What We Love Wednesday... on Thursday: Walls

If you've been over to Mrs. Claborn's page, then you've heard the sad news... we won't be on the same team anymore. Mrs. Claborn is graduating and leaving us for 2nd grade! I know she's going to be a fantastic 2nd grade teacher and we're sad to lose her, but glad she will still be at our school. The silver lining is that I may get to move into her room... which is considerably larger than mine. All of our kinder and 1st grade rooms are very spacious with carpet and cabinets - it's wonderful! Except mine. I've got the carpet and cabinets and I am thankful for that, but I can't tell you how many times a parent, student or visiting teacher has walked in and said, "Oh my gosh, it's so small!".  I'll know soon and hopefully I will be packing up B103 and moving on to B107.

So how does this relate to walls? Well, she has a bit of a challenge in her new room. Her new classroom only has cinder block walls. All 3 of the classrooms I've been in have had cinder block walls, so I definitely understand the difficulties of hanging things up and getting them to STAY up. I have 2 things that I've found will USUALLY keep things up on cinder block walls: hot glue and Magic Mounts brand mounting tabs. Even with those, after a couple of really cold or really humid days, it starts raining posters and word wall words in B103. How do you keep things up on your wall? Does anyone have a magic trick for posting things on cinder block? What kind of walls do you have?

What We Love Wednesday - Ways to Keep in Touch

First, I have to say that Mrs. Claborn and I are pretty proud of ourselves for keeping up the alliteration with our "What We Love Wednesday" topics. Every week I think, this time there are REALLY no "w" words left.  This week's post is all about how I communicate with my students as well as their parents. Parent communication is SO important and I really feel like in many cases, a little proactive communication can go a long way. Here are some of the ways I keep in touch in my classroom:

• The Griffin Gazette - As you can probably guess, this is my newsletter. Each week, sometime between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, I send an electronic newsletter. We were encouraged by our principal to do this and I think it's a fabulous way to communicate with parents. I break it up by subject and explain what the objectives are for the week. It's also a great way for those absent kiddos to keep up with what's going on. Of course, at the bottom I add in any important information for the week - field trip info, important dates, reminders and announcements. What do you do if a parent doesn't have or doesn't provide you with an email address? I have 3 of those, and I just print out my email and send it home in take home folders. This is a great way to go green and save paper, plus I feel like parents read this version more than when it's another paper in their child's folder.

• The Web - Being a technology magnet, it makes sense that we would want to communicate using technology and the many resources on the web. For several years, my school (and now many other schools in my district) has used Blackboard. I think Blackboard has great features, and I think it's probably a great tool for intermediate and secondary teachers. That being said, it has a lot of great features that as a first grade teacher, I just don't need. I'm hoping to convince my principal to let us use wikispaces next year instead. I went to the Region 10 (anyone else in North Texas go?) Technology Conference yesterday and saw 2 great presentations about wikispaces. In fact, I was so excited, I went straight home and created my own page. I think having a wiki page will be better suited for what I want to use it for - not just communicating with parents, but posting student work for parents to view and the kids to revisit.  What a great way to review! Students can just hop on our wiki and review concepts by looking back at products that they and their classmates have created.

• KidBlog - I don't know how many of you use KidBlog, and if you don't you absolutely need to check it out. It is a great way to integrate technology that allows kids to reflect, respond and share on any topic. We've used it for every subject. I know the kids love it as much as I do because they're always getting on at home! Sometimes the kids create their own posts about a certain topic, or sometimes I post a question and they leave a comment to respond. One of my favorite "tricks" is to post a question and not tell the kids for a couple of days. I like to see who is keeping up with our KidBlog on their own and I usually reward those sweeties with a "pawsitive paw" (it's a school wide positive reinforcement system). I'm putting this on my list of ways I keep in touch for two reasons. First, it allows other people in the building to communicate with my class. We've had all kinds of exciting visitors leave us comments and questions, such as our technology teacher, one of our math specialists, one of our reading specialists and even our principal! Second, I plan on keeping the KidBlog open this summer so the kids can communicate with me, if they want to.

• Postcards - Yep, good old fashioned snail mail! Confession: I am one of those people who cries on the last day of school. I just can't believe our time is over! One thing I love doing is to give each of my kiddos a blank "postcard" with a stamp and my address. I print these on 4x6 index cards and just have my address printed on the right half of the unlined side. Usually the kids will draw a picture on the left half and then write a letter on the back, where the lines are. At the very least, I know they'll practice their writing once over the summer! It really is a nice surprise to get their sweet notes in my mailbox.

• Bucket Filling - I started bucket filling in my classroom a couple of months ago, and I love it. Of course the kids love getting a note from a friend, but they especially love finding a special note from me that's just for them. Since we started in February, I try to write at least 5 or 6 notes per week so that by the end of the year each sweetie will have gotten a few from Miss Griffin. I think it's a good way to remind them of the great things they've done - I might write a note that says "I really liked how you helped _____ during centers."  - and I swear I can see them thinking to themselves when they read the notes "Oh yeah, I did do that!". Brining bucket filling into my classroom has truly improved the way my kids communicate with each other, and I think that's a pretty cool thing.

How do you keep in touch? Speaking of keeping in touch... stop by tomorrow for my giveaway announcement! Here are your clues: it was on my list of favorite things and it has to do with one of the above mentioned ways to keep in touch. Eeek! I can't wait!

What We Love Wednesday - Wrapping Up Our Year!

Hey y'all! I'm not a superstitious girl, but I gotta say, when I saw that I now have 113 followers, I decided that had to be good luck. After all, 1/13 is my birthday! So, here we are on Wednesday night and my internet is down. I'm posting from my iPhone and it's less than ideal! So, this will be short and sweet - a difficult task for me!

First, I got Jodi's End of Year Activity packet and can't wait to do the hermit crab activities next week, but what I REALLY want to tell you about is the adorable activity we're doing this week. Our theme this week is "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!", so when I saw her writing prompt "I loved first grade bug cause" I had to go ahead and use it. I'm using it as one of our writing stations this week and it is precious. I had my kids glue the writing activity to manila paper when they finished, and then use scraps of scrapbook paper and construction paper to create their own insects. I love them! I will definitely have to come back and add pictures!

Second, make sure you enter my giveaway! It's open until Sunday night at midnight. Sweet Papery is oh-so-adorable and someone is gonna be a very lucky lady!

Can you believe that for me, that was a short post?

10 more days! Have a great night friends!

What We Love Wednesday - Wearing Costumes!

I LOVE dressing up. I don't really get into Halloween, but I love dressing up for school. It just makes the day more fun and the kids get a kick out of it. It's on my mind because this Friday, Mrs. Claborn and I get to dress up for our 2nd annual Bug Ball! We're finishing up our ladybug unit and are celebrating our learning by dressing up as insects and creating ladybug snacks (half of an apple, peanut butter or icing as your "glue", raisins or choc chips as spots). I'm SO excited about  wearing a costume on Friday, that I'm sharing some of my favorite (and kind of embarassing) school costumes.

• Fancy Nancy! It was Book Character Day. You can't really tell but my hair was curled in ringlets and I had on gold leggings under some pink and purple polka dotted shorts. That was also the day I had to sign the lease for my apartment and I had to do it right after school... definitely got some weird looks in the apartment office!



• Bug Ball 2010! Ok, so ladybugs don't really wear tutus... but we needed more flair! Miss Jacobs had the idea to wear tutus, and I googled how we could make our own. Turns out, tutus are SUPER easy to make, and you don't even have to sew! My grandma has this picture of me on her fridge. Yes, I swear I really am 30.

 



• Holiday Pageant 2010! I was Dancer, and here I am with my buddy Dasher (also known as Mrs. Larkin). I know I took a picture with Mrs. Claborn that day, but I can't find it. I'm sure she'll post it - she was Miss Elle Toe (say it fast...).



• 100th Day of School! Ok, so this isn't really a costume, but we did make our own shirts. Aren't you a little surprised I didn't find a way to work in a tutu?

I KNOW there have been many, many more but I never remember to bring my camera. Did you notice a theme? I love that I can find ways to wear a tutu and a tiara to work! 

If you're not following me yet, please do! I'm up to 85... 100 followers and my exciting giveaway are getting SO close!

What We Love Wednesday - Wildlife!

Today Mrs. Claborn and I went on a FAB-U-LOUS field trip. It was an hour long bus ride from our school, but SO well worth the trip. We teachers loved it because it was very well organized, everything ran smoothly, the staff was very attentive and the field trip was engaging. Of course, I'm happy if my kiddos are happy and they definitely were! The students loved it because they got to see exotic animals close up, pet a kangaroo and a lemur, go on a safari and pet horses and camels, see zebras, donkeys, zedonks, potbelly pigs, and some others I know I'm forgetting, and finally go on a "train" ride. If you're in North Texas, you definitely need to check out Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch. We took 85-ish kids, 4 teachers, and lots of parents and EVERYONE had a great time. In fact, it was so fun that I left immediately after our staff meeting (that never happens), went home and took about a 2 hour nap. Whew. I bet my firsties' parents will have no trouble getting those sweethearts to bed tonight!

What We Love Wednesday - Working Together

I have a confession: I love to make charts, lists and posters. I was thrilled to be teaching graphing these last two weeks. AND I especially love making these things with my kiddos. It's engaging, it's authentic (because really I'm just recording their thoughts), and most importantly anchor charts are such a fabulous resource for the students to refer back to! I really wish I had room to keep up everything we make together, but we're a little space challenged in B103. These charts are what we made together today after brainstorming as many /er/ sound words as we could. They're not the most exciting charts we've ever made, but one of my sweeties told me I'm "like the best drawler in the class". :)

What We Love Wednesday - Wish Lists!

Hi there! Just making up another missed post, this one is from last Wednesday, April 6th. Last week all of the teachers/teams at school got the chance to make "wish lists" for the PTA Disbursement Committee. 1st grade was super lucky last year and our awesome PTA was able to get one of these (with a cd player) for each of us and we are SO loving them!

So after making our lists this week, Mrs. Claborn and I decided our posts would be about what we're wishing for this year. These 3 items are on my PTA wish list and they're all from... you guessed it- Lakeshore!

Fill in the Blank Phonics Stamps - Set 1

I think these would be such a great center, especially in the beginning of the year. I know I have some strugglers right now who could really benefit from and enjoy an activity like this!

Fill in the Blank Phonics Stamps - Set 2

Same as above, with more advanced phonics skills.

Sound it Out Phonics Puzzles Set

Do you see a pattern here? I really felt like I was lacking in my phonics centers. Since my first three years of teaching were in 2nd grade, I have lots of literacy centers for the second half of the year or for those advanced firsties. Of course, I have so many games that I've created or downloaded that target specific skills, and I love them, but I wanted some "insta-centers" that target several skills, benefit kids at different levels and abilities and can be used over and over again. And most importantly, I wanted activities that I could use in the beginning of the year when the kids are traning for independent centers. These skill building activities with short, simple instructions would be awesome to have and I'm crossing my fingers, hoping that I get them!

If you haven't yet, head on over and visit Mrs. Claborn at Burst of First and check out her wish list. She included some multicolored drawers that we're both eyeing and hoping to find on sale somewhere soon!

What's on your classroom wish list?

What We Love Wednesday - Writing

I'm doing a little make up work this morning and catching up on my "What We Love Wednesday" posts. Wednesday, March 30, Mrs. Claborn and I decided to write about writing. I left my computer at school that night and wasn't able to finish my post. Since then I've just been too busy and too exhausted to do anything but school and sleep. I am really missing my blogworld though so here I am.

What We Love Wednesday - Writing

(Wednesday, March 30)

I L-O-V-E STICKER STORIES. That is hands-down my most favorite writing activity. I love how this activity is multilevel, open ended and gives the students so much ownership and choice. I have a confession though... I spend a fortune on stickers. You see, I have an incredibly hard time making decisions. Of any kind. So when I see a wall of stickers at the teacher store, I am completely paralyzed - how can I choose between pandas or woodland animals? Or space aliens and transportation? Farm animals or zoo animals? Ok, I'll take them all! Sometimes I give the students parameters - for example, last time we'd been focusing on stories so they really had to make sure they included characters, and some kind of beginning, middle, end story. In the beginning of the year, they simply wrote about what was happening in the picture. As the year went on, they got more descriptive and we'd work on adding in our reading, writitng and grammar skills - using action words, characters, setting, using was/were, is/are, has/have appropriately... you get the idea! The only constant is that they can only choose two stickers. That way, they really have to visualize a scene and create it. In the first half of the year, I give the students a sticker story paper - it has a box at the top for their pictures and then lines on the bottom half for writing. Now that they're writing a little straighter, I just give them manila or white paper (not gonna lie, this started as a way to conserve copies).

My sticker collection - there's something for everyone! The space, kids, pandas and penguins are the favorites.



Here are my little authors working on their pictures and stories. These were all on the same day - I love how different they all are!

Some samples of the final products! I had to do a little editing to remove their names.



What's your favorite writing activity? 

What We Love Wednesday - Word Work!

Word work is such a HUGE part of my classroom, and if you're a primary teacher, probably yours too. We do word work a hundred different ways, several times throughout our day - we do word work in our fluency stations, centers, and of course the ELAR block. My most favorite word work activity has to be making words. I love it because it's multilevel, hands-on, and meaningful. What's even better? The kiddos love it too! 4 years ago I made a class set of letter cards and believe it or not - they've survived!

My tower of making words supplies 

 Each student has a baggie with his/her number on it. They use the same set all year and at the end of the year, they do an inventory so I can replace any missing letters. All vowels are copied on hot pink cardstock while consonants are on white. Having the vowels easily distinguishable really helps them sort through the letters and find what they need quickly, plus they know that every word they make will have to have a pink letter. Of course, it also reinforces the concept of vowels and consonants.  

These are another key piece to making words in my classroom. My kiddos LOVE using these letter trays. It also helps them keep the letters organized as they work. They place the given letters for the activity in the tray, and then have their desk work space to make words. All you need to make these is a handful of laminated file folders and a stapler!

And of course, I have something to share with you! Click the picture below to download the making words recording sheet I'm using this week. My mystery word this week is flowers, and the students are sorting for long o words. I also created it in in SMART so that after the students have worked on it independently we can meet together and share our words, or I can use it in small groups with some of my strugglers. I use the SMART version in split screen view so that page 1 with the letters is on the left and the students can manipulate the letters and make words, then the recording sheet is on the right. I use it with my laptop and Air Slate, but I'm sure you lucky ladies with SMARTBoards can use it too! I still haven't worked out posting a SMART file, so please click here to download it for free from TpT. If you can offer any help as to how I can post SMART files in the future without going through TpT, please let me know! I'd greatly appreciate it! Right now I work with Google Docs, and I don't think I can share the file that way.

Our Open House is tomorrow night and you know there are still TONS of things I want to do before then, so I'm off to bed! Goodnight Blog World!

What We Love Wednesday - Winners!

Thank you SO much for playing along and entering our first giveaway! Mrs. Claborn and I got to school early this morning and had a little fun putting the names in and drawing a winner!

Mrs. Claborn writing the names

The jar - who will it be?

Here I am drawing the name!

And the winner is... JANINE from Faithful in First!

Janine - Email Mrs. Claborn and I with the email address you would like the gift card sent to! Congratulations!

What We Love Wednesday - Giveaways!

Last week my teammate Mrs. Claborn from A Burst of First and I launched our first "What We Love Wednesday" posts. Our first posts were about something near and dear to us - technology, more specifically websites. Since this week is Spring Break, and giveaway fever is in the air, we decided our Spring Break edition of "What We Love Wednesday" should be all about the great giveaways going on now, as well as OUR VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY!

Awesome Giveaways Going On NOW:

• The girls over at What the Teacher Wants are giving away a $100 gift card to the Container Store! Imagine how much you could do with $100!!!

• Thirst for First and The Inspired Apple have teamed up to give away Abby's new adjective activity and an air popper!

• Check out The First Grade Parade to find out how you can win a $25 promotional code to use at any of the MANY CSN stores.

And finally.... OUR GIVEAWAY! We've been blogging since February 2nd and our baby blogs sure are growing, so it's about time, right?! We are SUPER excited to find out who will win a $25 gift certificate to SCRAPPIN' DOODLES! We love the price and selection of this adorable site and know you will too - you probably do already! Plus, I love that I can find what I need, buy it quickly, download and use! It's almost too easy... :) Here's what you need to do to enter:

1. Follow my blog - Leave me a comment to let me know you are now or already are following!

2. Follow A Burst of First - Leave her a comment to let her know you are now or already are following!

3. Doing those two things will get you one entry, and here's what you can do to get an extra entry : write a post on your own blog telling about our giveaway, then leave both of us comments with a link.



You have until midnight CST on Tuesday, March 22nd to enter. We'll announce the winner on next week's "What We Love Wednesday". Good luck!

What We Love Wednesday!

I really do LOVE my job. I work with some really great people and I am especially lucky to work with such a great group of 1st grade teachers. One of those wonderful teammates is Mrs. Claborn over at Burst of First. Last week we came up with the idea to link up every Wednesday for "What We Love Wednesday", starting this week with websites! Now, I realize that yesterday was Wednesday, but I had one thing after another to do after school yesterday and by the time I got home at 11 last night all I could do was fall in to bed. So it's Thursday morning and here I am!

What We Love Wednesday - Website Edition!

1. KidBlog.org

If you are not using this yet, you need to go check it out now! We started using it last week and the kids can't get enough of it! Its very user friendly, it's quick and easy to set up, and the kids can access it from home. You can post questions for the kids to answer by leaving a comment, or you can have your students create their own posts. It's also a great way to let other people get involved in your classroom. Our principal, technology teacher, math specialist and reading specialist all left comments and questions for us this week and the kids were SO excited to have "visitors"! I don't worry about what kinds of comments my students will leave for me, or each other, but I know that unfortunately sometimes we do have to think about that, so here's another great thing about KidBlog - all student comments have to be approved by you before they post . I wish I could take credit for discovering this awesome tool, but I saw it a few weeks ago over at Bishop's Blackboard.  

2. XtraMath.org

Again, I can't take credit for this discovery. I found it on this post by Heidi over at Swamp Frog First Graders. I am always looking for new ways to drill and practice fast facts. SO many of my kiddos are still counting on their fingers! I love this site for 3 reasons: its free, its accessible from home, and best of all it runs itself! Really. There are several videos that you can watch on their site if you want more information, including a video about how it can work in your classroom. We've been using it every morning for 2 weeks and it's working out really well. I use it when my kids finish morning work and calendar binders, but you could use it any time. The first six kids that finish hop on a computer and get to work on XtraMath. They take a quick quiz, and when they finish it pops up with another student's name. The finished student then taps the next student, and that continues until our morning work/calendar time is up. If someone is absent or busy, there are buttons to click and another student will be selected. The students can also click on their own names to bypass the random selection. Head over there now and set up your class!

Leave me a comment and share your favorite website(s)! Be sure to head over and leave one with Mrs. Claborn at Burst of First too!