Vegas is Amazing!

At this very moment, I am sitting inside the airport in Las Vegas.  This past week has been one of the best in my entire life.  I am so grateful and thankful for the experience of I Teach 1st! and Teachers Pay Teachers.  More than anything, the friendships I have made over the last week are the most amazing part.  I have truly gained lifelong friends.  I don't know what I would do without them!

On Wednesday I presented a workshop at the I Teach 1st! conference hosted by SDE.  It was my first time presenting outside of my district, so I was insanely nervous.  A few days before the conference, my session was sold out.  Needless to say, I was practically hyperventilating, haha!  But it went 10x better than I could've EVER hoped for!  I had so many positive comments from those who came.  If you came to my session, THANK YOU!  You were a GREAT audience and I loved getting to be with you!  If you e-mailed me, I will e-mail you back tomorrow or Monday once I get to my desktop computer at home.  ;)  

I know I missed The Next Step post on Monday, but I promise I'll be back on Monday for the next one!  I'm getting ready to read the chapter on the plane!  :)  Have a great weekend, friends!

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!

Writing Workshop and some exciting stuff!

In the past, I've really struggled to teach writing.  What is suggested in our Reading Series...well...I just don't like it.  There's no logic to it really.  It's like someone throws feathers up in the air and you just catch what you catch.  I've tossed around different things.  Tried a few things here and there.  And I'm all about logic.  Systematic.  RELEVANT.  Nothing drives me more crazy than randomly teaching my firsties something that has no rhyme or reason or sense to it.  They don't get it and neither do I.

So this year I've combined a few things and come up with something that is actually working for once.  Hey, that's what teaching is all about, right?  Try something and if it doesn't work, try something else.  Tweak.  Adjust.  Experiment.

So here's how I have my schedule arranged.  Every morning after announcements and lunch count and the daily "chores", we do our "writing workshop" for 30 minutes (I wish I could do longer, but alas, the schedule does not allow it).  I am telling you, Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills have been a GODSEND.  I am not kidding you.  It has been such a great thing in my classroom and the best part is that the kids LOVE IT.  They get SO excited about writing workshop.

If you haven't checked it out, here's the link: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Through-the-Year-Unit-1-Aligned-with-Common-Core

Then I've kind of/sort of incorporated the Daily 5.  Unfortunately, I do not have a big enough block to do The Daily 5 five times in one day.  So it's kind of a modified version.  Anyways, those of you familiar with The Daily 5 know that one of the components is Work on Writing.  For this, the students have several options of what to do.  They can:

-Write in their journal (their choice OR a pre-written topic).
-Make a card.
-Write a report.
-Write a book report.
-Write a letter.
-Write a list.
-Write a story.

They choose.  I have drawers on our writing table with everything already copied.

Inside each drawer is an idea list and a template sheet.  I laminated them and put them in the drawers for reference.  The letter list actually has an example on the back of how to format the letter so they can see the proper way to date it, address it, write it, close it, and sign it.

These are the journals I have for my students.  I found these binders at Odd Lots for somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.80 a piece.  I put a cover page and several blank journal pages inside.  The journal pages are from Journals Through the Year by Rachelle Smith.

Blank pages are already in their binders.  They can add pre-written prompts if they have a hard time thinking of something to write.

Here are some of my firsties during Work on Writing!

Making a card...

Writing a report on weather...

If you're interested in the drawers full of writing goodies, you can pick it up at my TPT shop!

A couple more notes before I head to bed...

1.  I now have a Facebook page!  If you look to the right, you will find a link to "like" my page.  I'm a Facebook junkie, so don't be surprised if you see an update pretty often on there...and I LOVE to chat, so you might see lots of opportunities to chime and converse in some teacher talk!  ;)

2.  I have to give a shout-out to my school.  We are "officially" rated an EXCELLENT SCHOOL DISTRICT!  The only one in our county!  Woo-hoo!  :D  Hard work, dedicated teachers, community/parental involvement, and a love for our schools has brought us success!  Congrats to all those in the Pleasant Local School District in Marion, OH!