Independent Reading

I LOVE teaching reading!  I love watching the kids as they read their first book by themselves.  I love seeing students who didn't like reading get sucked into a series.  The only thing I don't like is managing the rest of the class while I have a reading group.  If you look back over my posts this year, I have shared the different systems I've tried. I like to set up systems with little to no maintence in my room.  Things need to stay consistent but challenging.  None of my previous systems did that.  Enter "Indpendent Reading" activities.  

I slowly created and introduced independent reading activities to my kids.  As their needs changed, I created new activities.  My kids love doing independent reading because they aren't always doing the same worksheets.  They now choose between 5 things: 

1. Tic Tac Toe

2. Buddy Reading

3. Weekly Book Study

4. Response Letters

5. Think Marks

Because of the wide range of abilities in my room, EVERYTHING is differentiated.  I tried to make the worksheets so that you could have students draw or write on them (when possible).  The activities work for books at almost any level (a-c level books don't have a lot of substance to them).  The fonts are easy to read and there are very few distractions on each page.  Besides the title page, everything is in black and white for easy printing.  There is lots of space for students to write (great for students who have poor handwriting).  

Now while I meet with reading groups, my students choose an independent reading activity to do.  When they have finished that, they work on (in any order): 

Spelling page or test

Sight Words (with an adult)

Activity Pockets & other "games" from Fcrr.org and TPT, stored in work drawers for pairs of students.  The games are sorted to work on targeted skills for each child.  

(Sorry for the terrible pic)

Reading Skills Book which have worksheets that fit their needs pulled from different places...some are working on vowel sounds, some on blends, some have word families, some have inferencing pages...it all depends on their needs.  

My students, aides, and I all agree that this is the best system we have done all year.  It is flexible for students who have many therapies (and aide breaks), everyone is working on targeted skills, and it isn't dependent on a set time schedule so I can deal with meltdowns without disrupting the center rotations.  You can grab my reading activities here!  

Also, if you haven't heard, Teachers Notebook is having a May Teaching Tips Event.  When you sign up, you get over $100 in products for free!  Click the picture below to sign up!

I'm still here!

What a year this has been!  I'm not a first year teacher but this was my first year in a self-contained classroom (previously I was a resource room teacher) so I certainly felt like a first year teacher!  This quote describes my year perfectly!

I have learned so much this year through trial and error.  It has been a balancing act between not changing routines too often but still figuring out what systems work for me & the students (and the aides).  I'll be sharing everything I learned this year (soon) so you can learn from my mistakes :) 

Numbers

Every day I teach 3 different curriculums. I have 2 students who are at a kindergarten level. We have been working on learning numbers 1-25 all year! There are only so many ways to go over these numbers! Today, I had one of my girls work on a counting cats activity. She first had to put the numbers in order 1-25. Then she had to count each cat card to match it to the number card. By about half way through she was no longer skipping any numbers while counting! Now she asks to use the cat cards every day! It seriously made my week to see how far she has come this year :) {cards are available in my teachers notebook store}

Behavior Management Tip

Do your students start acting up around this time of year?  The kids at my school definitely are!  Maybe it's all those indoor recess days along with 3 months of school with no breaks.  One day last week, my students came into the room bouncing off the walls so before we started morning work I told them that I would pick someone who clipped up that day to choose a prize before dismissal.  Suddenly all most of the kids were focused on doing everything they could to get clipped up.  It worked so well that I decided to do that every day.  They really needed a more immediate reward for good behavior.   The kids are better behaved and I'm actually giving out less prizes because only 1 person a day gets a prize instead of most of the class getting 1 a week.  Now I don't have to remember to give them a sticker or stamp every day and there is never a line at the prize box on Friday. 

Oh Life

This is not teaching related at all but it's something I wanted to share.  Have you heard of Ohlife.com?  It's an online private journal website.  After you sign up {it's free}, the site will send you a daily email asking you about your day.  You simply reply to the email and it is saved to your journal.  Occasionally, they will send you an old post you made.  You are the only person who can see your journal so you can write anything without judgement :)  There is so much going on at work that I can't share publicly so it's nice to have a place to "vent" privately.  Here is a picture of the homescreen...click it to check out the site!

100th Day of School

Tuesday was our 100th day of school!  I had the K-1 class join mine to do activities all day.  I finally remembered to take pictures!

Here a student is making a picture using cut outs of 100.

This group of littles are making a castle using 100 cups.  It fell down so they made a tower instead.  Hands down, this was everyones favorite activity!

These guys are building something with 100 legos.

We put 10 dots on 10 strips of paper and attached them to a sentence strip for our 100 day hats.

This student is working on her 100 book.  The prompts were: I wish I had 100, I wouldn't want 100, I could eat 100, I couldn't eat 100, and If I had $100 I would buy...

We also did skip counting to 100 puzzles, made strung 100 cheerios onto string, and did a making words sheet with the words "Hundred Days".  

This was a fun day for the kids {and for me}...we all needed a break from the regular routine and stress from upcoming annual reviews.

Centers {Finally}

I feel like I've talked and thought about centers for MONTHS!  I've actually done 2 different systems.  This post is my first system.  I started with a Daily 5 type set up.  I made each student a laminated card:

The read to self center is self explanitory.  I also had students listen to a story and do a response sheet.  They could build words at the word work center.  In the work on writing center, students could write recipes, comics, letters, or make their own books.  The last center was sight words where they worked 1 on 1 with an adult on learning their sight words.

On the back of each card, I velcro-d the students picture.  Students could choose the order they wanted to do the centers in.  They just stuck their picture to the center poster which were hanging around the room.  Only 2 students were allowed at a center so I only put 2 pieces of velcro on each poster.  When there are no more spots to stick your picture - move to a new center!

I had an aide at each center (expect read to self) to help the students.  I gave each aide a binder describing exactly what to do and tracking sheets to monitor students work/progress.

I really liked this system because it gaves students a choice and they rotated who they were with.  The problem I had with this was the aides left their centers to take breaks and to take kids to therapies.  At that point, there was nobody to assist the students with tasks like reading sight words so I changed things up again...stay tuned to see what I did! (I promise it won't take a month to post again!)

12 in 12

I'm linking up with Miss Kindergarten and A Teeny Tiny Teacher for the 12 in 12 linky party!  Click the picture below to link up too!!

My 12 favorite things!

12. Favorite movie you watched: 21 Jump Street - I think movies should make you laugh

11. Favorite TV series: New Girl & The Mindy Project

10. Favorite restaurant: Mogul's - a local Indian restaurant - SO good!

9. Favorite new thing you tried: Teaching a self-contained classroom instead of resource room...I LOVE having my kids all day, even the days they suck all the energy out of me!

8. Favorite gift you got: My new humidifier: 

It's the round white thing...Waffles was not pleased that there was steam coming out of it.

7. Favorite thing you pinned:

Probably this...it gave me inspiration for making my own bulletinboard sets....so adorable!

6. Favorite blog post: My Favorite blog post(s) are the Peek at My Week posts...I should probably do them more!

5. Best accomplishment: Finishing Grad School!!!

4. Favorite picture(s):

My two new neices!

3. Favorite memory: Road Trips this summer with Dave

2. Goal for 2013: Have more fun!

1. One Little Word: Relax

2, 4, 6, 8!

I've been dreading introducing multiplication to my class. I have been using Touch Math in my room...well by "using Touch Math" I mean I printed off some packets from the touch math kits.  I only taught the touch points to 2 students.  I told the rest of the class to just ignore the touch points and add like they usually would.  They didn't listen.  As I walked around, I noticed that EVERYONE was using the touch points without me teaching them!  When it was time for subtraction, I let them choose which packet they wanted - touch points or no touch points.  They all picked touch points.  One day instead of doing math, we just talked.  I asked them why they wanted touch points, because all but 2 of them could add without them.  Their answers surprised me....the touch points took the anxiety out of math for them!  They said things like: "I don't need a number line now" "I lost my place on the number line" "I don't have to think as hard".  They LOVE touch math.  

I decided to go find the upper touch math kits to see how they teach multiplication.  They use skip counting...students have to skip count by 9's to multiply by 9.  To me, that seems incredibly hard BUT last year, I had a student who learned to multiply that way.  He taught himself to skip count quickly....like insanely fast.  So I figured I would focus my multiplication instruction on skip counting and see what happens! 

As I said in previous posts, I am starting centers when we get back from break.  Since I'm also starting multiplication, I decided to make some simple center activities (and posters). 

Here is a sample of the posters (Sorry the edges are cut off a little): 

 Here are some center cards...students can either skip count and put the cards in order (2, 4, 6, 8) or match the problems to the answers. 

I made 2 different sizes for these cards...below is the larger version: 

Finally, I wanted to give my students the visual of hopping over numbers down a number line so I made cards with numbers 1-100.  I also included a frog game piece that students can make hop by 3's (or whatever number).  

I have a few other activity ideas for these cards but I'm saving them for when I can take pictures of them in my classroom.  If this is something you could use in your room, check it out here!  Remember, everything in my store is 20% off until January 1st!!

New Pinterest Boards

Hello Readers! 

I hope you all are enjoying your time off, I know I am!  I don't think I ever stop thinking about school.  I decided to start centers the day we go back to school for both reading and math.  I've been pinning ideas like crazy for my reading centers so I decided to create some new boards specifically for center ideas.  Tonight I worked on a word work center board and a listening center board.  There are soooo many materials out there, most of them free!  I am not going to spend my time reinveting the wheel and you shouldn't either. Go check out my new (and old) boards for ideas for your centers!  I will post more about the centers as I set them up and actually implement them.  

Also, follow me on Pinterest if you don't already...I'm VERY good at keeping up with pinterest (unlike the blog lately).  

I'll leave you with a few items from my pinterest boards: 

Use an inflateable pool (or a large cup or bowl) to "fish" for letters to make words. 

Make listening center folders with response sheets in page protectors or laminated.  This way students can write on them over and over again.  Collect their folders once a week, check their work, and have them erase everything.  It cuts down on the amount of copying you need to do.  

P.S. Don't forget about my sale...ends January 1st! 

Grad School Sale!

Here are some items available in my store all at 20% off: 

Math Work Stations

Science Journals

Prompting Guide

Readers Notebook

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  Enjoy your few days off :)

Work Drawers & Sale

The most common question I hear from teachers is "What do your kids do while you are meeting with small groups?"  As a resource room teacher, I didn't have to worry about that.  However, now I have 9 students with special needs at 9 different levels who need customized work while I meet with each of them 1 on 1 or in pairs.  My biggest reading group is 2 students.  I started the year with individualized work folders.

You can read about those here.  Basically, I was printing individualized work for all the students every day...a lot of books from Reading A to Z.

Here are the bins.

Inside each crate, each student had a folder for Monday-Friday.  

My principal has limited our paper and ink supply so I had to come up with a new plan.  It was also a lot of prep work to make that many books and packets a week.  My new plan was to use work drawers.  I inherited a cabinet full of games and activities.  I assigned each child a drawer (a few students share a drawer but again, no more than 2) and loaded it with games and activities that target the skills the students are working on.  I now change the drawer contents once a month.

I bought dry erase labels from Martha Stewart at Staples for the drawers.  I recommend writing with wet erase markers because as the kids touched the drawers, the writing started to come off.  

Each morning my students had to complete a checklist before going to their work drawer.  The checklist changed a little but it was something like: 

Journal Writing

Spelling Page

Sight word flash card practice

Sight word book (2 pages)

Phonics book (3 pages)

As the students worked, I pulled my reading "groups" over.  

I really like this system because it is very low maintence and the routines are easy to teach.  The drawers also served as my "When I'm Done" work.  My biggest problem with it is that so many of my students need adult support to read the directions and make sure they aren't practicing wrong. The other problem is that during times like the week before Christmas, it was slightly too unstructured.  The kids were bouncing off the walls (some literally jumped on walls).  Maybe I'm the grinch but I like a quiet, structured classroom so starting after break, I'm going to attempt centers (again). 

 Any advice as I work on setting centers up over break? 

Also - I'm going to have a Sale from December 26th to January 1st in my store to celebrate finishing Grad School!!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Guided Reading Plans

I am not a fan of writing lesson plans.  I love teaching and thinking of ideas but actually writing plans down is not something I do well.  I keep changing my plan format because I need something easy to fill in but comprehensive.  I decided to search in my new favorite search engine {pinterest} and found this format:

(Click the picture to be taken to the product)

I like it for a lot of reasons.  First, it is so easy for a sub to follow which is important! Second, it is pretty much a checklist so it's easy to fill in but I have room to write in discussion questions, vocab words, and my own teaching points.  I will also add an assessment and objective to the plan.  Third, the format follows the guided reading routine that I use in my room which is nice :) Finally, I needed a plan format that isn't super "cookie cutter" like many checklist formats.  This one changes for each reading level (I'm assuming she used Fountas and Pinnell's contiuum of literacy to make this) so it is customized for each students level.  

The pack also includes a sheet for observing behaviors at each level so it's easy to track progress.

I bought the A-N pack for $5 and am very happy but in my search, I also pinned a bunch of plan formats so head over to my pinterest boards to check them out if you're interested!  

Candy land

Did you go black Friday shopping?  I did but I didn't go early this year because I didn't really want much.  One thing I did get was Candy Land which I turned into letters and letter sounds candy land :) 

I simply wrote letters on all of the cards - capital and lower case.  I also labeled all the pieces and box with the number 1 because I may make different games too.  

To play, students will have to identify the letter before moving.  You could also have them identify the letter and letter sound or a word that begins/ends with that sound. 

I bought four candy lands (I figured I'd come up with a ton of ideas if I only bought one).  I'm thinking about writing sight words on one set AND making a place value one.  Students could round the numbers or write them in expanded or word form.  You could also do math facts and whoever answers first can move to that color.  The possibilities are endless!  Please comment with your ideas!!  

Update: Mel from Seusstastic  has a bunch of Candy Land ideas!  Thanks Jennifer for letting me know!

I'm Thankful For

I am thankful for all of my followers and all of the teacher bloggers out there who are sharing wonderful materials and ideas.  I feel like I say this a lot here but your blogs and products have been a life saver to me! It is not easy to keep up with a blog while teaching so thank you for your time and dedication.  If you are like me and you sitting online looking for some fun filler ideas for this short week, I have a freebie for you!  

Click on the picture to download the writing paper.  There is a black and white version too.

Have a great short week everyone! 

Pumpkin Book Reports

This week my littles worked on their pumpkin book reports.  I used this amazing file from Hope King for all the materials.  My students LOVE to read.  Just as a reminder, I have 7 second and third graders who are reading between non readers and level F.  I let them choose whatever book they wanted but I did pull some easier readers out for students who wanted a smaller selection to choose from.   I did book talks for the books I pulled out.

Once the books were chosen, the students read them with me or an aide - several times.  Not all at once, but throughout the two weeks.  I wanted to make sure they knew the story extremely well.

Then we had hurricane days so instead of spreading this project out over a few days, we did it all on Halloween.  Here is our hall display:

I have more pictures but they all have my students in them. 

Every.Single.Teacher stopped in to say how adorable these pumpkins were.  If you haven't done this project, you should!  

Book sale

Every year, my area has a giant book sale. They open a huge warehouse filled with books. Anything $10 or less becomes $1. $13 -$10 is $2 and so on...my point is everything is super cheap! Look at what I got for $36:

  

That is 13 hardcover Patricia Polacco books! I was freaking out everytime I saw more and throwing them gently placing them in my bags.  Here are the other books I bought as well:

And finally, I bought 2 baby books.  2 of my 3 siblings are having babies this year (one was just born :D) so I grabbed these adorable baby books for them.  I actually bought the same one for myself the last time I went to the book sale haha.  

Tomorrow, I will post the super cute pumpkin book reports we made during our fall party!  

Calendar Time

Calendar time has changed a lot in my room this year, as I expected it would (as well as everything else!).  I think I keep changing things because I want everything to run as smoothly as possible.  I don't want to change my calendar every day and update all the little calendar journal pieces. Until I figure out my dream set up, things will change!  It may change again but here is what I am doing currently: 

This is the interactive calendar from Starfall.com .  My students used this in their K-1 room so I thought, why not continue to use it!  It doesn't cover everything I wanted  needed it to but it is a set calendar routine that I don't have to do anything for.  The students can run calendar time because they already learned the routine from the previous teacher.  

Here is how I'm supplementing the calendar: 

This is a calendar journal that I got for FREE at Eberhart's Explorers.  Click on the picture to be taken to her post & freebie.  My lower level students will use this journal.  It is fairly simple, doesn't require a lot of writing, and it provides repetitive practice of the basics.  

For my higher students, I just purchased this: 

I wanted my higher kids to work with addition, subtraction, time, and money daily as well. Click on the picture to go to the item on TPT ($1.50 - and it came with larger sheets to make a calendar wall).

I'm always looking for different calendar journal/number of the day sheets.  What do you use?