Literacy Groups In Action

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 No comments
I thought I would share what is going on in literacy groups this week.  Right now, my literacy groups consist of 3 things:  phonics skill, reading, and sight word practice.  When a group comes to the table, we usually work on our phonics skill first.  This week, we are working on blends with r.  Today, students circled pictures that started with dr and fr, then they flipped over and circled the blend that each picture started with.





Then we read.  I have different groups reading different books based on their reading levels.  Below, you can see pictures of two different groups reading.  I have students read using whisper phones (that my hubby made- I used the directions from Priscilla at teacherificfun.blogspot.com.) This allows me to lean in and listen, intervene and question students as needed.  All the kids are engaged in the reading the whole time.


We also work on sight words.  I use the rapid response sheets that I made to go with our Journeys series.  You can grab those here, here, here, and here.

You can see the sight word rapid response sheets in the picture below.  I didn't grab a picture of the students actually reading those.

Literacy groups are actually the favorite part of my day!

Happy teaching, friends!

Snapshot of our Week

Sunday, October 11, 2015 No comments
I finally grabbed my phone to take some pictures on Friday.  I thought you might like a peek into our week and maybe it might spark an idea or two that you could do with your students.  

We've been learning how to make a ten to add.  We spent two days on this during our math block and at small math groups and my firsties were doing this like pros at the end of the second day.    {Picture me doing a happy dance.}


We have been learning about character's feelings in reading this week.  We've been reading "Jack and the Wolf."  Below is an anchor chart we did together at the carpet.  I had the skeleton of the chart filled out before we met (all the things you see on the left and top of the chart were done by me before this lesson.) The students themselves came up with what to put in the boxes.  I also had a copy of the story in my hand and we turned to that page and discussed it before deciding what we wanted to write in the box.

We've also been learning about bats this week in our ELA block. On Monday, we read some nonfiction books about bats to build our schema.  We then made a class circle map listing some facts we learned.

On Tuesday, we wrote 3 bat facts in our bat flapbooks.  And then on Friday, we finally made the bat craft that we attached our flapbooks to.

Here is a peek under a couple of  flaps:

                                                                
And a few close ups of our bats:
  



Happy Teaching Everyone!

Small Groups and Sequencing

Tuesday, September 22, 2015 No comments
Small group instruction didn't look fancy in my room today, but there sure was a ton of learning going on. We worked on the short e sound.  We started out writing short e words on our white boards and transitioned into sentence writing.  I gave them a short e word and they used the word in a sentence.  In the pictures below, we were using the word bed in a sentence.








Next week, we will be reading "Gus Takes the Train" in our Journeys reader.  I whipped up a sequencing activity for my students to do at one of our centers while I work with small groups.  It is shown below.  I will laminate and cut out the 4 sequence cards.  Students will sequence them in the correct order and then write the sentences on their recording sheet.  If you would like a copy of this activity, just click on the picture below.
Clip art courtesy of My Cute Graphics.



If you are looking for other word work activities for your students to do at centers for this story, you can check out my packet on TpT by clicking on the picture below.

Happy Teaching!



I Have to Share!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015 1 comment
Holy Cow!  I can't seem to find any time to squeeze in a moment to blog.  My hat is off to all you bloggers that can find the time to blog every week and I even follow a couple of bloggers that keep up with two blogs AND have their own young families!  Ah-maz-ing!!!!!  

We are starting week three in my classroom.  And let me say that I have a great group of kiddos!.  I have some kids with BIG hearts this year.  LOVE!

I'm curious if there are any Texas bloggers out there that are having to follow the TEKS Resource System Year at a Glance?  We are this year and it has been a  little LOT crazy around here trying to get all our adopted classroom resources aligned and find resources to supplement with when our adopted series doesn't cover a particular TEK in a certain six weeks.

For those of you who don't have a clue what I am talking about, it is a vertically aligned document (K-12) that is a map of the entire year's instructional plan and a pacing guide for units of study.  It puts our TEKS (standards) in a particular order to be taught throughout the year. Here is a snapshot of the first two six weeks of math:


There is a point to this conversation.  I want to share some things I have recently purchased on TpT that are saving my life right now.

One of my favorites is Reagan Tunstall's Guided Math First Grade Units 1-9 Bundle.  Her product has all the TEKS (and common core if use that) right on each activity.  Her product is not aligned exactly with the YAG we are using, but it has been super easy to grab exactly what I need out of it to match up with what I am teaching.
Since our school uses Go Math, I haven't used many of the whole group lessons, but I am eating up her small group lessons.  They are fantastic.  Here are a few pictures of us in action.





Another product I am loving is Miss Giraffe's Short Vowels.  When I do literacy groups, I have one group working with me, one group at centers and one group at seat work.  Her short vowel sheets are PERFECT for seat work and cover many ELA TEKS.  Sorry I didn't get a picture of us doing this.  :(

One of my go-to people on TpT for science and social studies is Robin at Class of Kinders.  It is easy for me to go to her store and grab whatever activity I need to meet a TEK.  We used her Mapping My Classroom Pop-Up Activity and here are a couple of my student's completed maps of our classroom.


You can grab a copy of any of the products I mentioned by clicking on the names of their products.

One Day Bonus Sale

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 No comments
TpT is having a one day boost sale!  I am super happy because my wish list is packed full of goodies.  Everything in my store is 20% off and you can use the code:  MORE15 to get up to 28% off!

Happy Shopping!

TpT Back to School Sale

Sunday, August 2, 2015 No comments
Teacher Pay Teachers will be having their back to school sale on August 3rd and 4th.  All my products will be on sale at 20% off and you can get up to 28% off by entering the code BTS15.
You can go directly to my store by clicking on the banner below.

I got the cute sale banner from Tales from a Very Busy Teacher :)

Happy Shopping Everyone!

Teacher Appreciation Sale

Monday, May 4, 2015 No comments
Teacher Pay Teachers will be having their Teacher Appreciation Sale on May 5 and 6.  Most stores will be discounted 20% including mine and you can get an additional 10% off using the promo code: ThankYou 

Happy Shopping!

Work Work Freebie (er, ir, ur)

Sunday, March 1, 2015 No comments
Do your students need more work on the sounds er, ir and ur?  Mine did so I made a couple of activities for my students to work on at their desk so I could work with small groups during my reading group rotations. 

Click on any picture below to grab yourself a free copy!




Happy Teaching!