Category: Reading
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts

nonfiction comes to life...

Saturday, January 14, 2017 1 comment



I have been racking my brain lately to make sure that I do things that are engaging. I have really wanted to make sure this year is engaging especially because there are four tested areas in fifth grade in Florida. FOUR. How the heck do you do it all? I want to say you do and you can and here's all the tricks but yeah right. I don't have the tricks BUT I do have ideas and hopefully they're going to be just as strong as the year goes on. 


One of my first ideas this year was to follow Hope King and set the stage to engage or on Instagram known as #setthestagetoengage. If you don't follow her...you should. I wanted my kids to review text features so I brought it to life. Figuratively speaking of course. I used anchor chart paper to draw a person. I used 1 for about every 3 people. Then we used nonfiction articles and we found all of these amazing text features within the article. They had to use the article pieces to "save" the persons life. It was a super simple lesson and it showed me that the students most definitely understood text features. 
*Supplies- * Please know that the following links contain affiliate links. this means that I earn some money if you purchase through the links provided on my website.
- Face masks for doctors
- Gloves
Hair Net
- nonfiction articles
- a person drawn on anchor chart paper


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September Dive Into Reading

Tuesday, June 14, 2016 1 comment
Hey everyone!
I would like to formally introduce you to my friend Sarah! Sarah and I are great friends and we have created an amazing product for you! Last year, when I came back from maternity leave I was a mess in so many ways. One of the big ways was that I never felt successful as a teacher. I feel like I was barely keeping my head above the water. I needed something to use in my classroom for reading so I could just print the lesson plans, any vocabulary words, and the crafts and be DONE! This is how Dive Into Reading began. 

We are creating all of these units for every grade but bare with us. We are starting with first grade and then up to fifth grade. What does each unit entail?







I wanted to add some pictures as well you get a really good idea of what comes in each unit!

****This unit will be posted on Wednesday, June 15th****

We are so proud of this that we are actually giving away the entire first unit! 
Sign up below!




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thematic Units

Wednesday, September 16, 2015 No comments
I'm finally back in the teaching world. I had baby W. He just melts my heart!
Now I feel ready to get back to tell you all about what's been going on. I came back to work on October 12 and I hit the ground running! This year has been a little different because I'm implementing a theme every single week along with a blend each week. I started to create units based on what we are teaching each week and honestly, I feel like my students have made major gains. 
Why do thematic units?
Imagine a kids brain is like a computer. In the old days if you wanted to switch programs you would have to shut the computer down. It was a 10-15 minute project. That would be 10-15 minutes of learning time what we would lose. By the end of the year, it could be an entire weeks of learning that you've lost.
How do you do themes?
I choose a theme based on the book for the week. I will use the week of Halloween as an example for our themed week.
Theme: Witches
Blends/digraph- ch [ I have 1-2 a week]
Math-we were working on matching tens and numbers together so the game had a boiling pot with the base tens, and then a witch for the number. It literally just had the cute fun game with a witch on it.
Writing- we wrote a "how to" book on several things. 1- how to make your own stew [or potion] (if you were a witch, of course). 2- how to put a spell on someone 3-(not a how to but still works) how to be the best witch of them all. They were a lot of fun to write and we enjoyed reading what everyone's stew (or potion) would do to people.
Reading- during reading we read Piggie Pie. Have you read it? It's so cute! That was for our interactive read a loud. Then for shared I wrote a book called something witchy and we read that several times along with identifying the ch on each page. The kids love these little books because they add them to their "paper" Baggie and are able to read from there anytime they want. We then read a poem called Witches. I wrote it and we read it everyday and then we were able to place it on our poetry journal. 
Themed weeks are such a huge hit! At the end of each week, the students get a brag tag that they can add to their necklace that says they are an expert on that topic. All my kids get one because they all worked equally hard to learn about the topic.
October themes:
Bats, spiders, fire safety, witches
November themes:
Voting, Veterans Day, thanksgiving 
Come back monthly to check out our new themes!
Do you do themes in your classroom?What are they and what do they look like?


Keep Track of Data

Friday, July 17, 2015 1 comment
One of the hardest things as a teacher is to keep track of all the data that is thrown your way. You have all of the math tests, science tests, text dependent questions, reading response, writing conferences... what did I miss? I bet I missed like ten different things, but you get the point. One of the things that I must have is a very well organized binder. I want to have all student's information in one place. This is how my data binder was born.

There was several things that I needed to have in my binder. Some of them I did not take pictures of because it had too much important information on it.
1. Way to keep their Reading Running Records information on one page
2. Any informal Reading Running Records
3. Any test scores
4. A way to track their Report Card information (Math, Reading, and Writing)
5. Rainbow Words
6. Rainbow Math
7. Student Information
8. Transportation form (it's a legal document in our county)
9. Any other pertinent data that shouldn't go in the student portfolio.

This is the front cover of the binder. I bought this from 1st Grade is WienerFUL. One of the things that happened this year was that in the state of Florida, we don't use CCSS. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to utilize the entire pack, BUT it's AMAZING!!


Once you open the binder, there is a list of all the students. I bought this from Office Depot and this is how I kept track of all the students. Each student has a tab and it is based on their letter (or number). 

 This is one of my favorite things in the binder. Before I have the students tabs (but after the label sheet). It is a master sheet that keeps ALL of my students information on their Reading Running Records {RRR}. This is every single student in my classroom. 

*How does this work? It's really simple. You place the students name at the top of the page. On the left side, you will see the information from the RRR book, AND what is the mastery level. Then you will fill in each box under the student's name and across from whatever they mastered. As you can see, some of them are in pink. The reason why they are in pink is because they mastered that specific section of the RRR. At the bottom of the page is the levels that the student currently reads at. I write the letter that they read on and then directly underneath the letter is the number that they answered the questions.
This is the individual student tracker page. I mark in this every time I work with the student and their RRR. I like to use this because then I have one for each individual student. As you can see there is a pink box which is for Trimester 1 and then the blue box is for the final trimester. On the left side I highlighted everything that was mastered. That way I don't go back and repeat anything that he already mastered. As you can see this is helpful as well because you can see how much he progressed over the ENTIRE school year. The first two things filled in are the scores and dates when they walked into my classroom. 

***If you want to purchase this document, you can do so in my store for $2.00. It's also a little different with nice borders and prettier font. Editable RRR is perfect for you!***

 This is not my product but I LOVE it! This is from Mrs. Jump's Class. I used this document all the time. There were other things that were very helpful in this file. I used this informal record all of the time. I tried to complete one per day. It became my goal. Once I got really good at tracking the students I was able to bump it up to 2-3 a day. I did this about 2-3 weeks after their latest RRR. I highly recommend using this!
I doubt you will have this, but I wanted to show you how I kept track of the math scores. The  way that we do this is all through the computer. We enter in all of our data to show what questions the students answered incorrectly. Then We print out the form to show what questions were answered incorrectly. Then I am able to highlight the standards that the students did not master. Now when I go back and do a re-teach, I am able to hone in on the specific skill they need help with. I currently use this tracker to keep track of what needs to be retaught. Unfortunately, it's only for first grade and it's LAFS & MAFS from the state of Florida. I have been thinking that I will create a CCSS for K-5. You may have to give me time though...Sorry!!

This is what I use to track what I entered on the student's report card. Each part of the report card is broken up by a specific benchmark which has 2 -3 standards in it.  I use the X or # to mark if the student mastered it or not. I use a bright purple highlighter to mark off which standards were not assessed. At the end of the year, I make a copy of the standards and send it home to the parents. I can show this during conferences and make notes on the page if I need to. I have one for Math, Reading, and Writing.






If you want a copy of this, just leave a comment below so I can email it to you.

The next part is from Jen Jones and it is called Rainbow Words. I love this!!! If you are working with kids on their sight words then you have to get this! I keep the tracker in their binder section and every Monday when I check sight words, I just open to their file for rainbow words and begin testing the students on their words.


 I know this is a super long post, but I appreciate you sticking around and reading all about my data binder! 

Summer Slide

Sunday, June 14, 2015 No comments
Hello everyone!
I hope your end of the year events are going well. We ended our school year on June 4th and being 33 weeks pregnant- I COULDN'T WAIT! Not only did I end my school year but we also moved into our new house the week before school got out. It's been very crazy over here and now since school is out- I am getting the nursery ready. Although my personal life has so much going on... it doesn't mean my babies don't have work as well. I created a summer packet for my kids and this was awesome because it targeted everything we had learned this year. 

I bought gallon ziplock bags and put all of their little goodies inside of it. 
What was inside the bag?
- Addition & Subtraction Fluency Set
- Week 1
- Week 2
- Week 3
- Week 4
- Week 5
-Week 6
- A parent packet with websites and tips & tricks for reading & math
- A page for passwords
- A pencil
- A list of books to read for summer 
- Dolch sight words

The underlined items are things I found online and are not in the summer slide packet. 
So what is inside the Week's 1-6? Well each front cover is made to be printed one sided only. On the front is a cute little cover where they can write their name. On the back is a reading log. I made every two weeks the same color and then I switched to a different color. Once you open the packet there is different activities to do. For example each week has some type of writing exercise. [Don't mind my ugly nails.]
There are also math activities to do. [Sorry- I can't find out how to rotate it back.]
There are coins, ten frames, tally marks and many other activities based on the first grade curriculum. 
There are also two stories in each packet. One story is a fiction story. There are questions that go along with it. There is also a non fiction story-mainly about animals- and there are of course questions to go along with that.

Each week also has math word problems and if you need more word problems you can stop by my store and purchase word problems based on the months. There are also fill in the blanks for the correct verb tenses.
There are also some character traits pages and each packet has a sight word list. Then the students are to make sentences using the sight words listed above.

Hopefully this was super helpful to you and that you want to help your kids become even more successful! I can't wait to hear your comments below!


Blends

Sunday, January 11, 2015 No comments

 Holy kleenex- It's been two months! I'm sorry everyone...but I have a really good reason!! Since writing here on November 9th... I have found out that I am going to be a mommy! I can't believe it either. I started to blog about my journey on Sparkle the Moon. If you want to go through this adventure with me then head over there! Now that Trimester 1 is OVER- I can get back to creating all my things and blogging {back on schedule}woot woot!

I am going to start off with my blends book! I am very excited for it. This was my first blending book so here ya go...

In every PDF file there is a little book. Two books per page.
Little book with two books per page

I love the little books. Here is a clip of what one of the pages looks like.

Along with a little book there a few pages to make it that much better. One of the things is this fill in the blank booklet. There is also a poem that goes with it, a template for interactive notebooks, identifying words that have the blend and building the words. 

Here is a direct link to the blends made so far..

Enjoy and leave any comments below!!

Voting and Veteran's Day

Sunday, November 9, 2014 1 comment
Hello everyone!

Today, I want to tell you what's been going on in room 3-109! Last week, our school was closed because of voting. Our state voted for Governor on November 4th. We did some awesome things to teach about voting. I created a "USA" Corner of the room. 
Look how cute it is! The little box on the left, is actually the "voting" box. Our kids did some really cute voting things. 

First, we read the books Duck For President and Grace for President.
After we read it, we discussed the difference between the two. We made the kids really think about who they would want to be their president. We of course told them they cannot discuss politics in school. We then taught the kids Amendments. That had to be my FAVORITE part! Our amendments were as followed.

Amendment 1- You must wear red shirts Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.
Amendment 2- Students will get 65 minutes of recess daily.
Amendment 3- Everyone must eat 5 broccoli, 3 celery, and 1 carrot every meal. 
Amendment 4- Everyone must wear earrings.
Amendment 5- All students must read 2 books a night.

Of course, none of these were actually taken into REAL action but it was really fun to do. 

Our voting ballots looked like 

If you want a copy of this, then leave a comment and I will absolutely send it your way! :)

Not only did we vote, but we also went to the polls in our school and they gave us a ton of stickers that we were able to give to the kids!


One last thing before we go. I want to show you the anchor chart that we are using this week for Veteran's Day. I am very proud of it.


This week we will be reading The Wall and we have some books that kids will be reading as well. I am very happy to be teaching them the value of voting and our Soldiers.

Have a wonderful week!






Stop and Jot

Sunday, September 21, 2014 1 comment
Stop and Jot. At one point, I wanted to scream. Like literally scream at the top of my lungs. Why? I didn't have an effective way to do Stop and Jot. I teach first graders, and they are NO WHERE close to being able to do alone and/or when they get to certain parts of their book. They will literally do it at EVERY SINGLE PAGE no matter how many times I say NOOOOOOOOO- and then die a little inside.

Then...I had an idea. My idea came from being able to sit with my kids and get a way to have a formative assessment on the kids. I created a mini book. My kids did not give me enough spiral notebooks in the beginning of the year to allow me to make 20 notebooks. That is how the mini-books were born.

The mini-books just have the title of the book that we are reading, the words Stop and Jot, and then a cute image. I stapled it to 5 lined pages so that I can just have them answer questions when I am ready for them. These are about 1/4 of a sheet of computer paper/lined paper. It all fit really nicely together.

Here is the stack of them waiting for the kids to start using them. At the end of the week, I am able to look at their book and determine if they understood the question and answered it correctly. Then I will be able to have a formative assessment on the kids. Hopefully, my next post will allow me to show you what I do with the formative assessment and how I collect the formative assessment. If you would like a master copy of this and editable then leave a comment so I can email the master copy to you!!

Enjoy!!

Kindergarten Morning Work

Saturday, June 28, 2014 1 comment
Hello everyone!

I cannot wait to show you what great new thing I have created! One question that always floats around is Morning Work. And every time I want to SCREAM! I hate printing morning work. I feel like one of the kids who will literally stomp her feet every time she has to print. With that-I started searching last year for a way to stop being at the printer and to not get there early in the morning to run off twenty copies.

Last year, I created a folder labeled "Good Morning Work" and I will run off the copies for the week {or month} depending on what I chose. I used to find many different things from workbooks and of course the amazing Teachers Pay Teachers. However, I went to TpT to search for morning work and really didn't find anything that I LOVED or had to spend $12.00 on! Of course, now that it is summer time, I decided to make handy dandy morning work- {imagine I was singing that like an opera singer}.

Let's start off with the outside: 

Since this is a "prototype" of what I want next year to look like, I used my handwriting. However, last year I used folders and did write on the front. This year,  I will use spirals provided by my amazing parents!  I always like to label everything because then I know where everything is and I am not wondering "What's inside this folder?"
Inside my awesome spiral is my awesome worksheets. Take a look!


This is a set of the first week. I like to keep the weeks divided by a theme. Why? So I can find books and passages based around the theme. The first week is "Back to school." The students also practice their spelling of their first name.

This is my second week. My second week has two sight words that the kids will work on. In your download you will be able to choose from two different documents. Notice how it says in the Trace and Copy box the sight word {left side} and on the right side the students could work on numbers. I created these two so you could choose between them. The second weeks theme is "Superhero." It is intended to be for the week of August 25.

This is week 3. It still has the sight words and it is really for labor day week. The theme of the week is "Careers." It has the 2 sight words also incorporated. If you wait just a few weeks, you can also purchase books that will tie into the theme.

This week is based off of patriotism. I really love this idea because it is the same week as 9/11 and it teaches the students how to be patriotic. 

Week 5 is all about family. We will be doing a family unit {stay tuned}.

The last week is Johnny Appleseed themed which is September 26th.

If you LOVE it -like I hope you will.. then head over to Teachers Pay Teachers to purchase it. It is on sale for just a little bit!

xoxo, Ronnie