Perfect Awards Ceremony

Today we had our quarterly student awards assembly and I was worried about how a few of my students would behave during the assembly. It is long (about an hour) and not exactly engaging for a 6 or 7 year old. They are expected to sit in their seat quietly and not move a muscle while about 85 other students get their awards read off as they go up on the stage. The ones you expect almost always end up with their feet on the chair in front of them or talking to the person next to them. Today I randomly came up with a really great idea. I happened to bring some sticky notes and a pen to the awards and sat the ones who I thought might have a hard time near me. Every few minutes I would write a note to them on my sticky note like "You're doing a great job sitting quietly!" or "You aren't getting this award (honor roll) but it's OK." They looked like this: 

(I just used sticky notes that I already had on their awards folders but next time I will bring extras just for this)

I would tap them gently with my pen and show them the note. I had never tried this before and honestly I wasn't sure if it was going to do even an ounce of good. Surprisingly, every time I showed them the note, their face lit up with a big smile or they nodded their head and went back to doing an amazingly great job. I saw other teachers fussing with their kids while mine just kept looking at a new note every few minutes, smiled, and continued to sit quietly. Now I'm not saying I'm a miracle worker but it definitely worked much better than I ever though it would. I just wanted to share it to anyone who wants some peace at their awards ceremony. Hopefully it will work for you too. Let me know if you had any success or if you made any changes that worked even better!

-OneCrazyS

Plants, Plants, Plants!

The birds are chirping and Spring is in the air. It's about time! No more snow to be seen. Trees and bugs are waking up from their long winter nap. Sounds like a good time to start learning about plants! We've learned about seeds, roots, and stems so far. My students love seeing our plants grow. They've enjoyed all of the books and experiments so far. Their favorite was the headband but there is so much more to come...

Plant Parts Fun Pack

Inside you will find headbands, necklaces, pennants, a small book, experiments, and worksheets for each of the different plant parts (seed, root, stem, leaf, and flower). Free product in the preview! It doesn't hurt to look (: Have fun learning!

-OneCrazyS

OR Sound Song

This week we learned all about the OR sound. I like to let my students watch a video using their new sound to get them engaged in the weekly phonics skill. When I went on my quest, I became extremely frustrated with the selection. There were a total of 2 videos for kids with the OR sound. One with a giraffe where it found 4 things around the house with the OR sound. Another with the OR and AR sound. Pretty slim pickins. I always make up little chants for my students to help them remember a phonics sound. There are just so many  rules for the English language that they can be boring and hard to remember. We always sing our chants every day and practice blending words. I am by no means an expert song writer. In fact, several of them are not even songs but the kids love them and before the end of the week they know their phonics sound. Now will they apply the chant every time they read with 100% accuracy? Well, that's another story. I decided this week I was going to make a video of the chant that we did and then how we blend our words to read. Check out the video and pass it along (: 

Let me know what you think! Have a great week (:

-OneCrazyS

Reading Buddies

When I started teaching first grade five years ago a friend of mine, Ms. Finlayson, enlightened me to the wonderful idea of reading buddies. It started out as just a friend for students to read with during DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time but has evolved into so much more. Over the years my students have become very creative with their buddies and those small, cuddly bunches of fluff have helped my students to become more fluent, use expression in their voice while reading, and to just plain love reading. I don't hear the ugh when I say it's DEAR time. I hear the ugh and the groans when it's time to stop. Check out how I use reading buddies in my classroom: 

I hope some buddies make their way into your room. My kids love to read with them at their desk or around the room during indoor recess too! Grab a book and have fun reading (: 

-OneCrazyS

Spring Sight Word Cards

Spring is finally in the air! However, it did flurry today but I'm going to forget that I saw that. Spring is my favorite season by far. No more dark days, no more cold nights, hello warm air and beautiful colors! As part of my daily intervention group, my students practice their own set of sight word cards. I thoroughly believe that being able to recognize and read sight words is one of the most important foundations to becoming a fluent reader. Since I've been hoping Spring would hurry along, I've made my students some new, flowery sight word cards. I made four different options because let's be honest, who doesn't like choices?

When I use these I quiz each of my students individually. I give them the student word list first and while they read each word, I use the checklist to mark which ones they did and did not get correct. 

Then, I only give them cards for the words that they did not get correct. I have them write their initials on the back of each card and put them in a baggie with their name on it.

Over the course of a few weeks the students practice their words on their own, with a partner, or with a stuffed buddy. If they don't know a word, I tell them what it is. I quiz each student a couple of times a week. While I quiz them I make two piles with their cards. I make a pile for the words they know and a pile for the ones they don't. When I am done quizzing them, they put the words they don't know back into their baggie. I give them a marker or a pen for the words they do know and have them draw a dot along the top of each card that they got correct. I try to give them different colors each day to make it a little more fun. Once they have at least 5 dots on most of their cards, I quiz them again on the entire word list. Whichever words they still do not know, they keep in their baggie. Then, I send all of the cards that they do know home in a separate baggie with the parent note attached. They love practicing their words because it becomes a game of how many more words can they get today. They also really want to get to the next level. I've noticed more confidence in these students as the year progresses and their ability to readily recognize and read sight words improves greatly. Hopefully these cards can help you with your little readers too!

Check them out here: 

Sight Word Cards

Try to stay warm and have fun reading!

-OneCrazyS

Compass Cha-Cha

We've been working on cardinal directions and I really wanted a fun review song or dance for my students. I looked on YouTube and Pinterest and didn't really have much luck. While helping some students with their direction words, a perfect cardinal directions song/dance just poofed into my head. It is to the tune of the Cupid Shuffle. I actually did it with my students before recording it to see if they liked it or not. They were singing it all day long and now they remember which direction is which! Super success in my book (: Check out the song below:

If you like this, share it or leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!

-OneCrazyS

Compass Hide-and-Seek

We've just finished our economics unit and now we are off in a whole new direction. Maps, maps, and more maps! I began by teaching the basic cardinal directions. I have a little chant that we do as we clap our hands outstretched in each direction: North, South, East, and West, These are what we know the best! I also thought of something new this year that I wanted to share. It was something I had never done but my students had such a good time with it. We played cardinal directions hide and seek. I cut colored note cards in half and together we made our very own, genuine compass. I showed them some pictures of basic compasses on the computer. They all wrote the cardinal directions on the blank side of their card and their name on the back. Some of my students made theirs look fancier but my model looked like this:

We very briefly discussed intermediate directions but not in depth since I only teach first grade.Every time I teach directions my students tend to grasp North and South pretty quickly but East and West are always confusing to them. In order to help with this, I had everyone get in line with their compass and told them that different rooms in the school were hiding and it was our job to figure out which directions we had to go in order to find them. Whenever we got to a dead end or "stop sign" in our school I had all of the students whisper to me in line which direction we had to go next to get wherever we were going. When you do this, your trip will mainly consist of East and West which gives your students tons of practice. I made it so that our final destination was the lunch room and I made sure to collect all of their compasses before they entered the lunch room doors. The students loved walking around and checking their compasses. They keep asking to play again so we might use them on the way to specials next week. We will see how much they remember. Hopefully this is something you can use too! I hope you have a great week (:

-OneCrazyS