Reading Centers

Reading is one of my favorite things to teach in first grade.  I love the 90 minute reading block that we have everyday and I love how independent the students are during this time.  One of the things that helps reading run so smoothly is that the students have a strong understanding of the routine and the centers.  Another thing that I love about the centers that I use is that it takes about 2 minutes to set each one up.  I absolutely adore all of the cute centers that people use in their classrooms, but where do they find the time to prep all of those centers?  I wanted to take the time today to tell you about three of the centers that we use at the beginning of the year that the students are able to complete independently and that are easy for teachers to prepare.

Chalkboard Center
Yep, all of our first grade classrooms have a chalkboard.  We have all the upgrades in our rooms: whiteboards, document cameras, projectors, desktops, wireless internet, laptops for each teacher...and a chalkboard.  For the first two years I was there I never knew what to do with it, so I just covered it with paper and used it as another bulletin board.  Then, I decided to use it as a center - and it has been my students' favorite center every year since!  You would not need a chalkboard to use this center - just any magnetic surface (or even a small pocket chart would work).

I use the chalkboard center as a phonics/spelling center.  If the phonics/spelling skill for the week is short a, that is what the students will work on at the center.  In the demographic that I work with, many of the students do not practice their spelling words at home.  This center gives the students practice reading the words, spelling the words, writing the words and discovering patterns between the words.

At the center the students need four things:
1) the pictures
2) the words
3) magnetic letters
4) chalk (or any writing material that would work for the board you are using)

The students put up the pictures, put the matching word next to each picture, spell the word using magnetic letters and then write each word using chalk.  Here is what the finished product looks like:

Isn't it precious?
The students love this center!

I also have an accountability sheet that they complete afterwards.  I put it in a sheet protector and the students use a dry erase marker to fill it out - this just helps me save paper.

Here is what the center looked like when he was all finished:

 

You can grab this center by clicking on the link at the end of this post.

Right now I only have it made for short vowels and blends, but I will update it as I finish the others!

Writing Center 

At the beginning of the year many of our students struggle with writing a sentence.  Because of that, it makes it hard to have a successful writing center where students can work independently for 20-25 minutes.  So for the first few weeks of writing center I use it as a handwriting practice center.  

 The students love this center and it helps with their handwriting!  They trace the word three times and then write it by themselves in the box.  Then, they trace a sentence that uses the word and write it independently in the box.  The words on these pages are all high frequency words from our reading series.  This center is the same every week, all that changes are the words and the sentences.

I let the students use one marker for this center - it helps them stay interested, it helps them to slow down and it helps them see what they are writing.

You can grab these centers (for free!) by clicking on the link below:

Pocket Chart Center

I love this center!  It really helps the students listen to the patterns in the words.  I use this center as a review center - so if we worked on short a last week, that is what the students will be working with at the pocket chart center this week.  

Here is how it works:

The students put up the header cards.  Then, they sort the pictures under the corresponding header.  For their accountability sheet (which I also put in a sheet protector), they have to use what they know about the patterns to spell the words and use three of the words in a sentence.

Of course I forgot to take a picture of this center...so here it is on my living room floor:

Click on the picture below to grab the pack with the chalkboard center and pocket chart center.  

Again, at this point I only have the short vowels and blends made, but I will update it when I finish the others.

What centers do you use in your classroom that your students love?  I would love to hear about them!

October Currently

I feel like I dropped off the face of the Earth!  This is my first year blogging and I didn't realize how hard it actually is.  Whether it is finding a topic to write about or finding the time to actually do it - I just end up putting it off....so here I am a month later with the perfect post to fill you in.

I am linkin' up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her CURRENTLY post.

Here's what's up with me currently in October (where did September go!?!?!)

 

Listening:

I am currently listening to Remedy - the newest album by Old Crow Medicine Show.  Ever since moving to Tennessee I have fallen in love with blue grass music and this band is my absolute favorite.

They sing "Wagon Wheel" which was our first dance at my wedding!  And my absolute favorite part about this album is that it is available on vinyl.  So I just put it on the record player and listen to it every chance I get.

Loving:
I found curtains for my living room - Halleluiah!  It has only been 3 years since I have moved into this house - but I have finally found curtains!  We painted the family room Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore and I found curtains on Wayfair.com that match perfectly!  I ordered one just to be sure, loved it, and ordered three more.  Now we are just waiting for them to get here so we can hang them.  Here is the picture from the website (although the wall color is similar to mine!)

Thinking:
As I said in the beginning of my post...this whole blogging thing has been hard for me to get into.  I love the connections I have been making and I really do like posting about what we are doing.  It is just hard to figure out exactly what to post about - and it is also hard to find out how to connect with a lot of people.  I would love suggestions in this area if you have any!!

Wanting:
One of my all-time favorite things about the school district that I work in is fall break.  Yep, that's right - a whole week off in fall!  I have one more week of school and then I am on fall break.  Yay!!!!  We usually go somewhere, but this year we are going to hang curtains, look for a kitchen back splash, build shelves in an unused closet and hang pictures above the couch.  Oh and I forgot to mention...absolutely no thinking about school.  I can't wait!

Needing:
I guess this could also be more of a "looking forward to" because Monday is our two year anniversary.  This school year has been so busy and my hubby is doing his masters on Saturdays, so I feel like I never see him - this will be a much needed night together.  Plus - I can't wait to give him his gift.  We are doing the traditional anniversary gifts and year two is cotton...I found the gift on Etsy.com and it is so cute (hopefully he thinks so to!).   I will have to share it with you after Monday because I don't want to chance him seeing it (:

Trick or Treat?
Treat!
Everything in my store is on sale this weekend!!  Enjoy (:

You Oughta Know About Student Data Folders

I am linking up with Mrs. McClain's "You Oughta Know" blog hop again this month to tell you about student data folders.

Every year my school has a 'motto'.  This year our motto is to 'set our goals and aim high'.  To help the students set and track their goals, we are all using goal folders (student data folders) and I wanted to talk to you about how I implemented these in my room.

Since this is something that is brand new to my students I wanted to start off by talking with them about the importance of setting goals.  Then, we talked about how we can have different types of goals (school goals and other goals).  We worked together to brainstorm some goals that we have for school and then the students wrote them down.  Then, I posted them in the hallway - the kids love seeing their goals out there!

Aren't these precious??

 Next, I revealed our 'goal folders' and made a big show about how amazing they were.  The students couldn't wait to see them!  The first page is just the cover page for each student.  It was so cute how excited the kids were to write their names on this page!  They couldn't wait to start setting goals and tracking their progress.

We have both reading and math tracking sheets in this folder.
In reading the students will track three things: their reading level, their sight word knowledge and their oral reading fluency.

For their reading levels we use the benchmark assessments from Reading A-Z.  As the students progress through the reading levels they color the corresponding book in their goal folder:

There is also a place at the bottom of the page for the students to write the level that they start on and their goal level (we had to have a lot of discussions about obtainable goals!).  There is even a place for me to write their level at the end of each nine weeks. 

The next reading sheet tracks their sight word knowledge:

There are 30 sight word lists and each list contains a mixture of our sight words from the reading series and the Dolch words.  I have bags made up for each list and I send them home with the students.

Once the students know all of the words in that list, they can color the box.  They love this part, too!  I progress monitor the students in the morning, but I only have time for two or three students a day.  I have a little schedule set up and they come in every morning asking if it is their day to read with me.  It makes me so happy to see all of my students so excited about their reading - and it is over something as simple as coloring in the boxes and getting one step closer to their goal!

The final reading page tracks their oral reading fluency.  We will not start this until January, but wanted to put it in the folders so that we would not have to add any pages in later.

The students color how many words they read in a minute for each story (we will test their oral reading fluency once a week).

Phew - the reading part is enough to keep me busy.  But there is more!  The math section has two parts: number bond fluency and addition/subtraction fluency.

We start our fluency practice off with number bonds instead of actual equations.  I created number bond quizzes that are timed and once the student passes the quiz, they can color the corresponding number bond in their goal folder:

The next page is a tracking sheet for students to track their addition and subtraction fluency - and for some reason I did not take a picture of this page!

So those are our goal folders!  What do you think?  It seems overwhelming and time consuming, but once you get into a routine, everything runs smoothly.  I really love these and truly see the benefit of having the students set goals and track their progress!

Need a way to get started?  Here is the sight word tracking page that we use - just click on the picture to download it.

Do you use data folders in your classroom?  I would love to hear about them!

Now that you have read my blog post, hop over to any one of these other great bloggers!

An InLinkz Link-up

Phonics, Lesson Plans and Cleaning

It has been a busy few weeks of school and we are moving right along.  I thought I would catch you up on a few new things going on!

Phonics:
 One of my favorite things to teach in first grade is phonics.  I love teaching students new phonics skills and watching them apply those skills to their reading.  Right now we are working on CVC words and the students are doing such a great job!  I created a PowerPoint for each short vowel and have posted them to my TpT store here.  The students love these and the activities change so it is easy to stay engaged. 

For each PowerPoint the students are asked to do three things:

For the first few slides, they are given a word and they have to pick the picture that matches the word:

 I have the students write the letter of the matching picture on their whiteboards and we check our answer - on the PowerPoint, the letters change to red as we sound out the word together.

The next few slides give the students a picture and they have to pick a matching word:

  I have the students write the letter of the matching word on their whiteboards and we check our answer - on the PowerPoint, the letters change to red as we sound out each of the words together.

On the last few slides, the students are shown a picture and they have to pick the matching word family:

 I have the students write the letter of the matching word family on their whiteboards and we check together.

At this point I have been using the short vowel worksheets here as the corresponding sheet, but I am going to work on making one that corresponds with the PowerPoint!

You can click on the Preview below to take you to the link.

Lesson Plans:
Since I have started teaching I have always struggled with a lesson plan format that fits my needs.  I have changed my format every year since I started and I have not found anything that fits my needs until this year!!  I was "Pinteresting" lesson plan formats and I ran across the format that Ladybug's Teacher Files uses.  I loved them!  I had to make a few adjustments to make them fit my needs and here is what I came up with:

I love the layout and how easy it is to glance at exactly what I am doing for the day!  I think that I have finally found a lesson plan template that works for me.

Cleaning:
I always forget how hard it is to get back into a routine once school starts again!  I am always so exhausted from working that cleaning my house gets put on the back burner.  Then, when I finally can't take it anymore, I lose my entire weekend to cleaning.  So this year I decided to get more organized!  I created a cleaning schedule that my husband laminated for me (:  Each day there are two or three simple chores that need to be done.  Then, on the far left is a list of chores that only need to be done once a month - we do these when we have a few free minutes (haha!). 
The second page is a list of chores that needs to be done each month (these are chores that only need to be done once or twice a year). 
I absolutely love it!  I think one of my favorite things about it is that my husband knows exactly what needs to be done each day - that way the cleaning never gets left up to one person.

Here is what they look like:

The first page of chores for every month

The second page of chores that only need to be done in specific months.

Hopefully all of these things will help my school year run smoothly!

Beginning of the Year Procedures

I made it through the first few weeks of school and lived to tell about it (:  I feel like all I have done is teach procedures.  As exhausting as it can be, teaching and practicing the procedures is what helps the year run smoothly.  I thought I would share a few of the things that we spent our first few weeks doing.

#1 - Our Classroom Promise
I feel that building a community in the classroom is crucial!  We spend the first day talking about the classroom promise and we discuss each part, what it means and what it will look like in our classroom.  Then, the students create their faces as their "signature" on the promise.  I hang this on the wall and we say it together every.single.day for the first few months.  I also refer back to certain parts constantly (this is who we are even when no one is watching....or when someone asks us to stop, we do!).

I can't take credit for this - my cooperating teacher when I student taught had it and then a coworker from a few years ago tweaked it so that it would rhyme.  The kids (and myself) love it!  Click on the picture below for a downloadable copy.

#2 - Building a Culture of Readers
Our school was a reward school for the second year in a row.  That means that we are in the top 5% of the state!  We have come such a long way in the past five years and I am blessed to work with such hard-working, incredible people.  One of the things that we do at the beginning of every year is a have a Reading Kick-Off.  People from the community came to support us.  We had the superintendent, the director of elementary schools, our state representative, high school cheerleaders, a step team and a drum line come and perform for us and every grade level creates a reading cheer.  It is so much fun and the kids always have a blast.  This year our "motto" is Set Your Goal and Aim High.  This was on the stage during our Reading Kick-Off - but then it was moved inside so we could take class pictures with it:

We took millions of class pictures with this :)  I am going to use them at the end of the year when we write about the goals that we reached!

#3 - Teaching Center Procedures
A few years ago we were expected to begin small reading groups and centers on the Monday of the first week!  It was terrible.  The kids didn't have the time to build up the stamina and they didn't fully understand what to do at each center - so basically it was a mess!  Luckily, I have AMAZING administrators and they listened to our concerns.  Now, we have the first two weeks of school to teach center procedures and build reading stamina.  And let me tell you, it is so much better.

We set up a schedule for what to teach each day during our 90 minute reading block.  Here is what it looks like:

Day 1 - Library Center

Day 2 - Library Center

Day 3 - Computer Center

Day 4 - Pocket Chart Center

Day 5 - Chalkboard Center

Day 6 - Writing Center

Day 7 - Listening Center

Day 8 - Rotation Procedures

Day 9 - 10 minute rotations

Day 10 - 12 minute rotations

Day 11 - 15 minute rotations

Day 12 - 18 minute rotations

Day 13 - 18 minute rotations

Day 14 - 20 minute rotations

Here is how the first few days go:

On day 1, we teach procedures for the library center (how to treat the books, how to properly sort the books, etc.) and we practice reading for 3 minutes.  Yep, a whole 3 minutes.  Afterwards, we create an expectation chart together:

I don't have a picture of the library one, so here is writing!

After we have created the expectation chart, I have students model examples and non-examples for the center (they love this part!).  Then, we brainstorm what we will do at library center and what we will not do at library center.  The students pick one of each and record it on this page (which we will later turn it a center expectation book):

Yay! First day of center procedures is done (:

We do this same thing every time that we teach each center, and it helps the students really understand how to do the centers.  The second day we practice for 5 minutes, then days 3 - 7 we practice for 8 minutes.  We eventually build our way up to 20 minutes!

I post our expectation charts at each center to remind the students of how they should be acting.

#4 - Books, Book and More Books!
My donorschoose project was funded! (If you have never been on this website, you should really check it out!  You create a project for what your class needs and people all over the country can donate).  We received 75 books through this project!

Then, my coworker wrote a grant and got $3,000 to spend and we bought more books!  They should be arriving any day now.  We are so blessed!

Hopefully I can get ahead this weekend and get better about posting what we are doing in my room.  How have your first days been?