Awards and Daily 5 and Homework freebies!

Thank you to all the teachers who signed up to be part of the Alphabet Letter Exchange. You'll get an email from me next week. I know my class will have so much fun with this!

Thanks so much also to Gayla from Teach On for awarding me the Versatile Blogger and the One Lovely Blog Award. It brought a smile to my face! It's amazing to me how supportive and wonderful you all are. I just love it and appreciate you all!

Today I started thinking that I want some new Daily 5 posters for next year. So I found cute clip art and used Angelia's tutorial on how to change a border into a frame. This is what I came up with.

Designing things like this is new to me but it's really fun! My district has had so much curriculum and put so much pressure on us to have tight schedules that I didn't feel I had room for much else. But as I've gone along and thanks to all of you teacher bloggers out there, I have found ways and reasons to create slightly different ways of working with the curriculum. And I discovered Daily 5 and Math Work Stations to add to what I've been doing. I'll tell you, I'm envious of those of you who still have music and art at your schools. And to have a PE teacher- Wow! That would be a first for me. In our district they've told us the amounts of time we should be teaching language arts, math, and PE, lang. arts intervention, math intervention, and ELD and once it's added up I think we have about 15 minutes left. Keep in mind, that's 15 minutes for students to come in and out from recess, lunch, the start and end of the day, music, art, social studies, and science, not to mention just talking to the kids. Whew! I'm tired just typing that! And a bit aggravated too.
Luckily I discovered blogs and creative ways to teach the curriculum and have been re-energized. I love creating things like these posters and other activities. And sharing them with you!
I also made some homework folder covers to go with my jungle/animal print theme for next year. The pink border will be for the girls and the blue for the boys. You're welcome to them if you can use them.

I'm off to find something to fix for dinner!

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The Colors of Us and 2 freebies

It wasn't raining and my car wasn't frozen today- YIPPEE! And today one of my students came back. He left suddenly a week before Christmas. I was told after school one day that he and his family were going to Mexico to see a sick grandmother and didn't know if they'd come back or when. And this is a nice, really smart kid. I didn't want to see him go. Since he left without warning, I still had the gift he made for his parents and some of his projects. Yesterday I got a note that he was returning today! He walked in and the other kids were sooo excited. They hugged him and showed him where his desk is now and even got out his folder and pencil box for him. It was a fun way to start the day.

After school I took a picture of our art project (yes, art. Once in a while we get to it.) that we did last week. It came from a class I took, although I can no longer remember what class it was.  I hadn't done it in quite a while but knew this class was careful enough and would do a good job. I read the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz.  We had studied about Martin Luther King, so this fit right in. My parent helper traced the kids hands, I premixed skin color paints, and we were ready. The kids painted the backgrounds the second day. Don't they look great?

A couple of freebies...
The first goes with the Leo Lionni story A Busy Year and is for Daily 5- Listen to Reading. Since this story is only a few minutes long, I made this to go with it. Just click on the picture to grab it.

There's also a Math Work Stations freebie to work on equivalent number sentences. Again, just click on the picture to grab it.

Here is an idea for Math Work Stations too. These are laminated die cuts from 0-99, each 10 in a different shape and color. My students will have 50 at a time to put in order on our magnetic white board. After a while I'll probably change it to counting by 5's or 2's.

Wishing you lots of fun blogstalking,
 Chrissy

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Daily 5 Writing Conference Form

I love Daily 5! I continue to be amazed at how well it is working and I am SO HAPPY not to have to copy things for my students to do while I pull reading groups. I don't miss struggling to find independent things for my low kids and something else to challenge the higher kids. I've taught first grade for about 10 years and I never want to go back to using worksheets for work during reading groups again.
I sat with some students yesterday to conference about their writing. I made this form today so I could keep track of what I'm noticing. Here is what I created. Maybe it can help you too.
Writing Conference Form
Also, I could use some suggestions... I have a mac book and I have had a hard time getting a screen shot a document like this so I can include it in my posting. Does anybody know how to do that? I managed before but it took a long, long time and I'm sure there's an easier way. Anybody know one?
Have a wonderful evening. It's almost Friday! I will randomly choose a winner of my giveaway before I go to sleep later. Check back tomorrow for the winner's name!
 Chrissy

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Oh, wow!

Wahoooo! I'm so excited! I just checked my blog and have 15 followers. Oh, you all have made my day. I know this is small potatoes for some folks, but they probably remember way back when.. when 15 was a thrill. Thanks everybody! I'm planning a give-away soon... please come back.

I also wanted to pass along that Mrs. Bainbridge is has an author's study on Little Critter books and you can enter her drawing for the free unit. You can check her blog at Mrs. Bainbridge's Class

Well, I've got some work to do figuring out how to implement the rest of Daily 5. I'm behind according to the 25-day plan at the back of the Two Sister's book. By the way, they are amazing if you haven't checked out Daily 5 yet. I was so amazed as I got it started that my class reacted exactly as they said they would and even said the same things the Two Sister's said they would. I love Daily 5! It is incredible. I'd seen it a summer or two ago and then this summer I found blogging (another incredible thing) and saw so many of you who said this was great and you wouldn't use anything else now. I feel the same way. Wow, I've rambled a bit I think. Back to my original thought.... I've only implemented Read to Self and Work on Writing so far. I was nervous about how it would go and so I think I had to see the success of Read to Self before forging ahead. Now my class can read 23 minutes quietly and on their own! Let me tell you, I never would have thought that was possible before. They also LOVE Work on Writing. I'll rush the rest this week (I hope that doesn't backfire) and then I'll really feel like reading groups are off and running.

I also have a math sorting project I intend to make available this week, so I'll work on getting that on my blog shortly.

Right now, 15 followers... what a nice surprise!
Take care, all.

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Daily 5 Word Work Ideas

I'm really excited about launching the Daily 5 this year! I've been reading a lot of blogs from people who are experienced at it and others like me who are just starting. I'm jealous of those of you who have a partner to work with- I'm figuring it out on my own. But I found Christina Bainbridge's blog at Mrs. Bainbridge's Class and she has terrific word work ideas I know I'll incorporate. You might want to check it out too. Have a good start to your week, especially if your kiddos are showing up. I have until the 24th when my kiddos arrive. Happy blogging!

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