Post-it Note Reading

This year has been like no other.  I am trying to navigate through all of the common core standards and welcome a new evaluation process from Marzano while completing my masters degree, teach, volunteer, raise a family, loving my husband, and not going crazy.  So unfortunately I took the month off from my blog.

Classroom stuff: 
Post-it Note lesson- This was a lesson that I did to help students remember to be thinking as they are reading.  We did our post-its during independent reading and then shared our thoughts during the Partner reading.  

I'm going to redo this chart to make it cute...already have it started.  I'll pin it when I do.

This was one of those lessons that made my day.  My Firsties did a great job with this and I love to hear them talk all about it!

 

 

Jam-packed Day!

Who's got 2 thumbs and stayed up until 2:45am in the morning working on anchor charts, grading, and blogging?  THIS GIRL!!!  Oh my gracious, I am feeling it tonight.  On the up side, I was completely rocking my teaching and in a really great mood-go figure.  Perhaps I should only get 3 hours of sleep every night?  NO WAY!  ;D  Check out what I made...yes, Pinterest was opened the entire time. 

 

 

My little Firsties were very happy to see my hard work.  Maybe that's why I was in such a good mood?  Or it could have been because I had a rockin' read aloud with my new book Looking After Louis.  I'll post about that another day.  Tonight it's beddy bye time.  :)

 



Differences

I have a new little one in my room with special needs.  A few years ago I was in a classroom where the teacher read Looking After Louis by Lesley Ely.  The students responded so well and it was a great classroom building lesson.  I have been meaning to get this book to add to my very own library and now I finally have!  I am sooooo excited.  God has put a special little someone in my room every year and I have become great friends with our Special Education teacher.  (She's such a magnificent woman!) 

So, once I get my Amazon order I'll have a lesson to go along with my new purchase.  It was well worth the $ because as the years go by, my special needs population in my classroom is increasing.  I believe that the best way to deal with the "elephant in the room" is to educate all of the children.  It always melts my heart to watch the compassion and love exude from my little Firsties towards the little one that may need some extra patience. 

 

Leave me a sweet little note if you have come across any books or lessons that help to educate your little ones on a special needs topic.  :)

One of my favorite quotes:
"Fair isn't everybody getting the same thing...Fair is everybody getting what they need in order to be successful".  I will be incorporating this into my lesson I suspect. 

Frog Phonics

I am loving all of the Turkey sightings on everyone's blogs, and I am guilty of downloading and buying every little Thanksgiving theme I can get my hands on....but I'm doing frogs today.  ;)  (Actually, we did our Thankful Turkeys today, but I didn't snap any pics yet) 

My little ones have been LOVING the H Brothers and the PH cousin (I added him with all of the ph words floating around).  The Firsties are so stink'n excited about finding the H Brothers that they shout out at the carpet, interrupt my reading groups, and nearly tackle me to show me their newest H Brother find.  Clearly I have created some monsters, but at least it's all about phonics! 

With all of the excitement, I made a sorting the H Brothers activity I saw on Pinterest from Make Take Teach Blog.  Hop over using this link and you can make your own!  I love how mine turned out and it was all FREE!  I had the bins that I got in the beginning of the year from Target in their $1 section (which is all too dangerous for this teacher) and I had the frogs in an old notepad someone gave me.  All I had to do was print and laminate.  And yes, I have my own laminator in my room and I don't know how I ever lived without it! 

 

Here's my Maddie demonstrating how to play/sort.  :)

 

Back to Turkeys tomorrow! 

~Jill

Phonics and Turkeys?

Monday is always the day of the week that seems to be gone before it begins.  Is anyone else wondering where the time is going?  Yikes!  We did a great lesson that I adapted from Pinterest about the H Brothers.  I'm eager to add my little picture circles to add to our H-Brother Sort tomorrow.  It will be a great little activity to use with some of my mom volunteers. 

 

And I couldn't help but post by own 1st grader's disguised turkey.  My son, Jack loves the Don't Let the Pigeon...books.  So it seemed fitting to disguise his turkey as a pigeon.  ;)  Too fun!

 

 

Have a great day! 

~Jill

 

Honor, Pride, and FRIDAY!

This was one of those days that I love.  My mind was going a mile a minute BUT I was checking tasks off of my "to-do" list left and right.  Since Veteran's Day is on Sunday this year, we started working on some veteran themed work today and next week we will be writing our letters to the veterans to tell them why we are so thankful for them.  This ties in nicely with the presidental unit we just wrapped up.  Why you may ask?  Because we have been discussing our country and why we are so lucky to be able to choose our leader.  Discussing our veterans provides the how to our freedom discussions.  Check out the cute photos of my Firsties! *Disclaimer* I did not have spellcheck on my super fun smelly markers, so I am not completely sure every word was spelled right on my chart paper. ;)

 

 

AND....

 

Added some more skills to our our Reader's CAFE.  This is a process that I would have loved to have started much earlier in the year.  Life threw some major curve balls at me this year.  New assessments, new computer programs, new professional development, and the biggest life-changing event, my dad going home to be with Jesus.  (REALLY missing him tonight)  So, this is as far as we have gotten so far, but geez do my little ones LOVE this.  Makes me happy to meet with my little readers. 

 

 



Election Day

Yesterday was the Election Day and all of my Firsties were super excited to learn anything and everything about the candidates and the process.  We read Duck for President and that led into a discussion about character traits that a president would need to have.  Each child was then given a trait to relate to themselves.  We made the cover for our prompt, added the student's picture to make it personal, and hung them in the hallway.  It was such a fun day and I have all sorts of ideas for how I will do it different/better next time.  Now on to Thanksgiving ideas...