A as in Apple! Anchor Poster Happy in Grade 1!

I hope everyone has gotten back into the routine of school. My kiddos are working hard each day to remember our expectations and daily routines, as well as learning lots of new skills. We started our phonics skills progression two weeks ago. We focused on short a the first week and then short a word families the next week. Each new vowel I am making an anchor poster to display in the room. The kiddos came up with all of the words and then I added the pictures. Anchor charts are such a great visual for our kiddos to remember all the skills they learn each year. 

Last week I let the firsties make their own anchor charts using our short a word families. They worked in groups to come up with words for their posters and then added pictures to match. They really enjoyed getting to learn these word families in a fun and interactive way! 

 

 Our next chart focused on text-to-self connections. I borrowed some ideas from my Pinterest board of anchor charts and helped the firsties learn how to connect what they are reading to themselves. My class is doing Whole Brain Teaching this year, so we "Mirrored and echoed" that a text to self connection is when I connect a text to something I've done, something I've felt or something that's happened." My kiddos love earning the points from the Whole Brain system. I would encourage all teachers to look into this fun way of learning. Look out for another post centered on WBT. 

I changed up our "Me on the Map" unit activity this year, and with the help of some examples from Pinterest I created this one page flip chart activity! My kiddos loved getting to find their place on the map and draw them holding the world! 

We also learned about the community we live in and who all helps out. I passed out these cute photos of community helpers and let my firsties discuss what each person did to help our community. We then recorded our thoughts and added some more helpers that were not pictured! 

Check back soon for our short i anchor chart and tips for Whole Brain Teaching! 

~Miss A 

Six for Saturday

Hello, Hello. I seem to be blogging monthly lately, so here we go! Grad school has been taking up most of my time as well as I am trying to create lots for my TPT store. Here is a quick Six for Saturday list, since I obviously missed Friday. I have a good excuse though, I have been on SPRING BREAK! That much needed week that all of us teachers secretly count down for! 

1. My mom, aunt, bro, sis & most adorable niece loaded up the car and headed to NC to see my amazing almost 84 year old grandmother. She is incredible and we all loved getting to see her for a couple of days. We also got to teach her how to use her new IPHONE 5C. Yes, I know, my grandmother is cooler than yours. She is learning how to Skype and FaceTime and loving every minute of getting to catch up with us. 

2. February - this month was full of fun activities but we saved the best for the 14th. My kids decorated cereal boxes at home for their treats, check out the Lego one, isn't it adorable. I handed out hand made "Valentine, I think you're a Star(burst)!" valentines and we made a pie graph using MnMs. We also wrote about someone/something we love.

- I LOVE GOD, because he gave me everything I needed. 

- I love Miss A because she is nice. 

- I love my FAMILY! I love my mom because she lets me help cleaning the house. I love my Dad because he's funny!

2. We had an E-day(students work online) on President's Day so we made these fun George Washington faces when we came back. Most of them have the fact about him glued to the back. We LOVED learning about his teeth since it was also Dental Health Month. By the way, did you know George was an AUBURN fan?? WAR EAGLE! (2nd pic)

3. We had a visit from our friend, LeRoy the Leprechaun this March. We spent the morning graphing the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms and then LeRoy left us a scavenger hunt in the afternoon! A lot of my kids were giving up candy for lent, so LeRoy was kind enough to leave us green bouncy balls for a treat! 

4. We studied US Symbols a few weeks back. My school's high school team was in the state championship game, so I had a day where about 5 of mine checked out. I decided to let them choose a symbol and make a poster about it.  The only direction they had was to name the symbol and put somewhere what it represented. I think they did a fabulous job, don't you?!

5. Like I mentioned earlier, I am working hard to get my TPT store going. I spent this winter creating long vowel worksheets for our interactive notebooks. We started these notebooks in January as a fun way to cover the skills we were working on in a fun way! My kids have loved the activities, maybe yours will too! 

Long Vowel Interactive Notebook Pages

6. We are headed back to the Philippines in 3 short months! I will be spending a month there and can not wait to see my sweet PI friends again! Please pray that God will open the hearts of the people we come into contact with this summer! 

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 3.2

Welcome back and happy weekend!

It's Five for Friday time!

1. We spent the beginning of the week writing our first book report on our favorite Dr. Seuss book. They did pretty well and our computer teacher let us type them up and add pictures today! We ended our Dr. Seuss unit with making Thing 1 word families.

2. On Wednesday we got to pick any object in our room to describe using adjectives: size, shape, color, number, what kind. They were so cute while they observed their object. The loft was a HUGE hit!

3. We finished Chapter 8 in our math series and spent the last two days reviewing with this unit. Find it here. 

4. My mom and I are booking our flight back to Manila, PI this weekend! I am super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us this summer!

5. I tutor some of our ESL students two days after school and on Thursday I had a fabulous conversation with one of them about the Lord. I asked her if she needed to do her 20 minutes of reading, and she said that she does that at home when she reads the Bible. She was currently reading Psalms, Proverbs, & Luke. WOW! This young girl(5th grade) then told me about how her mother took them to church and how she loved it, but how they only could go to church on the weekends her father went away golfing. She told me that she heard her parents fight because her mother wanted the kids to know about the Lord. She was worried for her grandmothers too because "they believe Buddha" as she said. I told her that I would pray for her dad and family with a hope that they accept the Lord's love for them soon. Please pray with me for this sweet young girl's family. 

Happy Friday!

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 2.4

It's Friday ladies! Everybody's working for the weekend. 

Also Happy Birthday to George Washington!!

1. So we didn't have Monday off like most of the schools around us, so we started the week off with some presidential information with the help of this fun pack by Teacher to the Core. 

2. I also found a fun idea on Pinterest with making fact hats so I called the unit "Hat's off to Presidents" We have spent this week reading informational text and taking notes. My kids then took our notes and turned them into sentences for each side of their hats. Here are our George Washington hats!

1. George was the father of our country. He led the Continental Army. In 1789 George became President. 

2. In 1799 George died at 67.

3. Gorge(ha) was 11 when his father died. George's favorite subject was math.

4. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732. Washington grew up in a farm house. 

The best part was telling them about the President's wives and what year they married, all the girls oohh'ed and ahh'ed and the boys were like 'ewwww!'

3. We also wrote about if we were President what would we do. They all loved getting live in the White House and the boys loved that they would get to ride "in their AIR FORCE 1!" (anyone remember that song, haha)

4. We reviewed contractions this week with some contraction caterpillars. Some turned out really cute, while others rushed through to get to recess on time. It was hard to tell them to slow down since we had missed outside recess almost all last week and Monday because of rain. 

5. We earned our compliment party this week. 15 compliments woohoo! So I baked cookies for the group to have during a special showing of their choice of a Magic School Bus video! Which throws me back to these fun pics:  

The Scholastic store in NYC, a teacher's dream. You can use your bonus points in the store!! I had to take a pic of the life size bus! 

RIDE ON THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS! 

BEEP BEEP

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 2.3

Happy Friday to all! We have made it past Valentines Day! This next part of the year is such a great time in first grade. We get a good long stretch without any interruptions and last year my firsties really took off. 

Well, let's get to it! Teaming up with Kacey on this fabulous linky. 

1. We learned about comparative endings this week and along came this lovely anchor chart. Pardon my birds, I'll practice my drawing skills at some point. I found this great comparative ending go-fish game and my friends really enjoyed it. I love teaching this because I always enjoy being the "TALLEST" in my room. This is one of the many reasons I teach 1st and not 5th, I'm the tallest. Haha

2. We did lots of fun Valentine activities. I gave out highlighters for our next Math unit and sweethearts for treats on Thursday. One of my student's mom made these adorable SMORE treats and I got the best Valentine treat.

"I was 'soapin' you'd be my Valentine!"

 One activity involved our favorite character, JUNIE B. We read this:

 

and then practiced using details that we remembered to summarize each chapter. We loved finding out who Junie B's secret admirer was!!

3. I found a great adjective lesson that also allowed us to eat some candy hearts. We had a page of adjectives on one side and then a Valentine's mad gab story on the other. You drop the candy heart on the mat and whatever adjective it landed on we would record it on the next blank. My firsties created the funniest stories and giggled forever at their silliness. We ended the lesson by getting to describe Miss A using adjectives. You should try it out, its a great comic relief and confidence boost ha. I was described with these adjectives:

~funny teacher

~beautiful hair

~craziest teacher

~tall boots (I told you I like to be tall)

~shiny eyes

4. My necklace got caught on something this week and broke at the clasp, but have no fear, the teacher was here. It is currently being held together with a trusty PAPERCLIP. 

5. Funny school stories:

My kids are still talking about Punxsutawney Phil, they loved him and this week one of our books mentioned him again. 

BC asked the funniest questions: "So is he the only groundhog that gets our vote on spring or winter?" then he came back later and asked "So what happens if he gets killed or dies can we look that up?" 

We were playing a math game for Go-Math and one problem required the student to take some peppers off the scale. KE was having trouble with moving them on the SMARTboard and yelled "Get out of here, you peppers!" I wish you were there it was so funny in the moment.

Today I got asked: "Do you spelling going to "gowingto" 

I had to explain to him that it was actually two words not one!

~Happy Valentines Day yesterday!

Five for Friday 2.1

Happy Friday and February! Thanks for stopping by to check in on our week!

I apologize for not that many pictures, I'm going back to school in the morning and will add a few snapshots in the morning!

1. I was out again this Monday attending an my third and last AMSTI workshop. I love being a continuous learner, but I have to admit that I was thrilled that this was our last meeting and that I wouldn't be taken out of my classroom any more this year.

2.ARGH, it's a PIRATES life for these All-StARs!

This week we learned about the 'ar' and we became PIRATES in room A9. We wrote stories using the prompt: 

Once there was a pirate....

My kids did a great job writing these stories. 2 of my boys even started adding years in their stories and made their stories rhyme. 

"There once was a pirate who found a car and came from a far in 1964," : )

3. Today one of my firsties raised her hand to point something out to me. 

"Miss A, do you know you have a big blue spot on your arm?" 

Well no, I didn't, but after that I checked and what do you know a large blue spot was on my arm right below the elbow. Sadly, I don't even remember where I had a blue marker today. #teacherproblems

4. We made these fun groundhog books this year. Last year I found them somewhere in blogland and added it to my February notebook of ideas. We wrote about what our burrow would look like, true hibernators, and some fun facts about groundhogs. This year my kiddos LOVED talking about Punxsutawney Phil and are excited about seeing if Phil will see his shadow or not in the morning. 

5.  Next week we are learning about penguins, so I am off to blogland to find some more  fun activities. Today I finished getting our February literacy centers ready for Monday. I am loving using these centers, my kids get so excited when I introduce a new month's calendar. Thanks to Sarah for the idea!

~Rachel 

We're Thankful!

So I was thinking how most of the time when I am having a bad day at school there is always  one of my friends that shows me Christ's love and brings me out of my funk. I have a friend in my room this year that is challenging to say the least. We are making some progress with behavior choices but with the very few breaks we have this year with the new schedule change, this friend's behavior has been taking a nose dive back to frustrating days. Today however, after a tough morning we started writing.

Our topic today: I am Thankful...

Boy, was I proud of the list we made! We got to discuss so many things, even how we are thankful for worms because they help some plants grow haha.
But most of all I was happy to share my PI experience with them some more and we got to discuss why we were thankful for God and Jesus and our families. I love hearing that my kiddos know what Jesus did for them and that they are thankful for it and even thankful that they get to go to church on Sundays!

Here are a few of their papers!

 I am thankful for my cat and dog.                             I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for
I am thankful for God.                                                 my food. I am thankful for my mom and my
I am thankful for Miss Anderson.                              dad and my sister. Her name is ......
I am thankful for Jesus.                                               I am thankful for Miss Anderson.
I am thankful for Freedom.                                        But most of all I am thankful for Jesus.

 I am thankful for my family including my sister.     I am thankful for my compass. I am thankful
I'm also thankful that I have friends too, and          for God. I am thankful for my family because
Jesus because he died for us.                                 they love me. I am thankful for Jesus. I am
                                                                                     thankful for food. I am thankful for life.

I am thankful for church. I am also thankful         I am thankful for the world &God & Jesus

for my family. I am thankful for God. I am            & my family and friends & school & my 

for my fish.                                                                  country the USA & the armed forces & food   

                                                                                     & life. I love life & the galaxy. 

They are a great reminder to count our blessings!

~ Miss A

No School Today!

Today we are observing Veteran's Day, which means no kiddos and no work today. I have been very overwhelmed this year with a few of my friends so documenting my year has not been up to my usual standards. I have a great mom that has taken lots of pictures at school events, hopefully I will get some copies! Here are a few highlights I found on my phone!

 A few weeks ago when we were working on short vowels, I made these large sound reminders to display on the board. The 'a' apple is on the other side of the wall, oops. We spent one morning thinking of all the words we knew that used those vowels and stuck them to our posters. I then let them take one word from each chart to their desk and they practiced sentence writing with the words.

We have really been working hard on writing complete sentences so we needed some more practice with capitalization, so we made an anchor chart to display.

When the season changed from summer to fall we made a chart that tracked the seasons and characteristics of each one. I loved that when we got to Christmas someone wanted to add Jesus' birthday and in the spring we added Easter. I love it when my kids bring up our Creator!

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!

~Miss Anderson

School Fun!

School is going well but very tiring so I am sorry for the lack of blog posts. I promise I will get better. This group is going to be a challenge but I know that the Lord has placed these 19 friends in my room for a reason and I am excited to see His plan. 

Here is our week in review:

We studied short 'o' and the plural 's' so we made a chart of our examples. They decided to write some in the middle if it was plural and short o!

We are finishing up our chapter on subtraction in Go-Math. As we were learning, we added our facts to our Subtraction anchor chart that will go up on the wall next week.

Next week we will finish our farm unit with horses, but this week we studied sheep and ended the week making these cute little friends with cotton balls and Tunstall's Teachings template.

We did a fun writing for our "All-Star Work produced by" board. Here was the prompt:

"If I was a (farm animal) I would..."

Here are some examples of students who did their All-Star best!

 I stocked up at Wal-Mart on these fun crates(didn't even take the sticker off ha). They were a $1!!! I use them to hold my students Production folders(folder work). When they finish their work they place their folder in here, which makes for quick and easy checking for me!

On Friday we practiced addition and subtraction with our marker boards. They LOVE using the marker boards instead of paper and pencil. We use the dice to roll and the cubes to count. We started with subtraction and then ended Math time with reviewing addition.

Hope you all have a great Monday tomorrow!
~Miss Anderson

12 more days to go!

I hope everyone is having a lovely Sunday. I am home for the weekend for one of my best friend's wedding shower. It was nice to go to my home church to day and take a break from the Auburn scene. I hope the Lord has given you many things to be blessed about on this pretty Sunday. I love getting to talk with my firsties about God and I wanted to share a quick part of our week that made my heart smile.  

One of my first grade friends has been having trouble controlling his behavior this year, and this week had not started out well for him. He had been mean to a friend, snipped someone's hair in Art, and just not making good choices. He had to sit out for part of recess one day and so I pulled him over to talk with him. 

Here was the convo:

Me: BC I just love you so much and I want you to make those good choices that I know you know how to do. BC who loves you?

BC: You do, and my mom

Me: Who believes in you?

BC: you do (heart melting so far)

Me: Who cares about you?

BC: God.

(My heart smiled so big, that I just gave him a huge hug and let him go play. If you remember, I ask that you pray for him with me.)

I LOVE when I see God working in the hearts of my 21 friends that I now after 168 days with them feel like my own. 

Here is our week in recap:

We have been learning about butterflies so we made some coffee filter butterflies and glued them to a butterfly poem that I created. 

I randomly bought a coloring book one day, and it has turned out to be a lifesaver. We love coloring the pages and displaying them in our brand new 'gallery.'

We studied commands and exclamations so I created this worksheet where we wrote one of each type of sentence and then drew a picture to match. 

I am LOVING making Anchor Charts lately! Such a great way to review all we have learned!

Here is our butterfly life cycle that we made. We read two books to find our information and then as an incentive I let them color in the pictures that you see on the chart. 

We have been reading The Magic School Bus: Expedition Down Under, so we worked on story maps and summarizing. 

Review on Contraction and Compound Words. 

Last week we worked on the life cycle of a frog and one of my parents sent in some little frogs for us to observe. 

I hope that you see the joy and blessings in each day this week! Happy Sunday!

~Rachel