What I Want to be...

This week our theme was "All About Me". Every year I do the cute flags about birthdays, favorite colors, books, movies, songs etc etc. I find it boring with a capital B. In the first grade (remember we are 98% English Language Learners) I find that most of the kids don't know what their favorite book  or song. They usually just pick something that I give as an example. It never is a good representation of the real kid. So I revved things up a bit.  I added the "What I Want to be When I Grow Up" to the how many letters are in our names and how many boys or girls. We started with my nonfiction reader that introduced a the different jobs that are available.

The kids really loved the books.  Not any of them realized they could be a janitor! So we finished the book over 2 days doing the difference close reading in the back.

         

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Job-I-Can-Do-Nonfiction-Close-Reader-1420402 

Then we did 5 days worth of writing. Monday and Tuesday we wrote about our opinion. We picked to write about whether or not a chef is the best job. It was hilarious when one of the kids said they didn't want to be a chef because they didn't want to touch meat!  Most were thinking about the cute cakes and cupcakes they would make, but that one just didn't want to touch meat. 

  I told the kids how chef some times have to wake up really early to either start baking and cooking or to go buy fresh groceries and one of my little boys threw his hands up and said nope! He wasn't having any part of that!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Community-Helpers-Writing-Informative-Opinion-Narrative-CCSS-1420390 

 Wednesday and Thursday were easier writing days. We did informational writing and we picked to write facts about teachers.

 Now today's writing was GRUESOME! My relatively high kids did well..but the others were very frustrated. What was the writing....it was narrative. The kiddos had to write about what they wanted to be when they grow up. I didn't think it would be so hard because the day before we made little cut out people and cut out clothes like paper dolls to create us as our jobs. The introduction sentence was easy but once they had to come up with ideas of what they would do as that job blank faces appeared all over the classroom.  (A little background on the area I teach in. Like I said we are 98% ELL and 98% living in poverty.) The more I'm running around from one kiddo to the other to help them get ideas I realized the dreaming and pretending is not things that come naturally for them. I was so busy I didn't get a chance to take pictures of their work. I'm actually so exhausted from this adventure I'm having a hard time keeping my peepers open. Next week when we do narrative writing we are making up a story whole class! Together we are going to learn to dream and pretend! 

 Now to take a well needed 3 day weekend to sleep in and relax....Who am I kidding I want to revamp my 5 senses writing for next week! I'll relax  next weekend...wink wink!

 

3rd Day of School

Today was officially the 3rd day of school and it was my first day I had to request a substitute. It is always so much more work to have to put everything together for a substitute instead of just being there. Unfortunately this one was unavoidable since my hubby had surgery. I think what's worse is the kids still don't know procedures so I'm not sure how smoothly things would go.  Even after all the planning I was still texting my aide and having him change things that I was sure wasn't going to work. Thank goodness I had a great sub because she was super flexible, even when one of the little girls threw up all over herself! Maybe it wasn't so bad to miss today! So not only did I have extra planning to do for a sub I didn't get a post about the first week finished...so here it goes.

 

Here is our first day of school picture! Would you believe...the night before I freaked out because I didn't like anything I owned to wear for the first grade. Next morning I slapped this together and ran out the door...without caring.

I had so much planned for the first two days...ok I'll admit it. I had way too much planned. I was afraid we'd go too quickly and I'd be done with everything and I'd have 48 eyes staring at me with the "what's next" look.

We talked about our rules in our class and I was amazed at how relieved the kids were that I only had two rules! One little boy exclaimed, "I was afraid we'd have 10!" What kind of teacher does that? Here is us coloring our rules so we later they could go home and show Mama and Daddy's our rules!

I have some great colorers! Is that a real word? Oh well...add that to Webster's Dictionary. They stayed in the lines and were enjoying adding all the details.

 

We also finished our first "CLOSE" reading with the book I made called School Tools. Some of the kids whined a tiny bit about the multiple readings but it was our the first book we ever read together! I loved doing it with them. It was so fun to hear them "teach" each other the meaning of words. One little girl was explaining tools as she knew them from home...things you use to fix stuff.

 

Perfect! It was a good first two days. I was a little nervous about missing today, but what ever didn't happen today can always happen tomorrow. Nothing is loss. The to do list is growing by the moment for the rest of the week...including printing pictures of the 1st day! So I'm off!

 

 

 

 

Back to School

Anyone else get those back to school dreams the week before school starts? In my dreams I am always late by an entire week.  My room is not ready and there are kids heading in.  My latest dream there was a new teacher moving my stuff out and her stuff in! My boxes, books, papers... everything were laying on the ground outside the door. It was not a pretty encounter. Monday was our back to school for teachers so fortunately the dreams have subsided. I walked in my room and had absolutely no idea where to start!

 I think I wondered around the room a half dozen times opening cabinets and just being a ditz. Luckily I was allowed to leave the fabric and border on the wall over the summer so  that eliminated the need to rehang everything...which all I have to say is hallelujah! 

  So at least I had that done.  I wanted to quickly write a to do list and write hang fabric and borders just so I could check them off.  I didn't do it...not because it was silly sounding but because I couldn't remember what drawer I put my pens in! That is absolutely no joke.

Can anyone tell that I really like blue?  One year I did "Cat and the Hat" theme and thought I was going to go batty from all the bright colors. By Christmas I was pulling some of it down. At the end of the year, I took everything down, packed it up and passed it on to the next teacher. I know there are studies that say bright colors allow students to learn more, but I couldn't do it. So blues are it for me. Plus it's easy to match things...as long as it's blue.





Ok, back to the first day. I started by opening boxes from the orders I made before the end of last school year. It was kind of like Christmas. I had no idea what I ordered so everything was a surprise!

 I started putting together my "pencil war" pencil boxes. The idea from "The Wise Owl" is you give them an allotted amount of pencils, eraser etc at the beginning of the week. If they have all their pencils and eraser at the end of the week they get prize. I'm hoping this eliminates the missing erasers and corn on the cob chewed pencils. Please let this work!

 I put together my classwork folders together. Everyone gets a folder to put their complete and incomplete work in so it doesn't get lost. Last year was hilarious because I made the classwork folder and the homework folder blue so we were always confused on which folder to use.  So I got smarter this year and made one folder black and one blue. See I did learn something!

 I finished my door...I made it dual purpose. I never leave things on the inside of my door for very long. Years ago I had a cute getup on my door and the janitors hosed down the outside of the building. Well water leaked through the top and ran down the inside of  the door and ruined everything. So I don't leave things up since I never know when they are going to wash down the outside walls. The little cards are the kids' names. I made them a little tinier this year so I could reuse them for the cookie sheet magnet boards I have. I want the kids to learn how to spell each others names so we will use magnetic letters to practice. We can even use their names for alphabetical order, how many vowels, whose name is longer...the uses are endless. I also laminated their names so they don't get all yucky. Have you seen a first graders hands?? Gross!

 

 

 

 

 I finished my room up. Just so you know...this is the cleanest it will be all year. Somehow I always get a pile on the counter that never seems to go away. There have been a few times, I have just swept the pile into the trash can. One year I think that is where the missing writing samples went...hee hee. I know the walls look a little naked...is naked a word I can use on a teacher blog???...but I like to put the kids' work up and what we are working on at the time on the wall. I always see the classrooms that have posters and anchor charts on the walls that they either aren't currently using or have already used and it just makes the room so busy. How can you work without blocking all the busyness out? If the kids are blocking it out then we don't need it on the wall. That's my motto....at least for today. Tomorrow may be different...I'll let you know.

Don't lie...you know you count down. Don't be ashamed. I'm not. It does not make me a bad teacher...I just love summer vacation :) The kids start tomorrow so wish me luck!

Sunflowers!!

I am kicking booty now! Over the summer I started creating a nonfiction reader about sunflowers.

 In first grade we do a unit about plants and focus on sunflowers. It's a really fun unit that I even add a small mini unit on Vincent Van Gogh because he painted sunflowers.  Wait until we do this unit and you are going to love it...to be continued in September. I think I got "squirreled" a little. Back to what I wanted to talk about. While at the Teachers Pay Teachers conference I got to sit on Jennifer White (from First Grade Blue Skies http://firstgradeblueskies.blogspot.com/ ) lecture. Well it wasn't really a lecture more of an inspirational and encouraging hour of information. She was talking about books that she had made that were for Close Reading. I watched the other teachers nodding at her and praising what great Close Reading books she had created while I was screaming in my head....What is Close Reading???  I'm not kidding any of you who may already know about it...I had never heard of it. So I couldn't continue to feel like the worse and least prepared teacher in the room...I researched for 2 weeks and taught myself all about it.  Wow...I'm a bit over winded today (and anxious since I just admitted my failure on close reading). How does this relate to the nonfiction reader I was talking about in the beginning? Well, I finished the nonfiction reader about sunflowers and even added a few close reading activities at the end of the book to do whole class.  Since we do sunflowers at the beginning of the year I wanted to keep the activities simple.  The main point of this post (very close reading)....I finished the nonfiction reader about sunflowers with some close activities!  Hurray for sunflowers! I can't wait to use it in the classroom.  Check it out at my store and don't forget the sale going on today and tomorrow!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sunflowers-Nonfiction-Close-Reading-1372187

Who doesn't love a sale????

Make sure you visit Monday and Tuesday to get lots of deals for everything you need for back to school!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mary-Daugherty

Back to School Writing

This summer I had planned on spending my free time working on writing units to use in my classroom.  I realized that my class was awesome at writing informative writing but I was failing them in the opinion and narrative areas. So that last week of school, as I was packing up my classroom to be cleaned, I told myself that was my main goal for the summer. Guess what?! I failed miserably!

 I spent my time at the water park with the kids, floating down the river, watching movies and series I have put off the entire school year, 

 lots of traveling and...doing nothing!

 Well, not anything. I did accomplish this blog :) Now that I have a week left I have kicked my booty into gear!  I finished a writing unit for Back to School...now I can really teach all aspects of writing! I can't wait to get into the classroom and actually use it.  Don't get me wrong...I'm still going to enjoy my last week of sleeping in and maybe one more series...but I won't be worried about writing the first week of school.  Enjoy your last few days!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-to-School-Writing-Opinion-Informative-Narrative-CCSS-1366180