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Showing posts with label Back to school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Back to school. Show all posts

Making Classroom Jobs Manageable!

So... I have a confession. At the beginning of each year, I promise myself to keep up with classroom jobs. I swear that I will give out new jobs each Monday. I will give the kids time do their jobs in the morning and when we pack up. It all plays out so perfectly in my mind... Then, comes week 3 of school, we get busy, we run out of time. Real school starts and... well... class jobs stop existing! I forget about them (ok, I ignore them). I pretend that we never even had them. Then, week after week after week after week (you got the point) my kids remind me that we need to do jobs. We do them, they take up 15 minutes because I forgot to mark down who had what jobs and then the kids are arguing. Basically, I think classroom jobs are a nightmare.  If they work for you, great! For me, I just can't!

I do not want to take away the student's abilities to help out in the classroom because their help really makes a big difference in how much I can get accomplished! I love having student help. I just needed a more manageable way of getting their help that didn't actually take up MORE of our precious time.

So, now we have weekly workers. Literally, all I do is switch out two sticky notes to assign new students their jobs... that's literally it! Like for real, so easy!


Here's a peek at how I make it work and make it a little more fun for the kids! :-) 
Integrating fun is a MUST! They feel such a sense of pride.

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I have two types of jobs in my room.
The first is called, Weekly Workers. 

To set up, I get out sticky notes. I put them in two equal piles. I write ALL of my students names on the sticky notes. I stick the two piles on my Weekly Workers poster. Each week the two names up top are the students who are in charge of all the class jobs. On Friday afternoon, I move those students names to the bottom of the pile to reveal next weeks new Weekly Workers. It takes like, 2 seconds! YES!


When weekly workers are working, which is normally in the morning and afternoon - I have little worker hats for them to wear while they're working. That way, everyone knows they're working. It also makes them feel a sense of pride. <3 it.="" love="" p="" they="">


As a little gift to the students, I also give them Weekly Worker necklaces. They can wear it all week long and take it home at the end of the week!
I prep all of these at once, so they just grab one when it's their turn to be the worker. 




I also have a poster displayed that tells the workers what their jobs are for the week. The jobs don't really change, but if I ever need something extra done (like stuff cut out) then, I can add it to their job list.



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I also give two other students jobs for the week as well to get more students involved (and save my sanity). I call these ones station coaches. I don't know how I would get through rotations without my coaches. They're the biggest help!

It's the same idea as seen above. Write all students names on sticky notes, make two piles, rotate the names. This one though, I am a little more choosy on who I pick. This is an IMPORTANT job and I make sure to tell my kids that. If they're someone who doesn't listen well or stay on task then they can't be hired yet for this job until they show me they can do so.

I advertise this job as a privilege. 


Here are the jobs the coaches do during stations. It's a lot, but honestly, they aren't bothered that much. My favorite job that they have... bathroom permission! Ahh... it's amazing - no one comes to the teacher table to ask. 


The station coaches, also get hats to wear while they're working. Since they're coaches, I thought a ball cap was definitely appropriate! 


They also get necklaces to wear as well. 


If you have trouble keeping up with classroom jobs like me, I encourage you to check this out. 
You will not regret it!

You can find it here:









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First Week of First Grade!


My new firsties and I just finished up our first week (3 days) of first grade!
 I must say, we are off to one amazing start! 
Here is some of the stuff we accomplished this week for our first week of first grade! 


The very first thing we did on the first day of school, after we introduced ourselves was make our Good Morning chart. (Images from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits) A HUGE mistake I made last year was not having a flow chart for the morning and afternoon. It was a major priority this year! Students have been rocking their morning and afternoon routine so far! 

After we created our morning routine, I introduced students to their morning tubs. We talked about not throwing, eating or stomping on materials. Then, I let the students go. I will not be doing morning work, worksheets this year, instead I am going to encourage them to TALK! WHAT?! Yes, talk! It's important, they need to talk. The morning, is the perfect time. The kids always have cool stuff to talk about!

We, of course read the book, "The Night Before First Grade." Students drew their feeling in a little circle and we graphed our feelings. We then, turned this into a mini-discussion on why we felt certain ways.


After we discussed reasons for our feelings, the students completed their first writing and craft for the year! I challenged them, if they wanted to to add a reason to their feeling by using the magical word, because!
Ont he third day of school, students learned about our Ketchup (catch-up) folders. This is where we keep work that has not yet been completed. We wrote our own names on the front and practiced our goal of the week, to work quietly by decorating the inside! 

On Day 2, we talked about what math is, what we know about math, how we use it and why we need math. I did this so I could see their prior knowledge about math. Their answers were adorable. I didn't sway any comments. I wrote them down and hung up this poster! It has a prominent spot on our math wall!

                            

After we discussed our prior knowledge about math, we played our first math game. I put beads in a bucket, gave students a dice. Explained expectations for these two tools and then the students played. All they had to do was roll the dice, remove that many beads each time. When the bucket was empty, they needed to count ALL of their beads. The person with the biggest number won. I walked around and listened to a lot of counting! This was a great way for me to get a feel of where they are at with this important skill! 

On day 3, I set up three stations of math tools.
Station 1: Dominoes, whiteboards and dry erase markers.
Station 2: Ten frames and counters
Station 3: Number grids, whiteboards and dry erase markers.

I again, gave very little direction. I wanted students to explore these tools and think of ways they could use them for math. I walked around, took pictures of students using the tools correctly and incorrectly (remember- I haven't told the students what I expect, so no one was corrected). On Monday, we will look at the photos and discuss correct ways and incorrect ways. I will print off the correct ways pictures and we will make an anchor chart of how to use the tools! Then, we will explore three more tools and do the same thing!


On Day 2, I introduced Read to Self. We made a chart to explain our jobs (forgot to photo). Then, we worked on it! We made it 1 minute and 7 seconds on the first day!! Not too shabby!!! My favorite part of this time was my principal walking in, asking what they were doing... I said read to self and she goes, "So basically just flipping through books." Ha ha!! Yeah, basically! 

The students shopped for books to fill their books bins. Right now, I am only allowing 3 classroom books in their bins at a time. When students shopped for books, I put two bins at each table and there were allowed to shop at their table only. When they finished, a book, they practiced putting it away in the correctly labeled bin.

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If you would like to share highlights from your week at school, please link up below!
I can't wait to see what you've been up to!



Add your link by clicking the blue button below!

If you decide to link up, please use the image above and link back to my blog. Thank you!




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Our First Week Back!

We've officially made it through our first week of first grade! We have a lot of work to do to get our routine set in place, but by Friday I could already see little first graders appearing! ;-)


We got a lot accomplished, so I will just do a quick rundown of some of our accomplishments from our week! :-)

When students arrived, they worked on a coloring page. Afterwards, we read the book. "The Night Before First Grade."

Afterwards, we decided how we felt the night before and wrote the number by the feeling.
Then, we talked about why someone would feel that way. 


After our little mini-lesson, we completed our writing and craft that you see below.
It was so fun to see their reasons. <3 first="" grade="" i="" love="" p="" writing="">


We also started writers workshop and broke out our writing journals!


One of our writers workshop activities this week was a simple, all about me writing. I read the book, "I Like Myself" and we had a fun little discussion! :)

After our discussion, we completed our all about me writing activity!


Throughout the week, we also did a few spelling and sound assessments so I could see where students are at with their phonics skills! 


 On the second day of school, I introduced Read to Self to students and we began to build our stamina! So, far we are doing pretty well! We have gone back and forth between 2 and 4 minutes! Yes! We made it 4 minutes one day... I will be honest, it was our second attempt! ;-)


On day 3 of school, I introduced word work and we did a read and roll activity from The Brown Bag Teacher. Her word work activities are going to save me this year! The kids were so engaged!

On day 4, I introduced students to Write the Room. We did a mini-lesson on capitals and lowercase letters then, the kids were off! They LOVED it!! We'll be doing short a spelling this coming week and they got a peek at the next write the room activity! ;-)


This week, we were also introduced to Mr. Check-In!
I will be doing CAFE this year and we were just ready to meet our new friend! So, in we jumped!


First, I introduced the importance of understanding what we read. Then, introduced them to our friend, Mr. Check-In. I read the book, and all we did was focus on the WHO and the WHAT questions. 
After I read the book, we answered the questions. Then, glued Mr. Check-In (or MRS. as the girls say) to our reading notebooks!

The students were introduced to our CAFE board and we placed our first menu item under the C!


Last, but not least.... We began to explore math manipulatives. 
We talked about how they are tools and not toys. 
We also were introduced to our Interactive Math Journals
We even completed an activity independently!! Yayy!

Here we are in action!
Many of the activities are from Kristen Smith's Guided Math Quarter 1 Unit.


Here students are working on making numbers with play-dough, writing their numbers and building the number in a ten frame. Students are also working to build towers with the unifix cubes to work on number sense skills.



Here students are working with pattern blocks and exploring unifix cubes. I also wanted to give students some experience with dice, so they simply rolled the dice and practiced writing that number on their whiteboard. :-)



Here students are working independently on their interactive math journal page and filling in a 120 number grid.

I hope your enjoying your time with your kiddos!!
I can't wait to watch mine grow in to BIG FIRST GRADERS!! 




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Shop till YOU Drop!

Today and tomorrow are the big Back to School Sale days! 
I've been waiting allllll summer to buy a few goodies!

Here are a few goodies you might want to think about grabbing from my little TPT shop to get yourself ready for a rocking school year!!

If you're teaching first grade this year, then you'll definitely want to purchase this little bundle! It has everything you need to get back into the swing of things!


This bundle includes:








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I've always had trouble managing who knows which sight words, and how they know which ones they need to practice....So, I created a little system to keep me organized and to keep my students motivated with fun incentives!


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Another favorite packet of mine to keep myself organized are these Editable Name Cards. I use these to label book bins, assign students to their guided reading groups and organize math groups!


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Also, be sure to stock up on my Interactive Math Journals! They are at an insane price today!!


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Also, don't forget to check out my seasonal math and literacy stations!




Happy Shopping!! I hope you save lots of money today!!! :)










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First Week Lesson Plans!

Throughout the year, I post a lot of visual plans!
They always include links to activities I'm using for the week and sometimes there are freebies too!



I don't start school until August 25th, but I wanted to get these up on the blog!

For the first week of school, I want to get things started right away! In the past, I've found that the year would have had a better start if I had started with routine right away! We are still doing the fun stuff, but I am trying really hard to create routine right off the bat. We'll see how it goes!

You can read the plans by clicking here or by clicking the plans below.


You'll notice we are going to Reagan Tunstall it out each morning for morning work!
I love the rise and shine binder & daily language practice.

To get going with our routines, I am using my Back to School Activities Pack for firsties! 
There are a ton of ELA and Writing activities included that will help establish rules and routines!

Here are a few of the back to school activities that we'll be completing!! :-) I can't wait!!!!




This year, I am going to 'attempt' to do morning meetings. After transitions and such, I really only have 3 hours and 45 min with my class. So, we will see if I can fit it in.

This year in math, I will be using Kristen Smith's First Grade Guided Math Unit to help guide my instruction. I have a whole bunch of stations and units that I'll integrate, but her unit for the year is just awesome! I couldn't not buy it!



Also, this year, I am all about Cafe and my own little form of The Daily 5!


To kick off read to self expectations in a fun way, I am using the Reader's Expert pack from A Year of Many Firsts. Then, we'll jump right into Check for Understanding. I am thinking I will spend a little more time on each comprehension strategy rather than just one day as suggested by the book. I was reading the First Grade Critter Cafe blog and she has a little timeline of how she introduces the strategies. It sounds like a fabulous idea to me! So, I'm on board! (unfortunately - lost where that blog post is... let me know if you find it!)!!

In Daily 5 News: I will be introducing all 5 stations in a matter of 3-4 weeks. It really just depends on my class! It could easily turn into 5-6 weeks if we need it.

My 5 stations this year will be:

1. Read to Self
2. Skill Work
3. Word Work
4. Read to a Partner/Listen to Reading (Students will have assigned days).
5. Writing

Here is a glance at my rotation board that I'll have in case you missed it on my last post.
You can grab these station cards here.


I'll be back to update you on more of my plans for this year!
I'm excited to get going!!


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