CARPET! Reading Intervention! Thanksgiving Feast!

I have to say I am so thankful for Thanksgiving break!  It was one long day.  Another teacher and I were talking about the 3 longest, most painful days of the school year:  the day before Christmas break, the last day of school, and the day before Thanksgiving break.

I left school and went and got a manicure with a sweet teacher friend of mine.  Much deserved, if I do say so myself. ;)

Tomorrow I'm headed to Michigan to head to the grandparents.  My son and I are headed up in the morning and the hubs is heading up Thursday morning (he works tomorrow night...night shift...working for a Budweiser distribution center and loading up trucks...yuck...).  Are there any bloggy friends in MI?  I know this is totally last second, but we could get together for coffee tomorrow somewhere around Detroit!  Yeah, it's late.  This probably won't work.  I'll plan better next time. ;)  I guarantee I'll head up again in the summer at some point.  Besides, I live in Ohio.  You live in Michigan.  Technically, we can't be friends this week.  Hey, I don't make the rules.

O-H!!!!!!!

Ok, onto all things teacher-related.

First of all, on Tuesday afternoon, I had the biggest surprise!!!!  At least I think it was Tuesday...my days now run together.  Anyways, my firsties INSISTED on doing their morning work at their new carpet!  When they came in they went straight to the carpet and sat down.  I had to ask them to remove their coats and get out their morning work.  Seriously.

THANK YOU, AGAIN, TO ALL THOSE WHO HELPED FUND OUR CARPET!  WE ARE LOVING IT!!!!!

Today we had our annual 1st Grade Thanksgiving Feast in the hallway.  I stayed up last night making popcorn and cranberry muffins.  At least they ate it all.  Our class was designated as Pilgrims, so we spent all morning and afternoon making our garb.  Then after music we shut the doors and let the feast begin!

I've mentioned this before, but I teach the 1st grade Reading Intervention class.  We meet once a day for an extra 30-minutes of reading instruction.  This is in ADDITION to the Title I services they receive.  So basically, they're taught reading skills in the classroom, in Title for an extra 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes for RI.  I take the bottom 10 or so kiddos in the 1st grade.  These are the ones that are in jeopardy of repeating.

We keep data with AIMSWeb, if any of you are familiar with that program.  My kiddos are tested weekly with AIMSWeb for progress monitoring.  I have really started to try and target the skills that they are assessed on.

I give you...READING INTERVENTION KITS!  That's right, folks.  I have 5 sets of materials to target all the necessary early literacy skills for the firsties.  Nonsense words, rhyming words, letter recognition, phoneme segmentation, and fluency.  I make all the cards based around the same idea for each month.  I just switch them up a tad so that they get exposed to different words, sounds, phrases, etc.  And it's always fun to change up the graphics so they're not staring at the same thing for weeks and weeks and weeks.

For nonsense words, I made nonsense word cards (6 for each short vowel).

I've suggested 4 different games/activities for each target area to use with the cards.  On this particular day, we used the nonsense word cards and sat in a circle.  I played music (Ohio State marching band music...it IS football season, after all!) and the kids passed their card clockwise around the circle.  When the music stopped, they had to read the card that they ended up holding.  They LOVED this!

Another day we played with rhyming words.  I made a T-Chart with two words (in this case, "cat" and "dog") and gave each of the kids a word card. They had to decide if it rhymed with "cat" or "dog".  They came up and stuck it on the board.

For letter recognition, I gave each student approximately 3 cards.  I asked "Who has the letter that makes the /a/ sound?" and so forth.  Then I gave them time to line them up in order.

One of the activities for phoneme segmentation was to have the students create their own 3-letter words.

To practice fluency, I put several Fry Phrases on cards.  I split the class into two teams.  I would show one team a card and have them try to read it.  They got 2 tries to read it correctly AND they could help each other out (remember, these guys are pretty low...they struggle...we have an open, loving, encouraging classroom where they don't have to be ashamed to get it wrong!).  If they still couldn't get it, the other team had a chance to steal.  Whichever team was able to read the card got the point.  My kids love anything competitive.

I can hear you now..."But Sarah, Thanksgiving is over..."  Fear not!  I already have my December Kit up in my shop.  ;)

CLICK HERE TO SNAG A COPY!

Alright, friends, time to knock out a little more on my December Math Centers and then I'm headed to bed.  Long day ahead tomorrow!  Enjoy your turkey and time with friends/family!

November Currently and a Request for Help

Let's start off with some fun, shall we?  I give you - My November Currently!

***UPDATE:  My project has been funded!!!!  Thank you all SOOOOO much!  This means so much!

Last week in church, our pastor talked about how sometimes we have to ask for help.  He made us say, "Can you help me?" 3 times out loud.  I literally felt uncomfortable EVERY TIME I said it.  And I wasn't even asking for anything.  I was just repeating it.  He was trying to get it across to us that sometimes we have to ask for help, and we shouldn't be ashamed to do it.

So here we go...

Will you help me?

There.  I said it.  I still have butterflies in my stomach and feel weird.  Why do I have to be so weird...

Anyways, here's my dilemma, if you will.  I submitted a Donor's Choose project back in May for a new classroom carpet.  If you're a teacher, you probably know how expensive these things are.  Our school doesn't provide them for us, so we just have to bring in our own.  I've gotten a couple cheap ones from Target/Walmart that just fall apart and have the edges fraying.  Then I thought I was going to have an awesome carpet when we moved this summer and I no longer needed our huge area rug because we now have carpet.  Well...ok, this is embarrassing...we have a little dog.  She has had many accidents on said rug.  I spent 2 weeks Pinteresting every carpet cleaning idea known to man.  I've tried dish detergent, vinegar, Febreeze, special pet cleaner, had our custodial staff steam/shampoo the thing.  It's awful.  So I actually found something that worked pretty well and got *MOST* of the stinkiness out.  But now it feels all weird because of all the chemicals I've put on it.

Alright, now you've heard my sob story about my stinky rug that has a weird texture now.  This is the reason I asked for help to get a new one for my room.  I've had 2 whole donors and a match.  My grandma and a college friend.  It makes me really sad that I have 9 days left and still practically $350 left to raise.  The nice thing is that the money doesn't go to waste, because they can just give it to someone else if my project isn't funded.  At the same time, how crappy do I feel that those couple of people so close to me won't really help me out anyways.  Blah...it just bothers me and saddens me.

So with one last attempt to get this thing funded, I'm going out on a limb and asking my bloggy friends and readers for some help.  I know we're all tight and try to spend our money wisely.  That's why I'm going to offer any product from my shop, if you want, if you donate to my project.  Basically, if you were going to spend money in my shop anyways, I'm asking you to instead make a donation to my Donor's Choose project.  Please pick out your items that add up to the amount you donate and I will e-mail them to you.  :)

Here is the link to my project: http://www.donorschoose.org/project/cozy-classroom-carpet-for-learning/810422/?verify=977879556&challengeid=239870

If you are able and willing to donate, please leave me a comment below with your e-mail address and the products you would like me to send you.  I will keep this offer going for the next 9 days, or until it gets funded.  It doesn't matter if you donate $5 or $500 (ok, well maybe not $500 since my project isn't that much ;)).  Anything and everything helps!

***Just found out about this code: Enter "HoraceMann12" when you check out and the donation will be matched!  THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO HAVE DONATED ALREADY!  I'm not gonna lie, I was bawling my eyes out when I came in to check me e-mail.  :)

I can't thank you enough.  This will really mean a lot to my students and me.

Speaking of projects to send...here's my latest!  I finally finished my November Math Centers aligned to Common Core!

They're now up in my shop.  :)  Enjoy. :)

Have a blessed Sunday...

Assessments and My Donor's Choose Project

So is this yucky sickness invading your school, too?  Man...I've had this crud for over a week now.  Fortunately I was able to schedule a doctor's appointment for tomorrow.  I was out last Tuesday, as were 9 other teachers!  You should've seen us walking around today.  It's only gotten worse.  Boo.  :(  Z Pack, here I come!

This is a 3-day week for us (can I get an amen?!?!), so we're using this week to assess, assess, assess in 1st grade.  My mind is fried after today.  And I still have to do fluency checks and finish up about 8 Houghton-Mifflin assessments tomorrow.  Whew.  Tonight will be an early bedtime, for sure!  Here's a view of a desk outside my room today as I was in the midst of Houghton-Mifflin checks (yes, the caffeine was a necessity!):

With the millions of assessments we do in 1st grade, I simply compiled mine into one chart showing what each child scored on each assessment.  I color-coded each assessment to show if they were high (green), in the middle (yellow), or low (red).  Then I color-coded which reading group I would put them in (Advanced = green, On-Level High = yellow, On-Level Low = orange, and Low = red).  This helps me plan my guided reading groups, as well as see an overall picture of my class.  I update it as the year goes and I gather more data.  I'm a very visual person, so the colors help!

One last thing for the night:  I have a Donor's Choose project in need of some funding!  There are only a few hours left of a special promotion they are having.  For every donation made, Donor's Choose will match the donation!  So let's say you donate $20.  Donor's Choose will match that, therefore it's like you donated $40!!!  Crazy and so amazing!  What a blessing!  I'm trying to get a new carpet for our classroom.  We have to purchase our own and mine is not meant for classrooms at all.  :(  If you would like to help, please visit this link:  http://www.donorschoose.org/mrs.kirby

BE SURE TO ENTER THE CODE "pumpkin" when you checkout so that they will match your donation!  :)  Thanks friends...kids are totally worth little things like this that seem so insignificant.  

Ok, off to do some more work on Reading Street stuff, as well as some stuff for my Reading Intervention class.  :)  Happy Mid-October!  :)