Kinder Interactive Math Journals

Guided Reading Journals // Part 2: Sight Words

#BTS2014 FREEBIES!

Where did the past two weeks go? I feel like I haven't eaten a real meal or slept in days.. -_- Incase your are feeling the same way I am- which I know you are- here are a few laughs to get you through.

But really.... lol 

So I can barely keep my eyes open but I am determined to finish this post.  Over the past couple months I have made many new teacher friends and I am so thankful for that.  To show my appreciation, I've decided to make a blog post with all of my new freebies.  My hope is that you can cross something else off your death to-do list... ;)

Here is a handwriting freebie that you can download from my TPT store.  Just print and laminate- binding is optional but it keeps everything together perfectly!  I use a ProClick machine and bind the book across the top so it becomes a flip book.  Students trace with dry erase markers or their fingers, use wiki sticks, or play dough!

If you haven't started journaling in math then I highly suggest you try it out with my Interactive Math Journaling freebie!  This pack meets the K.CC.3 common core standard, but would work well in first grade as well!

I use this behavior chart/parent communication daily and my students keep them in a take home folder.  I keep one week in at a time and use a sheet protector so I don't have to open and close the fodder prongs each time.  My students get a sticker/stamp or a note home.  If you use a color chart, you can record the color here as well. Click here for this freebie.

Interactive Guided Reading Journaling

Interactive journaling is becoming more and more popular in primary classrooms.  If you haven't tried them yet, then I really suggest you do!  They are really simple to start- no need to wait until the beginning of the year- they can be implemented at any time.  Interactive journals provide students with the opportunity to creatively learn.  Students have the ability to use the journal as a year long reference and engages them into more critical thinking.  I decided to try out interactive journals in guided reading.  I found myself losing track of student work completed during GR and also felt like I was re-creating things over and over.  I would be able to cover more concepts if my students had something to refer to at anytime (instead of me shuffling through phonics bins to find something that I will only reference for 30 seconds).  I also wanted something that would supplement any lesson or focus I was working on in GR.  One thing I kept in mind while creating this was keep it simple.  There are so many great, hidden resources out there that are packed with so much information and steps that it's almost impossible for the teacher to figure out.  How do I expect a 5 year old to manage a notebook if I can't keep up with it?  My goal was to make sure there was enough challenge, yet a simple, routine format used.  So with all of this in mind, I created an interactive guided reading journal aimed for beginning readers. Realizing how much there was to cover, I decided to chunk the journal into parts which I will continue to work on throughout the school year. 

Here is part 1! You can find Part 2 here!

Halloween freebies and lots of other updates!

I'm a little sad that Halloween is already over, but that's ok because Thanksgiving is right around the corner! I finally finished my huge Thanksgiving Literacy Pack that I have been working on for awhile.  My students always seem more engaged when my literacy centers and writing activities go with the theme of the month.  I'll be posting it later this week, once I get some classroom pics of it!

But before we get in to that..

Look at all of my new books!

Three boxes full!!  MY first grade teacher recently gave me all of her resource books and tons of awesome read aloud books!  How cool is it that I am reading the same books to my class that I was reading when I was in first grade.  Life is one big circle! :) 

We have been tracking our math assessment averages on the classroom wall.  You can already see what units will need more work (addition and subtraction strategies... those missing addends are so abstract for my little firsties).  But I am excited to see some growth over the next few units.

How do you track data in your classroom? I would love to hear about some other ways it can be done! 

Ok enough about the data... time to get to the fun stuff! Halloween is my favorite holiday and I am so sad the week is already over.

In math we measured ourselves in non-standard pumpkin units.  It's a freebie!!

Bats Week!

Little bit of this and that

Late night post & a pumpkin freebie!

Let me just start by saying how blessed I am to have such a supporting family.  My family has not only helped me fund my first Donors Choose project, but I am only $88 away from completing my second project!  I am so thankful to be able to give my students all these new things for our classroom.  My personal favorite- a classroom laminator! Woohoo! I can finally laminate 24/7! It feels like Christmas… Honestly, if you haven't tried Donors Choose yet, you need to sign up asap! It's free :)

Here is a pumpkin freebie for non-standard measuring and graphing!  We measured how tall we were with paper pumpkins.

Yay for accountable talk!

I have been working hard to create a strong math community in my classroom.  We practice using accountable talk, but some student either forget to use it or they just don't understand it.  To make it easier to remember what to say, I made these Accountable Talk Student Signs!

Busy Weekend

I started my weekend off with a 6 hour PD training on lesson planning.  I'm usually ready to stab myself in the eye about 3 hours in to these, but I actually enjoyed this training.  I think it was easier to sit through this time because I know I will be able to apply this to my classroom.  Now if only I had the extra 10 hours a week to "thoroughly" plan each of my lessons….. Eh, I'll figure it out. 

This is how I am doing homework this year.  I decided to give students the weekend to complete homework incase some of them were too busy during the weeknight.  So they get their homework packet on Tuesdays and it is due on Mondays.  (This is also great because it gives me time to get homework ready on Mondays.)  I am going to keep this hard copy each week and hand write the worksheet or activity they have for homework each night.  Let's hope this works out!  If you would like a copy of this (without my name on it), you can click {here} and download it for free!

New TpT post + a freebie!

I made these beginning consonant blends and digraph cards to use as a small group intervention.  They would also be great for a word work activity because they can be laminated and written on with dry erase marker :)

Get all 30 of these cards {here}!

Also, here is a cute color by shapes activity for the little ones!  Click {here} to download this freebie!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy November!

November already?!  I never thought I would make it this far.. October was a CRAZY month!  I went to 6 trainings and had my first "official" teacher observation (eek).  After tons of fun Halloween activities with the kiddies all month long, my immune system decided to quit on me.  Sad to say, but I had to leave the kids on Halloween.. turns out I have strep throat.  I felt so bad leaving them, but there's no way I would have made it through the day.. Anyways, being sick in bed all day gives me plenty of time for a new blog post ;) 

I finally finished the bottom of my word wall. Yay for word families!

 

Next, we got right in to the Halloween stuff!  This cute little monster activity was so much fun and meets our first grade common core standards of sorting words! I wrote the words on each student's worksheet to make sure they were getting words on their level. ;) 

   

You can get this GREAT monster sorting activity here!

On to some candy corn place value!  I simply found a simple candy corn template online, cut them out, and had the kids show me three ways to write a number.  Boy, was place value fun with first graders......... after long, long days of practice, they were finally able to give me these! Phew! 

 

My next post will have everything from our nocturnal unit! The kids LOVED it!  But for now, it's time to finish watching the CMAs and off to bed! 

Thanks for reading! :)

The Daily 5

I have been reading and researching the daily 5 like crazy!  I finally introduced the whole chart to the class on Friday.  We have been reviewing what each center should look like for the past couple weeks because I didn't want to throw it at them all at once.  It seemed to work well!  The normal "wild animals" in the classroom was more of an organized zoo this time, which is a fantastic improvement! ;)