All about reading!

Hey, ya'll!

I thought it was about time for another blog post! We've been back in school now for a few days since fall break. The kids have actually fallen right back into routine pretty easily!

I worked really hard first quarter to get them into routine during our small group reading hour. Last year, our team leader, made up her own reading routine to get her kids more exposure. She showed all of us what she was doing (because my principal gave us all time to observe during a school day!) and we fell in love and all did the same thing!

So, here's what we do during small group reading time. And it's NOT CENTERS!!!!

Back at the beginning of the year, after I heard everyone read, all of the kids were assigned to a book (or level of books). They keep their book in one of these bins for easy storage and access. The bins have nothing to do with groups or level or anything. I just slapped their names on to some chalk labels using chalk markers, and, BAM, that's where they keep their books, bookmarks, and reading journals. Fancy, huh?

The kids grab their book and take it somewhere in the room. I let them read anywhere they want to. I have not yet introduced pillows and the bean bag chair and the stuffed animals because I wanted them really and truly in reading routine before adding in anything that could be distracting! They HAVE TO read their book a minimum of 3 times for fluency. We talk A LOT about fluency in both reading and math. If they are not yet feeling fluent, and like a reading champion (GoNoodle reference), then they keep practicing.

The bookmarks have the ZooPhonics alphabet on them, N-Z is on the back.

After they've read it 3 times they get their recorder. I have 15 recorders and 20 kids, so for the sake of "fairness" (and to save some $ on AAA batteries) I am only using 10 recorders, so they all have to share. They record themselves reading their story out loud, and then, and this is HUGE, they LISTEN TO THEMSELVES!!! We go over what fluent and not fluent sounds like, and then they have to judge themselves on if they sounded fluent! If not, well, it's back to reading. Yes, I do spot check their recorders to make sure their reading really is fluent. We got the recorders because my principal is amazing, and incredible, and has mad budgeting skills that let her buy 15/teacher (60 total!).

This is one of my super strong readers, so he gets to just choose books instead of the leveled readers.

***NOT PICTURED***

After recording they get their reading journal. They use the sentence frame, "My favorite part of _____ is _____ because _____." and then they get to draw a picture. I am having my stronger readers also start writing a re-tell as well. We use "Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then". But some kiddos are not ready for the extra writing just yet. After Christmas they will ALL be doing the retell part as well.

The last step is for them to complete their phonics journal. I use this interactive notebook because it's amazing and has soooo many skills! We do a phonics mini lesson at the start of our small group time. We spent the entire first quarter on alphabet review, short vowels, and CVC, and we have now just started digraphs (sh, th, ch, wh).

Once their phonics notebook is complete they get to choose ONE center. They can do word work (mostly puzzles I got from Lakeshore where they build sight words and such, but also magnetic letters, and compound words, etc.) writing, or listening. For writing I use Cara Carroll's Work-On-Writing centers that she made last year. They are AH-MAZING!!! And then, after that ONE center, they go get their next book and the cycle starts all over!

How do students keep track of where they are at in the cycle, you ask??? Well, they have these handy-dandy laminated checklists! After each step they check the box and go on to the next step! When they've checked everything they know it is center choice time and they get to erase everything to get ready to start over.

My small group time runs from 9-10am Monday-Thursday. During this time our first grade reading specialist pulls kids out to read with her. She takes 2 groups from my class. The checklist makes it easy for the kids coming and going too because they know where they last left off since they move through things a little more slowly. Because all students are engaged in reading or writing for the entire hour I am able to read with them as well. It also gives me time to do running records and to progress monitor for DIBELS.

Yes, it's a lot of work to set up. Yes, it's really hard to be able to meet with any groups during the first quarter, so I didn't even try! I just made sure I was keeping up with assessments. But, you guys, it is SO effective! SO. EFFECTIVE. Kids need access to books that are ON THEIR LEVEL! They need to be reading and reading and reading to be able to improve. What we're doing does all of that! They get repeated practice with books on their level, they build their fluency, they practice writing, there's phonics worked in, and there's some fun at the end. Plus, lemme tell ya', once their in routine with this, it makes sub plans really easy for this hour! I am seriously in LOVE with how we are doing reading.

*Phew* That was a long one! Thanks for making it to the end! You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram

Routines and Procedures

Hello!

Let's chat about how I get my room up and running! There are quite a few little pieces that all have to come together to run an effective classroom. :)

The Rules:

I use Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom. (well, parts of it, but I want to add more!) So, we go over our 5 rules every single day. Complete with hand motions! At this point in the year, my calendar person is the one who actually leads the class, and it's SUPER cute! I'll have to record it one morning.

In the beginning of the year we talk about what all the rules mean and why we follow them, and then later in the year I can just say, "Rule 2" and they know EXACTLY what I mean! I have quite a few little guys who love to blurt out, so I love having an easy way to remind them that makes them stop for a second and think about what they're doing. 

Schedule: 

I am counting my schedule because we go over it Every.Single.Day. They know what each card is, and what we are doing during that time, and they are aware of any changes in our schedule as soon as they walk in and see it. It actually gets to the point where they're practically dependent on it, and if I forget to change something, they totally freak out and call me on it! But I'm glad they know where to look to see what's happening.

Active Listening:

This one is HUGE. Our entire campus made an Active Listening anchor chart as part of our first 20 days of school. They all have the same components to them, and every child knows what it meant by active listening. We build the chart together and go over every single piece. It is referred to all year, and all you have to do after a few weeks is say, "I need Active Listening." or, "I need 100%." and they will all immediately straighten up. It has also helped our reading and math specialists, and our specials teachers because they know that all the kids know this.

Partner Talk:
I follow Whole Brain Teaching for this one too! We all built the same anchor in first grade, but each teacher has made it fit her room. So, for the "wait until teacher tells you what and when to share" I use the "Teach/Okay" from WBT. I also assign partners using WBT, so, at the beginning, they are apples and trees, and right now they are stingrays and jellyfish, and then next month they'll be a new thing! Each month they get a new partner and a new thing to be. We also worked a TON on being able to share what your partner said to you instead of just what you said to your partner. :)

Volume Meter:

We did not do this last year, and I have seen it alllll over Pinterest and always wanted to try it, so when one of the teachers on our team just went ahead and did it, we all jumped right on board! It's pretty self-explanatory and it seriously works wonders. I even have kids saying things like, "we're on yellow right now, announcements are on."

Engagement:

This piece was also new this year, but it was really helpful to teach it! My kiddos are excellent at the WHAT and the WAY, but we seriously struggle with the WHEN. So, it's our class goal to get better at that part. I am often reminding them of Rule #1: Follow directions quickly! We did one piece of this each day and gave examples of what it would be like if we didn't do it. So, for the what, we played Simon Says, for the Way we did a guided drawing and stopped partway through as if we were done, and talked about how if we don't finish it the right way we'll never know what it is. And for then when we got them all hyped about doing something fun, and then stalled until we "didn't have time" and talked about how that felt, and then did the fun thing. Super duper effective! And my kiddos are finally getting better about that last part!

Phew! That was a long one! Thanks for sticking with it! It it SO true what they say about doing it right the first time. Spending tons of time on rules and procedures with really focused lessons in the beginning of the year, saves so much frustration later on!

The First 2 Weeks

Hello!

Looooong time, no blog! But here I FINALLY am again!

Don't let the title fool you, however, because we are currently in our 8th week of school. I just have not found the time to get anything posted. Like, AT ALL. So, here is a quick (poorly photographed) re-cap of our first few weeks.

First off, in my last post, I showed you guys the cute frame I make that said First Grade on it from the first day of school. Well, here are a few of the interviews we did to go along with our pictures! They came out SO cute! I also (finally) got them up in classroom where I'm going to keep them all year, and then at the end of the year we'll do the questions again to see how they compare. :)

Secondly, we started Zoo Phonics this year! Kinder kinds started it last year, and then this year K and 1 are committed all the way! Let me tell you, it's AMAZING! I have never ever seen such strong spellers this early in the year. Such an awesome program!

As part of the beginning of the year review we built our own alphabet zoos! Each group had some letters, and they had to find pictures of animals or things that started with their letter. They LOVED this! Loooooooved.

For the first two weeks of school we do Fables and Folktales. We read a Fable or Folktale each day, fill in the chart for the story elements, and then do some kind of craftivity. Here is the chart partially filled out! We also did Peter Rabbit, Anansi the Spider, The Fox and the Grapes, and one more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Here are our Anansi the Spiders that we made! We do this story last, so this craft just becomes that Friday's art project. :)

I also tend to read Rainbow Fish pretty early in the year because it's a fun and familiar story, and making the Rainbow Fish is always fun!

So there is a tiny peek into our first two weeks! In math we are working hard on subitizing and then we move into equality, and addition, and decomposing numbers. Then we just decompose and decompose and decompose so that we get TONS of practice with seeing what combinations make which numbers. It makes addition easier and faster, and makes story problems about a gazillion times easier too!

That's all I got for right now! I'm going to work my butt off to do more! I just could not find time between the start of the school year, moving from an apartment into a house, and starting grad school But now I have a better sense of my schedule and how to balance things, so I hope I can rock it second quarter with actually blogging regularly!

1st Day of School!

Hello, there!

I would just like to share that I successfully made it through the first day of school! I have 20 kiddos this year, and I can just tell that we are all going to have SO much fun!

I did not get a ton of photos because I was running around like a nut job all day, but I did take a few pictures of the name art project that we did.

We started off by going over rules, and procedures, and making sure everyone knew how they were getting home. Then we read The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi about a little girl from Korea on her first day of school. We followed that up with saying what makes us special, and then we put our names on large construction paper, and glued tissue paper squares to it, and I wrote what made them special on the bottom.

It was cute to hear what they felt made them special. I just wrote exactly what they told me! The next two pictures are of all the names hanging. My room is still only, like, 90% done, so when I get it all in place I will post a room tour. I WANTED to Periscope my room, but my school is way out in the desert and the wifi is not nearly strong enough.

In the afternoon we explored with our math manipulatives, and we played with our play-doh, and we watched Magic School Bus: Busasaurus! I also took all of their pictures in this adorable frame that I made! I was inspired by the one that I saw on @applesandabcs Instagram!

We're going to use the pictures to make a cute beginning of the year "All About Me" poster! Can't wait to share that! Overall, great first day, and I am ready for this year!

Back to School Tip!

Hello, lovelies!

I am linking up with Hanging Around in Primary and Pop Into Primary for their Back to School Tips linky! (Apparently all I do right now are linkys... HA!) They are working to build the little fish/big fish community, so definitely go check them out and see what's up! #littlefishteacherblogger

My B2S tip is be very very VERY flexible! There is so much that happens in the first few days/weeks of school that I find it best to just go with the flow. There will be testing, there will be new students, there will be assemblies, there will be generalized chaos... and on and on. If you don't want to go B-A-N-A-N-A-S then you gotta take and deep breath and let it goooo, let it goooo... (This is why I shouldn't blog super late)

Of course, still have things planned, and even have things over planned, but understand that these kiddos are just coming off of summer break. I teach first, and lemme tell ya, they are TIRED. They get cranky and hungry and just plain tuckered out. So if we don't get to every little thing in the first few days it just has to be okay.

Remembering that flexibility it the key to your sanity during back to school time will help to calm your frazzled nerves, and help to bring some peace to your room. Your kiddos are looking to you and are feeding off of your energy, the more easily you can roll with the punches the more fun everyone will have.

One quick example- last year, on the second day of school, I got my times all kinds of mixed up and was reading the clock wrong. I thought it was already 11 and time for lunch, but it was most definitely only 10. I brought my kids into the cafeteria where our fab lunch ladies just looked at me like I was NUTS. I quickly realized my mistake, and our lead lunch lady jumped in and had the kiddos all practice putting in their lunch numbers a few times! Day. Saved. We then went back to class and read a story and did some Go Noodle until it was actually lunch time! I was definitely more careful after that, but everyone was able to keep on going because I was able to keep on going! #mistakeshappen  #shakeitoff

Hope you enjoyed my tip, and go link up!