Weekend Warriors-Pinspirational June Day 1

We're back...The Weekend Warriors and this month's theme is "Pinspirational June." We will be bringing you some of our favorite pins we have discovered for anything from the home to yes, of course, the classroom. I recently moved and so I'm devoting day one's post to awesome pins I found for my new house. I literally decorated my house based on pins I found. Someone actually came in one day and said "Wow this is like walking through Pintrest. 

There is no way I can share everything I did in my new house so I picked a few of my favs. The first is my DIY crate coffee table with my cutie patootie dog, Tucker posing on the couch. This was so easy to make. You just take four crates (I got mine at Michaels) and stain them then screw them together. I found the feet at Lowes and just screwed them on. Last, get a vase to stick in the middle. 

The next Pinterest inspired idea were these baby gates. There is one at the top too. My hubby made these for me because you had to measure and cut wood which I'm not great at, but it was super easy fr him to make and looks so much better than the regular baby gates. 

We finally got around to painting my daughter's bedroom and playroom which was Pinterest inspired. We did her playroom in a coral/teal theme.

I saw this on Pinterest and LOVED it. A chalkboard for her wall. We just bought that chalkboard paint at Lowes and rolled it on then framed it with chair rail molding that I painted to match the coral. As you can see family wrote at the top and my lovely 2-1/2 year old's work is at the bottom. Ha!!

 Here is her bedroom. I wanted something to hang over her bed but not really a mobile since she's not technically a baby any more {insert sad face} I found this idea and bought these tissue poms on Etsy. Loved the way it turned out!

I had actually made this a long time ago which inspired the color choice of her bedroom {another Pinterest idea}. It was really pinned from an Etsy seller for a pretty high price so I whipped one up myself with the colors I liked. 

If you follow me on Facebook you can get these four sunshine sheets under the fan freebie tab! The frames were like $2 or $3 at Wal-Mart.

And last but not least, my favorite part of the house. This is right in the entrance. I got the red bookcase and lamp at Target and just added the rest. The frames just have fabric in them and I watched a you tube video on how to make a burlap wreath then hung it on a curtain rod.  I was thrilled with the way this came together.

Wanna check out more. Just click any picture below. Thanks for looking!

Lucky To Be In First	A Burst of First	Bright Concepts 4 Teachers	Primarily Speaking	Second Grade Perks
Sailing Into Second	Hippo Hooray for Second Grade	The Tutu Teacher	First Grade Smiles	A Sunny Day In First Grade

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Organization Of Literacy Block

This summer we have been bringing you "The Diggin' Into Series."

This week we are talking about the organization of our literacy block.

I am going to combine here and tell you things I did last year along with things I plan to change next year.

I use Daily 5 but last year just felt like my kiddos started to play more than have meaningful time at their choices. I decided to give my daily schedule a little makeover. At the end of the year I attempted to have mainly small group lessons for reading and WAY less whole group. I combined Daily 5 with reading workshop as I'm sure most of you do that use Daily 5. 

From 7:45-7:55 I plan to do my first reading mini lesson for the day. I just created an entire packet of reading mini lessons with tons of organizers to help keep my students responsible for their learning. {Keep reading to see those}. After this I am going to meet with one small group while the rest of the class is engaged in practicing the skill from our mini lesson or they will be in one of the Daily 5 choices. 

Now here is where I was stuck on making sure they were doing something meaningful. I usually just stuck a list of spelling words in the Word Work area and they have different choices such as stamps, dry erase boards, etc. There was nothing really for them to turn in and they started to just goof off and were not practicing their skills at all. I have decided to start putting my language centers here as well. I'll use a lot of stuff I bought on TPT as well as some of my own products. My products include a recording sheet that I will require them to turn in. I know Daily 5 is about choice so I plan to require that they complete the recording sheet during the week at Word Work and once it is complete they can choose what they want to do. 

My students will start to fill out a reader's response page next year which is where my read to self/someone and listen to reading accountability will come in. I found these forms for free {HERE} There is one for fiction and nonfiction. They will not need to complete one of these every day just as needed so if they are not completing a response they are participating in share time at the end of literacy block. I laminated the response options front to back and they keep a copy in their Daily 5 book bag.

From 8:15-8:35 I will be meeting with my 2nd small group. I have decided to try doing my main phonics/language lessons during small groups on some days (not all). This way I can really differentiate for my students. I still have a time set aside in my schedule for language and phonics for whole group too since we won't have time to cover everything in small group.

Next, from 8:35-8:50 I will allow students to share things they learned about themselves as readers that day or things they discovered while reading using their responses on their graphic  organizers from my reading strategy mini lesson packet. 

               

Make sure you check out the linky at Where the Magic Happens for more ideas!

Summer Stock-Up

Let's face it....we're teachers so do we really take off for summer break? If you're anything like me your brain never stops thinking about things involving the classroom and students and how something could be made better. That's why we are bringing you "Summer Stock Up."  Tons of amazing teachers will be blogging about products that can help you get started back on the right track next school year. There are different categories you can browse through for all different grade levels.

I'm going to introduce you to my brand new product Common Core Reading Strategy Mini Lessons.

I have struggled to get a grasp on how I want my reading block to flow. I tried purchasing some different guided reading packets but nothing was working. I finally decided to come up with my own set of mini lessons. The way this will work in my classroom next year is each morning we start off with a 10-15 minute mini lesson. In the packet there are 15 mini lessons in all. Now this will in no way give you a mini lesson for each day of the year but I don't teach a brand new skill every day. In my class we teach a skill for a week and then even come back to review it later on in the year.

These are the skills covered:
text to self connection 
text to text connection 
text to world connection 
making and adjusting predictions 
making a mental picture or image 
using text features 
problem and solution 
summarizing the text 
main idea and supporting details 
author’s purpose 
cause and effect 
comparing and contrasting texts 
asking questions 
recognizing literary elements 
retelling 

With each lesson you will get:

*a mini lesson statement
*the common core standard it aligns to
*suggested books to use when teaching the lesson
*ideas for how to teach the lesson
*a mini poster
*questions to ask during the lesson
*questions to ask after independent practice
*an organizer to use whole group as you teach the lesson 
*an organizer for students to use during independent practice

During the mini lesson you will read a book to the class from the suggested book list or one of your own choice. Follow the mini lesson provided and discuss the mini poster included for better understanding.

We have a poster maker at my school. I turn the whole group organizer into a poster and laminate and record answers with a dry erase marker. This organizer stays up all week for students to refer back to. If you do not have a poster maker you can still display the organizer on the overhead and record answers that way.

After the whole group mini lesson students will practice the skill during independent reading time. During this time there is an organizer for students to use to record their own thinking. This will help them remember their thoughts when it is time to share what they discovered while reading that day own their own. 

Not sure if this would be something you could use? No problem, head over to my facebook page and pick up a free sample lesson complete with what each mini lesson comes with. This is available in my shop in a 2nd and 1st grade version. The free sample is the 2nd grade version but the only difference is the standard numbers on the top.

Now on to the next product I want to share with you: Polka Dot Phonics Cards

This packet comes with phonics posters that I use to display on the wall behind my guided reading table. That way when a student comes to a word they don't know we find the spelling pattern on one of the cards and they figure the word out on their own (most of the time). They come with 2 per page or 4 per page depending on how much wall space you have.

The next thing (and my favorite) included is a black and white version for students. I copied these on color card stock and gave each student a copy to keep in their Daily 5 bag. They are already familiar with the cards from seeing them on the wall during reading group so this way they have their own copy to refer to when reading independently. I am also considering putting a copy in their desks to use when not at Daily 5. I loved seeing my little ones pull these out last year to help a friend during read to someone. Depending on how many you want on each page it comes with 9 per page and 6 per page. 

So there you have it....two new products to get you started off to a great new school year. Don't forget to head over to my facebook page and pick up that sample mini lesson. From now through June 28th these two products will be 20% off in my TPT shop so if you like the sample make sure you stop by and pick up the entire packet while it's on sale. Click here for Common Core Reading Strategy Mini Lessons {2nd Grade}. Click here for Common Core Reading Strategy Mini Lessons {1st Grade}. Click here for Polka Dot Phonics Cards. If you want to read about more products from other bloggers click on the button below. You can also enter my giveaway below until June 24th and pick one of these products of your choice for free if you win! Thanks for reading! 

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How Math Workshop Flows in My Room

I'm here to bring you week two of "The Diggin' Into Series."

 I hope everyone was able to read all of the great blog post last weekend on classroom organization. If not click {HERE} to go back and check it out. 

.....organize my math block. I changed up the way I do math time this past year and I fell in love with my new routine. Here is what a day in my math class looks like.

I start my math block with alternating every other day using this Common Core Daily Calendar Routine. You can read about how this works {HERE}

And these Common Core Math Warm Ups which we use our desk and dry erase markers to write answers. There is a short post about those {HERE}

On Mondays we don't do either though. I use this day to introduce all of the games they will be playing throughout the next two weeks so when they go to play they won't be totally lost. 

We then have a 10 minute mini lesson before we bust out into our rotations.

Here is what my guided reading rotation board looks like.

The numbers across the top are the rotation number and the numbers down the side are the group numbers. The group signs on the right have their number with Velcro so they know what group they are in. I do four 15-20 minute rotations each day so that I am able to meet with every student. Since we only have a 10 minute whole group mini lesson it is important to meet with all students and this is where I vary the lessons depending on their level.

 The shapes say "Teacher Time" "Own My Own" "Math Games/Manipulatives" and "Practice Math Facts." Teacher time of course is with me. On my own is a workbook page or some type of page that covers the skill from the mini lesson or a math journal prompt. Notice the smaller rectangle below the blue octagon? That is blank and I write what page number in their workbook or whatever it is I want them to work on. For practice math facts we use Fast Math which is awesome. For math games we use games that cover various skills. 

At the end of the rotation I ring a bell and they know to clean up and quickly check the board to go to their next rotation. The first week we did it, they were awesome. They caught on so quickly and now when someone is in my room during math they are amazed at how our math block just flows and all kids are engaged and staying on task and how they all know what they need to be doing without me saying a word. 

I have shared this before but here it is again in case you missed it. If you use Envision for math {HERE} is a pacing guide my district sent us with the lessons that align from common core along with several other lessons and activities that I use during teacher time. 

If you are interested in the products I mentioned above that I start off my math block with, you can get them for 20% off for the next three days by clicking on the item link below:

The Daily Calendar Routine

Daily Common Core Math Warm Up

Well that's it for today but make sure you head over to Where the Magic Happens to follow the linky and check out more math workshop ideas. 

Oh and if you like my Facebook page you can grab a fan freebie that will be a big help in getting started for the new school year.