Please excuse the mess! New blog design coming soon!
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CVC Journal Activities
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The 2015 TPT conference was a wonderful experience. I not only learned so much from such great teacher-authors, but I gained tons of motivation to get my ideas finally finished, ok at least started.
One of the things that has been on my mile long "tpt summer list" was redesigning my CVC mini-books, part of a much larger "project" to redesign the entire Phonics Focus Toolkit. I'm not sure if it's because I have a tendency to impulsively change something for no reason (e.g. my blog design, classroom furniture, classroom decor, living room furniture, my entire life) or because I know that I can continuously improve something to make it better. I felt that "mini-books" were getting to be a little tedious. By changing to this format, it leaves much more focus on the students' learning, and less focus on when I'm going to find time to prep 18 sets of -et word books. I begin by cutting around the rectangles for the students (It really doesn't take long doing 6-8 pages at a time). After a few weeks of completing the activity, they will understand how it all works and fits into a journal. At this point, I give the two sheets of paper to my students and let them cut around the boxes. If you're like me and are afraid hesitant of having your kindergarteners cutting during instructional time, then have them cut everything for morning work and keep in a zip lock bag or "word work" container. This way you can honestly say there is no instructional time lost due to cutting.....with scissors...in kindergarten. I'll just get to the pictures. ;)
Another way to use these activities is to complete one slip each day. Students can eventually learn to label the top of the slip with the day of the week or the date.
My new obsession- community crayons
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Happy that my students and I finished our door! This one is taking us all the way until the end of the year!
For about 2 weeks, my students explored ocean animals through books and online. They were allowed to read these books (I had about 30 of them from our school library, whoops #hoarder) anytime that we were doing some kind of reading. I then had them pick their favorite sea animal which they had to write a report on. So much learning going on in these little kinder's minds! I will post some close ups of the writing soon!
Also, I started a new supplies table system. Two words- COMMUNITY CRAYONS. Why have I never done this? Sorted by color and everything!
Happy teacher --> Happy students --> lots of learning :)
P.S. It took every ounce of self control to not fill these with fresh, new crayons and pencils.. August will be here soon enough... I shouldn't be thinking of August.
The cans are called seed containers and are from the Target dollar spot! Woohoo! I just covered them using scrapbook paper & tape!
Ugh, broken crayons need love too...
I have an ELL student who loves making these during word work. They work great for vocabulary!
Click the picture to see this in my tpt store.
Another fun activity I've been using to help with listening skills. I read a word problem and they have to listen and answer. Easy to differentiate for any level. Click the picture to check it out!
Happy Sunday! Hope everyone has a fantastic week! We have less than 30 days left! How many do you have?!
Spring is here! It's plant time!
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One of my FAVORITE times of year in kindergarten is PLANTS! There are so many fun ways to teach about plants!
Here's one of my favorites!
When you need a little push...
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It's past the 100th day of school and just about EVERY teacher I know has come to that "ugh, it's that dreadful time of year..." state of mind that happens every single year. Here’s a few quotes to hopefully get you through the next 80 days... :)
Guided Reading Organization
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A few people have asked how I use journals during guided reading so I decided to make a post on it and also share how I organize my groups! I use Daily 5 in my classroom while I pull small groups. I have 5 different groups and 4 rounds of Daily 5 so I meet with my lows every day and my highs every other day.
So if you didn't notice from the picture... I'm a little bit obsessed with color coding. Each of my reading groups is a different color.* I use cardboard magazine boxes (from Ikea) and colored sentence strips to keep all of my materials for the week. Books, journals, word work- anything that I plan on using goes in the box. I also keep my guided plans color coded and in the box. I realized I'm much more likely to follow my plans when it's brightly colored and right there in front of me!
*I've heard a lot of people tell me that they don't use colors for groups because students realize who the low/high ones are. Also, some students may be used to seeing "red" as bad on a behavior chart so being in the "red" group may make some students feel like they are low/bad at reading. In my classroom, we do not use a clip chart or anything related to colors for that matter. My students have never been exposed to red = bad, so they actually do fine with the colored groups. It all depends on your class!
There are a lot of fun things that go inside the boxes! I use my guided reading journals DAILY- even on the days that we only have 2-3 minutes to complete some word work! Here are a few things we use in our journals.
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If you're looking for a place to start, these interactive guided journal activities can be found here:
Here is what I use to plan each lesson! I just fill out one per book and write in everything I am going to do with the book. This way I can jump ahead or slow down depending on the students needs.
Click the picture below to grab it from my TPT store for free!
Below the shelf with my boxes, I have a few tubs of guided reading "supplies". I use at least one thing from these tubs each day! Dry erase markers, boards, picture cards, alphabet cards, etc. A couple of favorites are the witch fingers and magic wands. :)
Witch fingers are AMAZING to use as pointers and to practice one-to-one matching. My kids also use wands when they are searching for sight words! After they find a certain sight word in their book they rainbow write them in their journals.
Interactive Journal LOVE
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So if anyone has seen my TPT store before, it is obvious that I have an obsession with interactive journals. So of course when I was thinking of ways to make word work during guided reading more effective, interactive journals came to mind! So far they have been a hit in my classroom. My students cannot wait to come to "teacher table" during Daily 5 just so they can work in their guided reading journals. You can see a few other posts on these journals here and here.
Part 3 of my GR interactive journals focus on CVC/word families and can be found here.
I can't get over how cute "wag" is...
All of my journals are designed for the smallest amount of cutting possible. I like to cut around the journals pieces ahead of time so students only need to make 3-4 cuts and the best part- will have NO SCRAPS to throw away! Woohoo!
You can use these to supplement a specific word family lesson or mix them up as a review or assessment.
Click the image below to see the full preview in my TPT store! :)
Two posts in one day?!
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I've felt so productive on this beautiful Monday off work. Second blog post today! Figured this would be a good time to post all of the crafty things I've been up to this summer.
The first thing I made was the sign that my new babies held on the first day on school. Love how it turned out. I got everything at Michaels to make it- basically just mod lodge and scrapbook paper!
