Dinosaur Addtion

Check out this great Dinosaur Addition activity! Click HERE to download it at our TPT Store...it's free! We just ask that you leave a rating! Thanks!

Story Element Cards

Comprehension is big and it is something students need to continuously need to work on. Here are 12 cards that are kid friendly with picture cues. There are many different ways they could be used. Here are a few we thought about:
1)  During Guided Reading you could fan them out and hold them out face down. Have each student pick a card and then answer the question.
2) Put the cards in a bucket and have students pick at random.
3) Give each student a set to use during literacy centers.
4) Have a few class sets for the students to grab while at buddy reading, independent reading or the library. 
5) Keep a set of the cards at your circle time spot and pull one  or two each time you read a story to the class.

To download your own set click here! 
ALSO: There's still time for the Scrabble Pack Giveaway! Click here to find out how to qualify! It ends Monday July 4th! And thank you as always for your support!

New Furniture!

I am so excited because my parents (thanks to a garage sale, the teacher's best friend!) just acquired for me a cool new item for my classroom.....an antique school desk!  I do not have an actual picture of the desk yet but it looks similar to this:

Now I am wondering, what to do with this awesome desk!?!?  A few thoughts ran through my head, I know that I want the students to use it, and I want it to be a positive thing for them (not time out :-).  Then I thought, I would turn to the experts, you guys!  Leave me a comment and let me know how you think I should use it!

Daily Oral Language

First of all, thanks to everyone who is participating in our first giveaway!  Starting this blog has been such a great source of support for both of us and we appreciate all of our followers so much.

In my first grade classroom I have been doing Daily Oral Language as part of my morning work for the past four years.  When I spoke with other teachers we all had the same complaint; the kids could correct the sentences on the board, but they did not apply these grammar skills to their writing.  I started thinking about ways that I could improve this practice and make it more meaningful to my students.  I decided on changing things up a bit.

Now instead of correcting an incorrect sentence, my students are shown a pair of sentences, one written correctly, one written incorrectly.  They have to decide which sentence is written correctly and copy down the correct sentence.  For example:

the cat ran down main street
The cat ran down Main Street.

This practices makes the student think critically about the differences in the sentences and helps them apply grammar rules to their own writing.  Also I found that a lot of the grammar concepts were covered in a similar way on standardized tests, students were asked to discriminate between correct and incorrect sentences.

I am including a set of cards that has some example questions, you can project these, copy them onto the board, or use them as a center!

Daily Oral Language

50 Follower Giveaway!!!!!!!!!

Feeling the love! First of all, we would like give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who is following us and for your continued support. You guys ROCK! So in honor of this milestone we are having a giveaway! Yay! In order to enter you can do the following for one entry a piece:
1) Let us know you follow our blog
2) Add our button to your page
3) Add us to your blog scroll
4) Advertise our Giveaway on your page
5) Follow us on Facebook


Make sure you leave a comment letting us know which entries you have made and we will create a number generator to pick the winner. We will pick a winner next Monday July 4th. I mean what better way to celebrate the 4th than with a giveaway!;)

This Scrabble Giveaway includes all 26 scrabble letters, over 30 work mats for students to create words, and assessment sheets!  Good luck!

Lifesaver!

I LOVE these sight word videos. I got mine from the Schoolbox but you can order them through scholastic. They are awesome for helping students learn those all important sight words. I usually have my students get white boards and practice writing the words as they appear.  Students can also write a sentence using some of the sight words from the video.

Guided Reading "Ticket out the Door"

Both of our schools participate in the Guided Reading program.  I LOVE this program and think it is extremely beneficial for the students.  The struggle that I have is finding an accountability piece for my first graders.  I know that they are working hard on reading when they are in a small group with me, but what about when they are doing their independent centers?  I had this idea tonight during grad school and I couldn't wait to come home and create!  Here is my "Guided Reading Ticket Out the Door"!  My vision for this writing assignment is not a daily assessment, but rather something I pull out sporadically, hopefully at least weekly, to check what my kids are doing.  It is important for me as a teacher to involve my students in meaningful work, and this is a good way to make sure they understand that what they are doing is purposeful.


Hopefully this is something some of you can use as well!

Reader Hard at Work