The Desk Fairy

This week the desk fairy came to our classroom for the first time. The desk fairy comes every once in awhile and rewards students who have kept their desk clean. In order to receive a prize from the desk fairy, the kids' desks have to be in a very neat and orderly condition. I think it's important to start teaching kids how to stay organized and be responsible for your own things and this is a great way to go about it.  We had a mini lesson on how to organize your desk and what to do to keep it clean all the time. After a few days, the desk fairy made her first appearance.

Students who had a clean desk arrived in our room to find a small trinket and this note from the desk fairy:

You never know when the desk fairy will be back. Everyone has been working really hard to keep those desks clean in anticipation of her return!

And I can't leave this post without sharing the cutest quote ever.  Upon seeing the note from the desk fairy, I overheard one student say, "wow, I can't believe there is a desk fairy. First the tooth fairy, now the desk fairy. Who knew there were so many fairies?!?"

I love first graders; everything is always so new and exciting to them.

Colors Continued!

We had another fun week in first grade! How has a month of school already passed? Time sure is flying!

This week we continued working on our color unit. Using simple books that are familar to the kids led to a lot of great connections throughout the week. We also took the opportunity to add some reading strategies to our CAFE wall. When we learn a strategy to help us become better readers we add it to our CAFE wall, which is sort of like a reading menu. This stays on the wall all year so the kids can reference it to help them when they are stuck with something in a book. More on this in a minute ....

On Monday we finished up with the color orange by reading New Socks. This simple, yet fun, book was a hit with the kids. We practiced making connections to the story by creating our own version of New Socks. Each student cut out two orange socks, illustrated the rest of the picture, then wrote about what they could do in their new socks. These turned out super cute! I love all the creative interpretations of the chick in the book.

On Tuesday we moved on to the color green and read Go Away Big Green Monster. This is a GREAT book to practice visualizing! Next year I want to do a lesson similar to Harold and the Purple Crayon and have the kids draw what they see as I read. After we read the book I realized that lesson would have been perfect! Oh well, there is always next year.  We talked about how the author used adjectives to describe the monster, which helps the reader see in their head what the author was thinking. After reading, the kids each made their own big green monsters (so cute!), and during writing we practiced adding adjectives to our sentences to make our writing descriptive and more exciting!

On Wednesday we looked at the color yellow and read School Bus. I took this opportunity to add a bunch of accuracy strategies to our CAFE board. I find we are always talking about comprehension and strategies we can use to better our understanding of stories, but in whole group we rarely touch on accuracy. Usually that is saved for small guided reading groups. This year I wanted the whole class to have the same background knowledge about each strategy before I ever introduce it in small group and this book was perfect to discuss these. The text is short, with only 1 to 4 words on each page so it was a really easy way to introduce strategies for figuring out how to read unknown words. Here you can see what this looks like:

After we finished the book each of the kids made a page for a class book about school busses. I gave each of them a bus printout that they had to color and glue on a page. Then they had to use the rest of the page to draw where their bus was going as well as complete the sentence, "My school bus is going to ______."  I stapled these together and it made our very first class book. I LOVE making class books with the kids each year. It is something fun for them that they helped create which really keeps them engaged in reading.

On Thursday, for the color brown, we read the book Who Took the Farmer's Hat and practiced retelling events in the story. After reading, the kids had to turn their hat into something else, just like in the story. The kids completed the sentence, "My hat is a ______" and illustrated the picture to go with it. We reviewed one of our accuracy strategies from the day before, "Use the picture" and talked about how it is really important to have a good illustration because that is what helps the friends in our class read our page. I am always impressed by how creative the kids can be!

 Hard to see, but it says, "my hat is a home for bugs".

 "my hat is a ice cream cone"

"my hat is a rocket"

One thing I was most excited about this week was getting started with Daily 5. We spent the last 3 weeks learning about each of the five choices: read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing, and listen to reading. This week we were finally able to put it all together and do 3 rotations a day. I was SO impressed with my firsties this year! They did such a great job rotating and doing their job at each station. It's nice to have some structure to the daily schedule and I'm excited to be able to start pulling small groups for reading in the coming week!

Next week we will finish up our color unit by doing a variety of activities surrounding ALL the colors. I'm looking forward to rainbow week already!

Thank You!

I just wanted to take a minute to thank all the parents who came to Open House last night.  I sincerely appreciate your dedication to your child's education!  It's going to be a great year in first grade. Hope you enjoy reading all about it and keeping up to date here. Feel free to leave a comment on a post and let me know you were here! :)

Color Week

What a fun week!

This week we started our three week unit on colors. Over the course of the next few weeks we will choose a color a day (or every couple days) and use books about that color to aid in our learning in reading.

We started off the week with the color purple. On Monday we read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevein Henkes (one of my favorites!). After reading the kids made connections to the story by making their own purple (paper) purses and filling them with labeled pictures of different things that are important to them. The boys were given the option to make purses for their mom if they didn't like the idea of making one for themselves. Here's an example:

On Tuesday we continued with the color purple and read Harold and the Purple Crayon. Before reading, we discussed using mental images to aid in comprehension. To practice this, I read the story without showing the pictures and the kids had to draw what they heard using only a purple crayon. Their drawings turned out great! I took a few minutes to show off each of the kids' drawings and we talked about how they were similar and different. The kids learned that when you make a mental image it might not be exactly like someone else's, but that doesn't mean it is wrong. Then, to finish off the lesson we watched Harold and the Purple cCayon on Discovery Streaming. The kids were so excited to see their mental images come to life on the screen. This activity was definitely a keeper! I think the kids have a pretty good understanding of the importance of mental images in reading.

On Wednesday we took a break from our color work to catch up on our daily 5 practice and get some things ready to start writer's workshop next week. We learned about the last two daily 5 choices, read to someone and listen to reading. We did a little practice with rotating though choices, and I think the kids are ready to dive right in on Monday! I'm excited to get daily 5 up and running so I can start meeting with kids in guided reading groups.

For writer's workshop we made a heart map. I found this idea from The First Grade Parade and fell in love with it. The idea is that each child fills their heart with things they love. This heart map can then be used to give the kids ideas for writing when they are stuck. I glued them down to the front of the kids' writer's workshop folders and we are ready to begin learning about the steps in the writing process on Monday!

On Thursday we moved on to the color orange and read The Orange Splot. We practiced retelling the story then made connections by coming up with our own original house that could be an extension to the story. The kids had to come up with a creative house, glue on the big orange splot, then complete the sentence, "The orange splot landed on my ____ house.". I loved all the creative ideas the kids came up with and I was quite impressed with some of their artwork. It was hard to choose just one or two to post here since they were all so good!

Today we celebrated Carrot Day since we were focusing on the color orange. I wish I could post pictures for you from today because the kids were so cute with all our fun activities! We started off the morning making carrot day headbands. I meant to take a picture of one, but only managed to get pics of the kids wearing them, sorry! We used a sentence strip to make the headband and the kids glued on construction paper carrots and used crayon and marker to draw more carrots. Super cute!  After our school patriotic sing-a-long in honor of Patriot's Day, we got to business handing out carrot awards. Each student was asked to bring in a carrot to use for the daily activities. We handed out class awards for smallest carrot, longest carrot, biggest carrot, and funniest carrot. After we had awarded class awards all the first graders got together and we compared the winners from each class to hand out grade level awards in the same categories. What fun! When the kids went to Ms. Coburn's room in the afternoon they got to use their carrots in both math and science so it was a fun day all around.

Next week we will continue our unit on colors and have some fun activities planned. I am also looking forward to diving in to Daily 5 as well as Writer's Workshop. Should be a busy week!

Second Week Update

Wow, it's only the third week of school and I am already behind in blogging! I promise I'm going to try harder to at least post once a week.

We had a GREAT second week of school, and I am excited to share some of the fun things we did with you!

We just finished up our All About Me unit, where we spent some time learning about each of the members of our class. This is a great unit to start off the year because learning about eachother helps build a classroom community.

We started out the week reading How I Spent My Summer Vacation. After reading, we shared with some friends all the fun things that we did this summer. Each student was given a t-shirt pattern and was asked to draw a picture of something fun they did over the summer and write a sentence about it.  Here you can see our clothesline of shirts hanging in the hallway:

Here's a close-up:

Next, we read Chrysanthemum. We talked a little bit about names and how everyone has a name that is special for them. For homework, the students were asked to talk to their parents about how they got their name and we spent some time sharing with the class. I loved hearing all the reasons why the different names were chosen! After we shared about our names, we worked on making a piece for our class name quilt. I wish I could show you the finished product with all the names together, but you'll have to settle for just my piece.

Another fun activity we did this week to get to know eachother a little better involved reading the book Family and then creating a house with a portrait of each students' family. After drawing the members of our families, we wrote some sentences describing the people who live in our house.  Here is my example:

The kids loved sharing about the different people in their families. We learned that families come in all shapes and sizes!

We finished off the week reading Jessica by Kevin Henkes. In the book, the main character has an imaginary friend named Jessica whom she spends all her time with. That is, until she starts school. When she starts school she makes new friends with a girl in her class named, you guessed it, Jessica! After reading the book, I paired the students up and they worked on completing a Venn Diagram about themselves. Students were challenged to find 3 things they had in common, and 3 things that made each of them special. I was so impressed with the conversations I heard from the pairs trying to learn new things about eachother.  Here are a few of the finished products:

I got this idea from Just Add Clipart. It was definitely a keeper! The kids all realized quickly that it was almost easier to come up with things they had in common than things that were different. We learned a lot about each other and found some common ground with our new friends.

Week 3 is already underway and is off to a great start! Check back in a few days to see what we are working on.

First Week of School

We survived the first week of school! It was a long, exhausting week; but I just love my new firsties so far!

We started out the week with magic playdough. I found this idea on pinterest and it was a total keeper. Basically, you make playdough, roll it into balls, make an indention in the center, add a few drops of food coloring, then close the ball up. When the kids get the ball it looks just like white playdough. We read the poem together as a class then the kids started to squish the playdough. As soon as they start to play with it the food coloring starts to mix in and the playdough changes colors. You should have heard the squeals as the playdough changed colors. The kids LOVED it! They kept yelling things like "the playdough IS magic! It says first grade is going to be great!" so cute :)

We spent A LOT of time going over class rules and practicing routines. I found this cute idea on Fall into First's blog. We read the book David Goes to School then brainstormed some rules we felt were important for our class. The kids went back to their seat and made their own version of David and copied their rule on handwriting paper. I LOVE the way these turned out. I was so impressed with how well everyone followed directions and learned to use a tracer!

How cute is this?!? Gosh I love these kids!

 We spent some time talking about ways to be a good friend, and everyone made a key listing one thing we can do to be good friends. I taught the kids what a play on words means and we created this "the key to being a good friend" poster.  I hung this up to remind us ways to be good citizens in our classroom.

Another fun activity this week involved one of my favorite books for the start of the year, The Crayon Box that Talked. This book is so great for teaching the kids about how everyone is unique, and when we all work together we can do so much more than we can do alone. We made a circle map about ways to be a good helper, then the kids used their crayons to create a colorful "helping hand" for our display. 

And finally, I saved the best for last. To help kids learn where all the important places are in the school, we read the book Corduroy. In the story, Corduroy loses one of his large white buttons and is searching for it. In the end, he never does find it, but a little girl decides to take him home and give him a new one. The kids and I decided to take a walk around our school to see if we could find the lost button for him. As we were walking we stopped to talk to some important people in the school such as the librarian, art teacher, nurse, etc. We kept our eyes open for the button, but alas, it could not be found. Upon returning to our classroom, who would have thought, the button was laying behind my desk on the floor! Everyone was so excited so we decided to write a letter to Corduroy (that everyone got to sign - names have been blurred out) and make a map for him so he could find his way to the classroom.

The next morning when we got to school we found this letter waiting for us:

What an exciting way to start the year!

I'm looking forward to many more fun adventures with the students. It's going to be a great school year! :)

Classroom Setup

I know it's a little early, but I spent some time a few weeks ago in my classroom getting things ready. I absolutely LOVE setting up my classroom every year! I just love that fresh start feeling you get going through all your things, organizing, and decorating (I'm a nerd, I know!).

Every teacher knows the feeling: walking into your room at the start of the year and feeling completely overwhelmed at the thought of how much there is to do. Looking at all the furniture stacked in the corner and all the blank walls can be a little stressful. I always worry it's going to take forever, but every year I surprise myself.

the "before picture"

I spent about 4 hours working the first day, and about the same amount of time the second day. I am happy to say that I am DONE! Until I get a list of student names, there is nothing else to do. Everything is organized and ready, I just need add name tags to the desks and the front door and I'll officially be ready for the year.

Here's a peek of the after:

 View of the room from the doorway

 My classroom library. So organized ... I LOVE it! :)

 Something new this year: my writing wall. Found this idea on Pinterest and LOVED it. It says, "Use your writer's eyeglasses" and then each of those posters has a convention the kids need to make sure they check for while editing their work. I made bookmarks to go with those posters for the kids to bring to their desk as they are working as a reminder.

 The back side of the room ... The cubbies are still full of stuff I need to move to my new reading recovery room so that will be cleaned up a bit before school starts. 

 The word wall, which currently has just the words the kids are expected to have learned in kindergarten.

Word work and Work on Writing center materials

 The Daily Cafe. I am SUPER excited to have this in my reading corner this year. In the past this area was reserved for Every Day Counts (calendar), but since I am not teaching math this year I was able to move my Daily Cafe board over. I think we'll be able to use it much more efficiently this year since I can reference it as I read stories to the class.

 Entry table: This is where students turn in their work and their daily folders. 

This is also new this year and I cannot wait to use it! This is our writing VOICES wall. Just like the Daily Cafe, we will add strategy cards to the wall as a reference as we learn them. I think this is going to help me be more intentional in my writing instruction.

I really love how it turned out. Since I am not teaching math or science this year, I had some extra wall space to work with. I had a lot of fun coming up with some new bulletin boards to fill the space. Now, we just wait for the kids! Only a few more weeks. It's going to be a great year. :)