When we talk about skip counting with our kids, we explain how the numbers “grow”. Before we get too deep into “growing numbers”, we illustrate this concept by talking about growing patterns. Since my kids were having a little trouble understanding the difference between growing and repeating, we practiced the concept every morning {quickly} during our morning meeting and then completed this fun little activity the following week in their math tubs. I gave them a tub full of cardstock pattern blocks and instructed them to create two repeating patterns and two growing patterns. Then we hung them up in the classroom as a … [Read more...] about Growing or Repeating?!
ELA
Brag Tags
I mentioned Brag Tags in an earlier post and received a few questions asking about them. The Brag Tags are sponsored by our AWESOME PTA and organized by our school counselor. Every student in the school gets brag tags. They all start the year out with a grade level tag. Here’s First Grade’s first brag tag… Darling, right?! I write their names on the back of each tag so that we know which tags belong to each kiddo. As the year goes on, they can earn lots of different tags. There are some for reading, honor roll, attendance, field day, variety show, summer reading, birthday, etc. … [Read more...] about Brag Tags
Draft Book Publishing
My kids write in their draft books almost every day during our Writer’s Workshop block. Every Tuesday, I have publishing moms that come in and take the kids one-by-one to help them publish one of their writing pieces into a little book they can keep in their book baskets to read at different times. Hopefully by the end of the year the kids will have quite a collection of published books to take home and read to their families. The kids look forward to Tuesday because they absolutely LOVE having their hard work published! The publishing basket contains pencils, markers, a stapler, plain white paper {cut}, construction paper … [Read more...] about Draft Book Publishing
Reader’s Response – The Napping House
We’ve been talking about families this week one of our favorite books to read is The Napping House, by Audrey Wood. After reading the story, we talked about different things that we like to sleep with. CLEARLY, we’re not sleeping with a snoozing granny and a wakeful flea…well, I hope we’re not…so we talked about different things that we take to bed, or things we took to bed with us when we were "little”. I told them how my son sleeps with 5 Mickey Mouse dolls and they thought that was the funniest thing! HA! Here’s a little peek at their entry. One of the teacher’s on our team had this cute little … [Read more...] about Reader’s Response – The Napping House
Reader’s Response
Every kid in our classroom has a Reading Response Journal. Depending on the entry, we’ll usually work our Reader’s Response into the writing station OR we’ll etch out a little time during Writer’s Workshop to add to our journals. I usually complete an entry under my ELMO so that they can watch the process. I talk my way through it as well. This is a great opportunity to reinforce various writing/reading skills…neat handwriting, use of capital letters at the beginning of every word in the title, underlining the title, author/illustrator, two-finger spaces, punctuation, etc. This is an awesome way to document their … [Read more...] about Reader’s Response
Reader’s Response Journal ~ If You Take A Mouse To School
Today we read, If You Take A Mouse To School by Laura Numeroff. We used this story to talk about “if”…”then” statements and then we added an entry to our Reader’s Response Journals. Here’s a little peek… I gave them a reading prompt that they had to complete.If you take me to school, I will ask you for a _________________________________________________.This would be a pretty cute little prompt to use in a class book! … [Read more...] about Reader’s Response Journal ~ If You Take A Mouse To School
