Last week was a very busy week for me and I could not find time to blog, was pretty bummed with myself, I was getting so good at blogging a couple of times a week. Last week was filled with meetings and our Fall Festival was on Friday. This week I am promising myself that I will not stay at school, except on Thursday when I have a quick meeting. Thursday is my birthday and I really am not too happy about having our meeting switched til then but as long as it is over with in a half hour, I'll survive.
This week my students are working on the following r blends, gr, tr, and pr. I made a super cute R blends sort that is free in my teacherspayteachers store. I created this center because I want my students to be able to identify the beginning sound (r blend) for each picture instead of matching words to the correct beginning letters. My students started using this center today. I'll have to take pictures this week to show you guys. We are also working on pronouns, bats, forces and motion, and reviewing our math concepts for our 3 day math benchmark next week. Yes, I teach 1st grade and yes my students have to take benchmarks. It may only be 10 questions each day but it will take at least an hour for my students to complete it. Then I get to score their benchmarks and fill in a bubble sheet.
I'm also pleased to announce that my students are finished writing their citizenship reports! They did such a good job on them. Sometime this week, they are going to be able to read their report to a group of second graders.
Here is the link to my R Blend Picture Sort. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/R-Blends-Picture-Sort-gr-pr-tr-blends-941642
Amber
Monday, October 28, 2013
Sunday, October 20, 2013
My Literacy Centers For The Week
I don't know why, but it seems like I have been waiting until Sunday to start getting ready for the next week. I really need to spend a little bit of time throughout the week to start my planning so I can enjoy my weekend. I am currently printing off the materials that I will be using for my literacy centers for this week, now to start laminating them.
This week, our literacy theme is pumpkins. We are also going to be working on identifying nouns and working with the following beginning blends (br, cr, dr, fr). These themes are going to be carried out in my writing and word work centers.
My teacher center, after I finish progress monitoring for the week, will be working with sight words (for my low group), my other groups will be reading books that are on level. We will also be working on written responses to questions for the books that we will be reading. This skill is something that my first graders from last year struggled with a lot so I'm trying to work on this skill as often as I can.
My writing centers for the week will involve pumpkins. For Monday and Tuesday, my students will be completing a center called Pumpkin Punctuation & Sentence Fluency. For this center, students will be given a baggie with words in it and different types of punctuation. They will have to arrange the words to make a complete sentence. I have done centers like this before when I taught Kindergarten and may have to dig out my sentence bags for my lower level students. I found this center on TeachersPayTeachers. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Punctuation-Sentence-Fluency-333468. My center for Wednesday and Thursday will be Pumpkin Writing. My students will choose 3-4 pumpkin cards and write a sentence describing each pumpkin. This is a great center to work on descriptive writing. Again, I found this activity on TeachersPayTeachers. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Sentences-FREEBIE-919105
My word work center will focus on the beginning blends and on nouns. On Monday and Tuesday, my students will practice sorting picture cards that begin with the four blends that we will be working on this week. I found my picture cards on http://carlscorner.us.com/Blends.htm Each student will be required to write at least one sentence for each word blend. On Wednesday and Thursday, my students will be sorting noun picture cards by person, place or thing. I found this super cute noun sort called " Nouns on the Funny Farm" on TeachersPayTeachers. Now this activity does not fit with my pumpkin theme for the week but it is so cute and pumpkins come from farms. You can pick up your copy here. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nouns-on-the-Funny-Farm-541170
My students will also go to a silent reading center, a listening center, finish writing our citizenship reports on the computer, and work on the tablets.
Time to get back to printing my centers so that I can start to laminate. I also need to try and finish making my new hall passes, I still can't believe that my students destroyed or lost 4 out of the 5 that I made in less than 2 months. At least I have my lesson plans, my homework packets, and our at home science experiment finished for this week.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Amber
This week, our literacy theme is pumpkins. We are also going to be working on identifying nouns and working with the following beginning blends (br, cr, dr, fr). These themes are going to be carried out in my writing and word work centers.
My teacher center, after I finish progress monitoring for the week, will be working with sight words (for my low group), my other groups will be reading books that are on level. We will also be working on written responses to questions for the books that we will be reading. This skill is something that my first graders from last year struggled with a lot so I'm trying to work on this skill as often as I can.
My writing centers for the week will involve pumpkins. For Monday and Tuesday, my students will be completing a center called Pumpkin Punctuation & Sentence Fluency. For this center, students will be given a baggie with words in it and different types of punctuation. They will have to arrange the words to make a complete sentence. I have done centers like this before when I taught Kindergarten and may have to dig out my sentence bags for my lower level students. I found this center on TeachersPayTeachers. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Punctuation-Sentence-Fluency-333468. My center for Wednesday and Thursday will be Pumpkin Writing. My students will choose 3-4 pumpkin cards and write a sentence describing each pumpkin. This is a great center to work on descriptive writing. Again, I found this activity on TeachersPayTeachers. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Sentences-FREEBIE-919105
My word work center will focus on the beginning blends and on nouns. On Monday and Tuesday, my students will practice sorting picture cards that begin with the four blends that we will be working on this week. I found my picture cards on http://carlscorner.us.com/Blends.htm Each student will be required to write at least one sentence for each word blend. On Wednesday and Thursday, my students will be sorting noun picture cards by person, place or thing. I found this super cute noun sort called " Nouns on the Funny Farm" on TeachersPayTeachers. Now this activity does not fit with my pumpkin theme for the week but it is so cute and pumpkins come from farms. You can pick up your copy here. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nouns-on-the-Funny-Farm-541170
My students will also go to a silent reading center, a listening center, finish writing our citizenship reports on the computer, and work on the tablets.
Time to get back to printing my centers so that I can start to laminate. I also need to try and finish making my new hall passes, I still can't believe that my students destroyed or lost 4 out of the 5 that I made in less than 2 months. At least I have my lesson plans, my homework packets, and our at home science experiment finished for this week.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Amber
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Wrapping Up Our Week
Friday was a pretty good day for my students. I was pleasantly surprised by this, especially after the notes that I received from my sub early this week. My students enjoyed our math centers, which included our tablet center with a focus on addition/subtraction game (at least that is what they were suppose to be working on), addition facts practice, equal equations (true/false), and I worked with students on word problems. It is funny how whenever I try and take a picture, there is always 1 student who has to turn and smile at the camera, if you look at our science picture for today some how he managed to get into a picture!
We finished up our ramp experiment today and also completed an experiment on friction. My students had fun with this experiment. The only problem with this experiment is that the majority of them were too short to do the experiment correctly. They had to hold both ends of a shoelace and release a spindle from the top to see how long it would take it to get to the bottom of the shoelace. They were surprised as to how fast it went on just one shoelace. We then proceeded to send the spindle down two shoelaces. To get the spindle to move, we had to give the shoelaces a shake, this is where we had difficulty because of our height. We tried three shoelaces but could not get the spindle to move at all!
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| There is my photo bomber student in the bottom picture! |
Our Friday ended with a PBIS Dance. The majority of my students were able to attend. There is nothing like ending the day in the gym with loud music and 40-50 1st graders running around. I was so happy when the music stopped and the dance was over.
I have my first observation of the year on Thursday. The rest of this weekend will be spent making sure that I have an amazing lesson plan for my math lesson. This is going to be a challenge because this is a review week. I have a feeling, that my plans are going to be a lot center work. Off to find some amazing resources on addition/subtraction, word problems, shapes, and equal equations.
Enjoy you weekend!
Amber
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Smokey The Bear & Science Experiments
This afternoon was crazy. We had a visit from Smokey the Bear. Only my class would ask Smokey if he had any kids. They also asked constantly if he was fake. At the end of the presentation, my class took a group picture with Smokey the Bear!
This week, we have been studying about Forces & Motion. Well, at least that is what they were suppose to be covering with the substitute teacher. Today, we began our experiment. I wrote a grant on DonorsChoose, requesting a Forces & Motion Activity Kit and some nonfiction books. We started an experiment using the ramp and objects that could roll down the ramps. Today we watched as a toy car and a marble rolled down the ramps. My students the wrote about their findings. Tomorrow, we are going to continue our experiment using bouncy balls and whatever else I can find tonight that will roll down a ramp.
Tomorrow is Friday!! Our plans for tomorrow include spelling tests, hoping to get a few more students finished writing their citizenship reports (fingers crossed), math review on equal equations, addition/subtraction and word problems), and more science fun. Time to start planning for next week, lots and lots of pumpkins!!
Amber
This week, we have been studying about Forces & Motion. Well, at least that is what they were suppose to be covering with the substitute teacher. Today, we began our experiment. I wrote a grant on DonorsChoose, requesting a Forces & Motion Activity Kit and some nonfiction books. We started an experiment using the ramp and objects that could roll down the ramps. Today we watched as a toy car and a marble rolled down the ramps. My students the wrote about their findings. Tomorrow, we are going to continue our experiment using bouncy balls and whatever else I can find tonight that will roll down a ramp.
Amber
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Writing, Typing, and Sub Plans
Today and tomorrow I will be sitting through more LDC training, trying to perfect our module on citizenship. We made some changes to the order that our module should be taught. It was a relief to find out that the majority of our students all struggled with knowing what a community is. One more day of training and then it will be time to get everything ready to present to the staff at my school.
Yesterday, technology was not my friend. My flash drive that I have been saving my students' citizenship reports on vanished! It was difficult to tell some of my students that they were going to have to start over with their writing but we will make it work! This morning I find out that the SmartNotebook files I made for my sub did not save on the flash drive that I left for my sub. Nothing like finding out as you are about to leave. I made a new one for tomorrow and emailed it to a co-worker. This file is not going to be lost!!
My students are still working on typing their reports for our LDC module. I now have only 2 or 3 students that still need to work on their rough draft! I decided to have the 2 students of mine that are finished to help 2 students with their writing. One, of them was writing what a student wrote on her paper but I couldn't figure out what in the world she wrote. All I saw was a lot of letters and no spaces! My other student was to help bounce ideas off of a student who wasn't doing much writing, I can tell that he doesn't like to write and appears to be putting off writing his report.
Yesterday, technology was not my friend. My flash drive that I have been saving my students' citizenship reports on vanished! It was difficult to tell some of my students that they were going to have to start over with their writing but we will make it work! This morning I find out that the SmartNotebook files I made for my sub did not save on the flash drive that I left for my sub. Nothing like finding out as you are about to leave. I made a new one for tomorrow and emailed it to a co-worker. This file is not going to be lost!!
My students are still working on typing their reports for our LDC module. I now have only 2 or 3 students that still need to work on their rough draft! I decided to have the 2 students of mine that are finished to help 2 students with their writing. One, of them was writing what a student wrote on her paper but I couldn't figure out what in the world she wrote. All I saw was a lot of letters and no spaces! My other student was to help bounce ideas off of a student who wasn't doing much writing, I can tell that he doesn't like to write and appears to be putting off writing his report.
Hoping for no technology issues tomorrow!! I almost forgot, I finally found time to fix the mistake in the citizenship journal I made for my students. You can pick up this freebie here! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Citizenship-Journal-927515
Amber
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Our Week in Review
I wanted to blog sooner about our week but I have not been feeling well. It is a combination of bad allergies and the flu. Needless to say, I spent the majority of my weekend in bed.
This week, we have been working a lot on our LDC reports. I now have 2 students that are finished!! The majority of my students are typing/waiting for a computer. It is sad that I cannot have access to enough computers for my class of 17. I only have about 5 that are still writing. I'm hoping that my students will finish their reports this week so that we can have an author's celebration on Friday. This week, I have two more days of LDC training. I am in the process offixing changing some things on my LDC so that I can share it with you. I also have two minor changes before I can share the journal that I created for our project. I'm thinking that this will be a freebie in my teacherspayteachers store.
Last week in Math, we were working on shapes. My students were busy composing and decomposing shapes. We also spent some time comparing shapes. Trying to get my first graders to use the words angles, edges, and vertice instead of corners and sides was a challenge. At least they are not saying points and lines anymore. Yes, there is a teacher that considers points & lines math terms.
The local fire station came to our school on Friday. My students had fun looking at all of the things that they brought with. Yes, my students were allowed to work the fire hose.
This week, we have been working a lot on our LDC reports. I now have 2 students that are finished!! The majority of my students are typing/waiting for a computer. It is sad that I cannot have access to enough computers for my class of 17. I only have about 5 that are still writing. I'm hoping that my students will finish their reports this week so that we can have an author's celebration on Friday. This week, I have two more days of LDC training. I am in the process of
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| Two of our finished reports! I promise that all I did was fix the spelling. |
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| What better way to compose shapes that by using pattern blocks. |
This week, we will be learning about Columbus, spiders, balancing equations, and forces of motion. Time to finish writing my sub plans for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Amber
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Writing Our Reports!
We have spent the entire week writing our LDC Citizenship Reports. Some of my students will be finished tomorrow, I was hoping that almost all of my students would be finished but this is not going to happen. I currently have 4 students that are typing their reports. One of my students actually finished typing his report today. I read his report to him and we fixed some spelling errors. The only things that I am fixing for them are spelling errors and making sure that each sentence starts with a capital letter, it is a little hard for them to remember how to make a capital letter when they type. I don't want to fix everything because I want their reports to look like they wrote them. Tomorrow, I will be meeting with small groups of students during literacy centers to help them with their writing. I've noticed that I'm going to have to write for some students as they dictate to me their report. It looks like I am going to be having some students finishing writing/typing their reports next week during our literacy centers.
Tomorrow, we will be releasing our butterflies. I am proud to announce that all of our caterpillars transformed into beautiful butterflies!!
This weekend is going to be crazy, I have to get everything fixed from my LDC module and get my examples ready to bring to my training on October 15th & 16th. I'm a little bit nervous about sharing what I did with my class. I guess I shouldn't be since I've been sharing my module here!! I also have to get a presentation ready for November 4th. I have to present my LDC module during our staff meeting, I am the only one that has to share that day. I guess I more nervous about that meeting since the other teachers that have been going through the training get to go on other days and not the only one. Time to start planning for next week. Next week, we will be working on spiders, forces & motion, and math review (balancing equations, fact families, & place value). I'm hoping to blog again over the weekend about the materials that I will be using next week.
Amber
Tomorrow, we will be releasing our butterflies. I am proud to announce that all of our caterpillars transformed into beautiful butterflies!!
This weekend is going to be crazy, I have to get everything fixed from my LDC module and get my examples ready to bring to my training on October 15th & 16th. I'm a little bit nervous about sharing what I did with my class. I guess I shouldn't be since I've been sharing my module here!! I also have to get a presentation ready for November 4th. I have to present my LDC module during our staff meeting, I am the only one that has to share that day. I guess I more nervous about that meeting since the other teachers that have been going through the training get to go on other days and not the only one. Time to start planning for next week. Next week, we will be working on spiders, forces & motion, and math review (balancing equations, fact families, & place value). I'm hoping to blog again over the weekend about the materials that I will be using next week.
Amber
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