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Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my blogging buddies and teaching friends. I hope your week has been warmed by many "gifts." Whether they be a smile, a homemade card, or an extra hug, I know your students appreciate each and every one of you. You have made a mark, sparked a memory and have forever helped shape the future! Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
Teacher Appreciation Week may be coming to an end, but the celebration isn't over yet! Teaching Blog Roundup is teaming up with 20 of the best blogs to host this Teacher Appreciation FREEBIES Roundup blog hop.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! I would like to show my appreciation with this great freebie for you.
First, I'd like to give a special thank you to Teresa from Fun in K/1 for inviting me to join this inspirational group of bloggers. Now, on to my Freebie. I'm actually pretty excited to share with you my "Read It to ME Fluency Cards." You know when you have a project (or two, or three) hanging over your head? A project you can't wait to complete so that you can use it with your students? Well, my newly created set of fluency cards is exactly this type of project.
These cards are hot off the press! I'm laminating them right as I am typing this post. You use these to jazz up your guided reading. When it's the part of your guided reading lesson when your students need to read, pick a card to give them a way to sound while reading. For example, they may read like a robot, like they have a cold, like they are a rapper, like they are a karaoke star, etc. I am pleased to have put together 28 fluency cards to try out. I already know my first graders will love these!
In addition, I plan to use these cards for buddy reading. Each pair of reading buddies can select a card and read to their partner following the card's description. Check out some examples.
I have ideas ready to go to make a part II of this item. Let me know how they work with your readers. I love your feedback. Do you have an idea for a card you'd like to share? Leave me a comment.
I'm glad you hopped by! If you are new to my blog and liked what you see, don't forget to follow me! I'm on Facebook, Teachers Pay Teacers and Pinterest.
Now head over to Preschool Wonders to roundup the next FREEBIE!
We Appreciate you!
What is stamina and how does it apply to reading you may ask? I found this anchor chart on Pinterest that's a good start.
I've been reading a lot of the importance of building reading stamina in our young readers for quite some time. My interest in this topic stemmed from a discussion of a monthly data leadership team meeting in my school. We were talking about reasons why our students were not getting certain items correct on our practice standardized tests when we knew they "knew" the answers. My colleagues felt as if the students grew tired as the practice test went on, were not giving their all or as if they simply gave up.
As a first grade teacher, and literacy instructor, I wondered what can we do to "boost their performance." My response was that we need to build our students' stamina. I feel too often students are reading in guided reading groups or with buddies. There's not enough time built into the day for our young readers to read books at their independent reading level for an extended period of time. The importance of this time is necessary to build a community of strong readers which is essentially our goal as teachers--not to raise standardized test scores.
Independent reading to me means a lot more that just having my students read quietly to themselves. This block of times starts with a minilesson or link to a previous reading lesson. For this, I remind students what particular reading strategy we have been learning. I let them know that they have watched me model the strategy, have helped me with the strategy whole class and have done the strategy in small guided reading groups with my help. It's now time for them to practice using the strategy independently. During independent reading time, I circulate and offer assistance to those students that need it. After independent reading, we have a discussion about which strategies we used and how they helped us overcome reading obstacles.
Everyone gets independent reading time, not just my advanced readers who finish everything early. This time is especially important to my middle and my struggling readers too! Research shows that way too often this population does more worksheets, computer interventions, skills in isolation, etc. when what they need is to be engaged in more reading in books at their appropriate level! Read longer and get stronger.
Reading Rockets defines stamina as "being able to stick with something for periods if time." This "endurance builds strength." It offers these tips for parents which easily apply to what we need to do as teachers.
1. Vary the way the reading is done, especially for new or struggling readers. The three ways to do this are "read to self," "read to a buddy" or "listen to reading." This visual (another Pinterest find) shows reading by yourself, reading to buddy and I'm not too sure of the third icon.
2. Make sure all books read are "just right." A child should be able to decode almost every word in an independent book correctly. Books should interest the child and come from a variety of genres.
3. Set reasonable reading goals. For toddlers and preschoolers, it's difficult for them to sit for a long time, regardless of how engaging the book may be. Start with just a few minutes and then build up from there. Elementary-aged readers should start with 10-15 minutes. A few minutes can be added every few weeks or so.
4. Take time to celebrate and chart progress. Make a graph. Talk about the books, recommend a book to a buddy, go to the library to get more books, etc.
In the older grades, reading stamina is essential in order to navigate through longer text of various forms. It's never too soon to start to build it! Built from the inspiration in the visuals, I came up with a few posters to use with my students. You can get your copy as part of Manic Monday's Classroom Freebies.
It's been a real crazy time of the year! No school this past Friday and no school today = 100 Day and Valentine's Day on THE SAME DAY. Yikes! Tomorrow night is our Family Literacy Night (blog post to come). Can you say crazy? I've decided to celebrate Valentine's Day with a quick and fun writing workshop. I plan to do this tomorrow, so I may post some pictures when I'm done. Just in case your week is going to be as hectic as mine, I thought I would share this item. Get it by clicking HERE.
First, I plan to read aloud some fun Valentine's Day poems from this book by my favorite children's poet, Jack Prelutsky.
After that, we will brainstorm things that we "love" on chart paper. I always like to start with a nice "work bank" to get the creative juices flowing. Next, for prewriting, I plan to have students list BIG and little things they love. We have been working on categories, so this fits in nicely. I love when that happens. Here is the organizer I have created.
After a quick edit, I will have my young authors copy their lists in random order on a heart I plan to copy onto construction paper. Little things will be written small and BIG things will be written, well...LARGE, of course. Two heart halves have been included for you to trim and assemble to make a whole heart. I hope you and your students have a fantastic Valentine's Day AND an exciting 100 Day if, like me, they are close together. Looking for more fun Freebies like this one? Click below.
The first grade in my school (all three classes) was fortunate to have pumpkins for each child donated this year. WOW! I had always wanted to make pumpkin globes, so this was my chance. It was definitely a project! I was very careful and knew it would be important to test each step ahead of time. Also, my two grade one team members and I put our heads together to come up with a variety of solutions when we ran into trouble with this project. The result is these fool proof directions for you to enjoy. They look fantastic, so save this blog post for next season.
First the pumpkins got cleaned with a bleach wipe. After they dried, we used a small sponge to dab on acrylic blue paint. Water based paint will not stick to the pumpkin. We even did the bottoms of the pumpkins and lay them back right on the newspaper. I placed the paint in cleaned meat trays for easy disposal. Also, each desk was covered with a sheet of newspaper.
Here are the pumpkins set out to dry on my kidney table. The children thought they looked like Smurfs... so true. After they were fully dried, I sprayed the pumpkins with a clear, acrylic spray. Make sure it is low odor! Also, I used the gloss can because I wanted the pumpkins to shine. I let the pumpkins dry and resprayed them two more times (see below). For about 20 pumpkins, I bought two cans and had plenty left over.
In the meantime, I conducted a few geography mini-lessons. My goal was to introduce my students to the following points.
•Maps and globes show our planet in different ways
•Our planet has more water than land
•There are 7 main continents
•There are 4 main oceans
•Being a cartographer (map and globe maker) means being as accurate as possible.
I used these catchy poems by Evan-Moor. They came from an old big book of poems. I tried to find the item, but I don't think it's made anymore.
Next, students colored a set of labels for the continents green. You see them in the photograph above. I printed these out from a geography blackline I had. I printed them on full page labels made by Avery. The box said they worked in copiers. After that, the students cut out the labels and stuck them on. We did this together, label by label. I had plenty of maps and blow up globes around. I also used Google Earth on my ENO board. If you have not checked that out yet, let me say WOW! I was able to spin the globe around and zoom in and out. Click HERE to download this.
Before the labels were put on, I had a helpful parent cut out leaves out of foam board and write each child's name on them for me. I punched a hole in the leaf and tied it on with two shades of green curly ribbon to look like vines.
Here is the finished project. I love these!
Simply click HERE to printout a free set of the globe poems and directions for making this terrific project. Happy Haunting to All!
Happy Thursday, which for me means the end of my summer program work week. To celebrate, I have just finished my "Classroom Clap" Cards. This is a quick and fun idea to give both you and your students a round of applause throughout the day. Just click here, download, print and laminate.
You can have your students of all ages do a different applause to celebrate a job well done each day of the month! This is a favorite among all my students. This freebie will be up all of August. Be sure to check out my other items and like me on facebook. Enjoy.
Happy Monday friends! I have just updated cloze activities, an at home interview project for a "Now and Long Ago" unit, a colorful noun sort, a "primary friendly" editing checklist and a simple work work mat. Best of all, I have updated my TpT store's freebie. Here's a picture. Just click here to get it. This tool is perfect for Guided Reading. It allows your readers to interact with the text in a hands on manner. It's perfect for them to use when articulating their thinking as readers.
