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Friday, March 21, 2014

Five for Friday 03/21/14

Hi Everyone,
It is Five for Friday.
1. St. Patty
We did so many great St. Patty's activities this week in both Kinder and First grade ELL. Can't wait to share more tomorrow.
2. Bear Hunt
Last minute I ended up changing my plans and instead of a boring list we wrote our position/preposition words on bears then added them to a cave. Turned out so much cuter than I even imagined.
3. Weddings
Yep, we had two of them! The kids had so much fun and I have more pictures to share tomorrow!
4. Spring
Seriously loving that it is getting warmer.
5. Last Chance
Don't miss out!
You still have time to enter the 100 Interactive Sight Word Books giveaway! 
Just click the image below.

That's all folks.
Have a great weekend. 
Don't forget to check out all the other bloggers on Doodlebugs Five for Friday Linky.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Whatever Wednesday

Time to a minute of rambling during my lunch time.
I kid you not when I say I am having serious Spring break withdraws. Feeling like I want to take a few days off. Yet I have so much fun learning planned for the week I can't bring myself to take a day off. Actually, everyone will tell you, I never take days off. I really do enjoy my work, and even when it is hard, and I'm not exaggerating that sometimes it is, I always can find something I enjoyed.

It dawned on me the other day that this is the best time of the year. Right now, 90% students are hitting some pretty nice highs and here was some of my reasoning behind it.
1. Angry Adult season is over. (Don't know what that is? It is a real thing, seriously.
2. Students have learned the routines and rules and are able to make successful choices.
3. All the hard work and learning is starting to make sense.
4. Students are feeling comfortable taking chances with new learning.
5. The warmer weather is on the way!
Ok, that last one was just for me, but I can imagine that the kids are feeling relieved to be able to go outside and let off some steam. 
Where are these trees? Seriously they are gorgeous!
So I just wanted to say, I know you are feeling pressure, because we ALWAYS feel some pressure as teachers, but take a minute to breath and enjoy all the wonderful things going on in your classroom.

Oh and don't forget you still have time to enter the 100 Interactive Sight Word Books giveaway! 
Just click the image below.
Now back to work for me. 
It is Kinder time!

Monday, March 17, 2014

St. Patty's day plans...

Right about now I am having serious Spring break withdraws. It is my first day back after a week of and it is St. Patrick's day after all, so there is all kinds of madness.
Yikes.
It is all good though because we are dancing like leprechauns.
Would you join us?
Good news is that I had plenty of time to plan for the week. I have it under control people. Just need some Girl Scout cookies to keep me going. :P 
Here is what is going on in ELL this week.
This week we will lean 2 letters, Jj and Qq. Truth is I am NOT a fan of this, but the district decided this and I am following their pacing chart, so we are learning 2 letters and 2 words. We will use our usual resources, you can find these in my downloadable lesson plans.
They include letter coloring pages, crowns, letter and sight word watches, mini books, highlight a letter and word searches.
 Like many of you I will be celebrating St. Patricks day today, but also tomorrow. 
One of the resources I forgot to add to my plans is Greg's St. Patty's day unit. It is half priced people, go jump on that! Click on the pic below.
Also, I am going to try and slip this cutie book in.
Monday we will be making a Pot of Gold Chart. If you click on the image of the chart you can find the source that has tons of other St. Patty's day ideas.
Because I want them to have something to take home I will introduce our preposition words with a rainbow and leprechaun. First we will color, then we will have little leprechauns to position around the rainbow to practice.
We don't usually work on an Interactive reader on Mondays, because of the prep time, but since it was a thematic one, I couldn't resist.
On Tuesday we will be reading one of my favorite St. Patricks day books, the Luckiest St. Patricks Day Ever! I have it on CD, from Scholastic, and it is a huge hit every year.

For writing we will complete our Follow the Rainbow sheet. I have no idea where I got this from originally, but I do it every year and I love how it turns out.
Mid week, Wednesday, we will switch gears and concentrate our preposition words. I remembered I had these cutie cut-out birds and we will use them to practice before we split up into our small groups.
I also have these positional words poster that we will use to help us with our writing.
Thursday we will read We are going on a bear hunt. Then make a list of the preposition words we find.
Finally, on Friday we will end the week with a party, as wedding party! I just hope that I can do something as cute as the original.
Wow, that is a lot!

First Grade ELL
Monday and Tuesday will be very similar to the Kinder group.

We will even read the same book, but instead of the rainbow my 1st graders will make a leprechaun.
This will be the top of our writing craft, that we will finish on Thursday. If you are following my plans I am swapping Tuesday and Thursdays activities.
Wednesday, did I mention we are working on diphthongs this week? Yep, we are learning ou and ow. We will actually be using Abby's Word Work Mega Pack part 2.
Just after we will read a Robin Hill School: Luck of the Irish. I love this series, and this one teaches the difference between a Shamrock and a Four Leaf Clover. We will draw both and label them.
Thursday, we will read The Night Before St. Patrick's Day. Then complete our Pot of Gold to go with our Leprechaun.
This cutie craft is a freebie from A Teacher Wife click on the link to get your own copy.
Finally on Friday we will pick our animal for our Animal Research Repots.
I purposefully left off my lessons for this. If you click on the link above you can see how I have run in this in previous year. I gave it some though and decided, after I wrote and uploaded my plans, to tweak it a bit. Make sure to come back later this week to see how it all turns out.

Honestly I feel like I am leaving out so much!
Make sure you don't for get to enter my giveaway to win one of Maria's 100 Interactive Books Bundle. Just click on the image below to take you to that post.

Also, if you are looking for a lesson plan template you can grab a pre-made lesson plan from A Teacher's Plan. Just click on the button below.
Have a happy St. Patty's day!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Using Interactive Readers During Guided Reading

Get ready ladies and Gents, this is going to be a long one, but I promise there is a surprise at the end.
The other day I wrote, and shared pictures of my workstations. This post will be about what my small groups are doing with me during that time. 

I've mentioned before that because I only see my students for an hour a day, I only get to see my reading groups 3 days a week. The other two day I concentrate on writing, but that is a post for another day.

Each week I see my small literacy groups I try to teach or review a reading skill and teach a new HFW or sight word, but I try to keep a routine to my lessons. This allows my ELL students to anticipate what we will do, and gives them comfort and confidence to tackle new skills.

On Monday...
I usually either introduce or teach a new skill. Sometimes this is a reading skill other times it is a comprehension strategies, and other times we have some comprehension practice. I mainly use the districts reading series or Scholastic's leveled readers for this lesson. 
By using these books, it gives me two days for my copies to arrive from the print center and for a wonderful helper to cut apart for us.

On Wednesday...
I switch it up a bit. Instead of going to a traditional book, I have my students create and complete Maria's, from Kinder Craze, Interactive Readers! 
These little books have transformed my small group time. 
I print the books back and front and have them stapled by the copy machine. This way all I have to do is have them cut apart. You get two copies for sheet and so I only have to print half the number of pages.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bundle-of-Books-Interactive-Sight-Word-Reader-BUNDLED-Set-479568
One of the things I love about these books is that I get to develop my ELL/ESL kids vocabulary, not just with their HFW or sigh words but with content vocabulary too! The HFW or sight words are taught the whole week long. We talk about the word and how to spell it, then discuss the theme of the book.
Once we start, I talk about the content vocab on each page.
I print the page with the cut apart letters in a different color so they are easy to identify and stand out while the kids are reading.
I store these letters in a snack size Ziplock bag, and then just dump them on my table when it is time to glue them down. I get to do 2 things at this point, I am able to see how my students are doing with letter id and check how well they are doing learning their new HFW/sigh word of the week. *Side note: I do all the glueing at this point. I just put a dab of glue in each box. This allows me to save time AND glue.*
After glueing the words down we go back and read the whole sentence.
 
Finally, once we have created the whole book, we go back and read it in it's entirety. Here is a video of two of my boys doing just that.
It isn't perfect, but that is the whole point. This is a learning process. :)
Once the kids are done reading, they get to go put their name on their book at their seat. This allows me to move on to the next group and not have to keep writing utensils at my table.

On Friday...
We used to read our books one more time, and really delve down into our comprehension skills of the week. Sadly we are now learning TWO words a week in Kinder, so the good news is that we get to do it all over again!
I do still work on Reading Comp, I just tend to work on it more during and whole group reading and just revisit it during guided reading.
On the plus side my students are now taking double the books home to read and practice.

I was lucky enough to find Maria's Interactive Readers when she first started creating them and got the bundle early. One of the perks is that if you buy the bundle now, you get the future books for free. Maria will update the bundles until they reach 100 books. We are currently on bundle number 2! So if you are looking to get it at a lower price, NOW is the time.

So here is the good news for you, Maria has graciously offered to give a copy of bundle number one, that is 100 books, to one of my readers!
That is right folks a give away!!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

That is a $50.00 dollar value ladies and gents!

If you aren't sure the interactive readers are for you, Maria also has smaller seasonal bundles, for a fraction of the cost, OR individual books for just $1.00 each, in her shop. Just click on the image below to go there.
Kinder-Craze