Chirp...Chirp...Chirp

Do you hear the crickets chirping? It has been way too quiet on here. My work life has kept me very busy! I think this will be a pattern for a while. Too much going on. So what are my 5 highlights for this past week?




1.  My district uses Reading Street as its series. At my school, we use it as a resource. This past week we worked with the big book Baby Animals in the Grasslands. I made my first bridge map with my kinderkids. Our vocabulary consisted mostly of baby animal names. I went online and printed out some pictures from google searches. Then I laminated them so I could use those pictures again.

2.  I was looking for a new lion craft, and was inspired by this pinterest pin. I gave each of my kinderkids one yellow 11"X11" square to paint stripes from the center out. For the head, I gave each child a 3 1/2"X 5 1/2" yellow rectangle. We cut the 4 corners and rounded it to make an oval shape. We used the scraps to make ears. I modeled how to make a lion face. They did great! Each one came out adorable! Then each kinderkid cut around his mane to make a fringe and added yarn for texture. Last we glued the heads on. On another day, we used Kim Adsit's lion treemap. To help my kinderkids understand how to make a sentence, I made a tree map on a pocket chart. Since children come up with ideas that I do not think of- I wrote them on sentence strips and added them. I forgot to take a picture of it, but to get your own tree map pieces click HERE FOR FREEBIE. Kim's tree map is a freebie. I saw she has a teacher version as well.

3. Text Dependent Questions...
This summer I went to a workshop about TDQs. It really helped me to better understand close reading. Currently, I am in the process of collaborating with other district primary teachers on TDQs.  From that summer workshop, I wanted to share a packet of TDQ stems I put into a pdf file. I printed mine out. They are on a ring to help me when needing to create questions. Clink on the picture to get it:

4. We are moving along in the Leader in Me process. I am excited about using the 7 Habits with my children more explicitly. We created our class mission at the beginning of the year. I asked what kind of classroom they wanted, and combined the words into positive statements. The original is posted in our classroom on chart paper. The one below is one I created recently to post outside my classroom door.

5. Girls on the Run- I am so glad that I volunteered to be part of this program as an assistant coach! It happens twice a week after school. It is a great program that helps young ladies (3rd - 5th grade) to build self esteem and encourage others. I enjoy the activities we do with the girls. In December, we will be running a 5k as a team! Sorry no pictures!

I am so looking forward to this Wednesday! It's our 50th day of school! Kindergarten will have a sock hopping, jump roping, hoola hooping, frisbee flinging, and bowling kind of day!

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Reading Street Organization

I think another month has gone by... and I am finally getting to this post. This summer, I have thought about different ideas to share, but honestly, this summer, my main focus is on rejuvenating and relaxing.

 I have been in my new classroom, cleaning and organizing to make room for all of my stuff. My "stuff" filled up 9 vehicles. 7 to school and 2 to home. My new classroom already has stuff in it left over from the previous owner- a retired teacher. So, I spent 2 days to sort through things to figure out what to keep, save for other team members, and throw out. Last year, my district adopted the Reading Street series. The Kindergarten Reading Street boxes are humongous and bulky, taking up valuable classroom real estate. I kept going into the different boxes to get the different books for each week or unit. These boxes are colorful, but technically not ideal for storage. This year, I decided to get rid of those boxes...

So, I used some plastic tubs to combine all the unit books together. Here's a picture of what I did...

I made some Reading Street labels for the plastic bins. I added them onto this picture to see what they would look like. :0)

Earlier this year, I made some Reading Street mailing labels to use on file folders. When I came across an activity or idea I wanted to remember for a particular Reading Street unit, I could add it to the folder. Before this past year, I had always kept my stuff in thematic tubs. Now, I do a combination of skills and themes. I am also sharing my mailing labels for the Reading Street weekly units. These mailing labels use Hello Literacy fonts: Hello Basic & Hello Firstie. So if you do not have them, they may look funny on the mailing label. (Hello Literacy fonts are free on her blog.)

The mailing labels (size: Avery 8160) were made on Microsoft Word.

Click the picture above to get the plastic bin labels in a pdf format.

Click the above picture to get the editable labels.

I think having the Reading Street's student books organized this way will make it easier for me to get to them when needed. Now that I have that organized, I wonder what I will conquer next in my new room?



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Five for Saturday!

 

I meant to post earlier, but it is now Saturday. As they sometimes say, "better late, than never." Here are my top 5 for the past 2 weeks.

 

1. My county has started to use Reading Street this school year. It really limits what we can use, especially when we are suppose to follow it with fidelity. Last week, we were working with the We Are So Proud unit. In the afternoons, I used Pete the Cat stories with math. Here is one tying in the words (red, white, and blue) with number sense. I found the tracers from Hooray for Kindergarten and I created my own I have ___ blue buttons writing prompt. Click on the picture below to go to Google Docs to get the writing math template.

 



 

 

2. For our writing craftivity, my students copied the words: I am so proud. Then each child drew a picture of himself being proud of something he accomplished. Then we added a head, hand, and legs to our writing to make it look like ourselves.

 

 

3. This past week, we made paper bag platypuses to go along with Reading Street's Plaidypus Lost unit. My kinderkids loved this story. The pattern for the paperbag platypus came from Danielle's Place.

 

4. I am really excited how my Rate Your Understanding is coming together in my classroom. I introduced the scale to my students during the second week of school. During the following weeks, we began rating ourselves on how they well they can tell the sounds that each letter makes.

 



 

Then each child graphed where they felt they were at. On top of the quarter page, I created a label stating, "I can say the sounds for each letter." This was printed on file folder labels. The graph has room for a beginning, middle, and ending date. This graph allows me to help my students track their various learning goals in the different subject areas.

 

 

Each child's book is kept on a hook for reference when needed. This is a great way to help differentiate activities at our independent or small group activities.

 

 

For example, at the word work centers, my students use their learning goals books to help them focus on the letters they need to work on. For example, they make the specific letters out of playdough or cubes. Some find matching magnetic letters. They do this by looking at their learning goal books. Behind the graph sheet are specific pages about which letters and sounds they know. Each letter highlighted is one they have shown that they already know. The ones not highlighted are the ones they work on at centers.

 

 

 

We will move on to working with words once letters are mastered. I already have 2 children starting to work with words. I will soon be including these tracking learning goal sheets into my Rate Your Understanding. Check it out for a cheaper price, as it will increase with the new addition. I plan to add them later on today or tomorrow morning.

 

5. I am also excited about my new math station bins. I tried 4 of the bins out last year. I really like them. So I bought more and finally numbered them. I will be working on making a math stations chart for my students. I think my new bunch of kinderkids will love playing math games with their partners. I am really enjoying this new bunch of kinderkids. They are full of personality and fun!

 

 

 





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Cooperative Learning #9 & Little Bus Flash Freebie

Today is my last day of summer break. I am going into my new classroom tomorrow to organize and put things where I need to. Next week is teacher planning week, and I have so much to do!

Storyboard is a cooperative learning structure that I have introduced earlier on my blog. For the Throwback Thursday part I'm focusing only on the Storyboard part of my post. Click HERE to see that full post.



Not sure if she is having this today? She joined others in a big giveaway for August 1-5th.

----- Below part was originally posted on April 5, 2013. -----

3. Last month, I went to a Kagan workshop, and learned a new strategy called Storyboards. I created my own Storyboard (not Kagan endorsed) for my Australia unit, G'day Mates. The week before spring break, we learned about Australia animals. We also talked about nouns and verbs. This song was on a pocket chart as we changed the nouns and verbs using Australian animals. This week, we continued learning about Australia with the Great Barrier Reef. This time, we used a Kagan Storyboard strategy. Each group got a storyboard, cards, and a pointer. One student from each group passes out the cards. As a whole group, we sang the song and put down the cards as we sang the words. This group didn't quite get it, as they missed putting two of the pictures down.

 

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

We continued throughout the week with this activity, and they got better with working together in placing down the word cards as they were sung.

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

 

Now back to the present...

 

After the first week of school, we will be following the new Reading Street Series in my county. I made a thematic unit to go along with the first story, The Little School Bus.

 

Link to TPT store will be added once it's there!

 

In it, I have included a storyboard structure with using the letters. I will first introduce this on a pocket chart during whole group activities. After a few days, I will give each group their parts to review one letter. We will do this activity in small groups, but still whole group. When they are ready, I will add more letters. After they are familiar with this structure, I will put the storyboards at a literacy center for students to practice their letter recognition and sounds. Here is a preview.

 



 



 This unit also includes:

 

1. Who Rides This Bus?- A letter and beginning sound sort for small groups or independent work. There are 4 different variations included: color or black and white in either Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

 

 2. Letters on the Bus Pocket Chart & Storyboards- in Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

3. Road Rally- Even though there is a free set of road letters at Making Learning Fun, I used Charlotte's Clips to create a learning center for my students.

 

 

4. Bus Stop: Write the Room- Just a simple write-the-room activity for copying words onto paper.

 

 

5. Bus & Letter Webs- These are to be printed out and used on class charts.

 



 

6. How Do We Go Home Graph- Parts to make a graph on how students go home. Use bulletin board paper to glue parts onto. Students write name and draw picture on sticky note to place on graph. Then collect data and write about it on the bulletin board paper. See example below:

 

 

 

7. Five on the Bus- Use counters, beans, or children pictures to make 0-5 on the bus mats.

 

 

 

8. Ordinal Numbers- Pocket Chart pieces to tell story of The Little School Bus (Reading Street story) and practice ordinal numbers.

 

 

 

9. Putting the Buses in Order- Students put buses in order and find number matches.

 

 

 

10. Shape Bus Craftivity- Students use shapes (rectangle, circle, square, octagon) to make a bus.

 

11. Little Yellow Bus Snack- Students make a little yellow bus out of a graham cracker, yellow icing, Oreos, and Chex cereal.

 

If you are interested in this packet, I am offering it as a FREEBIE to my followers until Sunday evening 6PM Eastern time. I am almost done with it, so Saturday I will start sending it out to you. Just leave me a comment to this post or email me at learningwithmrsbrinn@gmail.com to let me know how you follow me and your follower name: Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin. Make sure you leave an email address too, so I can email you my newest digital packet.

 

If you would like to link up a post about cooperative learning, please do. I would love to hear how others are using these strategies in their classrooms. If you ever get a chance to go to a Kagan workshop, I highly recommend it. It has helped me to better manage my classroom, and get my students to interact and be engaged more often. I am not being paid for this statement. It is my opinion, and definitely worth an educator's time. I was fortunate to have my workshops paid for through school funds. :0) This is the last cooperative learning linky of this summer.

 

 

 

 

 

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