Penguins

Happy 3 day weekend! (If you got one and I hope you did!) I just returned from a weekend at the beach with my sweet & amazing family :)

We swam, we ate, we shopped...it's too cold to go in the ocean after all! :) 

I am thrilled to have another day off tomorrow!! And guess what? IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!! I will have a few tricks up my sleeve on Facebook, so don't forget to visit there tomorrow.

On to the meat of this post.  Let's talk Penguins.  We were in DESPERATE need of a new bulletin board outside of our room.  That poor wall has been bare since before Christmas break.  We had grand plans to put some Polar Bears up there last week, but our little cuties went bananas with the chalk.  So what did I do? I went to Pinterest! Our unit for last week was Penguins.  So ... I searched "Penguin Craft" and I found this pin:

OMG could that be any cuter? No...it couldn't! Click on the picture or the link above to go to her page and get a template for the penguins.  There is not a template for the ear muffs or scarf.  In fact, she used ribbon for the scarf.  I had this adorable chevron paper in the closet from Michael's and knew it'd be perfect for this.  Have I told you how amazing my assistant is? She got all this together and made it with my sweet students.  We learned our lesson with the chalk last week, so we used snowflake sequins instead.  I bought them who knows when on clearance from Michael's.  

This is how our cute bulletin board turned out! 

So what else did we do with penguins? 

All the goodies in this packet! (And there are a plenty!) There are a lot of great science activities, writing activities, centers and math review activities. (I was doing a lot of assessing for the end of the marking period, so this was great review!) 

Don't forget to stop by Facebook tomorrow to see what I'm doing for my birthday.  Enjoy your extra day! 

Centers

You may remember back in the Summer when I posted about how I set up my centers.  When I posted, it was the Summer, so I didn't have any actual center examples to show you.  So today I snapped some pictures of how my centers are set up in case you need some help getting yours started or want a new way to do them.  This is not all the centers I have, but just some of the ones that are open this week.

Art Center - This week they are using tissue paper to cover a pumpkin. The pumpkins are in the tray on the top of the purple bookshelf.  All the materials they need (glue, scissors, pencils etc.) are in that sorter on top of the shelf.  The tissue paper has already been cut for them and is in the basket.  I also made an example so they know exactly what to do.

At every center, you will see the icon for that center as well as a task card.  The task cards are simple, but they are helpful.  Right now, my kids CANNOT read these.  That is ok! If a grown up walks in, I am out, my assistant is out, the world ends - someone will know what they are supposed to do that that center and help them.

This is my ABC Center (There are puzzles on that bookshelf I know, the puzzle center is around that location too.)  The Accountability Sheets and materials are on the shelf, and the game is in the basket.  Again I provide an example but I encourage them to do the work on their own.  This week they are saying the name of the picture and clipping the beginning sound. Clothespins are in that basket too.

Math Center - Sorting Map & Sorting Pieces in the basket, Materials and Accountability Sheets on the Shelf

Pocket Chart Center - I know these don't match right now...the kids will match them when they get there :) 

Listening - Book is there ready for them...Plain paper for them to draw a picture and write a sentence about their favorite part.

Writing Center - Magnetic Letters to make each word, accountability sheets in the tray.

Please forgive this shelf..it was a heinous yellow and I spray painted it...if you move it, the legs fall off.  Bless.  This is Write the Room.  All they need are clip boards and pencils.  Again I have an example just in case they want to check their work.

This is my center chart.  Some of my icons aren't up there very securely at the moment, but it serves it's purpose.  For more information on how I set this up, check that post from the Summer.

Most of my centers have their own tables or are something that can be done in the floor.  I am super fortunate to have a lot of room and a lot of tables! :) I like for the students to have a game or activity and then some kind of accountability.  This is what works in our room.  My kids LOVE centers.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask! 

If you need a few centers for next week, swing by and grab these freebies.

 

Currently October

I'm linking up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade for October's Currently.

Listening: I adore Beverly Hills 90210. I've definitely seen the series about a thousand times, but yet I still watch it.  Gotta love Soap Net!

Loving:  I love, love the weekend!  Especially since I quit my 2nd job!  It's so nice to relax and have time with my family in between Grad School assignments! :) 

Thinking:  It's 11:41pm...I should go to bed.  6am is going to come super early!

Wanting:  A 3 day weekend would be super fabulous :) We have a workshop tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to staying after school tomorrow!

Needing: Elijah is still awake.  He has a tape worm and has been eating everything in sight.  I can't go to bed until he does...dilemma!

Trick or Treat:  Here is a Cute Halloween Write the Room Freebie.  Enjoy!

Head over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade and link up!

Guided Reading

Assessments are complete, we've got the routine for switching Centers down, so this week we began some true Guided Reading lessons.  While my children differ in the knowledge of letters and sounds, I don't have any readers at this time.  Most of my students are a level RB (Reading Behaviors), which means they are ready to read, they just don't have the knowledge base of sight words and reading strategies to read the Level B.

I started out with a Level A (which only had 2 words on the page) just to teach them our first strategy, Eagle Eye (look at the picture).  This gave me the opportunity to see what they knew about one to one matching, how to navigate through the book and other basic print skills.

Here's a typical lesson for us:

Students come to my table.  They start by practicing their name with a dry erase marker.  I typed their name in Century Gothic font and placed it in a page protector.  They trace it, write it underneath twice and then they turn it on the back where they can't see the model and write it a few more times.  We spend about 3 minutes on this.  All of my students can write their names, now we are working on writing them correctly.  1 uppercase letter, the rest lowercase - all facing the correct direction and formed correctly.  Breaking muscle memory is hard!  We are working hard on getting them to transfer this skill onto their regular papers.  We're almost there!

When I see them form a letter incorrectly, I write it at the top so they can see the correct formation.  This sweet fella was forming his n incorrectly, so I had him practice it a few times.

Another example of writing the letter at the top so they can see the correct formation.  

This is a great transition activity, because it takes the students varying times to get to me so they can start as they get to me.  We will NOT do this forever.  As soon as I see that they've transferred the skill to writing their name on the regular, we will stop this.

Next we move on to our book.  We read this book yesterday, so today was a reread day.  This book is a Level 1 - A Day at School.  I go back over the book and what it was about and remind them of the sentence pattern by saying something like "Oh the book was about what we do at school?  What is something WE CAN do at school?"   This is very helpful for them. 

Whisper reading.  This is the elbow piece of plumbing from Lowes.  6 of these cost me about $25.  I didn't have the money for the real deal but these work just fine.  They love them!

After they retell the story, we do this activity.  I wrote the sentences from the story on a sentence strip and they find the page it came from and put the sentence back together.

 After the sentences are together, I shut their books and we talk about more print skills.  Right now we are working on Capital Letters, Puncutation, How many words are in the sentence, Find a word with x amount of letters, and pointing one to one.

Next we practice our sight word from the story.  The sight word in this story we focused on was "can."  I give the students paper letters and ask the what word they think we can make with those letters and then they make the word.  We "mix and fix" which is where they mix the letters up and make the word again.   I didn't get pictures of this today, but I will get them soon.  Then they write this word on a white board a few times and we practice spelling and saying it.

To end our lesson if we have worked hard, we get iPad time.  I have 1 iPad for my classroom, so I find this one of the most effective ways to use it.  These are our favorite apps right now depending on ability level and group.

Abby Sight Words - They have a free version, but it's well worth the couple of dollars for the full version!  This one focuses on having them find a specific sight word and there is another part of the app to spell the words.

Abby Phonics - Again they have a lite version, but it is well worth the extra few bucks for the full version.  This one focuses in on sounds.  It has them match the letters, find pictures that start with the "h" sound etc.

ABC Alphabet Lite - Totally Free and I haven't needed to upgrade it.  It focuses on finding a specific letter.

I usually spend about 3-5 minutes on one of these games.  It's a great motivator for my students and also educational.  I basically go around the table with everyone getting a turn until we are out of time.  Everyone gets the same amount of turns.

I finish with a smart skittle and hit my "Don't Worry Be Happy" button and we transition to the next center.  And that's our reading groups for now!  We will add more as we go!