Come Visit my New Blog

I have started a new blog "Second Grade Positivity". I am moving to Second Grade this school year.I wouldlove for you to visit the new blog. Here is a link:

 

secondgradepositivity.blogspot.com

Fall 2014: Back to Blogging

After a tough year and a half of dealing with serious medical issues of my own and dealing with the death of my mother, I am finally ready to get back to this blog.

I am still teaching 1st grade and I am excited to focus on educational projects again!

I am in the same classroom I have been in for the past few years. However, this Summer I spent some time going through my classroom and changing out my "Jungle" theme that I kept for 3 years. Instead of going with a certain theme, I went with the colors turquoise, lime green and white. I do have a few "Hawaiian" themed items in the room also. I went crazy with the Hawaiian theme outside my door and in the bathroom, but I wanted to keep the classroom more calming for the children.

Here are some pictures:

This year, my school is doing something new for us. I am paired up with the teacher across the hall. She teaches Reading to both of our classes and I teach Math and Writing to our classes. It is going very well so far. It is so nice not to have to plan everything. I am able to delve deeper into Math and Writing and I feel like I am doing a better job teaching each subject. 

I thought that I may not like teaching the same things twice in one day, but it really has been like two totally different classes. Each class has their own overall "personality" and one of the classes seems to understand the Math Concepts quicker as a whole so that class ends up being a day or two ahead in each Math Unit. One of the classes behaves very well at Centers, so they are able to do them each day while I pull groups. The other class sometimes behaves well at Centers so I do more Whole (or almost Whole) Group activities. I still let the children who are behaving go to their Math Centers and the others all work with me. I have not been bored at all. I am actually loving it!

Standardized Testing

We started our Standardized testing this week. My school is trying not to overwhelm the children so we are only testing for an hour a day, 3 days a week. It will take us 8 days total to finish.
Several years ago, I gave this same test to my 1st graders. But, my county decided not to give it anymore due to the cost. Now, it will be a big part of our Evaluation, so they chose this as the test we will be evaluated on.
It is hard during the test since I can only say things they way they are worded in the Direction booklet. I know that if I could reword some of the directions, they would really understand what to do.
Throughout this school year, I have pulled in some test practice that I have found online. There are some wonderful resources for our test (Stanford 10) on Teachers Pay Teachers- although not a lot of them. I also bought a used Scoring High booklet to see what types of questions would be on the test.
So far, I am proud of how hard my students worked on the test. I could tell halfway through the third day, several were already burned out. Hopefully with the days in between, they will do their best next week.

Teacher Appreciation Week Sale at Teachers Notebook.com!

I wanted to let you know about a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week Sale that will take place at TeachersNotebook.com. All of my products will be on sale for 60% off- I marked them 50% off and TeachersNotebook.com is knocking another 10% off of the prices. The sale will be from May 4th-10th. If you haven't checked out Teachers Notebook yet, I encourage you to have a look. It has a lot of great resources.

Here is a link directly to my Teachers Notebook shop "Celebrate First Grade".


I am busy working on the next Language units to fit all of the Common Core Standards. My school is giving our standardized test this week and I really see how the students can benefit from more practice in the Language Standards.

Common Core Language Standards

I have searched for a while to try and find Language Activities to provide my students a spiral review throughout the year. I tend to focus on Math, since I love Math, so I used some of those activities as an inspiration to create some Language Arts reviews to use in my classroom.
     I have started going through the Common Core Language Standards more closely. I made a Language Common Core Activity Packet Set 1 that has card/word sorts and worksheets to help teach the first 4 sections of the Language Arts Standards- through types of Nouns. I have also made 8 (so far) Common Core Language Mini-books for students to do throughout the year as a spiral review which will incorporate all of the Standards throughout the year when I am finished. I plan to use 1 book a week, so 8 books would last me 2 months.
     I did some of the Proper Noun Activities as a review today and my students did half of the first Common Core Mini-book as a review for our standardized test. They did very well and I was able to see quickly who needed a minilesson on a skill.
     If you are interested, you can find these activities posted on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook.

     I will be working on making more of the big units. (It looks like it will take 3 units to cover all of the Language Standards). There will also be about 10 sets of the Language Mini-books. I want to have enough books for my class so that we can spiral review the skills all year long and not forget them. I hope you find these helpful.

Earth Day

Earth Day is Monday!
     I always do Earth Day activities with my classes. I have several books I have collected. Last year, I got Fancy Nancy: Everyday is Earth Day. 
The children really enjoyed the book. I made a packet for the kids that go along with this book.

Fancy Nancy: Everyday is Earth Day Activities

It is listed on TeachersPayTeachers.com in my shop "Celebrate First Grade". I also have Earth Day themed Meth games that would be great throughout the Spring.

Back to It

     It has been a long time since I posted here. After many months of dealing with my health issues- mostly from the Lyme Disease- I am back at posting on this blog. I have missed it, but I just couldn't keep up with this and my class.
     Anyway, here I am.
     I wanted to start with some info on the Text Talks I have been doing in my class.

     Since I teach in an area where most of the children struggle with Language skills and vocabulary in school, I have been on a quest to find Text Talk lessons that are easy to use (because I don’t have a lot of extra time to create my own Text Talk lessons) and grade appropriate.       

     A teacher at my school showed me a wonderful resource on Teachers Pay Teachers. This resource was made to go with the online resource of Text Talks from Utah. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vocabulary-Posters-Word-Cards-Student-Sheets-Aligned-toText-Talk-Lessons

     Apparently, teachers from Utah created Text Talks for 101 books and posted them all online FOR FREE. Utah Text Talk Lessons

      The resource on Teachers Pay Teachers has all the same books listed, but she created posters to print with the book cover and Vocabulary words for each book. There are also word cards and 2 reproducible pages for each book.

     I already had many of the books in the Utah Text Talk set, so I started with those in my classroom. I have been doing the Text Talks for 10 weeks now and have really noticed a difference in my students’ spoken language skills. I do have to remind them of the words weekly and sometimes encourage them to let me catch them using a word from our Vocabulary Wall. It hasn’t really transferred to their writing unless I specifically tell them to use words from the wall, but maybe it will before the school year is over.

        Over the Summer, I hope to find, or create, Text talks to go with books that have some of the specific vocabulary words my students need to know throughout the year. Of course, the vocabulary in the Text Talks I have been using really help expand the children’s vocabulary. But, I also want to find books with specific words that help to cover subject-specific vocabulary they need to know.

Ready for the School Year

Whew! I just made it through a week of Trainings, another week of meetings & finishing my classroom and we had Meet the Teacher Day yesterday. The children come back on Monday. I can't believe Summer Break is over! It always seems to go so fast.

I have my room all organized, clean and ready for school. Here are some pictures:

My room looks very bare to me this year. We are implementing a new program to help our students, which involves not having as many things up which will distract them. I understand the thinking, but it has been hard not to decorate my room as I usually do. We'll see how this works. I do feel more organized since I went through everything and got rid of what I don't use. I am having the children share cubbies this year so I can use half of them for storage (hidden under fabric). This new storage really helped me to hide many of the supplies I teach with throughout the year.

Book: All About Me (Teacher)

Today I changed/updated an "All About Me" book that I read to the class on the first day of school. This helps them to learn a little about me and ,hopefully, they will find something that we have in common. This helps us to bond right at the beginning of the year and helps us to have a great year. I just used clipart that I already have on my computer and included pictures and images from the internet. This is what I ended up with:

The first week of school I also have the children make an "All About Me" book that they can share with the class. For the past couple of years, I have been trying really hard to have a sense of community in my classroom. It is much easier for the children to follow directions when they have good feelings about me and school right from the start.

Under the Reading tab at the top, I just posted info about 2 great resources I found for 1st Grade Common Core Reading Standards.

Excellent Center Resources

I added info about my "Work on Writing" Center under the Writing tab, but I wanted to mention these 2 great resources in case you miss it under the tab.

These are Writing Prompts I found that are so cute and perfect for my grade level. I got them from Mrs. Mabe on Teachers pay Teachers ($4).

You can click on the picture to purchase them if you like. I found them after I downloaded her Free Word Work cards. Those are wonderful! I added those in that Area. Here are the Word Work cards:

I am loving all of the Back-to-School resources teachers are posting right now! It is so nice to find materials that actually work well in my classroom.

BUILD Math post

I just added pages to this blog. They are listed across the top- just click on a subject. So far, I have a post under "Math". I wrote about the BUILD Math Center system I have been learning about. If you are interested, click on "Math". I haven't yet posted anything under the other headings.

Somehow I didn't post the info about The Versatile Blogger I received from Melissa at Teacher Treasure Hunter.

Thanks so much, Melissa!

If I have passed the award along to you...
Here are the seven rules to follow when receiving this award:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Include a link to their blog.
3. Include the award image in your post.
4. Give 7 random facts about yourself.
5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.
6. When nominating, include a link to their blog.
7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.

My 7 Random Facts:

1. I just finished making a "Movie Room" out of my son's bedroom. He moved out last Summer. It's not a huge room, but I have my own place to get away and all my movies (and crafts and school stuff) are in there.

2. I live in Florida, but HATE the Summer weather. July is miserable outside with the high humidity.

3. My daughter just got married on July 7th. The wedding was beautiful, but the preparation was stressful.

4. I taught my first 6 years at a private Montessori School. I loved it! I got certified in teaching with the Montessori Method and taught a 1st & 2nd grade combined class. My kids went to school there through Middle School. (They didn't have High School.) Then I went to public school for more money and benefits.

5. I loooove the color blue- any shade. And I really don't like Pink! My best friend who teaches next door to me, loves pink as much as I love blue. It's kind of a joke between us how much I dislike pink.

6. (Same friend as in number 5) We are in the process of setting up a blog just for the families of the students in our two classes. I have been adding buttons for kid websites they can do at home. I'll begin adding our personal info this week.

7. I got married at 18! Husband was 19. We will be married 23 years this September. Now a sI look back I realize how lucky we were, but when you know it's right, you know.

Nominating:

I have found many wonderful "new" blogs through this Newbie Blog Hop:) Here are ones I am nominating for this award:

Pam at Pocketful of Centers

Shannon at The Teacher's Workroom

Summer and Charles (husband and wife) at Teacher's Land

Stephanie at Back in Fourth

Kristine at Teaching Without Tears

Mrs. E at Easy Peasy Education

Mrs. H at Just a Primary Girl

(I will add more new ones as I find great ones that don't already have this award.)

Another Award!

Thanks so much to Patti at Primary Pizzazz for this new award! Be sure to check out her great blog.

These are the rules for the award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.
2. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
3. Present the award to 5 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers and leave them a comment on their blog.

I have been busy checking out some of the blogs I have discovered through the Newbie Blog Links. They have all been great! But...the ones I have looked at so far have this award. I will post the blogs as soon as I can.

Thanks to Kim at Lessons, Learning and Laughter for giving me this award! That was so nice!

The Guidelines for this award are:

1. Follow the person who nominated you.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. Pass the award onto 15 new bloggers and let them know you nominated them.

I am looking trough a lot of the new blogs I have discovered through the Newbie Link Up. There are so many teachers with blogs. I love all the great ideas. So far, I am nominating...

Carrie at The First Grade Derby

I will add more blogs to this award when I find great new blogs that don't already have the award:)

American Symbols

For many years now, I start the school year with American Symbols. I started that because we talk about rules, responsibilities and the Pledge of Allegiance. Last year, I bought a set of small books- each covers a different American Symbol. I bought them from Amazon. They are about $5 each. Here is a link to one:

For this next school year, I have made a book for my class to read with me about the American Symbols. I also created picture cards and labels to match. There is also an assessment page. We work on American Symbols the first couple of weeks. It is a good time to incorporate some arts & crafts activities and writing with this unit.

Here is a link to my American Symbols items on TeachersNotebook ($4). My items inclue the symbols: American Flag, Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty, Bald Eagle and the White House. The student book includes the Pledge of Allegiance, but the cards don't include the Pledge (but does have the flag).

There are many ideas on the internet about activities to do with American Symbols. I have even downloaded a couple of Power Points to use this year about the Symbols. I think they were even free on TeachersPayTeachers. I know this is a unit that many teachers kind of gloss over and teach it quickly, but I have found that the kids are engaged in this topic and throughout the year, they have a good understanding when references are made to any of the symbols or the President. Last year, each child made a book with a page for eac h symbol- some type of picture/paper craft and facts for each symbol.

If you haven't spent much time on the Symbols in the past, you may want to try it this year and see how your kids enjoy learning about them.

New Blog List

Newbie Bloggers Blog Hop

Just joined this list! It looks great! I have already found several great blogs I will be following.

When you join, be sure to include the following:

1. State you teach in.

2. Current teaching position.

3. Teaching experience

4. When you started blogging

5. Share a blogging tip/blogging resource

For me...

1. I teach in Florida.

2. I teach 1st Grade.

3. I have taught 1st grade for 15 years. For the first 6 years, I had a combined 1st and 2nd grade class at a private Montessori School. I also taught only 2nd grade for one year.

4. I started blogging April.

5. Blogging Tip: Visit lots of other Teaching Blogs. I have picked up a lot of great tips from other teachers/bloggers, as well as, found great resources to help enhance my teaching.

Beginning of the Year Reading

I have been focused on planning for beginning of the year reading activities this week. I always start with Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales. I have discovered over the years that many children did not hear many of the rhymes and fairy tales that I heard growing up. They usually heard some in Kindergarten, but I like to start with them. They are a familiar review for some children and an enjoyable way to start the year for others.

I created some printable pages to go with Jack and the Beanstalk. I like to read multiple versions and have the children compare them. You can download my unit for free by clicking on the picture below. Enjoy!

Reading Area

I have been back up at school this week starting to organize. My school will be implementing the suggestions Max Thompson gave us when he visited our school in the Spring. (If you haven't heard of him yet, look him up.) He said we have too many things up in the classrooms for the
types of children we have in our school. (I work at a Kindergarten-2nd Grade school.)

So, we had to remove EVERYTHING from the walls in June. They set up some "Model classrooms" and we are to make our rooms look similar to those.

I don't mind reducing the visual noise, but I must say, it is not as much fun getting ready for the new school year for me. I always enjoy decorating and coming up with a theme and colors to use. I am keeping some of the last theme- "Jungle-theme" and I am using color where I can.

Yesterday, I worked some on the Reading Area and where to keep the Book Baskets. For the last 2 years, the children used tote bags and kept them in

their cubbies. But, I have decided they won't have cubbies this year (due to a lot of stealing the last couple of years) and I will use the cubbies for storage. The kids will put their backpacks in 2 large tubs I will put in my office and lock. (I am one of the lucky ones that has an office:)

Here is a picture of my Reading Area.

This will also be where we do our group Reading lessons. Before, I had 2 separate areas.

I think I have decided to keep the book baskets on the back side of the book shelves. They are the colorful baskets. I had these from when I used them a few years ago. I went yesterday to the Dollar Tree and they still sell the same kind so I got more so I would have 20.

I found these adorable (free) numbers on Teachers Pay Teachers done by Michelle McIlhinny.

Since the kids will all be assigned a number, I thought this would be the easiest way to mark the Book Baskets. Here is where I think we will keep the Reading Baskets.

I have used Book Baskets before and they worked very well. We'll see how this set-up works.

Common Core Math

I love Math! Of course, I enjoy Reading and teaching reading, but I love teaching Math. I think because it can be so hands on, especially in 1st Grade, and the children enjoy it. I love that my struggling readers usually understand Math Concepts well. Some of my lowest readers (due to learning disabilities) have been my highest Math students. It just involves a different part of the brain. My son Jake (22) had a wonderful grasp of Math Concepts almost from birth, but he really struggled with reading. He had such a hard time learning the letter sounds that I briefly considered trying to help by giving each letter a numbers and having him associate numbers with the letters. (And I read to him from birth). He finally caught up and excelled in Reading, but never Spelling. Thank goodness for Spell-Check.

Anyway, I was on my school's Math Committee which studied the Common Core Standards and correlated it with our resources. I created a Daily Math Journal for my school that we used last year and will use again this year. I like it because it starts as a review and continues to spiral review through the year. It follows the order of our Curriculum Map. I posted the Math Journal in 4 parts on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook. I removed the dates so you can change the order to follow your own Curriculum Map. You can click on each picture to see one of the parts of the Journal at Teachers Pay Teachers.

If you are looking for a Math Journal, these may work for you. I had time last Summer to go through the Standards and make sure they are covered in the Journals. Enjoy!