Can You Feel the Love?

Sorry it has been soooo long since my last post. One of my New Year's resolutions is to devote more time to my blog:) Well I wanted to share a quick post about a little V-Day snack I like to make with my kids. We even incorporate a how-to writing lesson when we finish! All you need are frozen waffles, heart shaped cookie cutters, vanilla yogurt and some berries. I go ahead and toast the waffles  (while they are in special area ) and I separate the ingredients at each table into bowls. They love to cut and assemble them and most students love to eat them too! (I like doing this activity better than one involving giving them sugary treats)

Word Problem Problems

I don't know about you but teaching word problems has always stressed me out.

And then it hit me while I was doing one of those "Mad Libs" with my son.

Why not make some word problems that I can fill in with the students names, numbers and whatever "thing" it is we are going to count?

So I did a set of 8 smartboards with word problem "frames" ( 2 additon, 2 subtraction, 2 comparison, 1 classification, and 1 part-part whole)

Reasons I'm excited to start this with my class...

Now I can use them each year because I write their little name in the blank (and oh, how they love that)

I can make them go along with any theme.

I can differentiate them to use with ALL my many levels of kiddos.

Oh, yeah and I can sneak a mini Parts of Speech lesson during math time.

It's $2.00
 You can check it out on my TPT site by clicking

HERE

Currently



Here's a template I filled in from a cool site called http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com/

                    

New Year's Resolution

Well, other than my son and I being sick for the last two days I've had a very relaxing break! (caught up on bunches of sleep and figured I really didn't need to bake all those cookies after all!) When I finally woke up out of my haze my hubby had all the presents wrapped and stockings filled. What a wonderful present for me!

 My New Year's Resolution as far as school goes is to finally make Calendar Time a consistent part of my daily routine.

I found these freebies that I love, love, love at Confessions of a Homeschooler and I now feel inspired to start 2012 with a fun calendar time! 

Calendartime2

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Fountas and PInnell for Kindergarten

Presentation1

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I had so much fun making all the lessons for the first grade Fountas and Pinnell Phonics program that I decided to make them for my Kindergarten pals. This is one of the slides from one of the 64 Smartboard lessons I made for the Kindergarten Fountas and Pinnell Program.


You can get this lesson for free HERE on TPT.


 If you would like to check out my 64 lesson F and P pack for Kinders you can see it HERE 
The first grade pack is HERE



Classroom Tour

 





This is the wall by the back door and the bathroom. I use plastic pencil boxes to separate different phonics chips and cards. I also like to keep scissors and glue out of reach unless they need it.





These magazine holders have saved my sanity. Whenever I have something I don't have time to file (they should teach paper management in college) I throw it into it's section (magazine holder). Then when I finally have a minute(LOL) I can grab one of the holders and file/trash what's inside.

 



 



Behavior Board. The cloud is for extra good days!

This is the back counter. I love that I have so many built in cabinets at our wonderful new school! I have drawers to hold papers that I need the most often. (I think I am going to put a rectangle of scrapbooking paper on the inside of each drawer, I LOVE PINTEREST!) And I keep their math tubs on top- filled with the manipulatives needed for the "jobs" the groups have to do that day.

These are small group task card games. I have them organized by skill. There are five groups in my classroom 

(4 multileved groups and 1 group with my SuperHighFlyers that are really on a 2nd grade level) 
                              

Green=Math

Orange=SightWords     fluency, syllables, making sentences

 Blue=Phonics       Fountas and Pinnell games mostly

Pink=ComprehensionCause/Effect,Fact/Opinion,Classifying

White=Grammar-Parts-of-Speech,Punctuation, Singular/Plural

Each group does all the reading centers that have the same letter each day.

Math is organized by RIT band since I have such a mixed ability group in math this year.
I have 4 boxes for each skill labeled A, B, C, D. My four groups rotate through all colors with their letter for that day.

My HighFlyer Group (aka group 5) practices higher level skills that are kept in bags in the black crate beside the boxes. These 4 kids partner up to complete their tasks because I have found that the more advanced the students are the more "discussions" (arguements) arise. Can anyone say type A?

They also complete powerpoints or help other students with skills they are working on. (Teaching things to others helps kids learn something more deeply)


Groups have a "Group Leader" each day that rotates. (see chart below) That person goes first and solves any disputes (See my post about behavior management for my "trick".

They take turns in the same order each day always starting with the group leader. These games save my life. If I ever have a 10 minute chunk of time for some reason I can just have groups go to their rug (they meet in the same place) and play the games from a certain color box. I also use it for early finisher work, and when we first come in from lunch or specials ( so I can to whatever teacher"y" thing I have to do)

This is my chart that holds my spelling words, math group cards are the small green cards, and my ELA small groups are the white cards. The tiger paws (Go Clemson!) have letters on them that I rotate down each day. The group completes the games inside the boxes with the corresponding letter that day.

Thanks for checking out my room!

Behavior Management

Well towards the middle of the year I always feel like my students start acting more like brothers and sisters than classmates. Tattling is always such a tedious thing to deal with, especially when it is about every little thing.

 To help with this I use a very simple strategy from the very beginning of the year... I have them say "Please follow directions" to the student who is not behaving appropriately. If the rule breaker continues THEN they can come and let me know. 

 The beauty of it is if the rule breaker stops after being reminded IT ENDS THERE without me having to step in at all. It really has changed my class. It empowers students to solve their own problems in a quick and respectful way. ( I do let them know if a person is doing something that could be harmful to themselves or others that they should tell me immediately.)

 I think it is pretty awesome to hear my "rule followers" reminding the others nicely and to see the ones that need reminding starting to follow suit more often.