Adding to the Game List

Hello there!

Happy Friday! I'm sure we share the same amount of excitement! It has been a very busy week. Does anyone else feel like there is too much to do in too little time? Sheesh!

Today I'm going to share a few games I started playing with my kids today. We have been working on Addition all week long and the Math Curriculum was getting kinda boring... so I wanted to reward my kiddos for the hard work they have been putting in by having a day that was calm/fun while also making sure they practice their skills. I pulled out 3 games and we were on our way!

Game 1: Domino Addition

I used this a few years back and my students really enjoyed it, so I pulled it back out. Basically, you give them dominos and they use them to create an addition equation/sentence then they solve it. I really love this for my low babies. Having the visual of two different sets of dots and then them being part of 1 whole domino really helps them with their part-part whole understanding. You can get a free and easy template here. I print the template out on regular paper and slip it into a dry erase sleeve, give them a marker and let them go at it! Super simple for the teacher and super fun for the student!

Game 2: Addition War

It is exactly what it sounds like. I was given a ton of Uno cards a few years back, so to make them more usable in my classroom I took out all the word cards. You'd be amazed at all the different things you can use a pack of uno cards to teach. Put the kids in pairs. They each draw 2 cards and add the numbers on their cards together to find the sum. The partner with the bigger sum, wins that round and takes all the cards. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins. I really made sure to concentrate on having my kids "count on" while they were playing this game. I have them "grab" the bigger number (making a fist and saying the bigger number), then count up the other number to get their total. For example: If my cards were 4 and 3, I would grab 4 then count up 3 to get my sum of 7. This was a favorite for a lot of my competitive boys!!

Game 3: SMASH

This was a new one to me, but it was by far the kids favorite. I found it here and will use it again! Print off the flash cards and boards. I didn't have time to laminate it all, so I printed the flash cards on colored construction paper and stuck the boards in a dry erase sleeve (page protectors also work well). I had the "little balls" already rolled and ready to go as well as having the big ball they SMASH in its place. They take their flash card and lay it on the board. Once they figure out the bigger number, they SMASH the big ball of play dough while they say the bigger number. Then they use the small balls of play dough to count on until they find the sum.

Ultimately, we had a great time! The kids were enjoying it so much that they didn't even want to stop when it was time to go to PE... what?! That NEVER happens!! We didn't have enough time to be able to finish our rotations so every child could hit every game, but we are working on addition into next week!! Hopefully I can find some more addition practice games to add to our fun Friday review by then!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Phoneme Awareness 101

Happy Monday Friends!

I was looking at my students this morning as they were coming in and preparing for their day and had a wonderful "they are finally getting the routines" moment!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! It's amazing how I always forget how much work the first month of school is. I feel like all I do is pound routines and procedures into those little brains day in and day out... actually, I know that's all I do. That first moment of "they are getting it" is one that gives me the energy to keep pushing through the next week to draw our first month back at school to a close! Wooohooo!

On that same note, I love being able to see my kids starting to get into our Reading routine. We do the same steps the first 15 minutes of our Reading block every day without fail to assure those kiddos are getting all the phoneme practice they possibly can. I took a video of a little one of mine today doing part of our daily routine and it made me want to write a blog about it... so here ya go!

Our Reading block is from 11:50-1:50, directly between lunch and recess, so it takes a lot to keep my little firstie friends staying on task. I like to take the first 15 minutes to work solely on Phoneme Awareness in some very hands-on ways. I do this for a few different reasons. First of all, it allows the kids to come in from lunch and have some hands-on things to get their attention. Secondly, it is a quick way for us to hit our phonics skill for the week. Thirdly, kids NEED to have phoneme awareness in order to become better readers and writers. IT IS SO IMPORTANT!!

The first thing the students do is come in from lunch and stand behind their desks. We "tap out" (segment and blend) words that follow the phonics skill for the week. This week we are talking about short "o" in CVC words, so all of the words I gave them fall into that category. I have them tap their wrist for the first sound they hear, elbow for the second, shoulder for the third, cheek for the fourth, and the top of their head for the fifth. I will say a word, they will repeat the word, then they tap out each sound, blend it all together and finally repeat the word again. We do this for 5-6 words.

Next, we get out our white boards. I bought the white boards I use from The Learning Circle in Murfreesboro, TN a few years ago and I LOVE them!! They have a handle which is great for the kids raising them up to show me their answers.You can find them here. 

We use them to do our "parking spaces" every day after we segment and blend. I will say a word, they will repeat the word then draw a line for each sound they hear. For example, if the word is "cat" they would draw _ _ _. After they have their parking spaces drawn, they will go back and park the letters in their spot where each sound is heard: c a t . They finish by stating the word again and raising their boards to show me what they had. This allows me a chance to give them corrective feedback if they messed up somewhere. It is important that they understand they are not writing a parking space for each letter in the word. For example, today I used the word lock. You hear the "l", "o" and "k" sounds so you would still only have 3 parking spaces even though the word has 4 letters. The c and k would be together in one spot since they say the "k" sounds together. l o ck.

After we have finished our segmenting/blending and our parking spaces, we move on to using our elkonin boxes. I found this simple but cute copy of one on the internet and decided to use it. I printed these on colored card stock and laminated them for each child. Each child also has a set of 4-5 plastic counters they use during this activity. They lay their mats flat on their table and place a counter under each box. I say a word, they repeat it, and move a counter from below the box into the box for each sound they hear then blend it together and say the word again. For example, if the word is "cat", they move a counter into the first box for the "c" sound, a counter into the second box for the "a" sound and a counter into the third box for the "t" sound. Same thing as with the parking spaces above, make sure they understand it's for each sound they hear, not each letter in the word. 

Lastly, we do a quick practice of some of our weekly high frequency/sight words. I have a template on my computer that I literally just change the word and print them off. They fold the paper in half so all they can see is the side with the words listed. First we point to each letter and spell it out loud as we point, then we air write it as we spell it out loud, then we trace it as we spell it out loud and lastly, they flip the page over where they cant see the word and they write it as they spell it out loud. I have a different word on each side of the paper, so we cover 2 words a day!

This whole routine takes us less than 20 minutes to complete each day. It is super easy to put into action and really keeps the students engaged and on task. They LOVE each and every step. On Friday's we assess and without fail I always hear "but Ms. Daniel, we are supposed to do our phonics first thing every day!". I'd love to hear what others do to aid their phonics lessons/skills during their daily reading blocks! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Have a wonderful rest of your week!

It's Going to be a Seussical Year in 1st Grade!

My Our summer long project is officially complete!!

"Teachers are SO lucky they get summers off". "I wouldn't mind working 10 months out of the year if I got to lounge around the pool for the other 2." etc, etc, etc are comments I hear all too often being a teacher. I could write a whole post about how it makes my blood boil and my skin crawl when people say such things to me. However, instead of writing such a blog, I have chosen to post one about how my current classroom looks and how it got to be that way.

My mom and I started planning for my current classroom last year. This is my 4th year teaching and I have only LOVED my classroom once thus far. When I moved from my old school to my current school, I was devastated when I walked into my new room and saw primary colors plastered all over the floors, cabinets and counters. My old classroom was a bright and cheery one full of hot pinks, lime greens, teal blues and hints of brown here and there to blend it all together. As we all know, hot pinks, lime greens, and teal blues do not mesh well with primary colors... as a matter of fact, the completely clash. I literally cried to my mom about how much I hated my classroom last year because I was forced to store all the things I had loved the year before, and throw together a room last minute that I could "deal with" for a year.

All that to say, we have been planning and crafting since March to make this room what it is today. I will start by posting all of the finished product pictures, then I will go in depth about how it got to where it is today. If you are a classroom teacher who loves new ideas, this post is for you!! Enjoy!

Pano of room from door

View from door

 View from front of the room

 View from back of the room

 View from right side of the room

 View from left side of the room

Listening Area

Expectations, Rules & Consequences Wall

 

 Word Wall

  Reading Area

 Red Table

 

Yellow Table

 Blue Table

 Orange Table

Green Table

 

 

 Bathroom Door

 What it looks like now...

 

What it will look like finished

Wonderful Work Wall in Hallway

Storage Area in back of room

 Storage Areas to the right in room

 Curtains

Bulletin Boards in front of room

Bulletin Board to the right in room

 Back Conner/Writing Area

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Isn't is wonderful!? I am IN LOVE with my classroom this year! My principal's little girl walked in the the other day, stopped dead in her tracks, dropped her jaw and said "Oh my goodness.. its beautiful!" She will be in my class this year, but doesn't know it yet! I had a coworker say to me today, "I feel like if I was a kid in your class, I would just love coming to school." What a wonderful compliment to hear! We do what we do for the kiddos!!

Alright, so now that I've shown you the final product, I'll break down how this all came about for those who are curious/interested!  As I stated before, we have been working on this for months on end. So my dear, sweet, talented mother had the time and energy to create some amazing one-of-a-kind pieces for my classroom. I give credit where credit is due, and my mom has earned SO much credit!! Using our Silhouette Cameo machines, she designed, printed and cut everything for my word wall, name tags, place mats, the letters for the Wonderful Work Wall and pieces of card stock for the wonderful work clipboards. She also found 2 different curtain ideas on pinterest that we used to create the curtains in my room! Not to mention, she decided to dabble a little bit in painting and ended up painting 3 AMAZING Dr. Seuss characters for me to hang up in my room!

I glued the letters/boarder to a solid piece on construction paper, laminated them and hot glued magnets to the back for the word wall letters.

 The name tags are printed on a laser printer using laser printer ink and laser printer labels.

The place mats are cut out of vinyl and stuck to each table.

 The letters are cut out of card stock. The bows seen on the top of each clipboard were found in the rows near the check out lines at TJmax/Marshalls. The pieces for the clipboards were cut out of card stock using the Silhouette Cameo and then modge podged to the front of each clipboard in mix/matched designs.

 These are the two types of curtains we combined in order to get our final product.

 

Shout out to mom for being wonderful!! Wooohooo go mom! Love you!

I knew immediately, that I wanted to use tables this year instead of desks, so I requested to have my desks replaced with rectangle tables. This was a well thought out and organized plan in my head. I knew I would have to have a place to store all of the kids belongings since I was taking away their desks, so I wanted to find small bookshelves to go at the end of each table to store their things. I searched and searched for what I had pictured in my head, but quickly realized I could build some to keep from having to go out and spend too much money on some that are made very cheaply. So I built 6 adorable and perfect bookshelves for the end of each table. Once they were built, I went back the next day and spray painted them the colors I wanted them to be.

As for everything else in my classroom, the bins/crates are mostly bought at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I spray painted a lot of them to get the exact color I wanted. The hanging lanters/fans/flowers are mostly from Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree. The Dr. Seuss bulletin board boarders, sayings, posters and other decorations were bought at Michael's last year after Read Me Week. Although, I have since seen them at the Parent Teacher Store! I've tried to list everything I can think of on here, but if you get to reading/looking and see something I left out, feel free to comment and I'll replay to answer questions!

Here is to a "seussical" school year in Ms. Daniel's 1st grade class!!