Thanksgiving Feast

I am THANKFUL for... placemat
practices patterns
writing and drawing
lists

             The 1st Thanksgiving Hunting:            Boys were given the opportunity to "hunt" animals for the Thanksgiving dinner. The boys stood back (where the tape was) and they were to throw the bean bag to knock off (kill) their animal. They got to throw 1 beanbag and then it was another boy's turn. They kept doing this for the entire center time trying to "kill" as many animals as they could for the Thanksgiving dinner.        

Many girls were bummed they did not get to hunt the animals like the boys... however, back in the time of the 1st Thanksgiving, girls did not hunt. They instead helped make other types of food. The girls were given selected kitchen items and play food items (not like cans or cereal boxes ect.) and were to "cook and prepare" the other food items for the 1st Thanksgiving dinner.

Proper place setting:
Students learn how to set a place setting properly. They use the posters to help teach them and practice with real items (plastic). As they practice, they can time themselves and then see how accurately they can set the place setting correctly without help! The goal is to learn how to do it all by themselves!

Thanksgiving Feast:
Students bring in their favorite food item (treat, snack ect) to share with the class.
Parents are the servers and go around offering the various foods to the students. They serve the food on the students' left side (just like a formal dinner). Students may say yes or no thank you.

Dress like a pilgrim!

Letters: Feel it, Build it, Write it

Some colleagues and I came up with the Feel it, Build it, Write it idea when we all agreed that we didn't want to do a whole bunch of worksheets! YUCK! We wanted students to enjoy learning how to form and write their letters not dread page after page of practice.

My texture cards on the left are just the ones with the hot glue gun.
I need to make new pom pom and sandpaper ones since I left
them at my last school for the other teacher.

Feel it:  Using the pre-made letter cards, the students run their pointer finger down/around the letter in the correct formation of writing a letter (top to bottom not bottom to up). They get to feel the different textures. Making these cards have taken a long time, but it is really helpful if you have parent volunteers. Use the following to make different textures: pom poms, sandpaper, felt, dried hot glue or any others.

Build it: Students are given supplies (popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners straws, and toothpicks) and are to build their letter. The supplies need to be cut in different sizes to form upper and lowercase letters. Students will soon figure out that pipe cleaners (unless you have other flexible supplies) are the only ones they can use for letters with curves.  Students also LOVE to use playdought to form letters, but expectations need to given and held to.

Write it: Instead of giving a full worksheet right from the beginning, I let my students write on little sentence strips (that have been laminated) with my "special pens." They are very excited to use my special pens to practice, plus they get to wipe off their work with a wet papertowel when they are done. Some sentences strips have the letters written for them to trace while others are left blank. (You will notice that I wrote the first upper and lowercase letter in black and the rest in different highlighter colors for tracing benefits).

Fun Alphabet Flashcards

I was really bored teaching the alphabet to the kids and really needed something interested if not for the kids, but for me! I try to teach using as many connections as possible for the different types of learners. My alphabet cards are hand drawn (uppercase was done by a former 5th grade student). The picture gives a visual of the picture plus it triggers the action which then triggers the sound. This incorporates visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learners.

I personally am not a fan of connecting the letters to pictures of something that starts with the sound because that is hard for students with low vocabulary or students who are ESL. Most kids know animal names, but that still doesn't completely work for ESL students if they can't identify the English name for the animal. With all this in mind, I decided to just listen to the sound and see what comes to my mind. The actions correlate with the sound that triggered in my mind and I tried to use the trigger action/sound that best related to the letter and would be more commonly connected.

The kids love practicing to these letters and it helps all types of students. I have never had so many parent compliments about specifically something I teach - but these I am overloaded with in just the last 2 years.  I am amazed how many students still use the actions when be tested on their letter/sounds at the end of the year!

I have two downloads for these. 1. Fun Alphabet Flashcards: A black and white version that still need to be colored   2.  Fun Alphabet Flashcards Colored:  A packet of black and white plus the colored copies

Weeks of Dr. Seuss

Kids love Dr. Seuss -- and I love Dr. Seuss!  So I use several weeks to do Dr. Seuss activities.
I just heard from a friend about Dr. Seuss PE activities that I will be adding to my list next year!

I have a Dr. Seuss Unit filled with ideas and the items needed.


Wocket in my Pocket:
I saw this idea from another blog and loved it. Wocket in my Pocket  (my kids choose their own word with whatever beginning they want instead of wocket)

1 Fish, 2, Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish: 

The students filled in their own boxes with 1 something, 2 somethings, red something, blue something. It was fun to see their variety and what they came up with. The two examples are robots and monsters!

Dr Seuss's Birthday Party + plans!

On Dr. Seuss's Birthday (or nearest date) - I plan a day filled with Dr. Seuss books and activities.

The books are placed up front and the parents come up to switch their book with another book and activity. This is really nice if you have multiple copies of one book, but if not just plan an extra activity that they do, so there is always 1 activity there. I give my parents a time cap for an activity that they need to try to stay within to complete all activities. I also had an extra box of Dr. Seuss books that could be read to the students while they waited after finishing all their activities.

We only do 3-4 books for the celebration, then I use the other books throughout the next 2 weeks.

2. Fox in Socks --  I put rhyming cards in random socks and the group works together to match the rhyming words they found inside the socks.
*  Rhyming Socks
*  Socks Math Page   (greater than/less than)

3. 1 Fish 2 Fish -- 2 books available + 2 parent helpers (if possible)
* Students own book cover
* Fish hands
* Goldfish count = tens equation
Sort those goldfish and graph 

4. Lorax
*Lorax mustache
*Lorax treat

5. Green Eggs and Ham
*Green Eggs balance game - balance green eggs in a spoon across the rug
*Eat green eggs and write opinion 
* Fill in the missing words in the paragraph

6. Foot Book 
* Feet numbers (trace around their own feet, cut out, then we write a number on each foot and see how many feet in the classroom. Then we post the feet along one of the walls.)

7. Horton Hears a Who
*  Video
* Draw Self Portrait - A Person's a Person No Matter How Small
* Take student's picture and put in on a Speck!

8. Wocket in my Pocket
*Class makes -ocket words together and then write the sentence on their pocket.
   "There's a _ocket in my Pocket" 
* Create their own _ocket with paper

9. Apples Up On Top
* Apples up on top self portrait
* Apples up on top math paper

Daily 5 activities:
Green Eggs flip game 

Self Portraits! I print a head template because my students give me better portraits when they have a template.  On the back, I printed the following quote from Dr. Seuss:                        A persons a person no matter how small!

My students were asked to wear a red shirt. They all got to wear a THING #.  We had 20+ THINGS in our classroom and it was a lot of fun. Next year, I am going to try for blue hair ...       As the teacher, I got to be THING TEACHER.

Next year, I'm going to ask my Room Mom to set up Dr. Seuss treats -

I think we'll be using Pinterest for some ideas!

Groundhog Day

DAY BEFORE GROUNDHOG DAY ACTIVITIES

The day before Groundhog Day, I tell my class about the holiday. We vote and graph how many students think the groundhog will see his shadow and how many think he won't.

Letter to the groundhog telling the groundhog to see his shadow or not to and why! These were super cute!  I am so proud of their writing! 

GROUNDHOG DAY ACTIVITIES
/EA/ and /EE/ Book: Sneak a Peak. This book has repetitive sentences to help learn and practice the long e sound. The students read the book and then draw the picture.

Popping Out of the Hole Writing: using their 5 senses

Color Coordinated Sight Words

Colored cans... student names get switched over to the colored can of the sight words they are practicing. These cans are used for my knowledge, but also for those parents and other volunteers that show up unexpected. I tell them which colored can to pull students from. If it is the orange can, then they can do the orange sight word flashcards and the orange books.

Colored Flashcards:
I make a teacher set of my sight words on their coordinated color. This way I just grab the color I need to teach or grab the color we need to review. If you don't want to use your teacher set of flashcards for student use, you can make a separate set with paint sample cards -- super quick and easy --- they will be worn down, but that is ok to me... better those than my flashcards.

Sight Word Books color coordinated with ribbon.
If a student still needs practice reeading from the yellow group, then a parent helper or other volunteer knows which books to practice reading from (so I don't have to spend time explaining and getting the books for them.)  All my sight word books are in my Sight Word Sets 1-4.

Sight Word Sticks:
You can use these sticks in a variety of ways. I write my sight words on the correct color stick to match the set they are in. You can use the sticks for all sorts of games.  Matching, KABOOM (sight words not sentences), Drop Sticks, Build a Fire (students pull sticks and if they can read the sight word, they keep the stick and get to build a fire), Guess my Word (students give clues to the word on their stick), and I am sure their are plenty more!

Sight Word Poems: in colored files 
I have these printed and organized according to each sight word. I need to switch the words to the correct colored files and tabs for the sets. Yet another practice parents can pull and practice with students. OR I can send these pages home with students for homework or use in my groups. Differentiate!

My Tic Tac Toe pages are printed on their correct set color.

BINGO game boards are also printed on their correct set color, so during centers the adult or myself can differentiate the groups and practice the words that that group is practicing. All kids get to play BINGO, just with the correct words they are reviewing! Plus it is simple to write down which group is on which color for the adult helping at the BINGO center.

Fluency Cards: My words are printed on the correct color (plus they have some review words from previous sets). All the colors are in the chair pockets. Each group knows which color they need to pull out when it is time to do fluency practice, so I don't need to get it out or try to figure out which groups need which fluency cards.

Sentence Strips: The sentences are similar to the KABOOM sentences. They focus on the words in the color set and words from previous sets. Sentences are on the color strip so I know which set they belong to.

Sight Word Program

I love my organization for Sight Words. I have them separated into colors. They are organized into the order that I feel works for reading and writing simple sentences into more complex ones. Each sight word has a book to go with it, and the books get harder throughout the order. I have gotten loads of compliments on my sight word books mostly because of the last page (the homework page).

The units are color coordinated, so I know when I am moving on to the next set. This helps me identify which students need to work on which set of words. It makes it super easy when I parent randomly shows up to help...  I Just pull out my students who are slightly behind the class set and they get to work on the words in that set with flashcards, reading the books, or playing a game with those specific words.  Check out pictures of the color coordinating idea on the Color Coordinated Sight Words post.

Unit 1: like, my, see, a, and, have, do, to
RED (Everything I make for unit 1 sight words is in red for a quick grab.)
These words were chosen first to teach because they use these words first in sentence writing for their journals and opinions.

Unit 2: is, the, he, she, play, go, can, you, said
(I teach be and me with he/she although they are not my focus sight words... I use this to introduce how great word families can be!)
ORANGE
These words connected well with the first set and within other words in this set.
I also teach his with the word is.

Unit 3: on, with, will, for, are, was, has
YELLOW
I teach -as- with the word -has-. I actually teach has and was the same time and don't connect a letter to one of them.. I usually review is, has, as, has and was at the same time because we read all the words regular until we get to WAS and we read it with a deap voice since it is different from the others, but still has the /z/ sound at the end. My students love reading WAS with a deap voice in their regular reading after that.

Unit 4: very, no, yes, that, of
Green
This unit is very small, but it concludes my specific reviewing of all the letters again. (I will continue review letters, but the ones any student behind still needs to learn or the letters that need help writing still.)

Blue unit: In this unit I teach more words, but also review digraphs and dipthongs in story writing. It gets a tad harder, but it uses word families in stories.

Words: here/there, who/what, from/all, because/your, they/when, would/which, way/make
Other: /ee/, /ew/, /oi/ and /oy/, /ar/, /au/, /aw/, /ow/
The order of these change according to what I feel the class needs.
The other sound stories are for group reading and then sent home as homework with questions about the story - just like the sight word books, but more complex.