Five For Friday- 10/30

My favorite link up of the week with DoodleBugs Five For Friday

We survived the week before Halloween!

It was Pay Day today and our administrators sang a Pay Day Mash for us!

For Red Ribbon Week I was able to dress up, because we say BOO to drugs and one day we wore red to support Red Ribbon Week.

We learned about how vibrations produce sounds this week. We made a harmonica and kazoo to investigate sound.

This week in math we cut apart a 0-99 chart and taped it together to make a number line. It's important that students make the connection between these two resources. We then use a spinner to practice 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, 1 less.

Ended the week with this sweet note left on my desk.

Thanks for listening to my randomness from the week! 

Five For Friday- 10/23/15

My favorite link up of the week with DoodleBugs Five For Friday

I learned that I have quite a few of these in my class this year. :)

I used Plickers for the first time this week and it was absolutely amazing. I was able to get real time results, reteach and see improvements instantly! If you haven't heard of them or tried it, just look here- plickers

We also used Kahoot again as a review and had lots of fun with that!

I added some posters to help us with writing. 

The RACE posters are free HERE.

The Transitional Word Posters, as well as the Opening and Closing Posters are included in my Writers Workshop Pack HERE

Writing Goals!

I have ability grouped students in writing and worked with each group to set specific goals that they need to work on while writing. I have a cereal box that is re-purposed to display these goals for students to see at each group. 

I saw an immediate improvement in writing, where students were looking at the goal and then looking at their work to make sure they have punctuation, an opening, are writing using the writing lines to have legible handwriting, etc. 

 If you don't already know it, my husband is also a teacher....and a huge nerd! Why else would I have to go to Target Monday night to buy a grown man a light saber for character day the following day? I still don't understand why Einstein needed a light saber...

 They also had decade day at his school. 

We had our RESPECT Party today. Students with all their RESPECT letters for the first 9 weeks were able to attend. We watched Despicable Me 2 to go along with our classroom door. 

Some parents sent in popcorn for the movie and I just wanted to comment on how some were so clever to send in smart pop that is already popped, because it's hard to run down the hall and pop popcorn. I am going to request this type of popcorn from now on! Why did I not think of this before?

Thanks for listening to my randomness from the week! 

Five For Friday- 10/16/15

My favorite link up of the week with DoodleBugs Five For Friday

We had a super busy 4 day week!

My students used popplet to create a graphic organizer about spiders. This was our first time using popplet and it was a success! Students were even talking about how much fun popplet was afterwards.

We used Kahoot to review a few math concepts after an assessment. All teachers know the feeling of watching your students taking a test and thinking of wow, they still did not understand that concept, or just knowing that there are a few things you need to review. Kahoot was the perfect fun and engaging way to review without it seeming like a chore to students. 

Here is a link to the one we used:  KAHOOT

Red Ribbon Week is fast approaching and we are having a Door Decorating Contest! My students agree that Drugs are Despicable! Students created their very own minion, we then took a photo of the minion and uploaded it to blabberize. Student then recorded their voices saying what they could do instead of doing drugs. We posted their minion along around the door today we a note that you can hear from the minions how despicable drugs are by going to our class website. 

Here are a few of the minions,

Edmodo

I've used Edmodo before with third grade a few years ago and decided that I would try it with this group of first graders. They are absolutely loving it! So far, we have only tasted a little of what Edmodo has to offer. I posted Kid President's Pep Talk video and had students respond about how Kid President inspires them. The best part is that I require students to use a capital letter, correct punctuation and use a complete sentence to respond. 

 We had a Professional Learning Day Monday. I went to two sessions that I am excited about, but have yet to implement. I am looking forward to starting Code.org in my classroom. The set up was so easy and I like that it is appropriate for K- and above. I've heard of code.org, but have been hesitant because I was not quite sure what the program would have to offer a first grader, but the tasks look very age appropriate and will adjust as students learn more and more. Now to figure out when in my schedule I can implement this.......

The other session that I enjoyed was Explor-ebooks. Our county has purchased a subscription and it looks truly amazing. I will be able to assign books based on their guided reading level or interest. Student can record themselves reading and listen to their own fluency. The books also have multiple choice at the end as well as open response where students can type their answers. This is going to be a great resource in the classroom!

Thanks for listening to my randomness from the week! 

Five For Friday- 10/02/15

As always, I am excited to link up with DoodleBugs Five For Friday

You know the feeling!

Last week was Fall Break and I didn't post a Five for Friday, but I thought I'd include it briefly here. It was so nice to be at the beach in September! The weather was wonderful. It wasn't super hot like it is in the middle of the summer. My sister and her boyfriend were able to join us as well. 

Of course, I have to include our group selfie from the beach and a few animal sightings.  :)

This was my first payday for me day at my new school. This is excited because our amazing admins dress up each payday and sing a song to all the teachers. This month's theme was Yabba Dabba Payday!

My students are having so much fun learning about pumpkins. I love how this pumpkin craft turned out. It was eye opening to watch them paint with water colors for the orange on the pumpkin. Some of my students did not understand how it worked and kept claiming that the paint was all dried out and no good. They did not understand that it was supposed to be like that and you had to put water on your brush first to make it work. :)

New Product

Sight Word Checklist HERE

Now that I am teaching first I found myself needing to make new sight word checklists and assessment notebooks. In kindergarten we were learning about 125 words. The list I've made for first grade has 1000 Fry Words. I made one checklist that has ALL 1000 words, yes the font is small, but I like that parents are not waiting on me to send the next list when they feel their child is ready to move on. I don't have time to assess students on sight words each day. I make it a goal to assess each child once a week. 

New FREEBIE this week!

HERE

"ck" GO FISH

I love using card games in the classroom for learning.

Thanks for listening to my randomness from the week!