Five For Friday! January 15, 2016

1)  Second Week of FREE editable lesson plans.  Here they are:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-Editable-First-Grade-Lesson-Plans-With-Sample-Plans-2-2313980

2) Text Features Fun!

The kids had a ton of fun learning about text features this week.  They went on a scavenger hunt and LOVED playing the Build an Article game.  I really feel both of these things helped even my language learners understand text features much better.  Both activities are in my MLK unit (link below).

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Close-Reading-and-Writing-Unit-with-Text-Features-2272644

3)  Our New Narrative Input Chart!

There is always a big excitement when we place our next narrative input chart up.  The kids love trying to guess what our next topic will be about!  I write stories that go along with our units that feature two characters, Kaya and Bob.  Bob teaches Kaya things by taking her on adventures.  The narrative always goes with our social studies and science units.  This idea came about from my class last year.  After the first one I did with Kaya and Bob, the kids kept asking for them.  So, I just decided they would become our class characters.  It worked great.  The kids love them like any other character from a series.  They are found in my science and social studies units as a unit opener.  I read the story that goes along with the pictures and then I write key notes and vocabulary on the chart while I'm retelling the story.  The subsequent days, we work interactively with the story focusing on vocabulary and background building.   As I'm writing this I just realized I forgot to add the sequence in the lesson plans above, but I will do chart before Being an American Unit.  There are 2 narrative input charts in that unit.   Link below: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Close-Reading-First-Grade-Being-An-American-1176650

4)  What's Inside a Number?

Starting place value with little guys is always fun!  They love the base ten blocks, beans, counters, and quick tens.  But, at the core, place value and having a good sense of numbers is absolutely essential to any math they will have from this point on.  I've always taught the kids that other number are inside of numbers to help them grasp the concept of expanded notation, but this year our team decided to expand further on that concept by having the kids really think about where they are in their own understanding.  Taking charge of your own learning is a school wide initiative that we focus on daily.  We came up with this poster as a team and I am excited to roll it out to the kids next week.  As we move through the unit, hopefully they will move through their level of understanding.  We use Engage New York/Eureka.  I created power points to go with each lesson, vocabulary wall cards, and differentiated pages to go with each lesson in Module 4. The link for the unit is below.

 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Place-Value-Power-Points-1783218

5)  Central Message

We came back this past week and reviewed central message of some of our class favorite stories.  Below is the chart we made.  

Close Reading Informational Text- American symbols, heroes, landmarks

We had a blast with this unit.  It had a little bit of everything.  We spent less time on the symbols in this unit because we had done an informational writing unit on them just before this.  This was the first time that I spent a long time on what the President does and The White House.  The kids LOVED it!  They made little books that included general information on the presidency and also information about Washington and Lincoln. I had always taught about President Lincoln and President Washington, but it was super fun to get into the role of the President and especially The White House.  Kids are going to do more research when we get back from break!













http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Close-Reading-Being-An-American-1176650