We Are All Over Those Mean Teens

We have worked on those "mean teens" all week and the kids loved this Sparkle Reader so much. They actually stamped into a ten frame using the back of a new pencil and a red stamp pad. This was so exciting to them and they really did a great job. Stamping can put my teeth on edge if I am really being honest. I am not a big fan of red ink all over your hands, clothes, and mouth... yuck.

The big conversation was about filling the first frame completely and then moving on to the second one for the additional ones. The text in the book supported their learning and they got to trace each number, as well as "rainbow write" it. THEY LOVED THIS ACTIVITY! I think the repetition of this activity and the use of manipulatives to get them ready for this book made a huge difference. They get it. If you want this reader it comes in a set of 4. You can go to my TpT store and it is very well priced. Pick that little number up right here.  They are so proud of these books and I love making readers for math concepts.

I love these frames so much and they are only a dollar each at Ikea. For weeks I have tried to come up with an activity for using the bigillion extra ones I purchased but nothing came to my brain until WHAM... it hit me. I can do write the room activities and move them around the room where ever I want because they stand up on their own. I love that you can use the front and back of the frame too! Because we are learning about weather...yup those little cuties are all dressed in different clothing. Awesome, right?

The kids were in love with this activity and I was in love with their engagement. It was SILENT when they were recording. Scary silent. I love scary silent. My more capable kids worked on this independently and the kids who find this kind of word work challenging did it with a partner. I am making these for math, word work, and sight words. Any other brilliant ideas? Who is on board with this idea?

Have a great start to the month of February and come back to visit soon!

What Will the Weather Be? Ask Our Meteorologist!

So we made a cloud in our classroom and the children loved putting this together. They learned how to fan fold paper which they loved doing. The results were so cute and now they are hanging in the window of our classroom.

My teaching partner Dawn made this adorable visor for the "meteorologist of the day" who gives us the daily weather report. They love it and it took her very little time to make. The visor came from Michaels and cost a dollar. It looks hilarious on our kids and they love it! Score. The weather journals are simple and another big favorite with our students. I do a guided drawing and a simple sentence under a document camera. We use twistables (crayons) which make them look so nice. The book on the right is an emergent reader that we are working on this week. It is simple but effective. I love easy stuff! 

I have been working hard on teaching my students how to work collaboratively and have been building activities for them to practice these skills. It has been challenging but the pay off has been huge and they are really doing a great job. We practice these skills frequently and they are making so much progress.

At this time of the year my students are working on counting, writing, and identifying teen numbers. I have been busy making games to keep them engaged and interested in practicing these skills. This is challenging but they are coming along... I love talking about those "mean teens" that are so hard to deal with.

This is another "write the room" activity back by popular demand to help my students build their academic vocabulary. They love taking their clipboard and searching for our wacky weather words. Enough for now. I hope you had a good break from school and now I am off to bed.
Have a great week of teaching and let's stay connected! What weather activities do you love to do?