Falls of Fun!

Hello friends!! Baby Rae and I wanted to stop by with a little throwback post and some exciting news! 

I know that many of you are setting up your Readers and Writer's Workshop and I wanted to share a few pictures of my classroom during this time! You can find the original post HERE! 

We always start out by asking why do readers read? I love the responses they come up with! I think its' so important that kiddos understand why we do things! I mentioned this is the earlier post, but I laminate this chart so I can easily reuse it from year to year. This teacher loves post its! 

We also talk a lot about how to choose a good book! Here's one of our favorite anchor charts! 

And here's our anchor chart wall full of our learning! 

I'd love to hear how you launch Reader's Workshop! 

 I have also teamed up with Educents with some instant downloads for you!

I have 2 great products in the bundle! Now that aren't "fall themed" but they are great units to help get thing started in your classroom during fall! You can check out Launching Writer's Workshop and What is a Scientist by clicking the links! 

But that's not all... the bundle covers to following topics that you will need to teach this year:

·      long and short vowel sounds
·      counting, identifying, representing, and comparing numbers
·      identify and analyze 2d & 3d shapes
·      become scientists  
·      write words and sentences
·      implement writers workshop
·      addition and subtraction story problems to 20
·      story elements
·      retelling and responding to text
·      poetry
·      ten frames
·      least to greatest and greatest to least
·      graphing

For a limited time it is $15.99 from Educents which is about 76% off!  12 instant downloads for your Kindergarten and First Grade learners.  And 850 pages of materials ready for you to use - there is sure to be tons you will love!

Go check it out! :) 

Five for Friday

It's Friday my friends! Wahoo! Time for Five for Friday to check out what's going on in my classroom!

We read this ADORABLE book "A is for Musk Ox"

If you haven't read it yet, it's about a musk ox who writes an entire alphabet book about a musk ox. "A is for musk ox because musk oxen are awesome and live in Alaska." "B is for musk ox because musk oxen have black or brown fur." You get the picture.

After reading the book, my students got to start writing a book about them!! This is an ongoing project that we will work on all year long! Here is one student's letter "G". This is going to be fun!

If you'd like to snag this packet and do the activity with your kids, click on the picture below to download through Google Docs.

We also started our first research project of the year! They are so stinking excited! With the "Resident Expert: Research Process" packet {available in TpT, click on the cover page}, my kids are on their way to a successful research project!

We started off by doing a fun poem where the students listed out some of the things they'd like to do if they were in charge of their learning.

Then they went ahead and made a list of what they wanted to research. We will do this many times throughout the year so I wanted them to have a long running list to pull from through the year.

Next, it's time to plan! We wrote down what we knew about our topic and questions we had.

Then we took the questions we wrote, and organized them into sub topics so that our researching would not be so scattered.

After that we went to the library to check out books and then they will start researching on the computer next week. They are LOVING this!

I have made some fun posters and activities for teaching doubles! I hope this is something you could use in your classroom!

And this is a product you don't want to miss! It's a great set of print and go fall themed writing, reading, and math activities! A must have for the busy fall season!

And I must leave you with the cutest thing you've ever seen! She is sitting on her throne right next to me while I'm writing this post. I just love her!

Have a great Friday!

Falls of Fun

As we have all settled into school and you have implemented your reading and math centers, you may have also had to start making more and more centers. We do so much for our kids and those centers can take so much time!

Well I have the PERFECT thing for you! I have put together a set of math, writing, and reading PRINT and GO centers! Did I have you at print at go? Love at first sight, I'm sure!

There are great math worksheets that include practice in adding, subtracting, shapes, counting, graphing, and number words. Here's a peak at one of the math pages!

 Here in a sneak peak at two of the reading activities. I included Short Vowels, Rhyming Words, Beginning Sounds, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves Sequencing Book, The Tree's Life Cycle Book, Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin Book, and ABC order

For the writing activities I included 5 writing prompts, a cloze activity, fill in the blank, and a fun fall mobile where they write their favorite fall activities! Check out the mobile.

Take a look at everything else included, and if you'd like to win a copy, head over to my facebook page! Just in time to print and use next week! Hope you have a great Friday!

Five for Friday

I apologize for my blogging absence! But Five for Friday is such a great way to let you in on what's been going on!

Since my title 1 tutoring position doesn't start until October, I have taken on a GT (gifted and talented) position until then and I am LOVING it! Hanging with small groups all week and getting to work across the grade levels! I haven't taught the older kids in a few years, but oh my goodness! I have missed them! I really do love the older ones!

#1 Here's a look in my new classroom! I had to decorate an entire class in 1 week! The room was bare! And apparently I had enough border to decorate an entire classroom without having to buy any. Can you say border hoarder?

 This is my favorite part of the entire room! And the kids LOVED seeing their names this week as they entered the classroom for the first time. I loved how they reacted when they walked in. They said the room was so fun and inviting! From the mouth of babes.

#2 I work with grades 1-5 and pull each of my grade levels once a week and this week was the 1st week for them to be pulled. We read the book "My Fantastic Elastic Brain". Such a fun book that talks about how the brain works and that it's ok to make mistakes because it's training your brain!

#3 We spent time talking about how this class would be a place to challenge ourselves. If we can't do something, we just can't do it "yet". Yet is a big word in our GT program! We want to have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset! I introduced the word mindset and we talked about the M standing for motivation.

Then in the upper grades the students had to make up a skit showing what motivation was. The skits were hilarious! Then they had to come up with a symbol for motivation. Here are a few.

Then I took all of their symbols and displayed them on our mindset board. We will make our way through the whole word throughout the year.

Check out my "Change Your Mindset" unit in my TpT store if you'd like to implement to growth vs. fixed mindset in your classroom!

#4 And of course I've been working on some fun fall activities for all of you!

 My firsties LOVE doing this activity and it's a great way to teach or review ordinal numbers in word and number form! It is on sale this weekend for $2 AND if you head over to my facebook page, you have a chance to win a free copy!

#5 And last but not least, I finally got my silhouette portrait that I won from Hope's from Second Grade Shenangians giveaway! Now to learn how to use the darn thing!

And to leave you with a little humor... Are you ready for some football?!?!