Comprehension Connections - Determining Importance

This year our lit coach had another great book for us to read - Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor.  This book is fantastic and ties in with a lot of the Common Core Reading Standards.  My favorite part about this book is it provides kids with concrete examples to multiple reading concepts - schema, determining importance, visualizing, etc. 

My favorite lesson so far from the book was the purse lesson on determining importance. In this lesson, you have the kids help you solve a problem and I used her example from the book.  I was going on a walk/hike and didn't want to take my purse with me.  So, the kids get to see what you have in your purse (which they love!) and then help you decide which items are important for you to take with you.  There was a lot of good thinking going on and a lot of interesting answers.  One student thought I didn't need to take my keys because I could just leave them on top of my car. When I explained to him that someone might steal my keys and my car, he said I could put a box over my keys to hide them :-).  Oh, I love how kids think! 

Below you'll find the anchor chart I used to chart our thinking and decisions. I found an example of the anchor chart on Pinterest and the book also has some examples.  Great book and great lesson!

Lots of Summer Projects - Coming Soon

The end of another school year is now complete and summer is here! Along with summer comes teaching summer school, being a part of my friend's wedding, moving in July, and of course getting ready for another school year!  As the year was winding down, I was already thinking of billions of projects that I want to work on this summer.  One of the main reasons I love summer is because you actually have time to get all those fun little projects done!  In addition to a bucket filling board, binder covers, and new stations, I'm also going to work on coming up with ways to integrate the Common Core with current reading and writing lessons. We already started using Common Core for math last year and this year our district is going full board with it! Stay tuned for lots of updates and projects! Happy Summer everyone!

Parent Volunteer Gift

I found this wonderful parent volunteer gift idea on Pinterest. Turned out great!  I got the cups from JoAnn's and the peach tea packets from Target.

"I'm Done" Cups

So, I got this fantastic idea for Pinterest as a way to end the endless question of, "I'm done....what do I do now?" that you get as a teacher.  The teacher who I got the idea from had an "I'm Done" jar, but since I teach first grade and have an accident prone class, a glass mason jar didn't seem like the best idea. I got my craft sticks, jewels, and stickers from JoAnn's and I found some great plastic tumbler cups from Target.  For this project, I wrote activities for the kids to do once completed with their work on the stick.  Now, when kids finish they know they can go to the "I'm Done Cup" and pick out an activity to work on. 

I have had this in my classroom for about a month now and I love it! The kids are so much more independent and it's great too because there doing different activities each time. I used to say, "oh, just go and read a book" which got boring to them after a while, but now they have multiple things that they can do.  Below are some examples of the activities they can choose from.

"I'm Done" Cup Activities

• read a book from the classroom library
• read from my book bag
• read the decodable books
• write a letter
• write a story
• write a list
• practice math flashcards
• practice reading flashcards
• file papers
• practice spelling words
• make a sound/spelling circle map
• make a number of the day circle map

I know this may seem like a lot of activities, but the variety of the choices actually helps with management. Before I'd have all of the kids in one area trying to get books and it typically turned into an issue.  Now, they are doing a variety of tasks in different areas of the room so it gets rid of the congestion.  I also decided to have two cups. Both cups have the same items in them, but this way the kids aren't all waiting to grab their stick from just one cup. 

See pictures below...

Boggle Board

This past weekend, I decided to make another great idea that I found on Pinterest.  While searching Pinterest one day, I found many options for how to use and play the game "Boggle" in your classroom.  Since I teach first grade, I wasn't sure how this would work with my kiddos so before I invested time in making something we played the game as a class on just a piece of paper.  They loved it! They couldn't get enough and kept asking when we could play again. 

So, this weekend I decided to make a large version that could even be used as a literacy station.  At JoAnn's, I bought a foam board, border, scrapbook paper, and die-cut letters.  I had some left-over "Stick-em Clips" from the beginning of the year and then set to work making the board.  See a picture of the finished project below. I'm so excited to have the kids try this out tomorrow!

Asking Questions Lesson

One of my favorite professional teacher books is Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller.  She has changed the way I view teaching comprehension with first graders. When I first moved to first grade a few years ago, I kept thinking they were so little and we needed to stick with the basics and simple comprehension questions. Boy, was I wrong!  My first grade team along with our fantastic literacy coach read Reading with Meaning as a book study and I loved it.  Debbie Miller does a great job showing how to teach deeper thinking skills (that are in the new Common Core standards) like schema, mental images, questioning, making inferences, etc.  I fell in love with this book and am glad it will tie in with the Reading Common Core standards that we'll be fully following in August. 

One of my favorite lessons is a questioning lesson using the book, An Angel for Solomon Singer by Cynthia Rylant.  This wonderfully written book is about a man who lives in a hotel for men and feels very lonely after leaving his town in Indiana. He eventually ends up at this restaurant that reminds him of home. On the first day, the kids listen to the story and write one burning question they have about the story on a post-it note. The next day, I take the similar questions and put those kids into a group.  We read the story again with the kids focusing on coming up with answers to their burning question. After reading, the kids get into their groups, discuss their question, and come up with possible answers to their questions.  I did this lesson the last 2 years and both times it went better than I could have imagined.  I love how independent they are at this point in first grade and how Debbie Miller's prior lessons have set them up to not only read, but think while they're reading.  As I was walking around the room, listening to their discussions and checking in on groups, I was so proud of the in-depth, fantastic answers they were coming up with! Check out my student's charts below....

Clip Chart

Another favorite thing, that I love, love, love is the Clip Chart.  During one of my most difficult teaching years with a rather challenging class, I used the typical old green, yellow, red stop sign system for behavior.  It didn't work.  My kids that were difficult were on red by 8:30 and were stuck there so they continued to have a hard day.  This was rather frustrating as a teacher and frustrating for students as well. 

After this difficult year, I was having a hard-time getting in the teacher back-to-school spirit, so I started researching new behavior ideas.  While researching I stumbled upon the Clip Chart by New Managment.  I read through the e-book that is on their website and fell in love with the idea of the Clip Chart system.  Gone are the days of kids being stuck for making one bad choice. Gone are the days of the good kids always being on green when they are always the ones going above and beyond to make good choices.  Gone for me were the days of focusing on the negative behavior going on in my classroom. 

I implemented the Clip Chart system two years ago in my classroom and got one of the other first grade teachers on board. The main point of the clip chart is if a student makes a bad choice they clip down.  If a student makes a good choice they can clip up. Students aren't stuck on one level or another and can move up and down the chart throughout the day.  Also instead of one or two levels, there are multiple levels above and below. And the best part of all - it works! Instead of focusing on what the kids are doing wrong, I was spending more time trying to find the positive and what the kids were doing right, which leads to clipping up.  I noticed a huge change in the kids too. They weren't tattletaling as much (which is a huge step for first grade).  Instead of tattling to me about something they saw a student do wrong, kids were telling me about something good they saw another child doing. 

The beauty of the Clip Chart is you don't need prizes or treasure box items. If a student reaches purple (Outstanding) on the chart, they get to add a jewel to their clothespin.  Once their clothespin is full of jewels, they get to take it home. Now, I know you're probably thinking do kids really care about a jewel? They do! The jewel to them is like winning the lottery - they love it! 

This Clip Chart has changed the way I teach and manage a classroom.  Most teachers at my school have also started using it in all grade levels and also see the benefits.  I hope it can help you as well!

Below you will see a picture of the Clip Chart and clips that I use. I bought the stick-on jewels at JoAnn's. 

Thinking Maps

This year our school implemented thinking maps.  At first, I thought this was just a new version of graphic organizers, but after using them since October I see how valuable they are in the classroom.  With first graders, we did many of the maps whole group multiple times.  But, by this point in the school year, they are able to complete a thinking map independently or in a group.  I love how these thinking maps work for any subject. We've used them in reading, writing, social studies, science, health, and even math! What a great tool for the classroom.

Below are some examples that we did together as a class.

A tree map we completed after studying the desert, arctic, and rainforest habitat in Science.

A double bubble map comparing and contrasting the desert and arctic habit.

A tree map made during reading that shows which words fit under the different sounds that the inflection /ed/ makes.

A double bubble map comparing and contrasting the story Oliver Button is a Sissy and Amazing Grace.  This is originally a schema lesson from the book Reading with Meaning that uses a venn diagram to show the text-to-text connection.  Instead of the venn diagram we used a double bubble map.

A flow map to show the sequence of events in our Harcourt story, On the Way to the Pond.

A tree map to show the different food groups and food that fit into each group during our food group unit in health.

A circle map for words with the /ar/ sound.

A circle map that shows everything we learned about when we studied Ancient Egypt in Social Studies.

Last Week of School - Theme Week

For the last week of school, I always like to do some fun activities each day.  Below is the link for my Theme Days schedule for this year.  We have a reading party, sports day, movie day, and memory day. It's a great way to spend the last week doing mini-celebrations each day.


Theme Days 2012

Mother's Day Gift Idea

Since Mother's Day is fast approaching, I thought I'd share what my students will be giving their mom's for Mother's Day. This year's gift takes index cards, a hole punch, a binder ring, and some cute kid ideas.  For Mother's Day, my student are making a little flipbook out of index cards about why they love their mom.

On the first index card, each student wrote "Happy Mother's Day!  Love, _____."  On the next index card, students wrote "I love you because..."  On the following index cards, students wrote down reasons why they loved their mom along with pictures illustrating the reason.  We came up with a class list and the kids came up with some super cute ones on their own.  Below you will see some examples.  Super easy and super, sweet, meaningful gift!

My cover example

My second page example



Kid examples below..

My favorite kid example! How cute!

TEAMS Binders

My first year teaching when I was in 3rd grade, I used the typical, plain old take-home folder that was made out of paper.  I quickly discovered these folders weren't the best way for kids to take things home in.  Not only did it just have 2 pockets - one for stays at home and one for return to school (which limited organization skills), but it was made of paper and most folders didn't last long at all. 

After my first year teaching, I moved to first grade and started doing some research of take-home options. While looking on one of my favorite sites - Proteacher -  I found the perfect idea for me.  I'm a little bit of a control freak and love to organize so when I found the idea of MOOSE binders it felt like I hit the jackpot!  MOOSE binders are pretty much a way for kids to learn how to organize while helping the teacher stay organized using a take-home binder instead of folder.  I'm a huge sports fan and Phoenix Suns fan so instead of calling my binder the MOOSE binder, my binder is the TEAMS binder.  TEAMS stands for Teaching Everyone About Managment Skills.  If you do a search online, there are tons of names that have already been discovered and you are guranteed to find a organizational binder name that fits your classroom theme.

In my TEAMS Binder, I have two inner pockets in the binder, a pencil pouch, two folders, and a plastic sheet protector.  In the front inner pocket, the kids keep their "Player Stat Sheet," which is where they color in the color they were on the Clip Chart for that day.  The pencil pouch is used for lunch money or important notes.  The two folders have different sides that are organized for different purposes.  One folder side is for "Important Notes for School," where important notes go (as I'm sure you could figure out :-)).  There is also a folder for homework, a folder for items that need to be returned to school, and a folder called "Super Duper Work to Keep."  In the plastic sheet protector, I put our special's schedule so that it is always accessible to the parents.  The back inner pocket of the binder holds a page that explains the different sections of the binder.

I absolutely love, love, love these binders! I have made these binders each year and couldn't go back to the traditional old take-home folder.  It does take some explanation time at first with the kids, especially in first grade.  However, I find by this point in the year they have the organization aspect down and it really pays off. Parents also love it as it teaches their kids organizational skills at an early age and helps the parents keep track of things.  Gone are those days of a folder with random papers everywhere and important papers getting buried or lost.

Below you will find pictures of the binder pages and two attachments.  The first attachment is the letter I send home with parents at the beginning of the year explaining how the binder works. The second attachment is the page that goes in the back of the binder to explain what goes where. 

Hope you enjoy and happy organizing!

Click here for the parent letter.

Click here for the explanation page.

New Background

Thank you to Leelou Blog for not only a great tutorial, but also free backgrounds.  I just found this super cute background that I'm using as one of her free choices on her site.  Thanks a bunch. Check her site out http://www.leeloublogs.blogspot.com/