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 

Back to Business

Well, I have made it through the first two weeks of school and to say that I was tired was an understatement. EXHAUSTED, would be a better word; however, the long weekend has been just what I needed to rest up and get back into the swing of things. I have lots of pictures and stories to tell so I will apologize for the long post.

Funny saying in the first weeks:

"Miss A, how do you spell 'pecause'?"  Do you mean because? 

"Nope, pecause, like I want to be a doctor pecause"

Ready for Open House!

 Whole Brain Teaching Rules!

 Whole Brain Teaching Methods

 Gifts for the Firsties!

 The boats have the students' names on them. There are also red strings all coming from AL to London, Uganda, & the Philippines! Places people in my family traveled to this summer.

New behavior chart, taken from Cara and tweaked a little for my kiddos. 

 Last year I was given this extra desk, however, it was covered in SpongeBob stickers. Now I'm not a huge fan of the underwater gang, so it got a fresh coat of paint this year!

 New book organization

         

Our favorite first grader!

      
         Eric Carle tissue paper characters

 School is Cool

chilling with our shades on

  Started back this week with Sam, Come Back. We're learning

short 'a' and final 'ck.'

~Miss Anderson 

Busy Busy Days!

So its been a while, but I am here to fill you in. 

I have had a few mishaps which have made me seem to vanish in blogger land:

1. visited the local ER: interesting night but just ended up being migraines/ anemic

2.  got a 24 hour bug 

3. DIBELS testing

So when not sick, I've been exhausted, but I have caught a new wind and ready to face the last 23 days of the school year! Can you believe it, we are almost done!

I hope everyone had a great Easter! It's such a great way to celebrate the amazing act that God did for us! Oh, How he LOVES us! I loved getting to hear from my kids and what they already knew about this celebration. I spent a great weekend with the fam and some family friends. I heard a great lesson on Peter and how after the crucifixion he went back to the man he was before Christ. If God came back today, where would he find you? Serving Him or serving the world?

 the brother and me Easter morning

We have been studying life cycles and the ow/ou sound so we made these fun activities.

       1. We made bunny contractions and wrote sentences with them!

       2. We made the Pinterest inspired flowers and learned how to label.

       3. We made 'ow' band-aids. The picture wouldn't fit so I did the best I could : )

In Math we studied money, so we brainstormed information we knew about these coins and I made some anchor charts to hang in our room.

At the end of our unit we held a YARD SALE! The kids brought in some change and items to sell! We had a blast counting out exact change for our prizes! It was so funny, some of the students would buy back what their mom sent in!

I had been using Mystery words as a behavior incentive, but we needed a change so I have been drawing pictures on the board and we have colored them in as we make 'whole group' All-Star decisions. Before Easter I used a decorated egg, this week we are working to color in this umbrella. It's very fitting with the rain we have been having!

As always, I will try and keep you updated on a more regular basis. 

~Rachel 

Another week bites the dust!

It's hard to believe that we have been in school for 37 days! We are just one week away from the end of the first nine weeks, which means next week is Unit tests! We have been very busy lately and let me tell you my room looks like a barn...literally. We have just ended our farm unit, so Room A9 is covered with our animal creations. 

We are working on the short vowel sounds so the hen and pig wheels were great for word families. We even had a  horse come visit our school to make our Farm Unit come alive!

Meet Graham!

We have parent/teacher conference coming up and I wanted to have a great sample of each child's writing on my "All Star Work" board, so this week we started the writing process. Our topic: FALL! Pinterest helped me create my latest addition to my classroom, our writing process pencil!

The kids loved getting to move their name down the pencil to mark which stage they were in!!

My kids love to talk! We have had numerous conversations on when and where it is appropriate to talk and so on but we must just have a lot to say. Here are some things that made me smile this week: (yes they were said while I was talking or when they were supposed to be working but I still got a giggle)

1. I think I have an allergy in my eye.

2. You went to college! You are only like 16.

3. Look at my Baa Baa Black sheep, I colored him white!

To help with our talking issue, with the help of who else but Pinterest, I developed this:

I have a different mystery word each week. If children are quiet during work and transition time, I reveal a letter, but if we are talking I silently go up and flip a letter back over. Sadly, as you can tell this week we did not get our prize. Can you guess what it was?

I will leave you with some exciting news! I have been teaching for almost two months without being paid (the life of a first year teacher!) and I have been waiting on this:

 My first paycheck! 

Sorry it's a little blurry, I had to use self-timer, ha

Also, I got two gifts this week. If you are questioning what the yellow gift is, let me just tell you. According to SS its "flowers she picked for me" a.k.a POLLEN!

 Good thing I had allergy medicine handy!

~Miss Anderson