Today was a good day.

I've been trying to get this post out for a week. Time flies, what can I say?

 

We’re just not sure what is happening to the year. We realize that we’ve been totally neglecting our blog this year, but we are doing the best we can to keep up with all of the demands of first grade. We've been learning the ins and outs of Treasures, our Smartboards, and have been asked to be on various committees (which of course we can't say no to). We've also been asked to do a training on Treasures and Smartboards, so as you can see, we have our hands full. Ya’ll know how it is.  Stick with us, we promise someday we’ll get better. 

My class has been having a little bit of trouble being respectful as of late. Not so much with me, but with any other adult who gets the pleasure of teaching them. It’s a loud class. I have 25 kiddos, and 17 boys. 17.  And they aren’t quiet, calm boys, oh no. They are active, loud, crazy BOY boys. 110% boy.  I am used to boys, as I have a 1^st and 2^nd grader, but these guys are definitely giving me a run for my money. I swear half the time we walk through the hall looking like a pack of monkeys. Which is a term they find hilarious, and I do not.  So, after being told by another staff member that they were very disrespectful, I knew it was time for a review of what respect is.  I created this little activity to do with the kids, and it actually worked. This activity helped immediately, and the class is finally calming down. Today was a good day. Maybe our best so far. Fingers crossed it's the start of a new trend.

  We stated out by reading The Berenstain Bears book Show Some Respect. The new versions have a few bible verses included, so I just sort of skipped those words in the classroom. They don’t even notice.  Then we had a long discussion about what Respect means, and what Disrespect means.  This part they really understood. They came up with some great examples of each. We then moved to playing a little game of “Respect vs. Disrespect.” The kids sorted theses cards on my pocket chart, as we practiced being respectful.  We followed up by using some of our senses to show what respect Looks like, Sounds Like, and Feels like. Since we have our smart boards, this became a smart board activity rather that printing it for the kids.

 I’ve kept up the sort for the last week or so, and we refer back to it OFTEN.  At some point I will get around to replacing it with an actual anchor chart. Their ideas of what  disrespect felt like were pretty precious {disrespect feels like a tummy ache}. I wish I would have been able to take a pic, but technical issues... If you'd like a copy of the Respect Sort, click on the pictures below.

Hope this helpful! Maybe you can just file it away until it's needed. Hopefully for you, it's not!

We are also getting super excited about our upcoming field trip next week. We are going to the Oregon Children's Theatre to see a presentation of Duck For President. 

 Last year we went and saw Pinkalicious the Musical {click here to check out our Pinkalicious unit) and just LOVED it! This year, we thought what a fun way to incorporate the presidential election into first grade! We've created a little unit to go along with it. It's got a variety of math and literacy activities to go along with Duck For President and/or election day!  Here's a preview of what's included:

Duck For President by Doreen Cronin.
Optional books to also use with this unit are: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, Giggle, Giggle, Quack, and Dooby Dooby Moo which are also written by Doreen Cronin.

*Mayor, Governor & President Activity
*Duck Equations
*Farmer Brown’s Word Family
*Duck for President Board Game with addition (sums to 10) and subtraction equations (with minuends up to 10)
*Word Builder Alphabet Cards
*If I Were President Writing
*Duck For President Retell Pages & Story Map
*Classroom Voting Activity

Head on over to our store to check it out. As part of the performance the kids get to vote for president and we'll see who wins according to all those attending the show. We can't wait! And it's scheduled for the day after Halloween, so we can avoid all the sugar highs in the classroom!

We're working on a few things for fall right now, as well as some activities to be used along with Treasures, so check back for freebies soon!

PS: Have you checked out our First Grade Sub Kit yet? We'll tell ya all about it soon...

How we do literacy centers

Hope you all are having a great start to your week!  We've been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY and it seems like as the weeks go on our schedules get even busier!  We're on our second week of literacy centers  and we're hoping that in a month, when all of the centers have been introduced and fully implemented,    things will be running smoothly.
  With the new program our district has adopted we've had to change our structure for reading groups, and we've had to change the way we teach reading.  Our reading instruction begins with whole group instruction for 40 minutes.  After whole group instruction our students are split into 6 groups and go to their first literacy center.  We meet with our first reading group at this time.  our students are in their literacy centers for 20-25 minutes then we rotate for a second and third session and meet with two more reading groups. 

Since our structure for reading has changed we needed to create new plans and rotation schedules to make that all of our students rotate evenly through centers and meet with us based upon their needs.  

Here is what our small group reading plans and rotation schedule look like:

If you have PowerPoint and you'd like an editable version of the plans above just click{HERE}!

After introducing each literacy center to our students, the charts go on our literacy center bulletin board so we can refer to them often.  

Here's a picture of one of our bulletin boards:

Here's a picture of our literacy center pocket chart cards.  The colors stand for each table group.  Our kiddos rotate through centers with their table group.  

And here's one of our small group reading areas!

Do you have literacy centers/stations going on in your classroom while you teach small reading groups?  We'd LOVE to hear any ideas and/or tips your incorporate.

Just comment below!

Don't forget to stop on by our TpT store and check out our Literacy Center Pocket Cahrt Cards and Posters that are shown above.  

Our pack includes:

*Literacy Center Chart Header 
*12 Literacy center cards that fit nicely in a pocket chart
-Reading
-Silent Reading
-Buddy Reading
-Writing
-Word Work
-Computers & Listening
-Listening
-Computers
-Phonics
-Spelling
-Paper Practice
-Teacher Time

*Just Right Books Poster 
 * 12 Literacy Center Expectation Posters

Our literacy Center Pocket Chart Cards and posters can be found {HERE}

Have a FABULOUS rest of the week and we hope you all have a relaxing weekend!
 We're definitely looking forward to it!

Is September over yet?

Myyyyyyyyy Goodness!  We feel like we haven't yet come up for air much since this school year started. We have just started our 4th week with kids, and MAN we are EX-HAU-STED!  For any of you that use Treasures, if you can remember what it was like at the beginning, that's what we're going through right now. Our schedules are so incredibly tight, that we are just trying to keep up. We do basically 2 hours of straight reading, and are still struggling to get into everything in. We just started our small groups this week, and it's intense! We have been doing Daily 5 for the last few years, so we are sort-of used to the centers and all, but this is at a whole new level. If you're interested on how we've meshed Treasures and Daily 5, stay tuned! We will be sharing some ideas and freebies shortly. And we do apologize for neglecting our blog, but at this time we are really spending every waking second on our classrooms. But don't leave us! We'll be back to our normal selves shortly, fingers crossed.

So, for today, we have several random freebies for ya that we've been wanting to share. A week or so ago we did a few activities about apples. We read stories, did apple-themed word work, studies the life cycle of an apple seed, and all sorts of fun stuff. We ended the week by tasting apples, and graphing our favorite kinds.

On top of learning our THREE new adoptions this year, we have been having a ball getting to know our Smart Boards. We are using them all day long, and aren't quite sure what we ever did without them. This year on our blog, we will be giving away lots of free smartboard lessons. For now, we are just using office clipart so that we can share them with you. Feel free to change to make cuter or to fit your needs.  This little gem we used as a fun way to get our kids used to the smart board, and to create our class graph. To use, all you do is copy an apple from the bottom, and drag it to the correct column on the graph. And don't forget to add your tallies. Grab this fun activity {here}. Just make sure you have the Notebook software that comes with your Smartboard.

After we created our class graphs, the kids made their own graphs. These can be found in our Apples, Apples Everywhere math and literacy unit at our TpT store.

We also came up with this great little apple craftivity. We looked on Pinterest but didn't find much, so this is what we created. We made mosaic apple letters, and each of our firsties made one for the letter of their name. They turned out just adorable!

If you'd like to make these (they could easily be made into pumpkins for October) you can find the letter patterns {here}.

Last year Abby from the Inspired Apple did this great little lesson on labeling, and we thought it was a great way to start out our writing workshop. This is definitely an area that are kids aren't very strong in, so many of the kids really benefiting from teaching this so explicitly. We started out by created an anchor chart for our writing center wall. We had kiddos come up to help up label all of the parts of the dog. 

We then wanted to make sure that each child got the chance to label their own, so we created this worksheet for the kids to complete.

We were able to label it with the kids on the smartboard. {Seriously, aren't these things the coolest things ever?!}

 

If you'd like the dog worksheet, you can find it {here}.

And last, as I've been spending several hours either on a Friday night, or during the weekend at school, I've found another great use for our smartboards. My own little munchkins think it's just like the movie theater!

Check back soon, and we promise to share some new literacy center ideas, as well as pictures of our classrooms. One step at a time, right? Have a great rest of the week! Off to enjoy some more premier week on tv! Night night.

We're still here & we have a smart board freebie!

Wow, have we been BUSY!!!  Last week was our first week of school and it was full of fun!  We're starting the year off with a new math, reading, and handwriting curriculum, and brand new Smart Boards!  We are just LOVING our new SMART Boards.

We decided we needed a cute cover for our boards and found the cutest curtains at IKEA.   We thought these would be perfect if we needed to close up our SMART Boards, especially on days when we have a substitute.  The substitute can simply close the curtains when the SMART Board is not being used.  

We also made sturdy benches that our kiddos can use to access the SMART Boards.  Our first graders are just as excited about these boards as we are, and they have really been enjoying all of the activities that we've created and adapted for our SMART Boards.  We can't wait to start incorporating the online components that are part of our new reading and math programs!

With our new reading curriculum we're completing making words activities often.  Instead of using letter cards, we've created letter tiles using our Scrabble Letters from Scrappin Doodles.  Our students select a letter and pull it down to make a word.    

Here's an example of what we display on our boards: 

We've also created an attendance chart that our fisrt graders can use.  When our students arrive, they simply push the gray shade and a clipart character is shown.  We will plan on replacing the characters with photos of each student.  

Do you have Notebook(SMART Board software)?  If you'd like a copy of our attendance format just click the picture below.  We are unable to give away a copy of the one above due to clipart policies, but we've created an editable version using Microsoft Office clipart.  We plan on making a new one each month that is holiday or theme related.  

If you'd like the same font that we used to show up on your download, you will need to download the free fonts first.  They are:  Wish I Were Taller and Smiley Monster.  Just click on the name and you'll be taken to the download page.

Another freebie we'd like to share is a sign we displayed on our SMART Boards on the first day of school.  It's a PDF and could also be shown on a Whiteboard.  Just click the picture if you'd like to download!

We promise to be back in a few days and our goal is to have some classroom pics up in our next post!

Have a great rest of the week!

Alphabet Freebie

Well, we've finally gotten into the swing of things and have ventured back into our classrooms. We don't officially go back until Monday, but we just had to get started on our rooms. They are coming along, and we are looking forward to sharing pics with ya'll next week. But for now... One (of the MANY) major changes to our curriculum this year is in handwriting. For the past 10 years that we've been in the building, we have taught with D'Nealian handwriting. But now it's time for a change. Our building has gone to Handwriting Without Tears, school-wide. We've heard good things, so our fingers are crossed! We know that just about everyone out there has their own alphabet, but we haven't found one that is really perfect for us. So of course, we had to create our own. We included both long and short vowel sounds, as well as digraphs. We may add to it as the year goes on, adding some other vowel sounds, but we'll see. This is as close as we could come to fitting with our new handwriting program. We both have several alphabets up in our room, so although we are keeping up one D'Nealian, we are replacing our others. But, the best thing is... it's FREE!!! So, click on the picture below and grab yourself a copy!

Here's a preview of our alphabet.

If you are looking for more alphabet activities, make sure to check out our All About the Alphabet Pack in our store.

 

Everyone have a great weekend! We will be busy working on getting things ready to go back to school.

We Have Winners & A Pinterest Inspired Craft

Congratulations Anza #205 and Megan #52

You are the winners of our Back to School Giveaway!

Email us and let us know which email address you'd like us to send your items to! 

And now for our Pinterest inspired craft!

What do you do when you have a pile of 2X4's and 2X6's?  

Search Pinterest of course!  

We found so many cute crafty ideas, And the No Name Board definitely caught our eye! 

So Here's our version:

 Along with the scrap piece of wood, here's a picture of the others supplies we used:

Here's what we did:

*Used white primer on the wood and then covered it with white spray paint.  

*A few days later- cut letters and shapes with our Cricut.

*Glued the ribbon on using tacky glue.  

*Glued letters and shapes.

*Once ribbon, letters, and shapes were dry, hammered two sawtooth picture hangers into the back of    

  the board (top corners) 

*Several hours later- glued on clothespins.

And here it is!

With the sawtooth hangers, 

this little charm can easily be hung on a wall.  

Now when we have a worksheet without a name show up, we'll simply clip the corner to one of the clothespins and remind our kiddos to check the No Name Board!

  Halloween blocks are next on the list!
 

*HUGE* Back to School Giveaway!!!

Hello friends!!! Is this summer just flying by or what?!?! We know that many of you have already gone back to school, but we are lucky enough to still have about a week and a half left before we head back. It's been such a great summer for both of us though, that we wanted to celebrate! And wouldn't you know, some of our very FAVORITE bloggers are celebrating with us. These ladies have been so wonderful to share some great things with us, so that we can share them with two of our  fabulous followers! So, here's what you need to do. Leave a comment for each entry, and consider yourself entered! How do you enter? So glad you asked!

1. Make sure you follow our blog, and leave a comment on our blog.

2. Make sure you follow our TpT store, and leave a comment on our blog.

3. Blog about our giveaway, and leave us the link in a comment on our blog.

See, three easy ways to win! Now, for the prizes... Take a look and see all of the excellent back to school items you could win, just for reading our blog! Get ready, cause its a TRUCKLOAD!!!

From The Inspired Apple

From What the Teacher Wants

From Fun-In-First

From Crazy for First Grade

From Primary Graffiti

From Erica Bohrer's First Grade

From Teaching in High Heels

From Tales of a Teacherista

From Life In First Grade

From Fabulous in First

From Hello Literacy

From Really Roper

From Finally in First

And, from us you get all of our back to school items!

That is a total of 21 amazing Back to School items! So, from now until Monday at 7:00pm west coast time, enter to win! Don't forget your entries:

1. Make sure you follow our blog, and leave a comment on our blog.

2. Make sure you follow our TpT store, and leave a comment on our blog.

3. Blog about our giveaway, and leave us the link in a comment on our blog.

Please only 1 entry for each. We will be announcing our winners Tuesday morning, so make sure to check back! We also have a few great pinterest-inspired ideas to share with you this weekend. So if you aren't back to school quite yet, enjoy the last bit of your summer! If you are back, we hope you are having a wonderful time getting to know your new kiddos!

And thanks so much to the wonderful ladies who are participating in our giveaway!