End of Apples and Beginnign of Spiders

Last week we ended apples and now this week we have begun spiders. So let's back track a little and look at the end of apples. On pinterest I found a cute apple activity where you made a book with an apple cut out and it inspired me! I used the ELA and math activities we had for apples to use with it and viola! Here is it...

 

  

I know some are messier than others but my philosophy is that it's the kids' art not mine so it needs to be finished completely by them. My first year teaching I took over in January for a class that the teacher retired from. She did not like "ugly" art so she did most of the cutting and gluing herself. So when I began the kids didn't know how to cut and glue! They sat there staring at me waiting for me to do it for them! UGH!

So now onto spiders. Monday's writing began with a story. A few weeks early when we were lining up to go home and right by our backpacks was a HUGE spider. I quickly shooed the kids away and we walked up to the front of the school and told my teacher friends about it. They then became curious so they went to see this spider with my own children but after a few minutes of hunting decided it was gone. Wellll.....it wasn't! It traveled across the concrete to the building beside me and introduced itself to the curious teacher. Our computer guy came to her rescue and stepped on it. Guess what...it was so big because it had babies all over its back!! Babies went EVERYWHERE! They ended up having to fumigate her room. So that's how we got started with spiders.

Now we made our opinions on whether or not we are scared of spiders.

  

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spiders-Writing-Informative-Opinion-Narrative-CCSS-1473288 

We brainstormed why we would and wouldn't be scared and then everyone picked their opinions. Tuesday we did our final writing. I don't know if you can see the picture on the right...the little girl's mouth is screaming because she is so scared. The one on the right is a shoe getting ready to step on the spider! LOVE IT!

Now onto our CLOSE book. We read the book without any pre-vocabulary feeding. Then we went back and the kids told me what words they didn't know. We talked about the meanings and I even pulled up some YouTube videos to actually show the kiddos a close-up of spinnerets. That freaked them out because they realized it was on the spider's butt! 1st graders and the word butt equals laughing for at least 5 full minutes. 

 

 

  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spiders-Nonfiction-CLOSE-Reading-Book-1464225

Then we did our reading comprehension and got to COLOR! Who doesn't love to color!

On a side note...I don't know why I am sharing this...buuuuutttt....one of Youtube videos of a spider had instrumental music in the background and it took a few minutes for me to realize it was Metallica's One! I love that song! LOL

Apple Book

Today we finished our Apple CLOSE reading book. It's a two day process to complete the book because I don't want to overwhelm the kiddos by shoving it all down their throat in one day. Plus it gives them an extra day of reading it with me before they take it home to read it for their reading logs. Here's a step by step of our book.
First we read it one time through without doing any vocabulary front loading. Then we go back page by page and circle any words that the kids do not know the meaning of. 

This seems to work better than front loading it. So instead of here's the meaning of 10 words you have no idea what they are let's talk about one at a time. Also, there are many times that they already know some of the words but words that I may not have thought about they don't.

 

This is an example. I had no idea they wouldn't know the words "squeezed". But one of the top girls raised her hand and said she didn't know the meaning of that word.

Next we read it again. This time to find out what the author is trying to tell us with the book.

 

We collect the books and save them for tomorrow to work on the comprehension. We begin by reading the book again. I always tell them "let's read it like first graders" which means quicker and not like a robot.

Then we begin with the first reading comprehension question.

 We go back through the story and circle the answer with the color the question says to use.

 

 My main goal is for them to prove how they know that is the correct answer.

 

I also give them a little time to color....well those who have finished writing their sentences. I do have those students who take FOREVER to write a simple sentence.

Here are more of the students works.

 Go to my TPT store to get this book if you loved it!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apples-nonfiction-reader-close-reader-1458866

Sunflowers and more

Another week is done. It was a short one for the kiddos...since they got Friday off because we had an inservice day. I always have so many ideas on what I want to do with my inservice day but like most days my "to-do" list was WAY to long! I even downloaded a free "to-do" app for my phone so I wouldn't loose it (you know...the 2, 3, or even 4 lists you write because you lost the first, second and even third one...) but only 2 items were checked off! This week our theme was sunflowers. Writing was relatively easy this week since we only had time for opinion and informative.

 Here's how I have the informative stapled together. We complete the prewriting together on one day and then the next day they do the final writing by themselves after we brain storm an introduction sentence.

 Up close of prewrite.

 

Up close of final writing.

 Check out the rest of the sunflower writing package at my TPT store.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sunflowers-Writing-Informative-Opinion-Narrative-CCSS-1443200 

We also read about sunflowers in our CLOSE nonfiction reader.

 

I found an app on my phone that adds frames...you like? You can also find my close reader on TPT.

 

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

Other accomplishments this week we started our fuzzy reward system. A teacher friend (thank you Shelly!) told me all about it and how it has changed her classroom. I have been using the chart that you go up and down on but it just wasn't working. So I looked up the link on pinterest, learned all about it and now we are using it. Let me say...KIDS LOVE IT! All I have to do is walk around and drop a fuzzy or two into fuzzy bowls and BOOM everyone straightens out!

  See those fingers pointing to words! Yep because they want fuzzies!

Another accomplishment...we went to the computer lab for the first time! It was hair pulling out for me but a dream come true for them. Hopefully we are allowed more time as the school year progresses!

Next week....APPLES!