Graphic Organizers

I love using graphic organizers in the classroom. I have found that they really help focus the children's thinking. This is a picture of one we did when we were studying penguins.
First, the children thought about what they already knew about penguins to answer the top questions. As we learned about penguins and found information to answer the question, we wrote down the "truth" and the children checked to see if their prediction/schema was correct.
I use graphic organizers all the time- almost everyday. I will post more pictures of them in the future when I download more of my pictures.

Class Organization

Woo Hoo! What a day! The kids are crazy! I can definitely tell that it is May.

My class was wonderful this morning (for about an hour) and then they went to their Special Area class. I don't know why, but it was crazy after that. Luckily, our testing today was first thing this morning. I think my mistake was in having them work in groups on comprehension activities. Right now, they are getting on each other's nerves and/or they are such good friends that they are acting up together.

Sooooo, tomorrow they will have lots of independent work to do. They had been doing well at that lately.

Anyway, at the end of each year, I start thinking of how to better organize my classroom for the following year and what worked well and I want to be sure to keep.

Here is a picture of how I helped my kids keep track of their AR tests. I think I downloaded it from Teachers pay Teachers last fall. (I changed the word "points" to "books" just so it was simpler.

This has been a good visual for the kids. Our First Grade goal has been 3 points for the past 2 9-weeks. (which would be 6 tests if they got 100%). Unfortunately, I just found out that since the AR program is going to be web-based next year, the cost is going to increase A LOT and my school can't afford to spend the money on it. My kids really enjoy taking the quizzes on the computer and it makes them feel so grown up. I hope to find a website that has quizzes for the kids based on books they read- hopefully for free:) If anyone knows of anything, I would appreciate the info.

Fractions

We are starting our math unit on Fractions. In addition to the resources I already have, I have created some more in my "Fractions are a Hoot!" packet.

You can click on the picture above to look at it on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It includes fraction cards for centers and student worksheets.

These activities help meet the new First Grade Common Core Math Standard 1.G3.

Testing

As we get ready for lots of testing in May, my kids are reading a lot. They are doing lots of comprehension papers and they have to read the passage and all questions by themselves. They have been doing one a day for a couple of weeks to help build up their stamina. For the most part, they are doing really well. Some of my lower readers don't know some of the words, but they have learned testing skills to try and sound out the word and then to skip if if he/she can't figure it out. Most of them have learned that they can figure out what a word means by the other words around it.
Anyway, I have them do the passage and questions all by themselves, then I talk with any who missed some questions and explain the skill they missed. This seems to be helping as they are missing fewer correct answers overall.
Friday, my class begins the FAIR test (Reading skills test in Florida) and next week they will take the GATES test and they have to read it all by themselves. I think they will do very well if they just try to do their best. I will try to keep things positive and help them believe they will do well. They are easily influenced at this age.
Concerning stamina, here is a picture of a Daily 5 bulletin board in my classroom.

We have worked on this all year to help build stamina in reading. For a while, we graphed how many minutes everyone in the class could focus on reading before someone got off task. Eventually, we got to over 25 minutes regularly. All of my kids have become wonderful readers! They are at different levels, but I am very proud of all of them. Today, on the way back from the library, I had 5 kids who kept opening their library books to read as they walked. I know they're not supposed to be opening the books as they walk, I just couldn't fuss at them for wanting to read.

Earth Day & Vocabulary Activity

We did several activities around Earth Day last week. Over the course of three days, we read The Lorax,
The Lorax Helps the Earth, and Fancy Nancy Earth Day (I think this is the title. The book is at school.)
Before we read any of them, I had the children fill out post-it notes about their Earth Day Schema. Here is a picture of the Earth chart we made.

On the bottom of the chart is where the children wrote about what they learned about Earth Day.
Here is a web one of the groups made about Earth Day.

Today we did  a fun vocabulary activity. This is an idea I got from my friend Kelly, who teaches next door to me. I gave each group (5 groups total) a set of picture cards and word cards in a bowl. I told them to mix them up and dump them on the table. (They loved that part!) We had a contest to see which group could match up the words and pictures. They were so engaged in the activity! They higher level readers helped the lower level readers and some of the lower level readers actually have a better vocabulary than the higher level readers and were able to help their group with the names of the pictures. This worked so well- especially right now when they are already antsy for summer. I plan to do this each week with different words. Here are pictures of a couple of the tables working.

Math Material Organization

Here are some more pictures of my Math materials area.

These are the shelves my husband built. I have 5-6 baskets of the most frequently used manipulatives since I have 5 tables the children sit at. This makes it very easy to pass out materials and I don't have to get them ready ahead of time. The empty shelf holds the baskets of pattern blocks that we were using when I took these pictures. After trying many ways of organizing the items, I have found that this works best for me. I do have a few other materials put away that we don't use as frequently such as Base 10 blocks.
We start using math materials the very first day of school and go over the rules and procedures for getting them out, using them and putting them away. The children are very good at taking care of the materials. They love using them and this set-up has helped me avoid many headaches concerning the mess that materials can make.

Wizard of Oz Unit

This afternoon I finished a packet of Activities and Worksheets to go with The Wizard of Oz. I plan to do a Wizard of Oz unit the last week of school. I have seen many great ideas on other blogs such as having a "yellow brick road" in the classroom and making a rainbow cake on the last day.
I found this adorable set of clipart from Jessica Weible on Etsy.com. I put 2 of the images here to show how cute they are. In my papers I used all the characters, a picture of the Emerald City, yellow brick road and red ruby slippers.

I posted my pack of Activities and worksheets on Teachers Pay Teachers. You can see it in my store: 

SDH Creations. It is called "Wizard of Oz Activities & Worksheets". SDH Creations TpT store