Milk Carton Bird Feeders:

Materials:

1. One lunch milk carton per student

2. One craft stick per student

3. Yarn

4. Paint/ Paint Brushes 

4. Knife 

5.  Sink/ Soap

Directions:

1. Collect milk cartons, open the tops, cut off top (leaving about two to three inches of the bottom), wash out with soap and water, set out to dry. (Prepare in advance unless students are old enough to follow these steps on their own)

2. With a knife, slice half inch slits close to the bottom of the carton on opposite sides. (this is where the craft sticks will go to make the perch)

3. Punch holes on opposite sides without slits for yarn to hang bird feeder

4. Have students paint the bird feeders

5. When bird feeders are dry, have students stick in craft stick and tie yarn

6. Fill with bird feed and hang in the trees! 

First Grade Persuasive Writing

After a couple weeks of work on persuasive writing, the final products were finally ready for display! I made the little man and his bubble says come read our persuasive writing pieces! My student's persuasive writing was wonderful and they came up with the most creative reasons and examples. I taught them the persuasive O.R.E.O (opinion, reason, example, opinion again) and they followed the structure to create a persuasive letter. We also learned the parts of a letter. They filled out a brain storm template that said, "I will write a letter to _______." "I want to persuade this person to _____________."  Next, they received differentiated four squares as organizers. Some four squares had sentence starters and some did not. Some required six reasons while others only required three. It was a lot of work and my students had to do this writing step by step but they were really able to see the writing process unfold.  

Math Strategies

 Throughout my student teaching I quickly picked up on the fact that not all students learn the same way. I had read about students all learning differently and I had experienced learning differently than other classmates but I had never actually taught diverse students. Now that I have had the chance to teach a diverse group of learners I can understand the true importance of teaching from several different approaches. I realized that some students can learn multiple strategies and apply the one that works best for a given problem. I also learned that some students are dependent on a single strategy and cannot grasp the idea of other strategies. These posters were made by my mentor teacher's past interns and I was happy to have them in the classroom so I could use them as a resource. It is truly important to make sure every student is learning, even if it means teaching one lesson five different ways.

Mystery Motivator

The Mystery Motivator is a strategy that I got from the teacher next door to me!
Pick a student to be the mystery motivator but do not tell that student or any other students (so the teacher is the only one who knows)  if the student that was picked to be the mystery motivator is good then at the end of the day then the whole class gets a treat. Everyone thinks they may be the mystery motivator so they act better just in case they are it! 

Even or Odd

Cute song for even and odd:

There was a farmer who had a pig
and even was his name-o
0-2-4-6-8, 0-2-4-6-8, 0-2-4-6-8 
and even was his name-o

Picture Clues

I am so happy to have such a wonderful mentor teacher. She is a fabulous phonics teacher and I have learned a ton from her. She has picture clues for each blend, short vowel sound, and digraph. She has taught the students all of the general "tricks" of reading and these students can tell anyone these tricks. For example, "ou" says "ow" like "cloud." If the students come to a word with "ou" and they are having trouble sounding it out she simply says remember our trick, and they will automatically say, "ou says ow like cloud" and will be able to sound out the word.

Efficient Mornings

I strongly believe in routine and building efficiency in the classroom. With 21 students there has to be a form of routine as they enter the room or nothing would ever get accomplished. I love the morning routine my mentor teacher has established and I am continuing in her classroom. Students come in, hang their jackets on their hooks and place book bags in the laundry baskets (let's be real... those hooks are not enough space for backpacks and jackets so I love the laundry basket idea!). Next, they place their snack and homework folders in the labeled baskets. After this, they use the restroom or make a lunch choice (either can be first). They each have a clothes pin with their name to clip their lunch choice. She printed pictures of all the lunches so they can see and read the choices. After all of these tasks are complete students get busy on morning work/ unfinished work/ work that needs to be corrected from the day before. They are very efficient and I love having the routine!

Roller Skating!

At P.E. our students had the chance to roller skate! My mentor teacher and I decided to join them. She is the most wonderful mentor ever! I am learning so much from her and I am so fortunate to have someone so fun to work with every day. She loves teaching and is great at her job. It is fantastic to have someone so great as an example! 

Sight Word Practice

Best idea ever from my mentor teacher: to practice sight words my mentor teacher has students read them on flash cards and then read them on these strips. They place their finger on the green dot and read the words to themselves and place their finger back on the green dot when they are finished. Each strip has the words in different order so students read and pass to the right and read again. All students read at the same time but she picks one student and listens to them. It is done in small groups so eventually she listens to each student.  It is one of those things that is hard to explain but once you see it in action you understand!

Around the Clock

I just took on teaching math and got the joy of teaching time to my wonderful first graders! Some materials I found very useful were a big teacher clock with colored hands, and small individual clocks for each child. The standard states that students will be able to read time to the hour and half hour. I began by reading "What Time is It, Mr. Crocodile?" The kids really loved this book and they helped me guess what time would come next. As I read I wrote all the times shown on the clocks in the book up on the smart board. I continued the lesson by introducing different types of clocks, pointing out the hour and minute hand. We practiced learning these hands by writing the word minute and seeing it was longer than the word hour. I also said, "When I say minute hand you say long hand." "When I say long hand, you say minute hand." then, "When I say short hand you say hour hand." "When I say hour hand, you say short hand." The first day we just saw how the hands moved around the clock and learned how to read time as "o'clock" when the minute hand is pointing to the 12. After practicing reading several different hours, we did a closing called "ticket out the door." Students had to stand up one by one and tell me what time I was showing them on the clock. Each student had to read a different time before lining up for recess.

Changing Strips

We have a wonderful  color strip system that works in our classroom. Each student has a pocket with five different colored strips inside. Green is where students start. Students have the chance to go up or down all day long. If a student is misbehaving the student will receive a verbal warning or will be asked to sit out of the activity. If that student is still misbehaving the result will be changing their strip to yellow and a a note will go home to the parents and the child will stand out for five minutes of recess. If the child continues to misbehave it will result in the teacher asking the child to move their strip to red. If a child is on red then a note will go home and the child will miss ten minutes of recess. Students can also move up in their behavior pocket. If a child is doing the right thing and setting a good example for the rest of the class the child will be asked to move their strip to purple. If that child continues to set a great example then the child will move their strip to blue. At the end of the day the students all get paid based on their color strip. Blue is 25 cents, purple is 10 cents, green is 5 cents, and yellow/ red worth nothing. On Fridays the kids all get to go shopping at the school store.

Valentine's Day Treats!

I was inspired to do this from a post on pinterest so I must give credit to the original creative mind that came up with this cute idea. Students get way too much candy on Valentine's Day and I did not want to give them more sugar so I gave them glow stick bracelets instead. They loved the bracelets!

Definition Squares

My friend who is student teaching in 4th grade made these great sheets to help students remember the definition of mean, median, mode, and range. I thought this was a great idea and could be created for several different subjects to help students remember new lessons. For example I could make a first grade one with penny, nickel, dime, quarter and on the inside have how much each is worth and how many make a dollar.

Guided Reading Made Fun

A group of my students read the book, "Dictionary of Animals." I wanted to teach the students to categorize information so we first practiced categorizing our group. The students came up with some creative categories: boys and girls, people who can only speak one language and people who can speak two, everyone wearing yellow, blue, or white. After reading the book we looked back to see some facts about each animal category then I gave each student two note cards with facts. The students had to look back in the book to see the category that their fact fit.

One of my student's guided reading books was an informational book that taught how to make clay creatures. Instead of just reading the book and answering the guided reading questions we actually took the time to follow the steps of making clay creatures! This book instantly became a favorite of the student's. We were able to complete the activity and read the book in 20 minutes.

Work Stations- Writing, Pocket Charts, Big Books, Library, Buddy Read, Word Work

Writing station- all types of paper provided. Students draw a picture and write about it or write about a class photo.

Library- Students get to relax on pillows and select books of different genres to read.

Pocket charts- Students match contractions and two words.

Big book- Students point and read to each other with fun pointers.

Magnetic letters to practice spelling words!

Puppets for the book "There's a Shark in the Park" Students can act out the book while reading. The puppets were drawn by the teacher and printed on card stock. Use craft sticks to create handle and let the kids color!

Persuasive Poster/ Advertisement

After a two weeks of reading persuasive mentor texts and teaching my students the parts of a persuasive piece (O.R.E.O.-Opinion, Reasons, Examples, Opinion), we decided to make a class advertisement poster. My students voted on the place we would like to advertise and Disney World won. As a class we came up with an opinion (Disney World is the most fun place in the USA), some reasons (they have lots of princesses and characters, fun roller coasters and rides) and examples (see Mickey Mouse, you can talk to NEMO). I designed the poster and allowed the students to trace the words and color in Mickey Mouse! They LOVED this activity!!

Counting Coins

I never thought of counting coins using a 100's chart! This is a wonderful idea that I cannot take credit for because I stole it from my mentor teacher. Students use their 100's chart to count money and it helps them so much. They start with the coins with the largest amount. In the picture above the student had one quarter so he place it on the 25. He also had 3 dimes so he placed those on the 35, 45, and 55. After the dimes he placed his nickle on the 60. Then the four pennies were placed on 61, 62, 63, 64. The student now knows he has 64 cents!

11 Literacy Centers

My mentor teacher (who is a WONDERFUL teacher)  has these work stations so organized and the students know how to do everything that is expected of them at each center. Anyone who walked into the room during work stations would be impressed and surprised by how hard working and responsible the 22 first graders are! 

I will try to provide more details on the centers as I take more pictures. 

1. Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R): At this center students work at their desks. In our classroom we use the time for students to complete unfinished work from the morning/ homework they did not complete or to read a book at their desk! 

2. Computers: At the computer station students can work on starfall.com to play learning games. 

3. Pocket Charts: At pocket charts the children separate different words into categories according to the phonics focus for the week. Last week was bossy r words "ar" "or" "er, ir, ur" Students would place the word "car" in the ar column, the word "corn" in the or column, and "soccer" in the er, ir, ur column. 

4. Big Books: At the big book station the students read big books to each other using pointers to follow the words. These books are usually ones that have already been read aloud in class. 

5. Smart Board: My mentor teacher has a variety of activities dealing with phonics that the students do on the smart board. I will try to make a separate posting of these soon!

6. Library: At the library students can get comfy pillows and read all different kinds of books. My mentor teacher usually makes a basket of content area books (fractions, MLK, money, life cycle). There are also informational books, entertaining books, and persuasive books. 

7. Poetry: In the poetry station students read and copy different poems and riddles. 

8. Listen to Reading: In this center students may listen to stories on tape. There are two sets of headphones. 

9. Writing: In the writing station there are several types of paper students may pick to write on. My mentor teacher was very creative and uses class pictures as writing prompts. She prints out photos and places them in a drawer then the students may pick a picture and describe what is happening in their photo. 

10. Word Work: In the word work station students may practice their spelling words using magnetic letters, completing a word search in magazines or books, or rainbow writing (write words in all different colors).

11. Buddy Read: In this last station the students work in pairs and each have a copy of a book. They can point and read to each other. My mentor teacher also puts character cut outs in the station so the students can act out the story! (I will post some of these later also)

How to Make 11 Centers/ Work Stations Functional

1. First teach students what to do in each center and make sure they know what is expected of them. 

2. Place students in groups of 2. 

3. Teach students how to get started and how to clean up each center. Make sure they know how to put EVERYTHING back right where they found it. 

4. Teach students the rotation of centers.

5. We send our students to 3 centers a day. They have a rotation that the students all know. 

6. Set the timer for 15-20 minutes (depending on what can fit) and allow students to stay at centers for this amount of time. When the timer goes off, reset it for one minute. Give students exactly one minute to clean everything at their center and move to the next center. This is the KEY to making the centers work so well!

7. Make a tray where students can turn in their work from the centers. This ensures they are working hard. Every few weeks pick some student work from centers to celebrate! This give students something to look forward to if they do their work the correct way. 

If students are taught to be responsible in these 11 centers and are capable of cleaning the center up on their own then the teacher gets time to work with reading groups! 

Books for Persuasive Reading/ Writing Unit

Mo Willems has wonderful picture books to help children understand persuasion. The pigeon is adorable and tries to persuade people to let him drive a bus, let him get a puppy, and let him stay up late. These books build a great foundation of persuasive language and ways to persuade.
http://www.pigeonpresents.com/books.aspx

"Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type" by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin is a wonderful book to introduce persuasive writing. The Cows write the farmer a letter persuading him to give them blankets because they are cold in the barn.

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"Hey, Little Ant" by Phillip and Hannah Hoose, Illustrated by Debbie Tilley is another wonderful persuasive text. The ant is trying to persuade the little boy to not squish him and the boy is listing reasons why he should squish the ants. It is a wonderful book for students to decide who they would side with if they were a character in the book. 

 

100th Day of School

To keep the 100th day of school educational I decided to do an activity with the first graders where they learned the equivalent of 10x10 to 100. First we used a 100s chart to count by tens and get to 100. Then the students used the sheets below to make ten groups of ten. I just drew 100 in the middle and then made ten sections. 

Students could pick from counters, pennies, or base ten blocks to make their groups.

After making the groups, the students had to take all of the items and fill their 100s chart to make certain ten groups of ten equaled 100. Make sure the students recount each group because some students accidentally put 11 or 9 in a group.

When the students finished I allowed them to decorate their paper and draw ten items in each section. They got really creative!