Writers Workshop, freebie and a Friend's Giveaway

First, my bloggy friend Jenny over at Owl Thinks First is have a SUPER, AWESOME giveaway.  Do you want to know what she's giving away?????  A LAMINATOR! 



I'm keeping everything crossed in hopes that I'm drawn by Rafflecopter.  CLICK HERE  to head over to her blog to enter!  Good Luck.... well.... not too much luck.  :)


Now Writing Workshop.  I have been getting very frustrated annoyed with how my Writing Folders have been working out.  Here they are: 

 I have seen many pins on using notebooks, but I have been unsure of how that would look for my firsties.  So... I threw that one out the window kept thinking.  On my Thursday drive to work sitting in something that looks like this and blasting my 4 year olds all time favorite Kidz Bop songs including Firework and Dynamite (otherwise known as #2 and #4)   

my brain started thinking about what I could do.  We had all our firsties bring a binder and we were having a tough time figuring out how we would use them because of all the travelling our little guys are doing.  PERFECT!!!!!  My Curious Teacher Friends were ecstatic more than happy to send their binders my way. 

On Friday we started to get these guys together.  First, we needed our shinyish new binders. 

After that, we got our new binder covers together.  I let my firsties use markers to write their names.  Our firsties jumped up and down for joy at those words calmly chose two colors and sat down.  This friend didn't listen so well..... still working on that.

CLICK HERE for our Writing Binder Cover.

Finally, I added a "Notes for my Creations" page.  I will use this page for the things I need my firstie to work on when returning to his/her seat.

CLICK HERE  for "Creations" page.

 I also made a page for my notes.  I will use this once my current pages run out.  I thought it was important to put topics for discussion in each box whether it's punctuation, capitals, details, etc.  I think this box still needs a little work, but that's ok.  Any ideas?????

CLICK HERE  for Writing Conference Notes page. 

So... Monday will be the first day to really use our binders and I'm SUPER excited that everything will be organized.  Now if I can only get the kids to quit pulling the two binders that "don't belong" in their desks from doing that, we're set! 

Happy Writing!!!!
Maria

First Grade Common Core

Last week or so I blogged about the Kindergarten Common Core Standards Book.  I have looked through it and it has A LOT of great activities!

Now, I'm so excited to be blogging about this

 

I am sure this book will also be chock full of GREAT activites and worksheets that are all linked to the First Grade Common Core.  There are 550 pages of resources, all in one place and we are all looking for great resources. Yes, you read that right.  There are activities for both English Language Arts and Math!!!  Be sure to click on this First Grade Common Core link to head over and check it out for yourself!  

 

Curious.... Go check it out!

Maria

 



A Success Much, Much Needed

It has been quite a challenge to determine exactly what we need and want to do with our little green chimps.  There is a lot of diverse need in this group, which has caused us to use A LOT of brain power (along with some headaches) trying to figure out what to do.  So last week I posted some Powerpoints that I made to help with the grade level phonics skill of short vowel o.  We used a mixture of these Powerpoints, whole group, small group, and some independent work.  All of this hard work amounted to 9 students earning a 90-100%, 3 earning a 80-90%, and only 3 students did not pass their phonics assessment and spelling test!  That is a huge success for us compared to previous weeks (which led to some watery eyes by the teachers).

We are going to continue on this wonderful path with some more Powerpoints.

Tying Up Loose Ends... and a FREEBIE!!!

On Friday we finished up reading the last Skippyjon Jones book I had called, Lost in Spice. It was also one of the funniest books and Judy Schachner did a great job of changing it up a little.  Usually, Skippy gets into trouble at the start of the book, but this book was different which led to some GREAT conversations about how writers have the POWER when they write.  Our firsties loved mirroring us saying, "I HAVE the POWER!"  This took me back to the He-Man days of my brother.  Did anyone ever watch that show?????  I remember my brother and I playing with this guy and watching the cartoon when I was younger.  :) 

So onto the good stuff.  :)  We really got to know Skippyjon Jones this week, so we decided to end our week with character traits of Skippy.  This lesson went WAY better than I thought it would go.  After discussing that, "Yes, he is a cat, but what kind of cat is he." "Yes, he is a Siamese cat, lets talk about his character.  Like..... he's naughty."  Ding, ding, ding.  This is what we got for two classes.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of my yellow guys.  Forgive me.  

Do not hate me because I'm a amazing artist!  hehe 

After we worked on these guys we traced, cut, and wrote, "Skippyjon Jones is ________."  When finished our firsties were able to decorate their cape.  After that, I taped them on their shirts and off they flew thru my classroom.  Seriously.  I had a few boys, arms out and all.  :)  Cute.  Not expected. 

I have to tell you about a conversation that took place while working.  S1, "I'm going to have kids, but I have to do it before I get a job as an architect.  I'm going to be an architect, but I have to have kids first."  S2, " I'm going to have kids, too."  S1, "You have to have a husband.  Kids are made with a mom and a dad."  Teacher, " I think this is too much of a conversation to have while drawing a cape."  Ohmiword! 

Onto our pictures.....

 Next week we are into getting into our "Small Moment Bags".  These will help us write our first stories, aside from the Skippyjon stories I'm going to have the blue guys write.  :)  We are going to start off reading this story:  .  Ian Falconer was inspired to write this after seeing his niece. He wanted to make this as a little present to her.  A small moment.

Since we'll be reading about Pigs and my firstie friends just read, Pig in a Wig, we will be doing a little labeling.  It's yours if you'd like. :)  The graphic is from MelonHeadz and the fonts are from Hello Literacy,  If you've never been to either of their sites, RUN over there!!!  Jennifer has the CUTEST, FREE fonts!!!!  And Nikki has FANTASTIC illustrations.  Some are free and some are bundled in packages.  Either way... these ladies are both AMAZINGLY talented!!!  :)  (ps... they have NO idea who I am, so I was not paid to say those things about them)

Click HERE for your free copy. :)

Have a Curious Monday!

Maria

 

A Thank YOU and Giveaways!!!!!

A few things.......

Number 1.  A GINORMOUS thank you goes out to my friend Jenny over at Owl Things First for giving me inspirations and helping me to get rid of my "noreply blogger" status.  :)  I have searched and searched for a way to fix this and she came to my rescue!!!!!  If you're having trouble, head on over to Jenniffer's Sometimes Creative Life she has a GREAT tutorial!  Thanks again Jenny!!!!  :)

Number 2.  Head on over to our newest blogger friend Lisa at Growing Firsties for a 31 follower giveaway!  She's doubling the prize if she gets to 62!!!!  She's giving away a SUPER CUTE 31 lunch tote!!!!  :)  LOVE 31.  So head on over and give her some love.  :)

Number 3.  Another GREAT giveaway is going on over at the Teacher Idea Factory!  Kelly is giving away writing units that I'm HOPING I WIN!!!!!  Head on over to her blog to enter!!!  CLICK HERE!!! 

 

Tomorrow I'll be back with school-y stuff!!!  :)  We finished-ish up our Skippyjon stuff and I can't wait to share what we did on Friday!!!!!  :)

 

Be Curious today friends!

Maria

Kindergarten Common Core

Have you seen this yet?  This common core workbook for Kindergarten looks AWESOME!!!

 It's filled with worksheets, activities and posters that are all linked to the Kindergarton Common Core and we all need a little lot of that!  I have my eyes on the first grade book, too!  One of the great features is that it's for English Language Arts AND Math!!!  SCORE!!!  This book will definitely be helpful in all the meaningful planning we are all doing this year focusing on the common core. 

Skippyjon Jones says.....

"I'm a chihuahua".  Just joking.  No, really he does say that, but for this posts purpose, I'm joking.  :)

We have been using Skippyjon Jones this week to do our first painful retelling.  These books are so, so well written and the kids REALLY enjoy them.  (Secretly, so do I, my spanish accent is uh-mazing! That's my grandma's spanish blood coming out in me.)  I digress.  This week we've been using Skippyjon to teach us about writing workshop as well and help our firsties to work on their stamina because Skippy books are not short.  After our Interactive Read Aloud, we flow right into our shared writing which is a retelling.  Talk about needing to build STAMINA.  We only wrote one-two pages per day.  Green group, only one, barely handled.  Once our shared writing is over, we 've been heading back to our seats for a little minilesson where we continue with WBT by using "Mirror" and "Teach" "OK".  Love it.... still....forever.  We are also working on call backs. 
Two groups--- mostly great.  One. at the end of the day.  with NO stamina. whew.  Today we were able to sit for 2:48 with out talking or making a sound with those firsties.  That's two MINUTES and 48 SECONDS!!!  Our first attempt 5 seconds.  Second, 23.  Third, 25 seconds. So after 2:48, the sweet sounds of humming came a calling.  :)  While I L.O.V.E. a good song, especially a little Kids Bop  anything Skippy wasn't able to help our friends learn the rules of writing workshop.  I digress, yet again.  UGH. 
Back on track.  After our minilesson, we try to do a little writing.  Today was journal writing and then the lesson that, "Writers ALWAYS write."  They N.E.V.E.R. stop, unless they have use the restroom, or chat with a friend, or ask how to spell a word, or ask how to spell a word, or ask... OH MY were they asking me how to spell every word.  Ok... again... unfair.  Only one whole group and about 1/2 of the other.  It's so HARD for those little firsties to take risks, which is ok because that's my job and we're working on it.  So I encourage, encourage, encourage that I'm NOT grading their writing piece (on paper, but I am grading it in my mind all the time, aren't we all?).  After our writing time, we try to do a little sharing.  Must. Get. Better. At. This.  So here are a few pics of our week so far.

 

I used this Skippyjon Jones page topper from The Lesson Plan Diva. 

 

 

 

Finally, I made this chart tonight for use to use in our classroom as a reminder.  We're going to have to continually refer back to this classroom friend.  :)

 

 

What do you think????? I would love to know how your writing workshop runs!

 

Have a "Curious" Thursday!

Maria

 

 

 

 

 

Curious About Rhymes

Thanks to 2nd Grade Pad for hosting a linky party of our favorite freebies!  I was just about to post this freebie today.  So I will link-up.  But I have to add a little bit of back story to my freebie. :)





-----------------------------------------------------------

Last year we spent quite a bit of time playing with nursery rhymes based on some LETRS training that we had.  In my small groups, the students had a great time changing the rhymes.  One example was Humpty Dumpty.

The students decided they could say "Humpty Dumpty sat on a chair. Humpty Dumpty had blue hair."  Another one was "Humpty Dumpty sat in a tree. Humpty Dumpty got stung by a bee."  We made these into a book and they really enjoyed rereading them.  Here is one example.

At the end of the year, we held a mystery for the students.  They looked at objects from different nursery rhymes.  They had to use the clues to determine what nursery rhyme they belonged to.  It was a lot of fun and actually challenging for some of our first graders.

That brings us to THIS year!

Since I started Title, I have been throwing a literacy night at the beginning of the year.  The first one was a B..O..M..B!  But each year has been a little better.  This year it is called "Curious About Rhymes?"  (thanks to my curious friend, Maria, aka the queen of titles).  When families arrive they will receive a nursery rhyme book and a "notebook."  We will start off the night with a Prezi about nursery rhymes.  

Click Here to view Nursery Rhyme Prezi

Eight trays will make their way around the room.  Each tray will contain "clues" for a nursery rhyme.  Families will write down the clues in their "notebook" and solve the mystery.

nursery rhyme book for families

nursery rhyme "notebook" for clues

The night will end with some free pizza!  And some book giveaways!

I need to make a shout out to my husband!  He worked really hard on all the illustrations for the nursery rhyme book!  Thank you so much.  I absolutely love them. And that is why it makes this my favorite freebie that I have made so far!  

Are you curious about rhymes?

Em

Schedule, Journals and Tattling... OH MY!

This has been our first week with actual switching classes for our firsties.  Here's how our day looks. 
8:15 Students may arrive, go to breakfast and then head on up to our classrooms.
8:30-8:50  Homeroom or Family Groups as we call them
8:50 Switch
8:50-9:35 Blue Gibbons:  Writing
9:35-10:15 Specials: Rotating Gym, Art and Music
10:15-11:05 Blue Gibbons: Writing
11:05  Switch
11:05-12:15 Yellow Monkeys: Writing
12:15-1:05  Recess/Lunch
                   Our firsties go to lunch as do their Curious Teachers.  We have lunch for 30 minutes. Then, we have a vertical planning meeting from 12:45-1:05.  Not a lot of time, but it's time that we need to get/give ideas and pretty soon we will be looking more closely at particular students because all our baselineish testing will be complete.
1:10-1:35  Yellow Monkeys:  Writing
1:35 Switch
1:35-3:10  Green Chimps:  Writing
3:10  Switch
3:10-3:20 Homeroom Groups come back and we get ready to go home

I know what you're thinking..... how can they switch at 1:35 and be starting class at the same time. Well.... we do have some travel time, but it's not as much as I thought it would be.  We are able to start  *thisclose* to that time.  :)    This week FLEW by!  I'm hoping thinking they will all go like this because we are on the move all-day-long!

So this week, we started each day with a review of our WBT and CHAMPS.  I started "Smileys and Frownies" and it went not how I expected o.k.  One of my goals this weekend is to review it on the Whole Brain Teaching site to be sure I'm doing it correctly.  Anyone out there with ideas?????  For each class I was using if they earned three Smileys they earned incentive.  On Tuesday, it was No, David.  Wednesday and Thursday were rough, but Friday each class with a little help earned a 1 minute dance party.  I'm sure we'll get better in time.  My F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E part of WBT is "Teach" and "OK".  It's so darn cute to hear the kids repeat what we say to each other, I LOVE IT!!!!  My fellow Curious Teachers Em and Karen put our firsties with their Peanut Butter and Jelly partners, so we'll be able to better utilize that strategy with our firsties! 

Now onto teaching stuff.  :)  This week we started with and discussed "Why Writers Write".





Then, we read   and made a chart for "What Writers Write".   Both of these lessons were inspired by Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. If you click here it will take you to her post on writing. I condensed all our thinkings into charts that were like hers and I also made a pencil where our firsties wrote their first list!!! :) If you would like a copy, drop me a comment as I drew it myself. Watch out art teacher! hahahaha
Next, we read  and made our "Things We Love" hearts that will stay in our writing folders for when we need a little inspiration.  Finally, we read
and it was the BEST story!  SUPER cute!!!  I was thinking I may read this one first next year, but I'm not sure.  After reading this story, we wrote in our journals about something we love.  Here is some of our work. 

 

This said, " I love castles and knights"

 

One firstie who drew her picture before writing.  I say, she listened, well.... maybe.  She likes to draw but we had talked about how sometimes writers will draw their thinkings first and then write.  I gave my firsties the option.  She chose to draw and draw and draw.  :)  Eventually, she did write a sentence that said, "I love princesses" not spelled that way.  :)  I LOVE inventive spelling.

Have you ever read this story????? If not, add it to your repertoire because it's wonderful! Our firsties were so engaged as Curious Karen read this story to them. LOVE the tattle rules and now all we have to do is refer back to the book! When we were finished we made tattle tongue's with our firsties pictures. The are so stinking cute hanging in the hall. They were inspired by this lesson for Fox in Socks, by Fun in First Grade. 
    

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!!  The Redlegs are winning, so all is good in Cincy!  :)

Stay Curious!

Maria

Linking Up for September Currently

This is our first Currently!

We're linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her September Currently!  :)  

So... here we go!  This is our first, so bear with me!  It took me forever just to figure this out and I know the text boxes shouldn't be there.... maybe in October.  :)  Thanks to Jen over at The Teachers' Cauldron for the directions that I still botched. :)   Love her blog!  Check it out sometime.

Head on over and link up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

 

I have more pics of what we've been doing, but I left my camera charging at school.  :(  Tomorrow is another day!  :)

 

Be Curious today!

Maria