your words into short, long vowel sounds.

OH my goodness... the list could go on forever!  I just LOVE it.  Notice how this kiddo has an 8 on her cards?  Well, each of my students has a number.  After they write the word, they write their number, so if any of our cards get dropped on the floor... We know who the card belongs to!

I'm also thinking since the word holder has 2 pockets, later down the road I may have one pocket be words that I know well, and words I need to practice.  Hmmm.... don't know yet, but I just wanted to share how we are LOVIN' them.  Thanks so much to Jaime at What's the Buzz in 1st? for this AWESOME idea.  If you haven't made these already, then go find out and whip some out soon.  They are SUPER easy to make!
Have a great Wednesday!



First Full Week in First Grade - Randomness.

I just finished my first full week of first grade and I am T-I-R-E-D.  I don't have a whole lot to share (I have some things I'd like to share but FORGOT to take pictures ~ I'll have to save those until next week).  So, I thought I would share a few pictures from our first week.  We started our word study this week and began learning our first word family (-an).  Here is a picture of how our tree looks after we thought of all those -an words.  Take a look:

My students were so excited to see our first Word FAMILY up on our tree. 

On Friday, we added our words this week to our word wall.  We only had three words, so I can't wait until next week to add three more.

Remember my Good Work Spotted Here wall?  Well, my first graders couldn't wait to get something hangin' up there on an owl - so we wrote about something fun we did over the summer.  Here is how our wall looks now. 

I had some really good writing and illustrations for our first week of school. 

Did I mention we have a class pet?  We have a guinea pig named Lenny (Yes - Lenny the Guinea).  He has been staying with one of my first graders from last year over the summer.  His mom said he took really good care of Lenny and they are going to miss him terribly.  Lenny has been adjusting quite nicely to our classroom environment.

We read Sammy the Classroom Guinea Pig which is a great story about a classroom guinea pig that was making strange noises and the class couldn't figure out what was wrong.  It turns out, Sammy was just wanting some attention so the kids love hearing Lenny "Wheep, wheep, wheep" when we enter our room.   We also read I Love Guinea Pigs to learn about where guinea pigs come from, what they like to eat, how to take care of them and that they don't like LOUD noises.  (Maybe it will help on our noise level??)  On Friday afternoon, we sat on the carpet in a circle and let Lenny walk around and "get to know everyone".  She did a lot of sniffing and loved being out of her cage.  We have lots of class pets at our school (mostly guinea pigs, fish, and hermit crabs).  Do you have a class pet?  We will do some writing pieces about Lenny later in the year.  I would love to hear about your class pet experiences.

OH!  And we started Saxon Math and I'm really liking it so far.  It is starting out slow but the kids are really engaged in the morning meeting and lessons.  If anyone has anything to share regarding Saxon - I would love to hear it!

Have a great weekend!



Whooo wants a freebie?

Last year I put my word wall on my cabinet doors and I used notepad shapes of trees (consonants) and squirrels (vowels).  I called it "The Word Wall Woods" to go along with my camping theme.  This year I decided to use clipart and type the letters onto these patterns to construct my word wall.  I also decided to change the squirrels to owls (surprised, huh?)  This year a huge magnetic whiteboard was installed in my room on my backwall (taking the last little bit of wall space I have.  However, since it is magnetic I thought what a great place to put my class word wall.  I plan on putting magnets on the back of my words and then adding them to the wall each week.  Here is a picture of how it turned out:

I'm still wondering if there will be room for all our first grade words.  But having them on magnets, I hope it allows more interaction with our words, especially during writing.  So whooo wants a freebie?  I know some of you have mentioned you also are doing a camping theme so if you would like these the file is below.  Click HERE to download.

I also had shared in an earlier post about the new classroom rug I purchased.  I forgot to post pictures so here are a few I took the other day.  It already needs to be vacuumed ~ and please mind the mess.

That cute little red head in the second picture is my daughter.  She went to school with me that day and helped me with all sorts of things.  She's a great little helper.

Lastly, I'm going to share with you a picture of my six trait writing posters.  Each poster has teaching points for each trait and they are removable from the poster (via velcro dots).  They were all on colored construction paper when they were given to me, so I took them and put them on wood scrapbook paper to make them look like signs ~ say on a camping trail? 

This is not the greatest picture.  Hopefully when my classroom is finished, I will have better pictures to share.

Have a great weekend! 

Spin a Word Wall Word

I happened to find these super cool word wall spinners at the Dollar Tree this weekend.  I think they would be great to use in word work this week... especially since our word wall is complete and my firsties SHOULD know what a noun and a verb are.  Take a look at these:

So when I got home I decided to create an accountability sheet to record the words they choose from our Word Wall.  I used clipart similar to the objects on the spinner to keep the kiddos on track. There are two pages that I will copy front to back.  Since there are two different spinners, I created two different recording sheets.

Here is the first one:

CLICK HERE to download!

Here is the second one:

CLICK HERE to download!

Has anyone else used these word wall spinners in their classroom?