Responding to Art-Writing station freebie!

I've been using this since I've started teaching, oh... 12-13 years ago.  It's so easy to use, and it teaches SO much!  Looking closely, thinking deeply.  WRITING!  And working on that fine motor skills that our littles seem to lack more and more of each year coming into first.

The past few years, I have been using it as something special, instead of having out all the time.  We have a fantastic day of "arts" at our school, so I use it around that time to create a fab bulletin board.

What is it?!  Responding To Art.  Show students a picture or many pictures.  They choose one and recreate it.  Then they write about it.  It can be about what they see in the picture to how it makes them feel.  Check out a few examples:

If you'd like to give it a try, it's pretty low maintenance.  You can easily find artwork online to print, however, I like to find postcards to use.  They are more durable, but they can be a little harder to find than printing something off the computer.  As a station, I would keep 1-2 pictures out for the week or 2 and students can choose to work on it during that time, if they wish.  (I have a ton of other options that are out too, so they don't all flock to that all the time.. just in the beginning)  Click {HERE} to grab a copy of the recording sheet!

*If you use it as a lesson, I took about 30-45 minutes for the drawing and writing portion.  I used pictures that I found from a book that I got at a discount book store called Baby Einstein ABC's of Art

Another Daily 5 freebie

Call me crazy...  I love my owls and all, but I just was NOT loving my Daily 5 posters.  I redid them today to go along with the chalkboard theme I have with my owls.

Check it out (I added "work with teacher" because I had a request for my owl posters--which I still need to update!):

Click {HERE} to snag this for free!!!(PS-I noticed on the Google Drive that there was an issue viewing all of the pages, but once you click "download" it downloads just fine to your computer and you'll have all the posters)

Check back soon to grab the bookmarks that I'll be making to go along with the posters.  To see what I mean, check {THIS} post out with how I run my daily 5 and to see my Owl Posters.

PS---If you aren't checking out my FB page lately---you are MISSING OUT!  I just hit 500 followers there and am having fun with some flash freebies this week!  They are going to be gone, gone, gone!  So you need to make sure to subscribe to my feeds!  Oh, and I have a very special FANS ONLY tab where I'll be posting some extra special love for you!  Right now you can snag a few pages from my Perfect Papers Packet!  (Click on the picture to go to my FB page)

 Tomorrow I'm going to have my son do some pages of my newest packet Cool Cats and Scaredy Cats.  If you love using Pete the Cat and Splat the Cat in your classroom, you have to check it out!  I'm so excited to use it.  I'll have a post about it shortly!  Make sure you are following on BlogLovin' so that you get all the goods and stay "in the know!"

Throwback Thursday {Daily 5}

Once again, I'm hooking up with my fave Cara from the First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday.

 ******Original Post: Daily 5 Posted on December 3, 2012******

Hi all!  I hope this month is going fairly smooth for you so far!  My 2 year old is still exhausting me with not sleeping through the night...  Oh how I wish I drank coffee this year!  (and last year...)  I don't have anything NEW that you could use in the coming weeks, but thought I'd share a little about my classroom.

I know that there is a ton of things out there for the Daily 5.  I thought I'd take a moment to explain how it works in my classroom!  First, I need to say, since we switch our kiddos, I do not set it up as well as it's supposed to be---with building stamina and all that...  If I did, I'd still be working on that at this time of year---and lets face it.  I'd be redoing everything when we get back in January!  I just couldn't.

I found on a blog a few years ago (so I do not have a link to give proper credit...) that a teacher used bookmarks for students to know how to go from station to station.  I decided to do that last year, to save my sanity on moving kids' names, scheduling even more, etc.  I couldn't let them just have "free choice" off the bat either.  I created 25 completely different bookmarks.  Each bookmark has a different "rotation" schedule.  It's designed to have 5 at each at any given time.  {This year I redid them, and forgot about making them ALL different and had 5 bookmarks that I made 5 copies each of... and I realized.  When they travel together from station to station---my room gets louder and louder and they start to lose focus.  LAST year, when I had all different ones, they don't travel from station to station and things were smooth.  I loved it!}

Each student will pick a bookmark either at the beginning of class, or when they are done with work before small group time starts.  This year, I labelled the back of each bookmark a different letter from the alphabet.  This is so they can keep track of these darn bookmarks.  THIS group has such a difficult time organizing themselves and had lost at least 6 bookmarks that I had made in the beginning of the year-that we're not using anymore.  Now that there is a letter, they KNOW which is theirs, and if it's left behind, they can now easily find it---of course, that is, IF they didn't lose it in a book or somewhere else.... :/

 My bookmarks match the posters at each area, so that they have no trouble figuring out where to go!

Click {HERE} to grab yourself a copy of the posters and bookmarks.  

I'll be back later to explain how I work my Word Work area.  

Disclaimer---the above information is what I personally do.  The Daily 5 and CAFÉ are trademark and copy written content of Educational Design, LLC dba The 2 Sisters.  Educational Design, LLC dba The 2 Sisters does not authorize or endorse these materials.

More Daily 5---Word Work

I thought I'd share how I work my Word Work area.  First, my students are given a folder with prongs and pockets.  I check my students and highlight words they know from the Dolch Word List---that's what we're using this year.  Since I have the higher reading kids in first grade, I am testing them on all the words.  I have a little highlighting system:  YELLOW if they can read the word.  BLUE if they can SPELL the word.  GREEN (is made from the other 2) if they can read AND write the word.

 {They keep their folders in these containers.  Boys are in one and girls are in the other}

 {Click HERE for a copy of the word lists}

Now, they are given jobs (my literacy games) to do during a week or 2 (depending on the work, time of year, etc.).  I pass out all work that they need to finish during the week or 2 on day 1.  They label where they can find the games on the paper as we go over directions.  I use baby wipe containers to hold my things, unless it's a full page spinner.  Those go in paper trays.  My rule for the jobs is that they may only finish ONE page per day.  They may take more than a day to complete it, but I do NOT want them speeding through all 3-4 jobs in a day.  When they finish a job and have more time left, they use the folders with the words.  They spell the words with one of the MANY different things that they have---cardboard cutout letters, magnetic letters, alphabet beads, etc...

I wanted to add a little data from my class about this.  When I had my kids start with this folder, I went through and assessed my kids on ALL 220 dolch words.  In September 5 of my students already knew 95% of the words (209 or more).  3 of my students knew 40% or less of the words (82 words or less).  The rest were between 85-190 out of 220.  I had to test my kids last month due to it being my professional student goal for my students.  (My goal was to have all of my kids knowing 95% of all the words...  so 209 or more).  ALL but 1 student had met that goal by the end of February! (I haven't checked them again yet)  The biggest growth was my student who went from 84 words in September to 217 in February!  My one student who did not make the goal only needs 4 more words to make the goal!  I can tell you that I did not add in extra word work, other than what I am posting about here.  I did not send word cards home for them to practice.  Since it was almost individualized, it was MUCH too difficult to keep up.  They had ownership of their folders and words---and they learned those words through plain old reading and also their word work station!

I started mixing it up a little bit.  I am including a word work Tic-Tac-Toe.  I have a freebie listed {here}.  But, I created a themed one in December all related to Christmas:  I call it Ho! Ho! Ho! Word Work Tic-Tac-Toe.  I also had one that is Winter Themed called Tic-Tac-Snow!  And I now have one called Tic-Tac-GROW! (I'm in the works for more, but am falling quite far behind unfortunately with everything going on...)  Both that are posted and what will be have everything you'd need to complete the station.  My kids are LOVING it!  They are spelling their words with flowers, bugs and clouds, creating raindrops with their words, putting their word in ABC order in a caterpillar... I haven't been including "jobs" that I would normally have them do.  The first week I gave them words to practice, which are all based off the Word Sort they are on in Words Their Way.  After that, they'll use the same tic-tac-toe, but will use different words that they chose. 

Starting next week, I think I'm going to be switching things up yet again...  Since we switch kids, we have transitions.  A LOT of them.  I think that I will be having them work on their Tic-Tac-Toe boards for about 10-15 minutes when they first come in.  This will free up time during the daily 5 to work on other word work activities that we have been lacking and need to find time to practice!  Nothing like waiting till we have about 40 days of school left!  :)  

 {This is how I am an organizing all of the papers for the Tic-Tac-Toe.  All papers are included in my packet on TPT}

Here are some other pictures of my newest packet:

 

I'll have more pictures after we start working more this coming week!  You can find all of my Word Work Choice Boards {HERE}

 

Daily 5

Hi all!  I hope this month is going fairly smooth for you so far!  My 2 year old is still exhausting me with not sleeping through the night...  Oh how I wish I drank coffee this year!  (and last year...)  I don't have anything NEW that you could use in the coming weeks, but thought I'd share a little about my classroom.

I know that there is a ton of things out there for the Daily 5.  I thought I'd take a moment to explain how it works in my classroom!  First, I need to say, since we switch our kiddos, I do not set it up as well as it's supposed to be---with building stamina and all that...  If I did, I'd still be working on that at this time of year---and lets face it.  I'd be redoing everything when we get back in January!  I just couldn't.

I found on a blog a few years ago (so I do not have a link to give proper credit...) that a teacher used bookmarks for students to know how to go from station to station.  I decided to do that last year, to save my sanity on moving kids' names, scheduling even more, etc.  I couldn't let them just have "free choice" off the bat either.  I created 25 completely different bookmarks.  Each bookmark has a different "rotation" schedule.  It's designed to have 5 at each at any given time.  {This year I redid them, and forgot about making them ALL different and had 5 bookmarks that I made 5 copies each of... and I realized.  When they travel together from station to station---my room gets louder and louder and they start to lose focus.  LAST year, when I had all different ones, they don't travel from station to station and things were smooth.  I loved it!}

Each student will pick a bookmark either at the beginning of class, or when they are done with work before small group time starts.  This year, I labelled the back of each bookmark a different letter from the alphabet.  This is so they can keep track of these darn bookmarks.  THIS group has such a difficult time organizing themselves and had lost at least 6 bookmarks that I had made in the beginning of the year-that we're not using anymore.  Now that there is a letter, they KNOW which is theirs, and if it's left behind, they can now easily find it---of course, that is, IF they didn't lose it in a book or somewhere else.... :/

 My bookmarks match the posters at each area, so that they have no trouble figuring out where to go!

Click {HERE} to grab yourself a copy of the posters and bookmarks.  

I'll be back later to explain how I work my Word Work area.  

Disclaimer---the above information is what I personally do.  The Daily 5 and CAFÉ are trademark and copy written content of Educational Design, LLC dba The 2 Sisters.  Educational Design, LLC dba The 2 Sisters does not authorize or endorse these materials.