A Lil Update and a BIG Thank You to Target!

Long time no see friends!  Sorry about the lack of blogging lately, but such is life.  I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir on that one!  So anywho, we have been learning like crazy in first grade!  We have a new reading series, Journeys, this year.  Also, we are using the Voyages program to teach grammar.  I basically use the Voyages lessons as my mini lesson for our Writer's Workshop.  As for the Journeys program, there is so much involved that I am still trying to wrap my head around it all and decide what to use and how to plan out the week.  So far, we have done the Back to School Review week and the first story, "What is a Pal?".  We were able to do centers 3 times last week, but I feel like we didn't get enough practice with our comprehension strategy.  I think things will run more smoothly once we have our procedures down pat, so hopefully that will help.  We shall see.

Here are some of the activities we did to learn about the short a vowel and to review in our centers.

We used the super fun pack Scraggles: Short Vowel A "Scraggle-ific" Literacy Activities from the fabulous Sarah Cooley.  I have a ton of her products and highly recommend checking out her store on tpt and her blog First Grader...at Last!  We learned all about these silly Scraggles who only have short a names and only like short a things.  My lils thought they were hilarious!  We made a HUGE list of short a names on the SmartBoard.  Then, each kid chose a Scraggle, wrote a short a name on the Scraggle's shirt, and colored it with loads of bright colors.  We even made a short a anchor chart, filling up the thought bubble of a Scraggle with short a words (forgot to take a picture of that one!).

This center helped us review our vocabulary words.  The kids had to sift through the sand, after explicit directions that we do not throw sand, to find the Popsicle sticks with vocab words written on them.  Then, they had to use the words to build a house of sticks.  This activity is from Reagan Tunstall's pack Sight Word Stick Centers.  I love this pack because it is so versatile.  You could use the multitude of activities for sight words and spelling words.  All you need to get are Popsicle sticks.  :)

 This center was easy peasy.  All I did was post the spelling lists (We have a regular and a challenge list for the kiddos who ace their pretest.) and put out a bucket of foam letters.  I got these letters from the foam puzzles in the Target Dollar Spot <3.  The lils had to spell the words with the letters.

 Creative way to make a 't' there using 2 ls... LOVE it!

Another no-hassle center.  For this reading center, I set out the leveled readers bin and the phonics phones (made from PVC piping, idea found on pinterest of course!).  The kiddos were able to freely choose right choice books and use the phonics phones to read to themselves.  The phones magnify their voices so that they can better hear the blending of sounds as they read.  It also gets them excited to read aloud because they think it's neato to hear their voices magnified in their ears! 

This highlighting center is from Abby Mullins' Short A Word Work Activities pack.  The lils had to highlight all of the short a words and then write them in the frames.  Using something other than pencils always works as a motivator!

This is our Boggle Board (idea found on pinterest... :)).  It doesn't necessarily work the same as the actual Boggle game.  The kids can make words with any combination of letters on the board; the letters do not need to be touching.  This center was a BIG hit!  They loved the challenge of making the most real short a words.  They were allowed to go to this center any time they were early finishers or had some free time.

  Here is the recording sheet.  She has it as a free download!! :)

Now, drumroll please... I owe a BIG Thank You to the Mt. Nebo Target (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and my good friend, Ryan.  Let me explain.  A few months ago, Ryan, an Executive Team Leader at Target, asked me if I would like to have, for free, all of the leftover back-to-school Dollar Spot items from his store as they switched out the section for the Halloween/Fall season.  He knows of my addiction love of the Dollar Spot.  I'm sure you can guess what I said... YES!!!!!!!!!  I waited oh-so-patiently and last week (Monday), I get a text from him saying that there are 17, yes 17, boxes full of goodies ready for me to pick up!  AHHH!!! Be still my heart!  I kept it cool all day, not sure how, and later that evening my mom, dad, and I rode the van out to Mt. Nebo.  We strategically packed the van with all 17 big boxes.  The next morning you would have thought that Christmas came early when the teachers arrived and saw this....

 and this....

 After school, we got straight to work unpacking, sorting, and 'shopping' for our classrooms!

 Look at all of those back-to-school goodies... and the bins... I have a bin obsession too by the way...

 LOVE those blue and green cups... snatched up a bunch of those :)

 Here is my box of items... aren't those monster lunch boxes and matching containers so cute!?!  They will definitely be used for some type of center activity!  Oh the possibilities!

We still have about 10 boxes full of items after we packed up everything after 'shopping'!  They will be stored away for safe keeping, and the toys will be used as Christmas gifts for the kiddos.  Again, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Ryan and the Mt. Nebo Target.  They did not ask me to promote them or say anything at all.  However, how could I not spread the word about their gracious donation!!  I do not know if every Target does this, but it never hurts to ask!  

Well, folks, that was my exciting week, and this one will be no less busy!  I'm off to try to sleep... Sunday nights are tough for me... I think it's the anticipation of the week that keeps me up... and tonight I have my lil sister to think about as well.  She turns 21 at midnight... oy vey haha!  I know I'm not her mom, but she's my little sister so I still worry.  Anddddd I know what being 21 is like... I was there about 5 years ago.  Oy vey that feels like it was forever ago!  I know I'm only 26, but I have lost my 21 year old energy already!  And now I'm rambling... time for sleep (hopefully)!

Have a great week everyone!

Samantha :)

STOP... Collaborate and Listen!

Hello everyone!!  Just a super quick post tonight.  I absolutely love attention getters!  I started using them last year after I found some real gems on pinterest.  Then, I found a few more this past summer and was super excited to implement them this year.  Some of my faves are:

Teacher: All Set?        Students: You Bet!  (typing it does not exude the cuteness of how it sounds!)

Teacher: Hocus Pocus       Students: Everybody focus!

Teacher: Red Robin...        Students: YUM!

and my absolute favorite right now (just taught this one on Thursday last week)....
Teacher: STOP...       Students: Collaborate and Listen!

Yes, you are correct, straight from Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby!!  This is my lils' favorite attention getter at the moment.  They love rapping it back to me.  It is hilarious and definitely makes my day every time we do it hahaha it's the little things!  I even had one of my lils come up to me Thursday afternoon and ask "Miss Kearns is that Stop Collaborate and Listen from the song that goes Ice Ice Baby (as he half rapped/danced that last part!!)?"  I smiled real big at his recognition of it and said, "Yes!  How did you know that?!"  He said it was in the movie Mr. Popper's Penguins!  hahaha

Here is where I got some of my attention getters: http://firstgradeflipflops.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-new-linky-on-classroom-management-and.html  and Here: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d4/34/b3/d434b3de537d0964c8649497d996f3c4.jpg  (Sorry I don't have the blogger who made that!)

What do you use to get your students' attention?

Samantha :)

We Survived the First FULL Week of First Grade!

Whew!  What a week!  There really is no tired like back to school tired!  Aaaand I had a constant migraine from Monday through Friday, blahhh.  So, needless to say, with an ice pack covering my face, I passed out pretty early Friday night.  I'm feeling 110% better now, so let's do a lil recap of the first full week in first grade.  It was full of learning and practicing procedures, reviewing our classroom rules (which the lils helped me make), and reviewing our letters and their sounds and our numbers and number words.  Also, since my group of 22 were rockin' it, I decided to start Writer's Workshop already!  They LOVE it and are doing so well, for the most part.  There are always a few who need a little extra support at first, and that is a-okay!  We'll get there.  :)  I introduced centers as well.  About half of my group did center learning last year and were familiar with it, so that helped A LOT!  But I must say, for our first go at centers, it went pretty darn well!  They needed a lot of help and re-explanation of directions the first few rotations, but by the last two rotations, I was barely needed.  Unfortunately, we were so engrossed in center time (and our bell system wasn't working) that we (I) lost track of time.  Before I knew it our new music teacher was at the door ready for his class, and we hadn't even had our morning bathroom break or snack!! AHH!  Luckily, he was cool with us taking the first few minutes of his class to use the bathroom and eat a quick pretzel stick!  :)  So anyways, in all of the craziness of our first center time, I some how found a few moments to snap some pics to show you.

We began by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting the letters on the coconut tree as we said their sounds.

Here is the Fishy Bubbles game where we matched the lowercase fish with their matching uppercase letters in the bubbles in the aquarium.  I linked the site where I got the game freebie, but no matter how hard I searched, I could not find the blog entry link where I got it from.  Maybe you will have better luck.  DeAnne is an amazing blogger (the second blog I ever found!) and she always has excellent freebies.  :)

Here is an ABC order center from the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activity pack.  Out of all five centers, this was the most difficult and required the majority of my attention.  However, once I did one or two examples with each small group of students, they were able to do it on their own (for the most part ;)).

Here is another Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activity.  The kids had to find the letter and circle its color, which made for a nice lil color word review as well!  Mwahaha so sneaky!  ;)

For this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom center, the kiddos picked a card out of the basket and had to record the letter that came after the letter shown on the card.

This Chicka Chicka Boom Boom center is very similar to the one above, but the cards are different.  The kids chose a letter card out of the basket and wrote the letter that comes after it on their worksheets.

Some groups finished their center work faster than others, so in the meantime, I had them spell words with magnetic letters....

 ... and Scrabble letter tiles.  I raid our school's flea market every year just to find Scrabble games so that I can use the letter tiles.  :)

This week we also did some writing activities.  The book on the left is from an idea found on Pinterest.  First, we read No, David! and discussed all of the things David was doing wrong.  Then, we reviewed our classroom rules and made a Yes, David! book where David followed our rules.  The book on the right (which I cannot find the link for at the moment, sorry!) helped us to get to know each other better.  The front side of the page had the students fill in clues about themselves and the back side of the page had the students write their names and draw a picture of themselves.  After everyone turned in their pages, we went through the book as a class to guess who was who.  Some they knew right away, and others were a bit more tricky.

On top of all this, we did some other projects (busy busy!).  To go along with Kerri B's Amazing Alphabet Activities pack, we decided to spell our names with pictures that began with the same letters as those in our names.  I was pretty impressed with their creativity.  For those who needed some inspiration, I put up the alphabet cards on my document camera, which showed up on the SmartBoard.  So blessed to have these tools to use, and trust me, I use them EVERY day.  Here are the products of our Name Mystery Codes...

My example... I'll have to make a new one for next year ;)

Can you guess whose name this spells?

Were you right?!

And last but not least, I had each student choose a letter tile from our magic hat.  They were given a large bubble letter of the letter they chose.  They were instructed to fill their letters with drawings, magazine pictures, and/or clip art of pictures that began with the letter they chose.  They also had to label everything that went on their letter.  These turned out awesome too!

  

Here are some up close and personal

Okay, so thanks for sticking with me all the way to the bottom of this long post!  I'm off to watch a movie with the fiancee and enjoy the fact that tomorrow is Labor Day!  Enjoy the day off all you fellow teachers and anyone else who has tomorrow off! :)  I will be spending it doing grad school homework, but at least I can sleep in (I love my sleep!).  Okay, goodnight!!

Samantha :)

I'm on Bloglovin!!!!

Okay, I'm hoping I did this right... I'll only know after publishing this post so here goes...

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Come find me on Bloglovin and follow me to get automatic updates when I put up new posts.  The site is so convenient and easy to use!

Samantha :)