Seesaw Medial Vowel Sorts

 I'm absolutely loving Seesaw. I'm total fangirl, lol. We just finished up our last short vowel in OG (Orton Gillingham). We will continue to review them but after fall break we are going to introduce the H Brothers. OG is all about being fair and not assigning passages or assignments where the content hasn't been covered in OG. It is now 'fair' to assign them tasks with all 5 short vowels. 

Enter the short vowel sorts on Seesaw! We still do paper/pencil activities and cutting and gluing but it has been cut back this year with the Seesaw for School purchase and Covid. It's still important to get those motor skill activities in but most of my centers are not digital activities in Seesaw. It also works well when I get a student that has to isolate or quarantine (unfortunate reality). I don't personally have any virtual students (100 % every day that is) but there are those in my district on the first grade team that do. So, we do a lot of group planning. It's been phenomenal to have the time to collaborate and share ideas. 

I plan on using these for a reading station activity (I'll be posting how I do stations in Seesaw soon) or as a morning work type activity. 

If you get these you can "Copy and Edit" and add different directions or record audio where you read the words. 

click here

Long Vowel Silent E

Over the next few weeks in first grade we will be completely kicking it up and learning so many phonological patterns. The weeks before and after winter break are super serious weeks....despite all the wintery fun and Christmastime anticipation

We started our first long vowel right before break. Long a w/ silent e. We watched this YouTube video to get the ball rolling.

I love this video. The kids love this video. It's really a win-win. Now the video does call it magic e and has a cape. I know that usually magic e has a hat or wand but I stayed consistent with the video. After watching the video we went old school and I had letters on construction paper and we did making words. Each kid held a letter then we read the CVC word. The we acted out magic e coming to help the closed vowel. It was kinda fun. Oh, and of course while we are doing this and being a bit goofy the principal comes and does one of his walk-throughs. But hey, I was teaching the kids were engaged, and it wasn't seat work. Also a win.

If you follow me on the 'gram (that's what the kids call it, right...???) okay Instagram you may have seen that I have been using #SeeSaw and #SeeSawActivities quite a bit. I love them. It saves papers. It's a digital portfolio that I don't have to be in charge of organizing/saving, the parents see assignments in almost real-time (as soon as I can approve them), I can leave feedback, I can differentiate, and I can HEAR each and every child sound out a 'page' of 12 words. Some of the videos are 12 seconds and others 58 seconds..so if I tried to do this one-on-one in class I'd be using valuable teaching time!

Well, as I said those weeks before break were packed full of important phonics. So, I created this to hear each kiddo practice soft g.

click to hear student

Well when we come back we hit the ground running with long i. There were some great freebies for long i work on SeeSaw that were shared by fellow teachers but I like the format above so much I created quick pages for long a, i, o, u. I didn't do long e because I found that there weren't as many e__e words but when e get ready for vowel teams I will be adding some. IF you can think of some first grade appropriate words then please comment below and I'll create a long e page and send you a copy of my pages for free. I had three or four that fit the pattern. 

click any of the previews to check it out on TpT

Reading Comprehension

I'm starting to really teach and practice comprehension skills. Based on our reading assessments (TRCs) at the beginning of the year I came up with this worksheet to aide in recalling details. I had many firsties that couldn't tell me complete sentences about what happened in the story and struggled (hard) with sequencing a story when they could recall events.

I've been sending this home on Wednesdays when I send our reading books home. It is to be completed with help from an adult but the ideas should be from the kids. I do plan on making versions of this that will grow and develop as first graders do throughout the school year.


Best of all--->IT'S FREE!

click here to get your freebie

Gearing Up to Go Back

I know...I know...I said it. I don't go back until the 7th but I need to go in and have a little 'work day' for myself. I have plans, copies, rearranging desks, taking down decorations, and gr...grr...grading. (eek)

I'll need some new centers and word work activities for my kiddos when they return. Can't keep doing stuff with Santa and elves on them!

Here's what I finished up from the comfort of my couch in a chihuahua sandwich.

Oh, and yes some are common core aligned but as you all know there are tons of things we need to teach that are not standards.

You'll get 5 reading focused centers and 5 math focused centers

click here to check it out on TpT

click to enlarge

sort words by their real spelling or their sound-out spelling

 

nonsense word game

 

sort the sentences by the punctuation they should have

 

put words in ABC order

 

complete the number patterns (counting forward and backward)

 

fill in the missing part or whole

 

read the number sentence to decide if it is true or false

 

match number sentences to their answer

 

count the coins and match them to their written representation

 

unscramble the sentences

 

If you like this please pin one of my (many) images. Leave the link to the pin and I'll follow you on pinterest and pick someone to get a free copy! 

Get it at my TpT store

Currently

Farley is a blogging Rock Star.  I swear every month I wait with anticipation, like the tooth fairy or Easter bunny are on their way, waiting for the Currently!

Listening--> Watching ANTM...okay...Kristin is very pretty....but only on the outside.

Loving-->Teaching about the election. In first grade you get to be one of the first people to expose them to so many things. They're pretty much a blank slate. Love it! I have a committee meeting ALL day on Monday so we talked about it a little bit on Friday but I have some fun stuff lined up for Tuesday!

Thinking-->Speaking of election, lol. I think I'm going to put on 'day pants' (I'm totally in comfy yoga pants right now) and go to my early vote location.

Wanting-->A laundry fairy....know one?

Needing-->There are just a few things I'm not happy with. So, I acknowledge I shouldn't complain about them, I should change them.

Music-->Last month was Kidz Bop Halloween. I am loving this linky because other than seasonal music I play classical music on Pandora during quiet time or writing time. I'd like to see what others use.

Also, please check out, pin, download the preview (with a sorting/venn diagram/anchor chart type freebie included) of my November reading and writing activities.

I used Picasa to create this scattered collage...kinda love it. Click to enlarge.

click here to read my original post about my November packet

Click to go check out Farley's blog and the other awesome Currently posts

Running Records Template *freebie*

Before I get into my actual post I wanted to make it Blog official (that's better than fb, right?) Johnny and I are over. Done. Finito. Johnny Appleseed that is....and at least until next September when we rekindle our teachmance.

 Our Johnny Appleseed Writing
We wrote about what we'd plant and what we'd do if we were him. Most kids decided that they would 'wear no shoes'. I was Miss Orangeseed for the remainder of the day.

Here is a close up our little guys. I was all enamored with my bulletin board until the other first grade teacher told me that this guy looked like Timmy from South Park...and he does. So now I giggle.

 My kiddos are super creative and quite a few are artsy.

This kiddo wanted to plant bnanu (banana) seeds.


I'd like to thank Primary Possibilities for the great Johnny Appleseed freebie packet.











I have created, using Microsoft Word 2003, an editable running records form.

You'll see that you can type the story in the blank and at first there will be significant spacing, but that is part of the settings. Once the full sentence is typed it will appear normal. Click here to check them out in my TpT store.















I did running records a lot when I first started. It was part of a reading program that the school where I worked did. I like to hear the kids read and see their growth but it just seemed like I was always testing or progress monitoring something and this kinda fell off my plans. Now that I'm trying D5 (I'm still only doing D3) I'm going to *try* to do these toward the end of the week when I pull kiddos during my rotations.

Do you do running records? Is it by choice or is it mandated?




***EDIT***
I am sorry for any inconvenience some of you may have had. This was actually created using Publisher 2003, not Word. I tried changing it to word but I lost formatting.

*Permission to pin*

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.