http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Long-i-word-work-unit-Differentiated-1252637
Thursday, May 22, 2014
New Phonics Unit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Long-i-word-work-unit-Differentiated-1252637
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Goal Setting
Yesterday I tried a new spin on goal setting with my class, and it worked GREAT! I could sense the need to change things up a little with spring fever going strong so I did a mini-lesson on goals. We then decided to set a daily goal based on something we could do in class. Most of the kids chose a behavior goal, but some chose learning goals also. I gave them a quick 3-5 minutes to write their goal, and they turned them into me. If they felt comfortable I read them, and I told them that at the end of the day we would revisit them and see if we met our goals (I wrote one too). I also told them that I would pick a few randomly at the end of the day out of the pile, and if those people met their goals then I would reward them with a raffle ticket for our school behavior plan. I was so impressed with their goals. Below are a few of them:
During the day, it was AWESOME because they kept reminding each other to keep working on their goal. Even my student on a behavior contract met his goal (this was way more motivating to him than anything else I've tried this year...go figure!). A the end of the day, they reflected on how they did. The added benefit was that at the end of the day the reflection put a calm spin on a rushed Friday afternoon. I loved this activity so much. I'm definitely going to try it again on Monday!
#goalsettingfirstgrade#learninggoals#behaviorgoals
New Common Core Reading Literature Unit -Days With Frog and Toad -The Hat
I just finished writing this unit and we started working on it in class this week. The kids LOVE the story! It is the perfect unit to end the year because the Frog and Toad series has so many options for books. I am teaching the main comprehension strategies with this unit for The Hat, and the kids are reading up the other Frog and Toad stories like crazy during Daily 5 time. I also added poetry analysis and a fun little structured poetry writing activity. Some fun game additions that we play with this unit are "Jeopardy" type game with the comprehension questions, and we play "Build a Tower" with the questions that they write in the unit. I got all the CCSS RL standards in this unit except for CCSSRL5, and they are labeled to make planning easy. If you are interested in checking it out see the link below.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Comprehension Fun!
As part of our common core reading literature unit featuring the David McPhail book, Lost, the kids wrote text-based questions about the story. The twist was that they had to cite the page number that the answer was found on. They wrote them on index cards and we played an awesome game called Build a Tower with their cards. The great learning came when students were crafting their questions. Some of the questions were inferential and it was hard for them to come up with the page number that the answer was found on. This was great because it led us to a great discussion on the two types of questioning. Through some redefining and refining the students came up with a clear difference between inferential and text based questions. These first graders AMAZE me!
Below is a picture of the game and below that is a link to the unit we used if you are interested.
Below is a picture of the game and below that is a link to the unit we used if you are interested.
and the companion informative text unit on bears
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
More Phonics Fun!
The kids have really been inspiring me to create some new instructional routines and practices to make their learning fun for them. Again, I'm feeling so blessed with this sweet group of students. They let me know what they really enjoy and I can see it in my last round of testing of their reading. The games and reading skills we have been reviewing and practicing have made a huge impact on fluency and writing. Below are a few more pictures of some fun the kids have been having by reviewing the long vowels. Although long vowels were already introduced earlier this year we are taking a week or so to review each of vowel spellings in depth within fluency passages, games, and writing. I want my students to have a very strong comfort level with long vowels before heading off to second grade. I've created units that do this and they can be spread over several weeks, used for homework, center work, Daily 5, or in a multitude of ways. The way we've been using them is I create a packet for each student that houses the fluency, the sorts, trace, read, write, questions, and a few other of the pages in the unit. We do a whole class review and student engagement activity like "Find Your Partner" or "Guess my Word" that gets them moving and talking. Then the kids work independently or in pairs while I pull groups. The kids love the characters and I try my best to gear the stories to things that might interest them. I knew I had a hit when I overheard one of my students asked their table mate, "I wonder who the Phonics Friend" will be this week." Some of the pages are in the homework as well. I then put out some of the other activities like write the room, read and roll, puzzles, slap it, etc... in center boxes for Daily 5 word work. It's been working great and the word work box for Daily 5 is quickly in the lead for the kids' favorite Daily 5 activity. Right now I'm working to try to get all the units up on TPT ...I'm almost done with long a. We started with long e, which you will find the link to below, because I had a chunk of students who needed a refresher on ea. I also have phonics units on oi/oy and oo.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Making Phonics Fun
I've been searching for ways to increase student engagement this year along with maintaining rigor and covering the Common Core standards. It's been sort of like a puzzle to see what has worked and been successful for my fabulous first graders. We've tried A LOT of new things, and this group of students I have this year are awesome, adventurous, and it makes for a "laboratory" full of ideas. Here are some of our favorites! The kids love playing Slap it! There are many versions, but ours is best played with 4 in a group. So much fun!
The next video and photo shows a Guess My Word game. The word pages are differentiated so that all students can play regardless of language or reading level. Having the different versions of the I have a word page helps a ton. The kids love it because they get up and walk around having their friends trying to guess their words.
This kids love reading about the "Phonics Friends". They get interested in the characters, and they love highlighting and sorting words from the stories. To the left is an example of one of the oo stories in the oo word work packet. I always include several versions of the same story to accommodate all learners. I even put simple pattern text mini-books in the units for emergent readers.
If you are interested, the following products explain these fun phonics activities in more detail and include many more ideas and resources. They are centered around the combination of learning phonics through reading and Common Core Reading Foundational Skills.
OO Word Work
Long e Word Work
Oi/Oy Word Work
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Lesson Plan Freebie-First Grade
Here are our plans for the coming week. We've been running two literacy blocks (one for narrative/literature and one for informative text) all year and it has been great. We tie the informational literacy block into our science or social studies standards. The kids are really familiar with the features of both text types and we're getting it all in (which can be a challenge). The Spring Word problem are arranged into a weekly packet (differentiated by student level) for independent or partner work.Links to the products we are using are found below.
Hope this helps...
oo word work
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/oo-Word-Work-Unit-Differentiated-1201784
Lost! Common Core Unit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lost-Common-Core-Unit-1195128
oo word work
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/oo-Word-Work-Unit-Differentiated-1201784
Lost! Common Core Unit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lost-Common-Core-Unit-1195128
Spring Common Core Word Problems
Who's Greater Freebie
Bears Informational Text/Science Unit
Warmly,
Valerie
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