It amazes me how much class size affects my teaching and my students. I started the year with 31 students. I just lost my second one at the beginning of this week, so I'm down to 29. I've had 2 kids out all week on long vacations and 2 more out sick. So I've had a class of 25 ALL week!! It's been a big difference. Even though the ones gone are little angels and I still have all the hard ones, it really makes a BIG difference!! Our district and researchers keep telling us that class size doesn't make a difference but I have to beg to differ with them. It makes a HUGE difference in first grade. With a smaller class I can spread myself out more- work with more kids, more often, for longer periods of time. We can get more done- 25 kids take less time to finish an assignment than 31. With all the activities we do in first grade through out the day it can really add up. With less kids, fighting for my attention, I can give more attention to those that really need it. During class discussions, there is more participation by more kids. The shyer kids start to open up. It just feels more like a close knit community rather than a big city. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to teach less than 20. What a dream!! Back to reality. Our school has been doing training in SIOP this year. It stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. You can find out more HERE. It actually is training in teaching English Language Learner but our school does not have a very high percentage of ELLs. We actually have only 3 out of 180 in our grade level. But the SIOP model is really best practices and a great review in how to teach better. With the new common core our principal thought is would be a great help. We've had to do lesson studies and just finished one yesterday. Our team did ours on Synonyms. It's great to collaborate and work together as a team developing and analyzing a lesson. Here's a practice page we used and a cute song we found. I don't know who to give credit for the song but our kiddos really liked it. Click HERE if you'd like to grab a copy. Hey, believe it or not but it's FRIDAY tomorrow- again! Gotta love FRIDAY! I hope you all have a GREAT one.
Give your child practice with his sentence building skills with this printable worksheet that's all about capital letters.
Hello Everyone! I almost forgot to post one other thing. I have had a ton of questions and e-mails about my story retelling rope that I posted on last year.You can read about that here! :) I have been doing retelling ropes for a long time. Does anybody remember "Project Read?" The author of that amazing curriculum was my inspiration for this way of teaching kids about the parts of a story and extending that into retelling. "Retelling" is an important component of discriminating comprehension in our beginning readers. Making it hands on is important to me! Kids almost always cement learning better when they can incorporate as many senses as possible. I took some time to redo my retelling rope icons, my retelling poem, made some little posters about the parts of a story, and redid my anchor chart. Here are some pics of what this little unit includes. Here are some pics of finished products, anchor chart and student retelling rope. For your free mini unit on retelling grab the rope and click here! I hope this helps with your lessons on retelling!! Hold on and have fun!! Joyfully! Nancy
The first day of school is full of so many things: anticipation, wide-eyes, school supplies, new faces, maybe a few butterflies. And I...
Every English language arts teacher needs a variety of successful, student led discussion strategies that will provide opportunities for student learning.
Teaching children to read is one of the greatest things in the world. Ever. I have a lot of literacy resources that I LOVE. Some of my p...
There is one thing that I always dread on the first day of school… explaining the class syllabus. There is something so mundane about reading a repetitive, lackluster document to your students. W
This is the second part of a mini series about songs for teaching parts of speech. If you missed the first post about nouns and verbs, you can find it here. Click on any picture
Contractions are great for writing words shorter to save some time. But there is some confusion when students shorten the words. Contract means to make smaller. Students contract two words into one small word. This is what students need to remember about contractions: The first words always stays the same (except for the word; will not, won't). The apostrophe goes where the letters come out. I have a Free Contractions Bingo game to practice reading and writing contractions. This 2-Player game has students matching the two words that make a contraction to the contraction word on their bingo board. The first player to make a bingo is the winner! All you need to play are the Bingo Boards and Contraction Cards. Click the picture for your free download! Place the Contractions Bingo Game in you center rotations or use during small group time. Play after teaching or reviewing contractions. Feel free to send home for homework to play with a family member. Place the Contraction Cards and some writing paper at a Writing Center. Students use the cards to write sentences using the contraction word. Check students for understanding. It helps to remember the first word stays the same and the apostrophe replaces the letters that come out. The only time this rule doesn't apply is for the contraction word, will not - won't. Try this pack of Contraction Task Cards. It includes 3 centers. The first center has 40 task cards that students choose from multiple choice answers to find the correct contraction. The second center has 36 task cards. Each task card has a contraction. The students write the two words that make up the contraction. The third center has 36 task cards. Each task card the two words that make up the contraction. Students write the contraction that make up the the two words. This pack will keep your students sharp on reading and writing contractions all year long. Here are some resources you may need when teaching contractions. I linked them to Amazon to make it easy for you: Contraction Puzzles Contraction Chart If You Were a Contraction - book Thanks for stopping by today! See you soon, Check out more GRAMMAR activities by Teacher's Take-Out:
Let's take a little peek in a day in first grade! I love my job and working with the kids, tap to get some tips and tricks you can use too!
This week I tried something new with the vocabulary in the story. I got the idea at a First Grade Conference in December. The student writ...
Hello Everyone! I hope you are all having a good week so far! This week in writing along with "showing, not telling," we are also working ...
Synonyms and antonyms worksheet for first grade and second grade. Students find a synonym and an antonym for each word.
Explore 15 class ideas for your kindergarten homeschool co-op. Art adventures to animal explorations, these classes foster learning...
This nine page resource includes reading comprehension, missing numbers 0-20, hide and seek letter activity, ten frames 0-10, addition to 10, subtraction from 10 with manipulatives, my bear book, and opinion writing activities. WOO! HOO! I’m celebrating a PERSONAL MILESTONE in my store! I am excited to share that I have recently surpassed selling 25,000 units (resources) in my store! I would like to thank everyone who has made this possible. Thank you for the confidence you have shown in me by purchasing my resources to use with your students. I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope your students become successful learners through the use of my creations. Please enjoy this nine page resource that offers some samples of my creations along with links to many of my best selling resources. This resource is mostly geared toward the winter months since this is when I surpassed this personal milestone. I would also like to thank all of the very talented artists on TPT that create such amazing clip art for me to use in my resources. They really help bring the resources to life! Please let me know how you like this freebie by leaving me some FEEDBACK so that I can better meet your needs! Thank you so much! You may also like: Beginning Sounds (D and T) Write the Room Beginning Sounds A-Z (Cut and Paste) Beginning Sounds Match Up (Cut and Paste)) Apple A-Z Match Uppercase and Lowercase Letters (Cut and Paste) Apple CVC Words (Write the Word)) **********Please follow me by clicking on the green star by my picture above to be notified of new products and freebies!********** Please visit me at: BLOG FACEBOOK PAGE PINTEREST Thanks for leaving feedback and please tell your friends about my resources! Sherry Clements
On the first week of the new school year, I like to play games where I really get to know a lot about my students and they learn a bit about me, too. There are many great first day activities, but I chose an easy dice game this year. I stumbled upon this idea over at Pinterest. I found plenty of similar ideas, but I created a poster to meet my students' need. I am sharing with you my poster that you can download for free. Just print and play! The rule of this game is very simple. Children will roll the dice and then share something about themselves, depending on the number they rolled. Share this Facebook Twitter Pinterest
The first day of school is full of so many things: anticipation, wide-eyes, school supplies, new faces, maybe a few butterflies. And I...
Hello Everyone! I love helping first graders express themselves through writing. For me, the first semester of first grade is all about cre...
As your child learns to read, they're going to start coming across contractions. They might look a little tricky when they first come across them, but
An engaging, fun & interactive pairwork speaking activity. Full teacher's instructions and gamification alternatives are provided. The activity can be used for a 1-1 speaking class or as a pairwork activity in a larger class. The material is ideal for adults & teenagers, but can also be used for children 11+. Level: Intermediate to Advanced. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 1: Photo Description & Comparison Students describe photos and compare differences. Encourages use of linking terms, connectors and cohesive devices (firstly, however, furthermore etc...) Vocabulary acquisition. Part 2: Discussion Questions Students ask each other contentious conversation questions. Encourages fluency and confidence using English. Students are challenged to: ‣ Extend their answers ‣ Elicit more information ‣ Agree / disagree with their partners ‣ Justify their arguments ‣ Debates GAMIFICATION ALTERNATIVES PROVIDED WITH THE INSTRUCTIONS.
Click here to download free activities for teaching homophones and antonyms. These free activities were created for 1st grade but could also be used in kindergarten or 2nd grade.
Why I teach comics.
This post has 5 activities to make teaching adverbs FUN! Some of these activities will also help students learn to use adverbs in their writing.
Ease your first grader into the art of story-writing with a silly short story fill-in.
I love using class call backs and attention grabbers! These are so fun! My class loves them! This freebie is a classroom staple!
Use this word list of words ending in "ck" to help your child work on spelling and phonics!
Y'all my office smells like something died. Seriously! It started about two weeks ago. I walked in and got hit with a pretty putrid smel...
Doodlebugs Teaching is taking a break from Five for Friday until August. So to tide us over, I'm linking up with First Grade Parade for Favorite Pins Friday! This should be fun! I love pinning! If you are interested in linking up, click on the adorable image below! So here are my favorite pins from this week. I've been pinning this Giveaway that I am also participating in! There are so many great items you can win! I saw this AMAZING idea recently! I really want to try this next year! I plan on creating and using lots of Anchor Charts in my classroom next year. I've used a few in the past, but really like all the great ideas I've seen from other teachers. I've created a board specifically for Anchor Charts just so I have some references! I'm always on the lookout for ways to organize around the house! I purchased and pinned these books this week. So excited to finish them both before school! That's it for this week! I'm going to Pinterest now to get ready for next Friday! :-) If you would like to see what else I've been pinning, check out my boards!
It's time for Five for Friday by DoodleBugs Teaching. This one will definitely be one of my favorite ones because I have some cool things to share. I took these pictures last week. Our kindergarten TAs are just amazing! Love all the colors and habitats! They turned out great! Do you see this pile? I got a new printer for Christmas and literally JUST hooked it up two days ago. I am in love! I'm trying to get ahead and get everything printed off that I'm going to need the next few weeks. Freebies? Did I hear that you wanted a freebie? Well, since Easter is coming up and unfortunately so is testing, I pulled out a few of my freebies from last year. I hope you enjoy! Do you like Brain Breaks? Well, I am in LOVE with The Learning Station brain breaks. I found them on YouTube last year. They are perfect for rainy days and my kids ask for them over a movie when we are stuck inside. Here's the thing. I ordered one of the DVDs a few weeks ago and thought, "I'd love to be able to share these with my followers." Guess what? We are doing just that! I contacted my friends at The Learning Station and they are letting me give away ONE DVD bundle! Friends, it is worth $80. You have a week to enter and I seriously can't wait to make someone's day next week. a Rafflecopter giveaway So, I've been looking for some fun things to do with my class that are more hands-on, especially after testing in a few weeks. Here's a picture of one of my favorites - walking on eggs. Why yes, we will be doing that in my classroom in two weeks. If you don't believe me, ask my friends. I'll try anything once. You can read more about how to do this on Playdough to Plato. Oh, and make sure you check out Quirky Momma on Facebook. She posts the neatest things to try with your kids and even in your classroom. Have a Fantabulous Friday!
Prefixes and suffixes in first grade? Kindergarten ? What?! I'm not sure who decided teaching them so early was the way to go but never fear...
Hello Everyone! Springtime is a great time to study life cycles and we are doing just that! We are learning so much about chickens, frogs ...
