Playing Catch Up

Really...the last week of October...really?! My birthday is gone...the nice weather is hit or miss. I got my car washed at the fancy car wash (which to me is any car wash where I don't drive it through) and it poured. The leaves changed colors..and fell off. Well, at least there's Halloween to look forward too. I really do like Halloween. I like seeing the kids get so hyped. I don't like the sugar high and then the sugar low that follows but it comes with the territory. (Hmmm, maybe if they sneak candy to school I can take it and have a 3:00 pick-me-up?)

Super busy week this week in Reading. I'm not sure who exactly those people are in the front of my teacher's manuals that write these books but wowza. This week my firsties learned -s, -ed, -ing, possessives, predictions, reviewed short i, and learned naming parts of a sentence. Now, I can teach all of those things. Really, I can, I promise, I've done it. I'm just overwhelmed by doing it in one week. I know, I know...they won't master it this week...we'll review..and review..and recall...but I just kinda want to wave a magic teacher wand and have them absorb it all now. Too much to ask?

We learned that 'apostrophe s' shows ownership. Who doesn't love hearing 6 year olds say apostrophe?

Inside the " 's " I wrote "mine mine mine mine" because it's greedy.

Then we all though of something we owned and wrote it on a post-it and drew a picture. "Miss Cosby's dog" I made them "prove" they owned it by showing me the apostrophe s before they could hang it

We learned naming part this week (telling part is next week). Luckily this is something I've touched on during Mountain Language so we had something to build off. Laying in bed thinking about the best way to teach naming part I kinda thought of a train. (love my drawing, dontcha) Next week we'll do telling part and I'll come back to it.

Organizing our books from our book boxes. We're going 'book shopping' on Monday!

I am LOV-ING the mash-up of Weekly Reader and Scholastic News. First of all the paper isn't that shiny hard to write on crap stuff. The vocabulary and syntax are way more appropriate now. (I so wish my college TAs read this...totally used 'syntax' ...)

I had to share this cutie. The student working on this "Bat-o-Lantern" had to finish it up at home. C is such a creative kiddo and decided to go out of the pumpkin patch on this one. Too cute.

Okay, I've totally been wordy-worderson in this post but I've been away from here so long I had so much to share!

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Me trying to show the kids something on my computer with a million other windows open: My computer is so slow!!!

H: Get it fixed at PCMatic

lol, love it! #YouMightBeaFirstGrader

September's almost over?!

When did that happen? Where did the beginning of the year go? When did my summery bright decorations get replaced with apples and fall foliage colors?

Well, another busy week in 106 with me. I'm up to "Daily 3" lol. Not quite at the 5 but what I do have is going smoothly. My PowerPoint to transition stations is working well. I added animations and a background to my classroom ppt and the kiddos are really being independent when switching and I'm getting One-to-Small Group time with each kid nearly every day. I really love the small groups I've been able to pull but am struggling to get through the reading series materials now.

This week we started Mountain Language

Stock Photo.

Mountain Language is a program that teaches and practices different language arts and phonics skills weekly. This is the 5th year I've used it and I really enjoy it. By introducing and practicing with some of these topics now it's so much easier when I get to them in a few months. (i.e. contractions, naming part, telling part) They also make a Mountain Math. Check it out.





 We started Centers (which follow Mountain Language)

I currently do Centers during our RTI time. My school is not a Title I school so we may do things differently than many of you. During this time students are pulled out and work in leveled groups. I'm left with the median kiddos mostly.

I have a pocket chart (to the left) that came with our reading series. It's purple which is a bit nicer than all those blue ones I have. I mainly like it because of the deep pockets.

As you can see I have 5 groups. They are color coded (because the containers for the activities are colored) The kids are in that color all week but may do or redo any activity they'd like within their group. I pull kids during this time as well.

I also have a group that does computer time. Right now they're doing Reading Eggs. 

Here are my magazine boxes filled with center activities. They do math and reading activities during this time but I have a separate set of Word Work choices for  D5 time. 

 Do your kids bring in tissue boxes? I love the ones with the plastic guard. I use these for my math and nonsense word fluency games They're great! (and free) I put the cards in there and the kiddos draw one out. This box is cute but some of the other boxes get a butcher paper/wrapping paper makeover.





Oh and those of you that have purchases my Spelling Packet I wanted to let you know that I updated it to include traceable pages to practice heading a spelling test.

 

Google Docs is now Google Drive so I'm not 100% sure about imbedding a document anymore but if you go to TpT and download the preview of this item you'll get this freebie. The whole packet is only $2.