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! :) 

Reader's Workshop

Today I am linking up with Ms. B over at Buzzing with Ms. B for her Reader's Workshop Linky Party.

As we get near the first day back to school, I know we are all thinking about how we are going to teach the first week. Will you just go over rules and no actual teaching or will you jump right into teaching? For me and my district, we jump RIGHT into teaching the 1st day. The logic behind it is to start teaching day 1 so that the kids start seeing what the rest of their year will look like!

My district is very big on the workshop model and we do it for math, reading, and writing. I wanted to share with you how I launch reader's workshop in my classroom.

If you are new to the workshop model this is what it looks like. Mini lesson, independent reading/centers (during this time I meet with small groups), sharing (normally reading from their reader's response journals). The total time of the workshop can vary (60 minutes at the most) depending on the length of the mini lesson, but remember, the lesson is MINI. So make it short! No more than 15 minutes.

For the first 3 weeks of school I am teaching the students why we read, how we read, what we do when we get to a word when don't know, how to write in our reader's response journal, etc. all within the workshop model. So when I'm ready to start teaching predicting, inferring, visualization, my students already know the workshop model and can easily transition!

Here is an example of how the 1st day of reader's workshop would look in my classroom.

I would bring the students to the carpet (that's where all of our learning happens). I have my easel up there and all of my supplies ready to use for filling out anchor charts.

The first day I talk about why we read. And as a class we brainstorm ideas of why we read and record them on our "Why Readers Read" anchor chart.

A trick I use so that I can use these anchor charts year after year is write the students responses on sticky notes and stick them to the anchor chart. Then at the end of the year, pull off the sticky notes, and store the anchor chart till next year!

All of our anchor charts are displayed ALL year long for students to refer to whenever they need!

After the "purpose of reading" mini lesson I tell the kids that we are going to read a book for fun today. I think it is so important to read to your kids DAILY! My favorite author is Mo Willems. I always start out with a pigeon book. They LOVE them! After I read it we talk about why we read that book. Of course to have fun and entertain us! And it of course entertained us! That darn pigeon!

Day 2 and 3 of school will consist more of what the mini lesson will look like and what independent reading will look like. Here are some of the other anchor charts we do within the first few weeks.

Baby steps are so important when you are laying the groundwork for the workshop. Don't try to shove too much into one day because you'll end up having to reteach it later because they aren't going to remember.

If you would like to do reader's workshop in your classroom, check out my "Launching Reader's Workshop" unit in my Teacher's Pay Teachers store. It is geared for K-2. I promise if you stick with the lessons, you're kiddos will be ready to tackle reader's workshop in 3 weeks! Kids strive on consistency and that's what reader's workshop does for you!

If you have any questions about reader's workshop, please do not hesitate to email me at flyinghighinfirstgrade@gmail.com I'd love to help!

Best and Most {linky}

Don't you remember voting on the "best dressed" and "most likely to succeed" in high school? Well, a group of bloggers and I are going to do the same thing with products we use in your classrooms!

As we close in on the Back to School Sale, it's fun to think about everything you want to buy to make the most out of your year with your babies! So I want to show you what I feel is the "best and most" of what I use in my classroom.

But first, I must share with you my high school drill team picture. I never was voted anything in my high school yearbook, so this will have to do :)

I've always wondered if that uniform still fits. I don't dare find out though :)

Now, onto the best and most of things to use in the classroom.

Let's start with the "Teacher's Pet". My teacher's pet is my "All About Me" book. I LOVE this activity because it's a great way for students to help me get to know them at the beginning of the year. The students also learn about each other as they work through the book. I love listening to the conversations around this activity. It is also not a writing intensive activity, so even your babies who are not the best of writers, aren't afraid to tackle it.

Next up is "Most Likely to Help Your Student Succeed". I love these centers packets because they include simple centers activities that will build up your student's confidence as you are teaching how centers work in your classroom. What I also love about these units is they work for numerous grade levels. The 1st grade set can be used in 1st grade at the beginning of the year or kinder a few months in. Same goes for the 2nd grade set. It can be used in 2nd grade at the beginning of the year or 1st grade a few months in.

The "Best Couple" goes to "What is a Scientist?" and "Launching Reader's Workshop". You may be thinking, how do science and reading go together? Well let me tell you! They are a great couple because both units are a great way to introduce science and reading into your classroom at the beginning of the year!

Well that wraps up the Best and Most of things I use in my classroom. I hope that you are able to get everything you need to make your classroom successful this year during the sale!

My store will be 20% off Sunday and Monday and don't forget to add in the code BTS13 to get an extra 10% off when you check out! This is not something you want to miss!

Head over to Christina's blog to check out the other bloggers who are sharing their "Best and Most".

Reader's Workshop {and giveaway}!

I have decided to do a post on how I do reader's workshop in my classroom. I hope this helps anyone who is struggling with the "ins and outs" of reader's workshop. Whether you are a new teacher or not! Sometimes you just need a change!

My reader's workshop starts at 9:20. We start with our mini lesson. It normally lasts about 15-20 minutes or alittle more if the kids are really into it! :)

So this week we focused on main idea and did my pocket chart mini lesson to introduce main idea on Monday.

After the mini lesson, the students will have "read to self" time for about 10 minutes. This is when I meet with my lowest group. It's quite and the best time to work with him.

At 10:00am it's time to start centers. I continue working with guided reading groups during that time.

Here is how my students know where to go for centers time. Let me explain. 

Here are how my centers work! Some are self explanatory like read to self and buddy reading, but here are pictures of the rest of them.

 Writing Center- students have tons of choices to do during their writing center. poems, stories, lists, etc.

 Listening center- tons of books to choose from! They have a recording sheet to fill out after listening to the book they choose.

 Computer centers- my students love them some abcYA.com. the best website ever!

 classroom library- where they trade out book to put in their book box for read to self.

word work center- this isn't the best picture, but the word work center is to the right in the book shelf but the chairs. I promise to take a better picture soon! Here they have magnetic letters, playdoh, stamps, magic boards, and white boards to practice their spelling words for the week.

I hope this post is helpful for those who are putting their reader's workshop together! If you have any questions please comment or email me at flyinghighinfirstgrade@gmail.com.

For those who actually read through the whole post, congrats! I would love to give away a copy of my two new units "What's It All About?" and "All About Plants". I will choose 2 winners next Friday.

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Enjoy your weekend!