November Freebie

Just a quick post to let you know I have a new Facebook Fan freebie for this month.  This is a paid item in my TpT store.  A fun matching activity that would be great for your November centers.

Head over to my Facebook page and click on the Freebie tab on the left hand side of my page.

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End Of The Quarter

Aloha my wonderful friends!  The weekend is here along with the end of the month and the end of the 1st quarter!!  Time flies when you are having fun!

Can I just say I have been incredibly busy this first quarter.  Implementing a new curriculum takes a lot of time!  I am also taking a course this quarter for Wonders.  It is online, which makes it a bit easier and I have to implement the curriculum anyway.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone.

The course is actually right on the Wonders website under Professional Development.  It walks you through all parts of the series.  I have to focus on one particular area for my class and show how I have implemented the series in my classroom through a portfolio of evidence.  I will keep you posted on my progress.

In the meantime I have been creating some supplementary materials to use during my Daily 5 rotations.

I looked through all the grammar skills for Unit 2 and I created some simple activities that my students can do on their own during their word work time. I already had the collective noun activity from last year, so I just included it in there.

Unit 2 covers nouns, prefixes and suffixes.  There are 7 different centers to go over each skill.  I also included a black and white version to save on colored ink.

Even though I created them to go along with the Wonders series, you could use them even if you don't use Wonders.  They are available in my TpT store.

This next week is the end of the quarter.  We get a week off for Fall break and I am really excited about it.  I am leaving a tiny bit early to head to the Bay Area!  

I lived in San Francisco for 7 years and that is where I met my husband.  His mother lives in San Jose.  We are going to visit her and then head to the city for a few days. My girls are older now and I am really looking forward to traipsing through the city and showing them all of my old hangouts and some of my favorite places to eat.

So now I also have to prep a few days for the sub.  The Wonders series can be so overwhelming so I made some worksheets to go along with some of the stories for Unit 2 week 1.  If these would be helpful to you just click on any of the pictures to download them from Google Docs.

I have also included the spelling test that I give my students.  I have been having them write sentences that include the words for the week and also the skills such as commas in a series, capital letters and periods.

I find it to be a much better assessment than just giving them the list of words.

Are you almost finished with your first quarter?  Do you get a break or just push on through  until Christmas?  Either way I hope your year is flowing well!

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Roll and Graph Freebies

Aloha everyone!  Just a quick post today to share a fun freebie, if you haven't already snatched it up.

Just put together the cube.

Students can play alone or with a partner. They roll 10-20 times and record their results.

This is perfect for math centers or an early finisher activity. 

To grab this freebie, click HERE

I also have a gingerbread version.  Click HERE to download.

Hope these will make for a fun activity this month in your classroom.

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Halloween Week

Aloha and Happy Halloween Week!  I love getting ready for Halloween.  I am a little obsessed with it actually!  My girls and I start planning out costumes in September.  Ever since they were babies I have made their costumes.  I always try to have a theme, but now that they are older, they have their own ideas.

Here is a little collage of previous costumes.

Here is a picture of my girls and I last year.

This year my daughter wanted to be The Bride of Frankenstein after seeing those crazy foam headpieces at Target!  I get really excited when I have a project.  So we scoured Goodwill and Savers for everything we needed.  

We found a white dress for a few dollars, some clunky boots and we wrapped her arms in gauze (not wrapped yet in this picture).  I loved doing her hair and makeup.

I have always wanted to dress 60's mod.  I was born in the summer of love and I really enjoy looking at pictures of how my mom was dressed.   I picked up this fun dress at Ross for $8 and just cut it.  I bought a beret and some glasses for my husband who was my beatnik poet boyfriend. I posted some pictures on Instagram as well.

I wish you could see how high I got my hair after all the teasing and hairspray!  And finally my daughter who was taking the pictures.

Do you see a trend in her outfits?  I think this is the 4th time she has been a leopard!  She is obsessed with leopard print.  I have to scan her outfits daily for school or she tends to look like Peg Bundy! 

Anyway we headed out and my youngest was so excited about entering the costume contest, because last year her friend won.  She is very competitive, much like her mother.

Well our hard work paid off, she won!  She won a horse riding package for two at Turtle Bay Resort.  She was so excited, and so was I.

Well now that I have bored you to tears.  I will return to prepping for my classroom.  This week is Halloween/Pumpkin week and I have tons of activities lined up, but we will see how many of them I get to.  I have some fun writing prompts about costumes, spiders and Halloween.  If you would like a copy of those click {HERE}.

In math we will be starting 2 digit addition, and in science we will continue with nocturnal animals and throw in some fun pumpkin activities.

For Halloween I plan to give my students a pencil and a new tag for their award necklace.  I made up these cute tags.

Just click on the picture to grab them in Google Docs.  We are also going to be watching the Magic School Bus Going Batty episode on Netflix.

It should be an exciting week!  I have a feeling on Friday I will definitely ready for a break!  Hope you have a fabulous week as well.  I would love to hear what you have planned!

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Daily 5 Chapter 7-Putting It All Together

Well here we are, the last chapter of the Daily 5.  This chapter is about putting together all that we have learned and troubleshooting any problems that may arise.

I would like to thank Mel D from Suesstastic Classroom Inspirations and Nicole from Teaching with Style! for setting up this bookstudy.  I have enjoyed learning and sharing ideas with everyone involved. 

This week I am hosting along with Kimberly at Funky First Grade Fun 

We have gone through the book, learned some key terms and ideas and now it's time to get started.  The first step for me is organizing and figuring out my schedule for implementing all of the Daily 5 rotations.

Since I have used centers previously in my class, it is not that big of a stretch for me. I only have a 90 minute morning block and plan to have rotations at least 3 times per week.  I would love to be able to get up to 30 minute blocks, but for now we will start with a few mini lessons and build up.

I have my materials in place and lots of ideas for Word Work, Work on Writing, Read to Someone and Listening to Reading. I don't plan to use a lot of premade posters, as I think it is so beneficial to have your students create the anchor charts with you.

However, I did have a few requests for some posters. Click on the picture to grab them from Google Docs.

Although we have not discussed The Cafe, it is the next step in the Daily 5, and I plan to look at it in the future.

I also wanted a way to organize where the students would be going each day.  I talked alot about giving students more choice, but I still need to keep my classroom orderly.  I have created a Clip Chart to use for the Daily 5 rotations.  I was inspired by a few items I found on pinterest and ideas from other bloggers like the picture below.

from responsetoinstruction.net via Pinterest



Here is my version

My Clip Chart is similar. I used icons on the side of each to show that there is a limit of 4 people at each rotation, except Read To Someone.  You can grab this freebie on Google Docs.

Another concern was how to give students choice and make sure they are going to all rotations.  This is a simple check off sheet that students can use to help them keep track. I plan to have each child go to each rotation before they can repeat. 

Just click on the picture get them from Google Docs.

I think the key to being successful with this program or any other is to take it slow, keep it simple and practice!!!  I truly appreciate all of the ideas, feedback and experiences that everyone has shared during this book study.  I plan to refer back to many of these posts as needed. 

I also visited The Daily Cafe. There are resources available there and they have a weekly tip that you can sign up for. Membership is a bit pricey for a year, but you could sign up for the 3 months for much less.  I plan to ask my school to see if the funds are available for a membership.

If you refer back to Nicole's original post she posted a link about a Yahoo support group that shares about The Daily 5. I have received lots of great info from there as well.

The new year begins on Monday for my students and I plan to start filling their book bags for our first lesson on Read to Self.

For those of you still on vacation, enjoy it!! For those of us heading back to class I hope the new year is a fresh and exciting one.

P.S. Don't forget to link up your Chapter 7 post and link it back to your hosts.

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