A Little Overdue... Valentine's Day!

What a busy couple of months it has been with my sweet first graders! This is (more than) a little overdue, but here are some of the fun things we did to celebrate Valentine's Day this year...

The children brought in decorated Valentine's mailboxes. We took turns passing out candy and Valentines. What a fun day!

We counted and graphed our candy hearts.

We talked about what Valentine's Day means to us and recorded it on an anchor chart.

We also made a "Valentine's Love List" of all the things we love.
First we listed some ideas together, then we made our own lists.

It was a great day full of candy and fun! What a great day to get to enjoy together!

Daily Five

For reading, my first graders participate in the Daily Five. This consists of independent reading, partner reading, writing, word work, and listening to reading.

Here are some pictures of the kiddos at work:

Partner Reading / Independent Reading

Listening to Reading

Writing

 Now we come to my biggest challenge: Word Work. I think Word Work can be a challenge for a lot of teachers simply because there are so many different ways to implement it and you have to find the right combination for your group of students.

After trying MANY different word work activities and techniques, this week I have settled on one that seems to be working the best out of all. I placed this pocket chart on a filing cabinet in my sink/nook area. In the chart, I have placed several words focusing on our spelling pattern for the week, as well as a couple which focus on our past spelling patterns. The children have the choice of building any of these words throughout the week using several different activities: tile writing, rainbow writing, magnet writing, and puzzle magnets. I plan on adding more activities and organizing a little more over the weekend, but I am enjoying the new routine so far.

One thing that I had not been using much was the magnet letters, since I am using all of the magnetic boards with my small groups. I love that now they can use the magnets on the filing cabinet and the words they have to build are right there in front of them! The students use the bottom as well as the side with the drawers. They are really seeming to enjoy it so far. They also are doing a great job at staying on task, which is always a difficulty with word work.

The children build with magnet letters on the filing cabinet.

Another example, where the children used some magnetic puzzle letters to build their words.

I liked how they used other magnetic letters when they ran out of the puzzle pieces. :)

All in all, I am excited and optimistic about our new word work station. I will keep you updated on how it continues to grow! :)

Penguins, Polar Bears, and Leopard Seals... oh my!

These past two weeks we have been studying polar animals. What a fun topic to discuss and learn more about! We learned that polar bears are found at the North Pole in the Arctic Circle, while you can find Emperor and Adelie penguins at the South Pole in Antarctica! We made some fun crafts and wrote down some interesting facts. What a great unit study it was!

We learned about the different types of animals of the Poles. In the Arctic you find Arctic Foxes and polar bears. In Antarctica: leopard seals, penguins, and skuas. The children illustrated their favorite Arctic and Antarctic animals.

We made a penguin craft!

And wrote a penguin report, telling of all that we learned during the week!

Fun polar bear crafts with our facts glued on the bellies. :)

Character Wall

I found my Character Wall idea on another teacher blog, unfortunately I can't remember where it was anymore to tag it. :( This is my Good Character Wall of Fame. It focuses on six character traits: honesty, cooperation, respect, courage, responsibility, and citizenship. One of our first days back, the kiddos and I had a discussion of what good character is and how we can show good character in our classroom. We listed the different traits and our ideas on an anchor chart.

The idea is, that children who show different character traits get their name up on the wall! I told the children, that if everyone gets their name up at least once this month, I will bring in something special. Guess I'll have to do that this coming week, because they all made it! YAY! :)

I love this because our school focuses heavily on showing good character. Probably one of the sweetest things that has sprouted from this, is when one of my sweet children came up to me and explained why two of his peers deserved to be up there after helping him clean up his desk. To me, that is when true character shines! Of course, he earned himself onto respect. What a wonderful, heart-warming moment that was for me!

I am planning on restarting the wall each month. We will see how it progresses!

Pinterest At Work!

Well my various Pinterest-inspired crafts and creations also found their home this month. 

My bathroom check-out system has been working GREAT! The kids come in in the morning and move their magnets from the "Out of Class" side to the left side. When they go to the restroom, they move their magnet under the girl or the boy label. It makes it easy for me to see who is out at a time and I love it! Also, the kids are really good at remembering to move their magnets back. Pinterest craft #1: Success!

Next, comes Mr. Tattle Monster. Oh my was he a HIT the first day back! As you can see in this picture, I originally put paper out for the kids to write notes on, but after the children got too over-zealous with that, I had them whisper. (The funniest "tattle" was one saying "______ is using up all the paper!") Hehe, silly kiddos. :) Luckily, our tattling has died down, and now they know who to go to if they have something to say!

Another quick little project. Nothing extraordinary, but it reminds me of what is important to me in our classroom. :)

Classroom Library

Well my little obsession of a classroom library finally found its permanent home, hooray! I was so excited to finally put all of my preparation and hard work into my very own classroom! Here is a little taste of what I have going so far... of course, things are likely to change by Monday. :)

A cozy reading area for the kiddos. I heard from parents that the pillows were a big hit. ;)

All of my books are leveled. On the outside corner, there is a colored sticker indicating the level. Written on the sticker, I have the specific letter (i.e. a book would have a green sticker with D written on it). I have given all of my children a notecard with their sticker level. So, the children know to only look for books with a "Green E" on it. So far, it has worked well. The kiddos even like to correct me when I give them different level books, hehe. :)

I organized my books into four sections: Nonfiction (red bins), Fiction (blue bins), Chapter Books (tall bookcase in the purple and blue bins), and Favorite Authors/Caldecott (yellow bins).

Fiction and Nonfiction

Favorite Author and Caldecotts

Chapter Books

Each book bin has a label with the category name and a picture. As you can see, I have several "Animal" bins. I leveled categories that had many books (like, "Animals" and "Kids Like You"). For example, the Animals bin with the cat will have books with only levels A-D.

 To help children locate books of their level, I placed small stickers on the labels to indicate what levels are in the bin. Children who are on a "Green" sticker level, will find bins with green stickers on it. For some bins which only contain one level, I write the letter on the sticker.

Also, I have begun training "Librarians" to help me in my classroom. Inside each book, I have placed a label which indicates which bin it belongs in. If the children have trouble reading the words, they can simply look at the picture on the label and match it to the bin. I will add pictures of this soon.

Yes, I realize this is a complicated system, but it is working fairly well so far. My main intention is that children are able to find those Just Right books, which are not only on their level but that they have a desire to read. My library still needs a lot of tweaking, but I am learning all the time and taking it day by day. :)

First Grade Classroom

Well it has been quite a while since I have blogged, but for good reason! I started my new first grade position at the beginning of January. It has a been a whirl-wind ever since! I am so blessed to be at such a wonderful school and have such an amazing class, parents, administrators, and co-workers. I could not ask for more! After many hours of preparation during the Christmas holidays, I finally got my classroom together. Here are a couple pictures of it, though things seem to change and move around daily! :)

Representing my Alma Mater!