Story Elements Reader's Theatre Freebie!

I have an awesome freebie for you today! I wrote a short Reader's Theater about story elements. This really helps my students with the vocabulary of story elements and serves as an anchor all year.

I seriously can ask my students in May, "class, what's a solution?" and everyone answers "how they fix the problem!" with some hammering to follow. :)

Click here to download the file from Google Drive.

This week,we will be working on diving deeper into the Story Elements to "describe" the characters, setting, problem and solution.

Check back soon (or follow me!) for a great close reading lesson that focuses on describing characters! 

Meanwhile, enjoy this short video of my kiddos performing their reader's theater. This performance was in our classroom 5 min before the bell on Friday; so, it's a little rougher than the performances we took on the road earlier that day. :)

First Month Recap

Hi, friends!

I am really not good at balancing teaching, a family and blogging but I have the best intentions... Really, I do!

This past month has been great with my new superstars! I wanted to share a few of the highlights in case you just started this past week.

 Here's my son and I on the 1st day.

 We started the school year by celebrating our uniqueness! We sang a super cute poem and drew a self portrait:

 (Tune of Frere Jacques) 

" I am special!

 I am special!

Yes, I am!

Yes, I am!

There is no one like me.

There is no one like me.

I am unique!

I am unique!

We read the Colors of Us and talked about skin color uniqueness. Then we mixed paints to find our skin color and paint our "faces". 

We also completed an awesome activity from Stephanie's Back to School Bash unit. First, we read a book called Everyone is Smart ( it's included in the unit!) and then thought about how we are all smart in different ways ( multiple intelligences). The students then wrote their names on post-it notes and chose the ways in which they are smart. 

We also made our All About Me books!

If you want more activities to celebrate uniqueness. Check out my back to school unit on TPT.

 We will be moving on to our 5 Senses and, of course, apples at the end of the month. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apple-Activities-Common-Core-330785

Have a great week!!

Guided Math resources and Freebie!

Hi, Friends!
I have one more day before the kiddos get here! Not sure I'm completely ready yet but slowly getting there. I am holding steady at 29 kids and hoping I don't get any more. Pray for me, will you?

I wanted to share a few resources today I found to help me with guided math. My personal goal this school year is to improve my small group math instruction. I began researching and found some good assessments.

The first is an individual assessment from the Math Learning Center. It has prompts and activities to help you assess number sense, base ten, composing/decomposing numbers, and addition and subtraction. It seems to be clear enough that a helper could administer the assessments.

The next resource I found is awesome! Education Northwest has an assessment for each Common Core math standard. The assessments could be given as pre-tests or used as ready-to-go mini lessons for your guided groups. I printed them all off and made a binder so I could have all the assessments/ mini lessons quickly at hand.

When you go to the website, log-in for free to access their kinder and 1st grade resources. Here are two examples of the assessments:

The last resource I want to share is a checklist I made to record my teacher observations during guided math groups. This checklist is different from other Common Core math checklists because I task analyzed each standard or skills students need prior to mastering the end of year goals as well as included levels of mastery for each standard. For example,  the student can solve join word problems with manipulatives, counting on or using a known fact. This will help me know to what degree the students have mastered each math standard. Here are a few examples of the pages. It's actually 11 pages in all. Click here to download.

So... I'm not sure what this will look like in my room just yet but at least I'm ready to record my data!! I hope this post has helped you with small group math in some way. Leave me a comment if it does! Happy Monday!

Fall Math Mega Pack with freebie!

I just finished a pack I am so excited to use! I tend to like math centers that aren't extremely thematic so I can use them when I want. I needed some math centers for the fall that would build number sense as well as addition and subtraction concepts. I also wanted a few centers that would spiral the measurement and data domain. I set out to create a few and wound up with ten!!!! Whew! Took forever!

Here's my Fall Math Centers Mega Pack!

Included in this Pack:
Falling Leaves (5 and some more) 1.OA.6
Scarecrow Make Ten (Combinations of 10) 1.OA.6
Apple Picking (Subtract from 10) 1.OA.5,6
Harvest Time! (Time to the Hour) 1. MD.3
Odd/ Even Harvest Sort (Numbers to 20 in ten frames) 2.OA.3
Raking Leaves Place Value Compare (Numbers to 50) 1. NBT.2c
Race to 30 (Addition and Subtraction within 10--2 sets for differentiation) 1.OA.6
How Many Were Picked? Data Analysis 1.MD.4
Fall Measurement 1. MD.2
Collectin’ Acorns (Comparing numbers- 3 variations) 1.NBT.3

If you want to check out this pack on TPT, click here! If you made it to the bottom of this post, then you get a freebie from the pack. :)

Download my odd and even sort for free here.  Leave me a comment if you can use it!

 

Have a great weekend!!!

"Beary" Common Core Bear Unit with freebies!

Hi, Friends!
I wanted to share some freebies and ideas with you in case you teach about Bears during the year.

Last year, my teammate and I started the new year off with a bear theme. It was so fun! I posted a lot of freebies (click the pics) I had created and this year I made so much more because I wanted the unit to align more with the Common Core shifts.

Last year, I posted about a 4 corners activity to get the students discussing opinions. Hang the 4 bear signs in different corners of the room ( included in the freebie). The students will have to decide which bear ( Panda, Polar, Brown or Black) they like the best and discuss the reason for their choice with a partner. The student will then write why they like that type of bear. We will use the sentence frame I like ____________ because. ( Also, free!)
We will then graph these results as well during math.

 However, this year, I added a non-fiction text we can read as a class to build the students' background knowledge about each type of bear. Then I can guide them to justify their opinion using a reason from the text.

I created a graphic organizer for each type of bear so students could work on finding the key details in text about each type of bear. I also added more opinion writing papers so you can differentiate and use this pack at any time during the year.

Last year I created these math freebies which are still available just click any pic to take you to the Google Docs file.

1-20 cards to practice one more/one less
(Just copy on  Brown construction to use less ink!)                
Play Bear Hunt with these cards. Hand out these cards to each student. Call out a clue such as, "Who has one more than 5?". The students with 6 would stand up. You can increase difficulty by asking, "What's two more/two less or 10 more/10 less?".


                                          One more/ one less practice/assessment
                                                      

                                  Reviewing combinations to 5 with Teddy Grahams
                              
This year I created so many more math activities! For every activity I created a more advanced game. Instead of just Make 5, I created a Make Ten as well. Rather that just including one more/ one less, I also added 10 more/10 less.  I added gummy bear sorting and graphing recording sheets, a Teddy Bear measuring record sheet and a building teen number equations game.

Hopefully you can use these freebies! If you teach Bears at all during the year, this could be a great addition to your unit. If you want to take a look at the rest of the pack on TPT. Just click the pics or right here!

Classroom Management - Have a 5 Star Day!

Hi, everyone!
I don't know about you, but over the summer I constantly think about improving classroom management. More specifically, my behavior plan. How can I make this year run more smoothly? How can I make sure to balance positive and negative consequences? How can I ensure everyone has a chance to be successful?
Last year, I came up with a behavior plan that I call "5 Star Day".

Here is a freebie of the rules I made. I use Whole Brain Teaching ( search on YouTube). Feel free to edit if you want because I changed the last rule to "Keep everyone happy" because this includes me as well! Click on pic to download!

I used "5 Star Day" last year to keep students motivated to follow the rules and they seemed to really enjoy it. This was developed to also help lessen my load during pack-up time... See I always stamped the calendar of students who had a "good" day and then wrote on the calendars of those who broke rules. It took me forever and then the students just started talking and goofing around rather than stand by their desk as they were supposed to do when they are done packing up. I tried to have a student stamp while I wrote but the wrong day would  get stamped or a student who shouldn't have received a stamp did and I felt like it was making me look unorganized to parents.

This new system held students accountable, helped me with recording problem behavior, saved time at the end of the day and made those wonderful, rule-followers shine!

I added this star behavior calendar to our STAR take home folders.

I love this because students can color in the number of stars they earn at the end of the day to save me time. I just check on the ones " who struggle" with behavior and write the rule(s) they need to work on. This helps students have a goal for each day. It also helps me distinguish those with great behavior from those with good behavior rather than just focusing on those with poor behavior.

Here's how it works:

Students are given a star chart for their desk.I have pink, green and blue. Their goal is 5 stars a day. The students keep track of their own behavior throughout the day with a paperclip on the star chart. At Walmart, I bought their flat plastic paper clips since clothespins are too large to fit under the chart on the desk.





I just added a whole group clothespin chart if you want to do that instead.

If a student needs an individual consequence, I will quietly motion or whisper that they need to move to 4 stars on their chart. I also write the rule number he or she broke on my class clipboard recording sheet  by his or her name. This method also helps me with behavior documentation. Saves so much time!!! I then have students color in the number of stars they earned at the end of the day. This saves me time as I used to stamp everyone’s folder at the end of the day. Now I just check those students who had less than a 5 star day and write which rule they struggled with. I really like this because I can reward those with great behavior at the end of each week or month and keep track of those struggling! I also like that the behavior recording chart is not posted for everyone to see, it is portable and permanent. Parents like that they know exactly how their child is behaving every day.

I made the 5 star behavior calendars for each month with 2 or 3 different options to fit any school calendar as well as included blank templates in case other teachers' rules are different than mine. I tried to think of every possibility! There are 51 pages! If you like this idea and want to try it next year, check it out (here) on TPT for $3.00!!!. I'd love some feedback if anyone downloads. :)





I  also want to announce the winners of my Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe pack. Yay, Rachel and Lori! I will email you girls soon!

Spelling Tic Tac Toe for each month of the Year with a Giveaway!

 Hi friends!

I have been gone for so long! I haven't even been able to read posts lately. I have been in gifted cluster trainings and working at my district office on our 1st grade Common Core ELA curriculum. I came back to the blogging world to find out that Google Friend Connect will be no more. Waaa! So, I have set up an account at Bloglovin'. I would appreciate it if my small number of followers would continue to follow me.  :)
 I have lots of ideas to share for this next year for Common Core and a Differentiated Classroom!

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Now I want to share a new product I just finished. I have had a couple of these spelling tic-tac-toes as freebies for awhile now and they were pretty popular. I decided to spruce them up and make one for each month of the year. They even increase in difficulty as the year progresses. Click the pic or here to view on TPT.

Kids and parents love these because they have choice in activities and I love them because I don't have to think of new activities for spelling each week! :) I also included 3 different non-thematic versions for the beginning, middle and end of year in case there are students who can't celebrate certain holidays.

Here are a few up close so you can see the variety of activities:

Enter this Rafflecopter giveaway to win this pack for free! a Rafflecopter giveaway