If You Give a First Grader a Compound Word...

 

This week our reading series basal story was If You Give a Pig a Pancake so did a little author study of Laura Numeroff and the If You Give a... series.  One of the skills of the week is compound words.  

We made a giant list of compound words, then chose a word from the list to fill in the blanks of Pig's sign.  The definition of compound words is student created.  They're getting it!

Here are some of my favorites:

  "If you give a pig a bookbox she'll want a mailbox to go with it."

 Both read "If you give a pig a toothbrush, she'll want toothpaste to go with it."  The first illustration is funny.  The pig looks like the toothpaste tastes nasty.

"If you give a pig SpongeBob, she'll want Patrick to go with it."  So funny!  He even made his pig look like SpongeBob.

We got a little loose with the compound words, but the kids were having fun thinking them up.  SpongeBob is really pushing it, but they talked me into adding to the list.

 

Some students didn't finish their pig and I know there are more creative compound words to come.  I'll post more examples next week.

 

Speaking of next week, my formal observation is Tuesday.  Can you say *NERVOUS*?

Five for Friday

I'm joining in on the Five for Friday Linky Party.   Boy, it was a week from you know where, but I'm keeping it positive!

1.  For our Book of the Month we did a close read of The Honest to Goodness Truth by Patricia C. McKissack. It could not have come at a better time. Beyond the reading skills we've been practicing how to tell truths "sweetened with sugar" to make them easier to swallow. It's a social skill we'll continue to practice.

2. For the past couple years I've used XtraMath.org to help students master math facts. I like it, the kids like it, it is free (hello), and the site uses progress tracking that's easy to read.

3. This week my class started using Reflexmath.com to practice and master math facts. I love it, the kids *LOVE* it and the site has very good progress tracking data, but it is not free. Our district put us on a Use-it-or-Lose-it period for the rest of the school year. Darlin', we are using it! It is much more video game oriented on the graphics and game side. Kids create avatars, earn tokens and use them to "buy" things like hats, clothes and accessories for the avatars. As they progress and master facts more and more games get unlocked. Reflex Math also has a math coach character that can help students practice different skills.  That's Crabby in the picture.  He's like a cruise director with silly jokes and a great accent.

4.Keeping on the math train, I read Cara Carroll's post on her math tubs and I am considering adding them to our math routine. After our late lunch (we are the last class to eat, which I love) we have RtI for about 30 minutes, math for an hour, then we back up for dismissal. The kids are often cranky, tired and wiggly after lunch. I think a math tubs rotation may be what they need to focus for the rest of the day.

5. Our school is piloting a new technology program in our district next year.  Each K-2 student will have access to a tablet in class and each 3-5 student a laptop. This morning I heard a tease for education tablets on Morning Edition on NPR. I didn't have time to wait and listen to the segment, but looked it up and did a little research tonight.  I like the look and concept of the tablet, but really dislike Murdock's comments on education in general.

...and I'm adding a sixth random thought since I couldn't get pictures added until Sunday.  This is Sen.  She's our 5 month old American Bulldog puppy.  I love her to pieces.

Build a Word *FREE* Printable Phonics Activity

My newest *FREE* product is available in my TpT store: Build a Word!

Build a Word is an easy to teach activity for practicing word recognition and phonics skills.  It is based off Elkonin boxes.  Each phoneme is put in a box so students can count the phonemes as they say the words.  Students can also start to visualize digraphs and vowel teams using Build a Word.  In the pictures the student is practicing making long a words spelled with ai and ay.

Students color, cut and unscramble spelling words.  They can do this independently, in centers, in pairs or with me in RtI and small groups.  When it is time to clean up students put the letter boxes in an envelope for safe keeping.  They can pull this out when their assignments are complete or take it home to practice.

Build a Word has been a very helpful activity during spelling and phonics instruction!  I hope you and your students enjoy it, too!

Bubble Blowing Bandits!

Last week we ended our "How to..." functional writing with "How to Blow a Bubble".  Could this be more fun?  After see this on Pinterest I searched similar lessons, made a mash up of what would work from my students and our writing guidelines.

I asked the class how to blow a bubble.  Of course they yelled, "Put it in your mouth and chew!"  like I was crazy for even asking.  So I did it, wrapper and all.  First, yuck!  Second, they started to realize how explicit instructions need to be to teach the reader.  We decided to take off the wrapper and put the gum in our mouth.  Then we agreed to chew until the gum got soft.  (Pretty important step.)  Next came my favorite part of the lesson.  When asked what comes next, one boy said, "Wrap the gum around your tongue like a blanket."  What a great visual!  P.S.  All the kids blatantly stole his wording, which I loved.  Last we blow and blow until the bubble pops.

Not all the of the kids could blow a bubble, but boy did they love trying!  One girl got upset she couldn't do it.  It was fun to watch the kids who could try to teach her.

*Drum roll* I present my Bubble Blowing Bandits!

They've never been so on task all year!  The second boy pictured won the bubble blowing contest.  Right after I snapped the picture the bubble popped all over his face.

The kids used our "How to..." organizing writing paper to create a rough draft of their paragraphs.  The next day they corrected errors and edited a partner's work (checking for punctuation and capitals) and began final drafts.



After the final drafts were finished we made a "How to Blow a Bubble" craftivity using construction paper to make their faces and balloons as bubbles.  Each student pasted the final instructions under their big balloon bubble.  This was by far the best writing lesson I've ever taught.  It will definitely get repeated in coming years!

Monday Madness

Seriously, how much madness can one day hold?

• Woke up to thunder and lightning during a massive rain storm
• Nearly hit a tree and our gate backing out of the driveway
• I picked up my kids from the hallway in the morning and was greeted by a raw, smashed egg exactly in the middle of where my class sits...but NO ONE knows how it got there
• I teach in a portable...with no walkway cover..and we had to walk back and forth 6 times today...during torrential downpours...with 2 umbrellas...and 17 kids
• After lunch the electricity went out...during computer time...for 45 minutes

Thankfully the electricity came back on before dismissal.  Unfortunately the rain hasn't stopped.  I'm glad today is finished!

Valentine's Day 2013

Valentine's Day can get quite crazy in 27!  In my personal life Valentine's Day is not a huge deal, we usually stay home, have an out of the ordinary dinner (this year it was juicy steaks, cheesy potatoes, salad and a little high-class vino) and that's about it.  But in 27, we jazz it up a bit.

I purchased Doodle Bugs Teaching's Valentine Crafts! product from TpT.  It has three crafts for $3.  So worth it!

I thought this was a really cute coincidence.  Their two little owls are making googly eyes at each other, just like they do.  We used extra large lunch bags (50 bags for about $2) which worked out perfectly.  I made the name cards with these free valentine themed frames and Word.  I showed the kids my example and we wrote the how to instructions before making the bags as a reinforcement of our functional writing.

Next, we sorted and graphed conversation hearts.  The super cute graph template and analysis sheet is from The Daily Alphabet on TpT.

Before passing out the hearts, we talked about different ways we could sort the candy.  Most kids chose to sort by color, pretty quick and easy.  Two of my over achievers sorted by the sayings on the hearts!  High five for challenging your awesome brains!  We had to (literally) cut and past two blank graphs together to get enough spaces, but did my heart beat with pride!

We created a class book from Cupcake for the Teacher's "Love is..." free printable.  Seriously, love is finding this seller on TpT!  Great stuff.  My favorite  is "Love is...holding hands crossing the street so you don't get hit by a bus." That girl cracks me up!

The printables are in color, but I printed the cover in black and white and colored it with markers.  We don't have access to color printers at my school.  When the kids were finished I glued their page on purple construction paper, stapled the pages together, glued on a red binding and glued our colored cover to the front.  Easy peasy.

For six and seven year olds we see a lot of dramatics in 27!  I adore my "Hurt Feelings" mediator!  She has has the long, curly hair.  I don't know why Pink Kitty and Brown Stripes are upset with each other.  It could be anything from he accidentally touched her to he told her one of her math answers was incorrect to he said something unkind to her.  Thankfully the Hurt Feelings mediator can take control of the situation, listen to both sides and offer a suggestions on how to avoid the situation in the future.  She's amazing and very highly respected.

 Pencils are like gold and diamonds in 27.  One of the little valentines I gave the kids included a Valentine's Day pencil with a name flag.  It warmed my heart that they understood the play on words.  I love this time of year in first grade.  Everything is really starting to click.

I hole punched the flags and slid the pencil through then secured it with a sticker.  It worked OK, but if I do it again I'll make the flags a bit bigger and laminate them for more durability.

At the end of the day the kids passed out valentines and ate a cupcake (one of the kids brought them as her valentines to pass out).  Not a bad day. =]

100th Day of School Activities

The 100th day of school and I have a love/hate relationship.  I know the students love it and I enjoy doing a lot of the fun 100th day themed activities.  However, it always comes at a time when the kids have long since past the glow of Winter Break and are looking towards Spring Break.  Expectations get higher, lessons get tougher and tempers get shorter.  This year's 100th day was action packed.  So much so it spilled over to the 101st day of school.

 

I can't figure out why this picture is rotated.   I saw this 100 painted dots activity on Pinterest via this blog.  I created a simple sheet and added a challenge (circle groups of 5). 

Of course, the kids *LOVE* art, especially anything involving paint.  This was a center at the small group table.  I put out paper plates and mixed the paint in front of the kids.  I was surprised how many of them didn't know which colors can be mixed to make new colors.  Instead of using cotton swabs I had them use pencil erasers to make 10 dots of each color.  It worked out really well and cleaned up quickly. Bonus...the washable paint came right off the erasers, which are still usable!

We also made "We would/wouldn't like to have 100..." charts.  This idea was totally stolen from Doodle Bugs Teaching.  Her charts are way cuter than ours, but this is an activity I will do again in the future.

 One of my favorite 100th day activities was "Roll to 100" which, again I jacked from Pinterest via this other blog.  I reconfigured the recording sheet a little. 

We also read One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczez.  I cut 100 black squares from construction paper, spread them on the floor and had groups of students rearrange the "ants" as we read the story.  I didn't get pictures, but that's another activity I will carry over to next year.