Map it out Monday: 10/ 29/ 12 and BATS!

Wow what a crazy week. I was unable to return which made me a little sad because I waned to share some great pics with you. PLUS it was my birthday on Saturday. That is right I am now 31 years old. :P

So my classes are way backed up and we have TONS to get done but I did manage to get my kids to create some great things. FYI, because I teach both K and 1st ELL several of my kids are with me for multiple years. I don't want them to do the same thematic things twice so I try, whenever possible to do different activities with them. Thanks to you all I can. :) This year Kinder is working with Spiders and 1st did Bats. It was wonderful. Anyway...

Welcome back for:

Kinder Plan for week of 10/29/12 

Theme: Spiders
Phonemic Awareness skill: Onset and Rime

Phonics: Letter of the week: Hh (Alphafriend Nile Noodle)

Sight/ HFW word: no, yes

Vocab:arachnid, abdomen, dangerous, helpful

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing

1st grade plans for week of 10/29/12 

Theme: Bats
Phonemic Awareness skill: Blending Phonemes

Phonics: r controlled vowels, contractions with 's & short i review

Sight/ HFW word: also, color, funny, many, some

Word families: -ick and -ill

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing

2nd and 3rd grade Writing for week of 10/29/12
Topics covered: Voice trait review, Sentence Fluency trait, Editing marks and Descriptive Writing. 

Focus on having complete sentence.

Here are some great pics of my 1st graders bats.

Check out what this lil genius wrote...

I hope to be back with more pictures VERY soon, like tomorrow. Cross your fingers. :)

Have a great week!

Map it out Monday: 10/22/12

Welcome back for...

Kinder Plan for week of 10/22/12 

Theme: Homes/ Houses
Phonemic Awareness skill: Onset and Rime

Phonics: Letter of the week: Nn (Alphafriend Nile Noodle)

Sight/ HFW word: like

Vocab: house/homes, rooms, furniture

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing

1st grade plans for week of 10/22/12 

Theme: Bats
Phonemic Awareness skill: Blending Phonemes

Phonics: Verb endings -s, -ed, -ing; Short i review

Sight/ HFW word: all, eat, first, why, when

Word families: -ip and -in

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing

2nd and 3rd grade Writing for week of 10/22/12
Topics covered: Voice trait review, Sentence Fluency trait, Editing marks and introduce Descriptive Writing. 

Focus on having complete sentence.

Have a great week!

Teaching Tip Tuesday: Reading Boxes

Hi everyone,
Sorry this is late on Tuesday. Hope your Tuesdays was as quiet as mine. Thanks for coming back for another installment of...

So today's tip is not so much a "teaching" tip but a a great find. It goes without saying that so many teachers are very creative and thrifty. However, sometimes I think sometimes we, at least I do, get carried away being cute and matching our these we miss some great finds right in front of us. So here is my find of the year.

 Inexpensive Book Boxes.

So many times I get caught up in my class theme or in getting something cute that I forget about my pocket book. For years I refused to buy those magazine boxes for my students because they were too expensive and I never liked the look of them. I would buy other baskets that would break, or didn't fit in the space I had. It was the source of some great frustration.

Then this summer while on the Polka Dot Market's website looking at paper lanterns I found these adorable gable boxes that Melanie is always using in her classroom designs.

I knew that my students would tear these boxes up and $1.50 was something I could live with. I has been 9 weeks and they are still in great condition! My kids know they won't get a new one, so I think they are afraid, for now. Let's see if they make it past January. *crosses fingers*

I chose the aqua polka dots, and here they are all lined up on my counter.

I attached the student names with clothes pins so they could be easily removed, but I am thinking of changing it to something more permanent.

Each box is shared by two students. Here are two lovely ladies reading out of their box.

They are big enough for a ton of our little reader and guided reading books. Here is a peek inside.

I am afraid I did not make them terribly cute this year because of lack of time. I also didn't know how long they would last and didn't want to invest too much on ribbon or tags. I did add a Surfboard name plate for the student names.

So do you have any inexpensive items that are not teaching items you have use in your class? Please share.

Map it out Monday: 10/15/12

Welcome back to...

Before I share my plans for the week, I want to share that there are changes coming to my little classroom world. You may remember me mentioning, last year, that our school was cut one ELL teacher. Because one of my colleagues retired, I got to stay on the team, and not relocated. That meant that this year there would be 2 ELL teachers serving close to 70 kids.

Wow! right? Well, because the bulk of our kids are in K and 1st can you guess who had 40+ kids coming in and out of her room everyday? Granted they were not all at the same time but... it is not easy working on 42 report cards.

The good news is that we have now been given another ELL teacher for .6 of the day, more than half. :) The not so hot thing is that I still see a lot of kids BUT I will only see the 2nd and 3rd graders for Writing.

So you saw almost nothing of me last week because I have been working on my schedule and the new teachers schedule and still trying to accommodate the Gen Ed teachers needs and wants. It is a hard job. I think I am out of the woods though and this week, we start the new plan.

If something is going to go wrong, it will on Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Well, my bloggie friends, that is because I have 2 whole days off for Fall break. Nothing compared to the week we used to get, but hey it is better than nothing and will give me time to work on those 40+, first quarter, report cards I am still responsible for.

Now, without further ado...

Kinder Plan for week of 10/15/12 

Theme: Family
Phonemic Awareness skill: Beginning sounds

Phonics: Letter of the week: Bb (Alphafriend Bennie Bear)

Sight/ HFW word: dad

Vocab: Family words cont... (Grandma, Grandpa)

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing

1st grade plans for week of 10/15/12 

Theme: Families
Phonemic Awareness skill: Blending Phonemes

Phonics: Double final consonants; Short a review

Sight/ HFW word: animal, look, of, this

Word families: -ap and -ack

 Comprehension skill: Summarizing


2nd and 3rd grade Writing for week of 10/15/12
(Still a work in progress.) 
Topics covered: Voice trait, Using dialogue, Editing marks and reviewing when to use I and me in a sentence.


I hope to be back tomorrow with a new Teacher Tip Tuesday. One that I love. Have a great Monday.

Map it out Monday 10-08-12

Kinder

Theme: Families

Letter: Tt

First Grade

Second and Third Grade

Crazy day today, I'll try to share more tomorrow. :)

Teaching Tip Tuesday: ELL Students Stuggles

Hi everyone,

As I was reading a professional book, I found some great info about ELL kids. Considering I am an ELL teacher and writing a blog about ELL kids, I thought I would share some ELL tips. Well not so much tips but some insight into what an ELL student would struggle with.

Here are some challenges an ELL student may have in...

*The Language Arts Classroom:
-Idioms and figurative language.
-Pronouns and anecdotes.
-Word order and sentence structure.


*The Math Classroom:
-Possible lack of experience with the standard measuring system.
-May use entirely different algorithms for those customarily used in US classrooms.


*The Science Classroom:
-A huge vocabulary load to lern. Many of which are used differently in the scientific context..
-Many ELL students have no experience with the inquiry method of learning so making predictions may be totally new to them.
-Multiple step directions.
-Students come to the science classroom with naive understanding and misconceptions. (Not just ELL kids.)


*The Social Studies Classroom:
-Little knowledge of the U.S. history, government, and geography.
-Limited skills in determining what is important in text, lectures, and discussions.
-Extrodinary amount of content covered in each lesson.

Hope some of these help you while planning for these kids. 

This information was found in Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners.

by Paula Rutherford

Now I will leave you with some pictures of my students fancy new watches from...

Phonics Watches, Color Watches, Sight-word watches.

They are just over the moon for them.

 When I told them I was going to take their picture they all stuck their arms in my face.

 Found out yesterday that my iPhone 4s has the panorama feature so next time I'll be taking these panorama style. :)

 They are just so excited it makes me happy.

See you in a couple of days for Thursday Resource. :)

Map it out Monday: 10/01/12

This weeks plans were relatively easy. Part of that is Monday is a plan day, so not much going on then. The other side of it is that we are now 6 weeks into the school year and I think we are finally getting into a routine. Now without further ado, it is time for...

Kinder Plan for week of 10/01/12 

Phonemic Awareness skill: Beginning sounds

Phonics: Letter of the week: Rr (Alphafriend Reggie Rooster)

Sight/ HFW word: Review I, see

Vocab:Color words

 Comprehension skill: Story Elements

Theme: Colors

1st grade plans for week of 10/01/12 

Phonemic Awareness skill: Blending Phonemes

Phonics: Letter review for Qq, Jj, Zz and shortUu

Sight/ HFW word: are, they, her, where

Word families: -ut and -ug

 Comprehension skill: Story Elements

Theme: Changing Seasons

If you were looking for the 2nd and 3rd grade lesson plans, those are on hold for the moment. One of the many reasons is that I am tweaking them to better reflect what my students and I can get done in the time allotted us. So I will be working on them tomorrow.

As always have a great week!

Thursday Resource

Today's resource is...

Other Teachers!

More specificity other Teacher's products on Teachers Pay Teachers AND Teacher's Notebook.

So often we forget that our biggest resource are other teachers and professionals. When I first started teaching I was a bit lost, ok very lost. Despite the fact that I had worked in a school since I graduated high school I was still a bit bewildered when it came to creating lessons, finding the resources I wanted to use with my kids.

I found myself scrambling a lot. I remember I used to Google "Classroom Design", "Classroom Layout", "Kindergarten Classroom" and "First grade Classroom" A LOT, just looking for other classrooms. One day I lucked up on Deanna Jump's older classroom website, I mean this was years ago people. From that point on I knew there was more to be found. Now she is at... Mrs. Jump's Blog.

On one of my Google expeditions I found Jodi's original blog, The Littlest Learners, and I was hooked. (Now she has a new home at The Clutter-Free Classroom.) That is when I knew I wanted to share my stories too. That was my introduction into to the world of Teacher Bloggers and almost 2 years ago, on my birthday, I started my blog. :) So in exactly one month, this lil old blog will be 2, and I will be ??? LOL If you can guess right I'll give you a Lesson Plan template of your choice from, A Teacher's Plan.

It is always amazing to me how much my teaching and classroom have evolved. I just went back to check some blog info and read some old posts and "oh wow" was all I thought. But I digress, I am here to share some of the amazing resources I purchased just last week, to use with my kids this week, which is now almost over. :P

Now, there are a MILLION free resources and I plan to share many of them in the weeks to come, but I wanted to take a minute to share some of the items I have been using a TON. These are all purchased items, and while I wish they were free, they weren't. :P

Last week I bought a ton of Annie Moffatt's phonics & sight word packets.

Phonics watches,  

Color Unit, 

Phonics headbands,  

Time for sight words. 

I actually have to go back and purchase her 2nd grade pack because my 2nd and 3rd graders were whining about not getting to make them. And here I thought that they would think it was for babies. Boy was I wrong.

 

I also purchased Abby's RTI Pack, which I am not using for RTI, but for sm. group instruction, and downloaded her Highlight a Letter freebie.

I got Kristen's Leveled Library Signs in hopes that I will finally level my mess of a class library.

Oh and I am in LOVE with Melissa's Reader's Response Sentence Starters. I think my kids will really find them useful.

I pulled out Lindsey's Reading Comprehension Pack 2. When I am not broke anymore I will go back for the other one in the set.

A while ago I got her Word family book and my 1st graders adore it.

I got Greg's Shape Packet for when I teach my Kinder ELL kids their shapes. Feel free to purchase all of his products he has a wedding to pay for. 

I am also adding Hadar's Apple Graphs and Glyphs to my to be purchased list.

And now I am broke. LOL I swear my wish list has over a 100 items on it. There are so many resources out there that I kind of feel guilty I am not posting ALL of them. I just can't keep going. I have a class to get to! :P However, I will probably start highlighting some of these a bit more as I use them with my kids. Now I have got to run, I think I'm gonna be late. Yikes!

Have a great Thursday, tomorrow I get to go to the Pumpkin Patch.

What is going right? (Teacher Tip Tuesday)

This morning during one of my Data Team/ Planning meetings my admin commented on how well things were going in our teams rooms. Then she turned to us and said... (and I am paraphrasing here)

"What are you doing that is going to so well?"

We all had to stop and think about it. So often we feel like when we have a good day that we got lucky, or that it was just a "good day" but the truth is that something happened. It may have been the planets aligning, an extra reminder or just good procedures. Whatever it is we have to take the time to figure out what they are so that we can do them more often. Really it is so that we can do them when things aren't going so well.

One teacher on my team said that she had been giving herself time limits, ie: we are only spending 10 minutes on this activity. Because of this the class knew the expectations and were able to move through the routine smoothly and quickly. It is not something she had associated with the day going smoothly until she was asked to identify it.

For me? Well, I always go back to routines. I, myself, NEED routines. So my class is super packed with routines and procedures. I know this is part of why my ELL kids do well on a day to day basis. They know what is coming next and are not scared because they are in a predictable environment. 

After my meeting I created a reflections sheet. Some of us just jot down notes in our plans, others want something more. So if this is something you can use, enjoy!

So the teacher tip for the day is, figure out what is going right, and do more of it. LOL :)

I'll leave you with pictures of my students with their Firefighter hats on. We created these when we studied Fire Fighters, during out community helpers theme. They LOVED it.

Map it out Monday x3

Plans for the week? You mean I am suppose to do those every week? Huh? LOL ok, you know me and you know the one thing I do love is planning. Doesn't mean that it is easy. I was up until midnight again working on my plans. Here is my week x3.

Kinder Plan for week of 9/24/12 

Phonemic Awareness skill: Beginning sounds

Phonics: Letter of the week: Mm (Alphafriend Mimi Mouse)

Sight/ HFW word: see

Academic vocab: First, Middle and Last

 Comprehension skill: Story Elements

Theme: Colors

1st grade plans for week of 9/24/12 

Phonemic Awareness skill: Blending Phonemes

Phonics: Letter review for Yy, Kk, Vv and short Ee

Sight/ HFW word: do, is, you, for, me

Word families: -et and -en

 Comprehension skill: Story Elements

Theme: Johnny Appleseed

2-3 plans for week of 9/24/12

Phonics: I use Systematic Sequential Phonics with these kids so this week we are on lessons 26-30 and working on e (as in he) as well as digraphs ch, sh and th. In addition to all that I am also covering CVCe words.

Sight/ HFW word: eight, enough, second, seven, three, two, first, four

 Comprehension skill: Story Elements

Theme and Vocab: Johnny Appleseed and Seasons

So my 2-3 lesson plans are a bit skimpy. My service time changes and I still have not adjusted my plans to reflect what will actually be going on in my room. That is on my to-do list for the week.

Also if you notice that the Guided Reading story hasn't changed, well that is because I don't have my HUGE teachers manuals at home. So what I do is just plug that in on Monday Mornings before I print my plans at work. :P

On Thursday, I plan to share all the wonderful resources I use to help me plan. I also got some WONDERFUL new items from teacher bloggers that I am stoked to show you all. Have a great week!