L'Shanah Tovah!

Today we learned about Rosh Hashanah in our classroom!

In Social Studies, we've been learning about families. One of our lessons was about holidays and how every family celebrates them - but that different families celebrate different ways or even different holidays all together! So the timing was perfect. :)

We started by reading a great book - Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It's a National Geographic book, so it has beautiful pictures and the text was perfect for my class!

Afterwards, the kids colored a Rosh Hashanah picture while I sliced up some Gala apples and poured out a few dishes of honey. We dipped our apples in our honey and decided it was the best snack EVER! Tomorrow we'll graph whether we liked or didn't like apples and honey - we didn't get to it today. :)

I love celebrating multicultural holidays with my students!

Making Words

Hello and happy Sunday!!!

I want to tell you today about a sweet activity I do once a week (on Fridays) in my classroom - Making Words!

I first learned about Making Words when I was doing a clinical in a third grade classroom. My cooperating teacher did the activity once a week and I really loved it so I decided to do it in my own classroom!

If you aren't familiar with this situation, here is the scoop. Every student gets a worksheet with 5-6 letters on the top of it in boxes. They cut out the boxes and then I call out words for them to make with their letters! Typically, each week has one or two word families that they're working with. This week I think it was -an and -ack maybe? Anyway, as you can see in the picture, the words start easy - "an", for example. As you move on, they get a little more complicated - beginning blends, digraphs, what have you.

I love this activity for several reasons, and here they are!

1. It gives all of my students a chance to practice decoding, encoding, and reading skills in a low-stress environment. Their affective filter is low, so to speak, because they are doing the activity in a large group and can lean toward a friend if they need a little help.
2. The kids LOVE coming in the front of the room to make the words. As you can see in the picture, I have magnetic letters that I use to have the kids demonstrate the correct spelling.
3. The activity is differentiated in and of itself. The "easier" words are challenging for my low first graders, and the harder words are just right for my second graders. I can call on lower students to show the first few words and I can call on higher students for the last few. Nobody has any idea that I am handpicking the kids for certain words... :)
4. It is great for kinesthetic learners! They get to manipulate the letters on their desks AND on the board if they get called up! It hits visual and auditory as well - the visual learners SEE the letter magnets on the board, and the auditory learners HEAR us spell it together out loud!
5. It touches on vocabulary if they give you some weird words to make!
6. It gives some of my students some MUCH NEEDED cutting practice. That's all I have to say about that......

I bought a book to just print the pages out of. Here is what I have (except I have the first grade version...).

There is probably a new or updated version without a lady in a denim jumper on the front but whatevs. :)

You can also make your own letters and lists of words if you are focusing on a specific word family or spelling pattern for the week.

Yay for Making Words!

Wallwisher

For the first few weeks of school, we have been short a Technology teacher. I missed having my planning time, but I did value the extra teaching time!! Especially during the first weeks of school!!

Anyway, last week I took my class to the computers so that we could do something technology-related. I am (supposedly) getting an interactive whiteboard sometime soon, and I REALLY want to incorporate more Web 2.0 business in my classroom. :)

Here's what we started with - Wallwisher!

Wallwisher is essentially an online bulletin board. Anyone with the link can post ideas or thoughts to a pre-made board. Just to get started, I set up a Wallwisher page asking the students about their favorite colors. With two clicks and a bit of typing, many of us were able to get our thoughts published! As you can see, some of us didn’t quite get it in time (and some of us did our very best spelling those difficult color words!), but overall it was a success. If nothing else, it gave me a little heads-up as to who my tech-savvy students are! :)

It was a really fun and simple thing to do!

This was just a little intro to Wallwisher, but you could definitely use this for other things! Can you think of any cool uses?

What I'm Loving Wednesday

For being such an obsessive picture-taker, I have been TERRIBLE at taking pictures this year so far. And my battery died suddenly! Oh wells, time for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I'm loving that we started legit curriculum this week. Although I am sort of not loving it. I love it because it makes planning a million times easier. I don't love it because I don't like scripted programs. Ah well.

I'm loving that my boyfriend and I take cute pictures.

I'm loving writer's workshop. Writing workshop? Whatevs. My high second graders are writing multiple page stories. My very low first graders are creating detailed picture stories. One of my girls who, up until yesterday, was drawing only pictures with no words, suddenly wrote a page and a half of words. I can't read them, but I am just pumped. Everyone feels empowered and excited about writing and no one is complaining. I love you workshop model!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm loving that I bought tickets for a preseason Bulls game!!!!!!!! Yeah! So pumped!

I'm loving the awesome Prezi I made for our teacher institute today. Want to watch it? (Shout out to Jennifer and Kelli for their amazing resources!)

Key Ideas and Details - Anchor 2 on Prezi

I'm loving that I'm getting together with Laura and Krista for dinner tomorrow! Yum and yay!

I'm loving that my school was chosen as a Girls on the Run site for 2012-2013!!!!!!!!!! HOORAY!

I'm loving that the best way I could think to explain an interactive whiteboard to my students was to call it a big iPad for the wall. They understood. :)

What are you loving today?

September Currently

Happy September!

Yesterday, I spent the day with my BTF! Part of our awesome day was me baking these muffins:

OMG. Super delicious. Here is the recipe I used - I just made them in a muffin tin and reduced the cooking time to about 20-25 minutes. :)

Happy Labor Day! Hope you are able to relax and enjoy your 3-day weekend. :)

Fridays Are Fantastic!

Hi friends!

I was just going through my Google Reader and came across Taylor's post about five things she thought were really great this week in her classroom! I love that idea of staying positive, so I am allllllll over it.

• My class is basically in full-on work mode. I spent a lot of time on the first few days of school letting the first graders know that we didn't have free choice time, do-whatever-you-want time, or playing with toys time (the last one was actually funny, as I don't even have any legit toys in my class besides our Skippyjon doll!). The first graders have now accepted it and moved on with their lives and are working HARD.

• We can walk in a (relatively quiet) line down the hallway!!!!!! Last year I was way too lenient about this. I think part of the reason is that I work in a very small school, and I'm the only teacher who keeps her door open during the day... so unless we were screaming down the hallways, we weren't really bothering anybody. But I made it a personal goal of mine to have a quiet line this year. So far, so good. :)
• We are becoming more and more polite every day! Over the summer, I read Amanda's post about how she instills manners in her class, and it really made me think. We practice this a lot over the course of the day, and it's starting to become natural for some of us. Yay!
• Phonemic awareness time, or Hear & Cheer (as we call it), is going SO well! I put a lot of stock into Michael Heggerty's PA program when I asked my principal for it over the summer, and it is paying off already! I have hand motions going for a few activities so far, and those the ones the kids like the most. Note to self - think of some more. :)

• We are finally going to have a full specials schedule! I typically have six 30-minute specials during the week, which are my planning periods. Mondays - art, Tuesdays - P.E., Wednesdays - technology and music, Thursdays - P.E., and Fridays - library. However.......... we did not have an art/technology teacher hired until this morning. Our previous art/tech teacher became our Kindergarten teacher this year (HOORAY!) but that left an opening that, for some reason, just could not be filled. But finally it was. The loss of planning time wasn't my biggest problem - it was more that the kids really needed a break from our room! 

Oh, and I have a sixth one!

• We can read for 15 minutes!!!!!!!!! I love you, Daily Five!

Can you think of five fantastic things about this week? I'd love to know them! Happy weekend!!

Can I Have Your Attention, Please?

Wow! This week has been tiring. And although I've had lots to write about, I haven't had the energy!!! Ay caramba.

Anyway, I want to talk to you about something that is a bit silly slash embarassing.

Whenever first year teachers ask me about advice that I have for them, I ALWAYS say, "You need to have an attention-getting strategy!" I have said it a hundred times. I have even added that I didn't have one last year and that is part of the reason that I didn't feel confident about my classroom management skills.

I went into this year with my attention-getting strategy in mind - I wanted to do the Class/Yes from Whole Brain Teaching. I haven't bought into the whole WBT situation but I felt like this was a pretty standard thing to try out.

So I went in on the first day, taught the Class/Yes thing to my class................ and then didn't use it for the next 3 days. I felt really self-conscious about it for some reason, even though I teach 6 year olds!!

On Thursday afternoon, day 3 of school, I was already just as frustrated as I was last year. I hate the feeling of standing in front of the class and just hoping that they'll stop talking. Or talking over them and then no one hears you whatsoever.

So I decided - on Friday, I was doing it! I was going to Class/Yes all day long! There was no stopping me!

So I did it. And it was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAZING. I never had a hush fall over the crowd like I did on Friday. Go me go!

It made our Friday schoolwork SO much more pleasant and wonderful!

For example, we made our first math quilt!

I absolutely loved making these last year, but my love for them increased 1000% when I had everyone's attention to teach the folds and cuts! My second graders (who made these last year - but starting in December) were trying to do the fancier folds and cuts that come later in the year so I had to stop them, haha!

We also did a super fun estimation activity with oatmeal squares!

Yum!

A side note - one of my friends came out from New York this weekend and we did lots of touristy things in the city! It was a beautiful day yesterday and I had so much fun!

What attention-getting strategy (or strategies) do you use? If you need some ideas, there are a bunch of options here!