A Special Visitor

Last week we welcomed the month of December with a very special visitor all the way from the North Pole!!! On Wednesday, we returned from PE to discover a box wrapped in gift wrap and tied with a bow sitting in front of our classroom door. We were all very anxious and excited to find out what exactly was inside that box!

When we opened the package, we found a tiny little Elf, a book, and a class set of "Elf Journals".

                          Student #21 wrote a cute little bit about wanting to name him Mark.
Hmmmmm...we were intrigued. We read the book and discovered that our Elf visitor was sent to us directly from the North Pole!!! He was a spy for Santa watching to make sure we were behaving and making good choices! We also learned that we had to choose a name for him, and write about his visit in our special Elf journals. After much deliberation, we voted on "Ethan the Elf" as his name. We also found that he doesn't speak, and we must not touch him or we could risk him losing his "magic". He spent his first day in our classroom hanging out on the book shelf.
The next day we found him sleeping in our tissue box...

 

We figured he must have been tired after his long journey from the North Pole. The next day he was hanging out on top of the lollipop tree enjoying a lollipop! He didn't even throw away the wrapper! What a naughty elf!

The following day he left us a message with the magnetic letters...

He also had an unfortunate accident and toppled off one of the boxes he was sitting on. We were really worried about him, but thankfully the next day he seemed to be okay, just a little banged up. Looks like he found my bandaids in the drawer though!

This morning he wrote our whole class a letter and thanked everyone for the nice notes and bucket fillers they have been leaving him. But he also warned us that he has been taking pictures of our classroom at the end of the day and sending them to Santa, and it has been very messy!!! Uh oh. 

Wonder what kind of shenanigans he will be up to tomorrow...

Whew....

Hello faithful followers! I have been not so faithful in my blogging. In all fairness I have a good excuse. The month of November (besides all the fury of the upcoming holiday season) was really tough because my son Luca got pneumonia. I have to admit, as a first time mommy to a toddler, this was pretty scary. The worst part was that we ended up in the ER at 10pm the day that my husband had just had surgery on his wrist. So, I spent the night in the ER with a very sick little boy and a daddy that was completely out of commission and on all kinds of pain killers. Not having any family around is really difficult in times like that. But thankfully our little guy is doing much better. We had to put a call in to grandma to come out and help take care of him (really, all of us since I ended up sick that same weekend) and we were very grateful that she was willing and able to make the trip. So, now that we are all almost back to normal, I can finally update this neglected blog!
I may just have to do it in a couple of posts since I have so much to add. I will start with November. We started the month with election fun and we even had a mock election in our classroom! We read three books: Duck for President, Gracie for President, and My Teacher for President. We then made campaign signs for who we thought should win, and held a mock election. I think the kids really enjoyed themselves, and learned a lot about how elections work. It only happens every 4 years, so I think it's an important thing to bring into the classroom. Here are some pictures of our campaign signs:

Now I am sad to say I have no clue which little cuties created these FABULOUS "Vote for Mrs. S" signs because these were done when my amazing substitute was filling in for me while I cared for sick little Luca. I took the pictures when I returned, but there were no names on them. So...if they are yours, I loved them!!! Oh, and guess who won the election...yep, me. I am so flattered.
We also got to try another special "Garden to Go" snack. This time it was some type of persimmon and the name is escaping me at the moment. The kids all tried them, and once again the majority of them liked it! So far, most of the special snacks have been a hit. Now I always try them with the kids (have to set a good example right?) but sometimes I have to try really hard not to make faces. I was not a fan of this snack...

Of course for Thanksgiving we had some fun activities to enjoy, and we did a lot of writing about what we were thankful for. Here are some of my favorites!

 Student #2 wrote the sweetest note to mom and dad. Love it!

This one is by student #20. How to cook a turkey. Pretty darn cute. In case you can't see it, it says "Take off the wrapper, take out the bones, cook it". Not sure about the whole bone removal, but hey, glad they knew to remove the wrapper!
We also did some special Thanksgiving "rotations" for the kids. We have what we call "rotations" every week in which the first grade teachers each teach a different subject such as social studies, art, science, tangrams, and some additional phonics and we rotate classrooms. During special holidays we plan holiday themed activities and students get to rotate classrooms and complete different fun projects. For Thanksgiving they got to do story telling bracelets, a cute "don't eat the turkey" craft, a pilgrim drawing activity, paint sample turkeys, and even got to make butter! I think they really had a good time. Sadly it was so hectic making story telling bracelets with 150 kids that I forgot to take pictures!!! Boooo:( I will do better during our holiday rotations next week, I promise!

What's new in 202?

I have been a bad teacher blogger, but after a busy week of parent/teacher conferences and a wonderful week long fall break with my family in Pinetop, I am back! So, what have we been up to in room 202? Well, I have been working hard at introducing Whole Brain Teaching's SmoothyBumper Planet. So far I am LOVING it! It's basically a really cool way to practice counting, and it improves students' number sense and helps them to grasp the concept of place value...which we are going to be diving into this week!
In Daily 5 we are FINALLY up to 5 choices, and students are doing a great job of working independently. I have also decided to choose 2 monitors every week to make sure everyone stays on task while I am working with guided reading groups. My hope is that the monitors will change weekly so everyone gets a chance to be in that leadership role and hold that responsibility. The kids are loving having lap tops as a choice for "listen to reading" and they are going crazy over Reading Eggs. We are so lucky to have such an engaging program!
In other fun news, our cafeteria is participating in a healthy snack program that provides a unique/rare healthy food each month for students to try. In September we tried the Seckle Pear, which was a huge hit. This month we got to try Sea Beans. I had actually seen them on an episode of Chopped just a few weeks ago (I love Food Network), and I was super excited to try them with the kids. They look kind of like something you would find in a fish tank. And they taste like sea water. SALTY. But surprisingly most of the kids really liked them. Some even asked for seconds! I love that they are being exposed to new foods and encouraged to try things they may not get to try otherwise.

This month I also introduced Friday math tubs, which are just fun games and activities that provide practice in skills such as addition, subtraction, and counting. This month they have been fun Halloween themed activities, and we even did some cute monster math to hang up! Students got to select the size and quantity of eyeballs for their monsters, then they had to write an addition equation to match.

One of our students also participated with her older brother in a Halloween Thriller performance with the drama club. They did a fantastic job! Super spooky!

Daily 5...My Way

I would like to take some time to explain exactly how I run Daily 5 in my first grade classroom. Let me start by saying that I am by no means an expert in Daily 5, and this is the first year I have truly implemented it in my classroom so it's constantly evolving as I learn what works and what doesn't. The great thing about Daily 5 (well, one of many) is that you can tweek it to fit the needs of your classroom and students, and it's very flexible. I read the books over the summer, and they were pretty life changing (well, from a teaching standpoint). I will NEVER go back to doing "centers" as I did for so many years in kindergarten. Centers are a ton of work, you have to change them every week (and train the kids on the new centers every time you change them), and you have to monitor and organize who goes where every day. It's extremely time consuming. So, here's my take on Daily 5...

The number one benefit of Daily 5 is that students learn to work independently and monitor their own learning, which allows you uninterrupted time to work with small groups, conference with individual students, and assess as needed.  Once they are properly trained on the procedures and have had ample time to practice and build stamina (this does take quite some time...we are two months in and just now getting to the point where students are making choices, working independently, and I am free to work with groups), Daily 5 time is amazing. It's a quiet, peaceful time in the classroom where students are building reading fluency by practicing (either by themselves, with a buddy, or through a computer program), becoming better writers by practicing writing for a variety of purposes (lists, how to, letters, stories), and working on sight words using fun materials.

For Daily 5 in my classroom, students each have a book box that contains all of their Daily 5 materials (leveled readers and library books, notebook, monthly writing journal, and folder). During the initial introduction phase, each component is practiced for just a few minutes at a time, adding a minute each day until they are able to work for 20 minutes without interruption. We call this "building stamina". We make anchor charts as we discuss the rules and procedures for each component, and after each practice round we come together and discuss how we did. We also graph our stamina. The first two components students learn are read to self and work on writing. They start off doing both at their seats, but eventually they work up to being able to choose where they sit in the classroom (the floor, a table, etc.). During the introductory phase of work on writing, students are taught the different purposes for writing and they are assigned a writing assignment each day based on what they are learning. Eventually they get to start making choices about their writing. I keep a ton of writing materials, paper, and supplies in my writing center, and each month they receive a journal to use for prompts. They must start with either their journal or a specific writing assignment, then they can choose fun things like bucket filler slips, lists, letters to a friend, and picture stories. After awhile, we add in read to someone. I choose their partner, and they either practice reading our reading story for the week or our fluency story for the week. Once these three components are going smoothly, I add in word work. Initially (the first month) we do word work together. They start with a "must do" which is usually some type of practice with sight words or word families that must be handed in. Then they have the option of practicing their sight words for the week with a variety of materials such as play dough, keyboards, wikki sticks, magnets, white boards, or stamps. These are the "may do" word work choices. I know that all sounds super confusing, but it really does run smoothly once the initial training phase is over and students are able to work independently.

We are now pretty much to the point where we can do 3-4 20 minute "rounds". At the start of each round we review procedures and expectations, talk about any "must do" work for word work and work on writing, and I call each students name and have them tell me where they want to start. They can do Daily 5 in any order they want, and they won't get to all 5 components every day because of time, but they must do word work and work on writing every day, and each of those two components has a "must do" that is to be turned in, that way I can monitor students and make sure they are actually working.

This is just a basic overview of how I have started using Daily 5 in my classroom, and I hope to add more details and advice (as well as pictures and resources) as I go along. I also think it is important for parents to understand how Daily 5 works, and how it truly improves student achievement in literacy.

Busy, Busy

I think any teacher would agree with me in saying that August and September are just plain crazy. The first month is all about training. Yep. You have to train the kiddos on how things run in your classroom. Rules, procedures, all that fun stuff. Then before you know it, you are in September and all of a sudden report cards are upon you...which means assessing, assessing, assessing. PHEW! I have been busy lately to say the least, and I apologize for the serious lack in blogging. Teacher fail. I will say that the past two weeks have been exciting. Well, for me anyways. I am FINALLY starting to see the classroom running itself, which I LOVE. It means all that training is paying off and my kiddos are starting to get the hang of things like Daily 5 (man, that requires a TON of practice in order to run successfully...who knew?), Whole Brain Teaching, and all the other things that are new to them as big first graders like "clicker tests" (we get to take our weekly reading tests with a super cool remote control). I am also getting into my groove as a first grade teacher. Having taught kindergarten the last 4 years, I am still finding out what's I like and what's going to work with first graders (and what has failed miserably). It's a learning process. But I finally feel like I am liking the way things are headed.

So after that ramble I will get onto the good stuff. What's going on in room 202 these days? I think the best and most exciting thing would be how well Daily 5 has been going and how proud I am that the students are finally at the point where they have gained enough independence that they can make their own choices. They have now learned 4 of the 5 components, and they have the freedom to choose between read to self and work on writing each day. Next week I am going to add read to someone as a choice. After fall break I am going to go crazy and throw in word work as another choice, and hopefully shortly after that I will be able to introduce listen to reading which will allow students to choose computer reading programs such as Reading Eggs, MyOn Reader, and Accelerated Reader. Daily 5 rocks, and I have a big post all about how I run Daily 5 coming soon. Stay tuned. Here are some fun pictures taken during word work:

The other fantastic thing I see going on in our classroom is the sense of community that is starting to develop. We are all starting to come together as a team, and that is a special thing in any classroom. I mentioned Bucket Fillers in an earlier post, and I have to mention the sweetest thing ever. We started using the Bucket Filler forms during work on writing and the students have been so incredibly sweet and thoughtful and it melts my heart! You would just die if you sat in on community circle on Fridays. I pull out the slips from each bucket and read one aloud. Their faces just light up when someone fills their bucket and I could just cry it's so darn sweet. My favorite is when they notice that someone's bucket is empty and they make an effort to fill ALL buckets by Friday so no one is left out. It doesn't always happen, but we get close, and everyone has had at least one bucket filler. Next week I hope to get some pictures of some of the darling things they write to one another. And wow does it build self esteem. I just love it. It's my favorite part of the week.

We also had our first student reach level 2 on the Super Improver wall. Congratulations student #3!!!

Oh, and our cafeteria is doing this neat program where they deliver an "unsual" healthy snack once a month for everyone to try. This month we tried a "seckle pear". All but two students loved it, and they DEVOURED it.

 Hopefully next week I will be able to finish my new math tubs so we can enjoy some fun math games on Fridays. I did teach them how to play "Bump" last week, and we played a fun Halloween version called "Boo Bump". I know it's early, but I love Halloween. We are also playing the scoreboard to earn a Halloween party. That should be fun:)

Super Improvers!

We have been busy these last couple of weeks, and one my the most exciting things was introducing the Super Improver Wall. This is an idea that comes from Whole Brain Teaching, which we have also implemented in the last couple of weeks. On  the wall I have posted 10 levels with fun names like specialist, pro, genius, etc. The kids can work their way up the levels by earning stars on their Super Improver card. It takes 10 stars to move up to the next level. To earn stars, you have to collect "power poms" throughout the day by doing a fantastic job, demonstrating a great effort, or by improving on something (possibly a behavior or rule that needs practiced, improving a test score, etc). 5 power poms=1 star on your Super Improver card. 10 stars=a move up to the next level. When you move to the next level, you get to take your old card home, and you get a different colored card that corresponds to the next level. Level 10 is the "genius" level. Once you reach the top you get your picture posted on the wall, and you get to participate in a special party for "geniuses". It's a great motivator, and you are competing against yourself and constantly trying to improve and work towards your goal. The best part is, there is no real "prize", it's just the satisfaction of knowing that you worked hard and achieved a goal. Now that I like! Check out a picture of our Super Improver wall in action:
Notice all the cards are currently on level 1, so they are all white at this point. They will begin to change colors as kids work their way up the wall.

In addition to the Super Improver wall, we have also been practicing the callbacks for Whole Brain Teaching. We are getting pretty good at "Class-Yes", but we still need to improve our speed!!! It's all about how quickly you can follow directions. And Whole Brain Teaching means you have to be on the ball all. the. time. You can see how well we are doing (or not doing) by checking out our class scoreboard. When the happy face side has more tally marks than the sad face side, we get 1-5 minutes of something fun at the end of the day like a dance party, game time, or extra recess. And the exciting part is....the scoreboard will eventually begin to morph, and the game will change. More on that to come...

In addition to lots of Whole Brain fun, we have also been building our Daily 5 stamina, and working on patterns and problem solving in math. This week we read Diary of a Worm and learned about diaries/journals. I showed them my personal blog so they could get a feel for what a modern diary might look like. They will be getting monthly journals starting next week so they can write about all the fun first grade stuff going on in their lives.

We also started daily problem solving in our math journals, which unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of so I will catch one next week. The kids really loved getting out the linking cubes this week to practice patterns, and we learned the correct mathematical name for the patterns we were creating.

Next week we will introduce word work for Daily 5, and I know the kids are going to be super excited to see the fun word work centers they will be able to choose from! I am also working on some fun math tub games and activities, which we will start using on Fridays. Check back later to catch the fun!

Whole Brain Teaching is Coming!!!!

I am sooooooooo excited!!! After much debate, I decided to go ahead and jump into Whole Brain Teaching this year, and something tells me I won't look back. I have used bits and pieces of Whole Brain Teaching since back when it was called Power Teaching. I was contemplating trying to implement more this year, but I was worried about adjusting to a new district, school, and grade level...and trying to throw something completely new into my classroom management. Especially something so complex. I thought I would wait it out a year and get used to the new curriculum first. Over the weekend I was scouring the internet for new classroom management strategies for my class of very eager and energetic learners:) After getting to know the personalities in my classroom over the last three weeks, I feel that this group is the perfect group of guinea pigs!
The other super exciting thing I discovered is that Whole Brain Teaching now has WAY more resources than the last time I looked into it...and wait a minute...they are FREE!!!!! Nothing is ever free nowadays. Especially something so fantastic. There are so many fantastic resources on their website now. I am jumping for joy! I spent countless hours watching videos and reading ebooks this weekend. My husband thinks I am nuts. Oh well. The other plus is that I can actually become a certified Whole Brain Teacher online...also for FREE! Part of my certification will require that I blog about Whole Brain Teaching, so as I begin implementing it in my classroom you will get to see more about how it is working for us!
So, this week we are going to add to our callbacks (they learned the "class-yes" callback the first week of school) and focus on The Big 7:
1. Class-Yes
2. Hands and Eyes
3. Teach-Okay
4. Mirror
5. Switch
6. Scoreboard
7. Rules (and I am adding in some new procedural callbacks)

I also went in today and put up our "Super Improvers" wall just to spark some curiosity and excitement:) I will post more on that later. I also have some exciting games for sight words, math, and reading that I will be introducing one at a time over the next couple of months.  I can't wait to see what kinds of changes are going to take place in our classroom!

And before I call it a night (and tune into The Great Food Truck Race), here are a couple of pictures from last week. We working on writing friendly letters for Daily 5, and the "Clean Desk Fairy" paid a visit to some of our friends:)

By: Student #22