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?

"Weather" You Want to Read This Or Not!

It was a busy week in my room as we opened up a unit on weather and started reviewing the seasons and weather. Try talking about the seasons when you live in southern California! We were laughing ourselves sick over this but we grounded in with lots of photographs from the internet and some great books. The biggest hit was making a child the meteorologist of the day! The kids loved this so much and we used this little number to record their thinking when they stuck their heads out the door: 

 I asked them how hot or cold it felt outside and what the sky looked like. They were so invested in answering me! We review this chart so the children have the academic vocabulary to do this. I posted these cards on a magnetic board within their reach so they can use bright round magnets to show their response!

Once our meteorologist has determined the weather we record it in our little book. I model how to draw the weather under the document camera and we write a simple sentence together. This provides an opportunity to talk about the conventions of writing. The students love this simple, little journal.

We had some much fun reading about snow and polar bears this week and the best part of the week was doing a blubber experiment where students put on a glove (filled with Crisco) and stick both hands in ice water. Oh my goodness this was hilarious and so much fun for them. We told them the polar bear is able to live in such a cold climate because of his blubber which keeps him warm. Let's not go there with my blubber. No wonder I am always hot.

My students cannot get enough of "Write the Room" activities and ask me for these all the time. I taught them how to do this during small group instruction where I could guide them. I let them use clipboards but I could see what they needed more help with. Now my head is spinning with ideas to keep their enthusiasm going!

We are still plugging away on beginning sounds but many of my students can do this independently so we are moving on to ending sounds and those CVC words. I have so many packets to support their learning that I can't wait to show them.
Have a great week of teaching... teach like your hair is on fire!

Busy and Almost Dizzy

Have you been crazy, busy this week? I have so much going on in my classroom. We are heading towards report cards and conferences and I really struggle with comments that don't sting but need to be addressed. I think I have learned over the years how to take the "bite" out of anything but still getting my point across. Even so, it takes me hours to do this. We were off for Thanksgiving but gave out our conference slips just before leaving. Yikes... no one will even remember there is a conference so I came up with this: This is just a "friendly" reminder so I don't sit around waiting. Will it work? I will let you know.

I tried to use other hw that some of the very best bloggers gave me. So much of it was amazing quality and finally it gave me the confidence to create my own. Why? We work at a very different pace because our kids are ELL's. We need to build their academic language along with the Common Core. I also use Open Court with a very specific phonemic awareness framework. I don't give a ton of hw either. I want the kids to get a break and spend time with their family.

So here are some of the things I created for this unit and they are all aligned carefully to the Common Core.

I always post the Big Idea and Essential Questions because you want to refer to these and make your students aware of them. Ask them, "Did we answer this question?" "What do we know now?" "Has this changed our thinking?" 

This is a great visual to keep near your calendar. It can be done quickly and easily by the "meteorologist of the day." Clothespins are used to mark the type of weather and the temperature. The graphics really help support your student's understandings.

Here are 2 little books I made to reinforce the sight words we are working on right now. Our students confuse he and she frequently and I am hoping this will help them practice this language. I love trimming books with washi tape just to jazz them up a little. This is a version of paper dolls for weather! Okay don't judge.

I needed to add some math activities to this and I love using these weather frames for practicing counting and writing numbers.I also made umbrella cards with raindrops to 50. We need to practice these for sure!

I like to have my students practice working in collaborative groups and this is an activity for that purpose. I will make a recording sheet for them to use and share with the class. Our students need lots of opportunities to present in front of the class.

That's it for today. I have to finish this weather packet but I got a lot of activities made over this break in spite of having a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and shopping more than I should have.