Turkeys, turkeys, turkeys!

 I had an election in my classroom  after reading "The Great Turkey Race".

 The students loved seeing the names go up one at a time.  Once we got close to the end, we talked about how many more it would take for each turkey to win.  

 Practicing different ways to make the number eight.

Halloween fun!

I found this cute idea on Pinterest .  We read "Where's My Mummy" and did a writing activity about what our "Mummy" does when we get scared.  I wish you could see their responses but the picture quality is not the best.

Here are a few of their responses:

When I get scared my mummy...

fixes me hot cocoa.

lets  me sleep with her.

holds me.

talks with me until I feel better.

 "at" words

I introduced adjectives and we described our jack-o-lanterns.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear!

I paired the students up and they made these illustrations after we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  I hung them in the hall and after we left them out there for a week, I brought them back to our room and made a classroom book.  Love their artwork!  I think they were pretty proud of themselves too!

Centers!

I ordered an IPAD a month or so ago and it finally came in while we were off on fall break.  The kids have really enjoyed getting to use it in centers.  There are lots of great apps out there. 

 Here is a look at the stamp center.  I used it the first couple of weeks and just recently brought it back out to work on color words again during our Brown Bear activities. 

Letter tiles used for color words during more Brown Bear, Brown Bear activities

Here are a couple of pictures from our art center the past couple of weeks.  We worked on Sea Life one week and Armadillos the next. 

More Sea Life centers

 

 

I even broke out the Play-Doh to work on letters last week. 





A little bit of this and that

How cute are these two?  I just had to snap a shot of them hanging out at recess :)

(left side is our daily fix it and the right side is our daily writing.  The students had to draw a picture of a place you would find a tractor. This student drew a great looking barn.)

 

I wanted to share a journal with you.  This is the one thing that has really surprised me this year.  I was a little hesitant about starting it so early in the year but clearly there was no need to wait.  The students are doing great with them.  I am so proud of them.  We do a daily fix it and a journal writing each day first thing in the morning.  One of my favorite things.  I love their writing and illustrations!

Here are the pigs that were made in the art center using different size circles.  Their favorite part was rolling a strip of construction paper on a pencil to make the tail.  

Color words and Daily Fix It

It has been a busy couple of weeks with tons of stuff going on.  I was super bummed yesterday when I had to be away for a math training.  Its so hard to plan for a sub especially for a Monday.  We start a new story every Monday, new vocabulary words, new sight words, new centers, new homework packets, and new fluency readers.  That's a lot to miss and to expect of a substitute, but Miss Vickie always does a great job.  I was extremely happy to be back in the classroom with my kiddos today!  

 

Here is our color words chart we made to hang up in the classroom.  We will refer to it throughout the year. 

 

 I opened up a new center this week to help students recognize color words.  It is surprising how long this can take students at first, but they quickly pick up on the concept and get much faster.  I will add another step to this once they bacome more familiar with it.

 I started a daily journal last week and the kids are doing great with it.  Getting their journal and crayons out is their first task each morning besides getting unpacked.  We do a quick daily fix it which is mainly just capitalizing the first letter in a sentence and putting a punctuation mark at the end.  I write the sentence incorrectly and then we correct it as a class.  The students then copy it in their journal.  We also do another activity each day in the journal.  We are currently working on labeling.  The students will draw a picture and label items in the picture.  They are not expected to write the words correctly but they are expected to atleast write the beginning sound of each word. 

 

Today's entry was:

Draw a picture of two people playing together and label it.

 

I will try to post some pictures of what journals look like now so you can see our progress in the future.

daily fix it above

Since students are expected to label items with beginning sounds, we spend some time each day working on beginning sounds.  Here is a picture of us working on the letter Tt.  The students came up with items to list and the student who thought of it got to draw a picture of it during center time.

 

Students will be dismissed early on Friday (11:15) this week and next week due to homecoming festivities.

Centers

Friday was the first full day for all of my students.  I started with 24 students this year and on Friday, they opened up a new classroom so I am now down to 19 students.  There was definitely a BIG difference in 19 compared to 24.  I really hated having to let go of those 5 students after spending time with them, but in the long run, it will be best for everyone. 

 

I took the plunge and started centers Friday just to see how everything went.  I am eager to get started on my small groups and to do that, I have to get them running during center time.

I got this letter sort from a friend whom I use to work with.  I placed my magnetic letters on the copier and made a copy of them.  I put the letters in a baggy and the students just sort the letters.

 computer center

 

 dry erase wring center (letters & name)

 

 

 stamp center (they loved getting to use stamps)

I only had them practice the letters that we have been working on:

Aa

Bb

Cc

Dd

Ee

 

and our two words:

am

I

 

reading library

 

 abc center

 

 

 reading library

 

 

I have to give a big THANK YOU to one of my parents for bringing in a special snack for the students (I got one too!!!!). We got Sugar Shack doughnuts and juice drinks.  (cute napkins too)  Woo hoo!  Perfect for our first full day!