First Week Survival ~ Daily 5 Up and Running

I can't believe this three day weekend went SO fast... entirely too fast!  I would love to have just ONE more day! And even though I'm dead dog tired I told myself I had to blog and share with you a few things from our first full week back.  I know many of you do Daily 5 and we have gotten it up and running piece by piece.  I'm still not taking groups yet.  I want to make sure they are doing all activities properly and can problem solve and take care of situations without interrupting my group.  I love the first few weeks of Daily 5 because I am able to meander around the room and listen to kids read, watch them write, watch them build words and really get to know my students by having small conversations with them during this time. We start out with Read to Self and here are a few pics I took during that time.

We talked a lot about choosing just right books and using the five finger rule.  We also practice getting our book boxes and having them by our side during Daily 5.  After they all got the hang of Read to Self I introduced word work.  We began our first weekly word study last week and took our first spelling test on Friday!  I was amazed that 90% of my class spelled and wrote 100% of the words correctly!  Usually the first test is a doozy just because it's their first one.  I was blown away!  Word Work allows my students to practice these weekly words.  They always have a "must-do" and then they can choose several different activities to practice spelling and making words.  My "must-do" varies daily.  I use many of the pages from Abby's Short Vowels Pack and some word family activity pages from the great Cherry Carl .  I start out only introducing magnetic letters, rainbow words using smelly markers and glitter pens and stamps.  I add more throughout the year as I feel they can handle it.  Here are a few pics I took during word work.

As you can see our first week is short a.  She spelled "we" but as long as I see them building words it makes me happy. I love hearing them read me the words they have made.

These words were off of our word wall.  We start out with about 15 words on the word wall from Kindergarten or High Frequency words they will use a lot.  As you can see I think it's time for me to get some new ink pads!

I also have introduced writing.  I know that seems like a lot but we have writer's workshop every morning.  I like to introduce some "fun" writing choices so students can write and illustrate with markers.  One of our first writing activities is making a card.  I use the monthly premade card templates from Deedee Will's Writing Work Stations.  I also use her monthly vocabulary cards to hang in my writing center and I also use the corresponding page of the monthly words in my student's writing folders for writer's workshop.

Students are able to color and be creative during this time but are writing to their friends or their teacher.  This gives them more practice using the strategies we are learning during writer's workshop like stretching out the sounds in words.

On Friday I wanted to do something fun and yet connect it to our curriculum.  Since this week was short a and we worked with -at words, I found the cutest craftivity that allowed the students to write a story using at words and they got to make their own "Cat on a Mat".  The activity is by Mel From the Pond.  I fell in LOVE with it and my students did too! So after students wrote stories about their cat (and some were SO hilarious) we broke out the scissors and glue and began making our cats. I love standing back and watching how my new first graders use scissors and glue.

I wanted to take pictures of their stories too and forgot to take them before leaving for the weekend (it wasn't like I was in a hurry to start a three day weekend or anything ;)  I'll try to post them another time because they were so adorable!  Here is some more pics of our super cute craft!

Next week is only four days but we will be working with short i. I will be introducing more writing choices, our listening station and read with someone next week.  I love to hear how others use Daily 5!  I steal grab ideas from teachers all the time. It has to be my favorite time of the day!

Hope you had a fabulous three day weekend!  

Camping/Forest Theme Classroom Ideas

Is tomorrow already the 4th of July?!  Yikes!  I don't know about you - but it is H-O-T here in Missouri!  Since I have been spending a lot of time indoors due to the heat, I have been able to sit down and create some things that I want to use in my classroom next year.  Many of them were pinterest inspired but I thought I would share what I've been up to.

Don't you just LOVE the writing choice boards that have been floating around pinterest?  I have seen several that I love but I wanted to create one that went along with my camping/forest themed classroom.  So I sat down and came up with this... Warning:  I had to lay these out on my table or my bed to see how they will look on a bulletin board.  Sorry for the ugliness - but hopefully you can use your imagination and see the possibilities with a cute background and border.  We cannot get into our classrooms until August!

This will give you an idea of what my bulletin board will look like:

So then I thought it was too dark of a background so here is another picture:

After I cut these out - I decided I wanted to have the option to just cut out a square instead of all the little nooks and crannies!  Whew...my hands were aching!  So I came up with this - I haven't decided which one I will use yet - So I printed this one out on paper so I could see how it looked.

I made some generic list cards to go with "Make a List" part of the board.  There are 12 cards but here are a few of them. I plan to laminate, put on a ring and hang on my board next to the "Make a List" choice.

While I was at it, I created some recipe cards, letter templates (forest themed), list templates, and created the cards to make the title of this board.  I'm not sure how many out there do a camping theme - but if you are interested you can find them here at my TPT store.

I also made some new name plates for my student desks.  I print these out and laminate them and then USUALLY adhere them to my desks with contact paper.  This year I think I'm going to use velcro to attach my name plates.  I like to use cable ties to hold my desks together so when I need to move students around - I don't have to move their desks - just their name plates!  

I made 2 sets - one set is specifically geared for FIRST GRADE and the other is for ANY GRADE.  Here are a few examples:

You can find the first grade set below and the one for ANY GRADE here.

Next year we are going to be focusing more on the six traits and I decided that I wanted some posters that went along with my theme that students could reference after I teach each trait.  I just LOVE how they turned out... here are a few:

I tried to use simple language that my first graders could understand.  I made a poster for each of the traits plus 1 for Presentation.  If you are interested here is the link:

Last, I just love some of the alphabet cards that I have seen lately and I have been wanting to do something that was "foresty" or camping related so I sat down today and made these cards.  I printed some of them out and hung them in my office just to see if I would like them.  I can't wait to replace my old, faded, ugly alphabet line above my Smart Board!  Here is a picture but it was very sunny so it is a little dark:

Here are some of the cards included in the set... I just LOVE dots on chocolate!

I decided to outline the vowels in pink so they will stand out a bit from the consonants.  I am so excited about these - I am ready to head to the laminator!  Click on the picture below to go to my TPT store.

Well - I didn't mean for this post to be SOOOOO long.  I had several emails asking me to create some more woodland themed items.  I have a few more ideas that I hope to add very soon - but I almost forgot - I am having a SALE in celebration of the 4th of July!  Everything in my store is 20% off until Friday, July 6th.  Hope you are keeping cool in this 100+ degree heat!  Have a great day!

Catch up on the Countdown!

It has been one C-R-A-Z-Y week!  What happened to me trying to post everyday???  This past week I had a graduate project due, I am teaching an enrichment class after school, our spring concert was Thursday night (which was fabulous - BTW) and my son's jr. prom was this weekend.  Whew!  I think the craziness is over but I begin a new class this week that already has tons of reading.... I'm not whining (ok, maybe just a little).  Here was a little bit (actually A LOT) of our days last week:

Last Friday was BUBBLE day!  I bought all my students their own bottle of bubbles.  We read this adorable book about a baby that gets trapped in a bubble and floats around town with everyone trying to catch him.

What a great writing prompt... What would you do if you were trapped in a bubble?  I don't have any pictures of their creativeness but I do have a picture of all of our bubble fun!  It was such a beautiful day!

We had a few large bubble wands that the kids took turns with making HUGE bubbles.  Not necessarily big enough to trap a first grader but pretty big! :)

I couldn't resist this picture.  This little guy is being bombarded with bunches of bubbles!!! 

Monday we planned a ton of Earth Day activities. We read tons of books and talked about what we can do to protect the Earth.  One of the activities was from Fun 2B in First.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of how they turned out, but let's just say Super Cute! As a culminating project, my students planted marigolds. I bought all my kids little clay pots at the Dollar Tree and they decorated them with paint pens.  Again, (do you see a theme here?) I didn't get pictures of us planting them but I do have a picture of their finished product.  We will be watering them and watching them grow for the next several weeks.  They will get to take them home around Mother's Day.

Tuesday was EXTRA RECESS!  Tuesday was supposed to be a different activity... but last minute my principal wanted our first grade team to attend a workshop about transitioning to the Common Core Standards.  So I moved Friday's activity to Tuesday since it could be done with my sub.  Since I wasn't there, I didn't get any pictures... but I'm sure they had an awesome time!

Wednesday was Picnic in the Classroom!  My kids were so excited.  What is so exciting about eating your school lunch in the classroom?  Let's just say we didn't eat much but enjoyed each other's company.  To set off our Picnic Theme we read the book Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg.  It is one of my FAVORITE books.

What is so great about this book, is that is it written from the ants perspective so the wall is a mountain, the grass is the forest, coffee is referred to as a hot brown boiling lake.  I love having the kids tell me what the ants are actually describing.  The pictures help them with the clues.  I wanted this to turn into a writing activity but we just didn't have time.  I may revisit this book later this week and have them write as if they are an ant and describe what is happening from an ant's point of view.  We will see what happens... and I will update my post if I do.  Here is a little sneak into our classroom picnic:

Yes!  We had bananas for lunch!  Hello?  Is Orange calling?

Cheers!

The reason why we didn't get to our writing activity is because our Ant Book inspired an edible project.  Have you ever made edible ant hills before???  They are delicious and fun to make!  Here's how:

Start with clear cups and 2 snack packs of chocolate pudding.  Spoon it into the bottom of the cup.  This is the dirt!

Next, smash up a whole graham cracker.  You could use graham cracker crumbs, but I found the kids like to do their own smooshing (is that a word?)  

Place the crumbs on top of the pudding in a heap if possible.  This is your ant hill.  WAIT - we are not done!  You can't have an ant hill without ants, so...

Add some chocolate chips and you've now created an edible ant hill!  

Here are a few pictures of our work in action!

Let's just say I never knew how hard it was to open a pudding cup!

We even had some teamwork going on!

Yummy!!  It was delicious!

Thursday was BEACH DAY!  Yep!  We wore beach attire (sunglasses and all), had a bit of a luau theme in  our classroom and brought our beach towels ready to soak up the sun!  We began by sharing our experiences of the beach... very few have ever been to the beach or have seen the ocean so it was fun listening to what they knew first hand.  Then we read a few books about the beach and the ocean.  I love the book Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae. 

We also read some non-fiction picture books about the beach and other sea creatures.  After reading and talking about all of the things we could see at the beach, my kiddos created their own ocean scenes.  I gave them light blue construction paper and they made an underwater ocean scene - some included the beach and wrote about "What I see at the sea..."  A great way to sneak in a little homophone review.   But guess what?  I didn't get any snapshots of their pictures or their writing.  I did however, manage to snap some pictures of us reading on the beach... well, at least we tried to pretend.  There wasn't much sand between our toes, but we definitely soaked in some sun!

Buddy Reading outside is even better!

From soaking up all those rays, we had to have a cool beach drink.  So I picked up some cups, little umbrellas and some Hawaiian Punch to cool us down when we came back inside.  

Aloha! 

We have finally made it to FRIDAY!  It was Donut Day!  You would have thought we were going to Disneyland!  I never realized how much kids like love donuts!  I'm sure everyone can guess what book we read to celebrate donut day.... If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff.  

So my activity today was ... If you give a first grader a donut...!  Here are some pictures of  "the best day ever" as many of them told me. 

If you made it to the end of this post... WOW!  I just have to say thanks.  I will try to post a little bit at a time as we go forward this week.  I am going to PBS training on Thursday and Friday (I hate being out of the classroom during these last few weeks).  But I'm very excited that our school is initiating this School Wide Behavior Initiative next year.  We are also in the middle of our assessments this week. Busy, busy!  I know you are too.  I just want to say thank you to everyone who comments and I love to hear what you have to say!  13 more days left!