Read to Someone!

TGI{almost}F! I am exhausted. I seriously think I could go to bed right now and not wake up until my alarm goes off in 12 hours!!

Our kiddos are doing really well with Read to Self and Work on Writing. They have built their stamina quite a bit! But they are ready for some more choices! Yesterday we began Read to Someone. Amy and I did a lot of modeling of what it would look like, sound like, etc. and we made our I-Chart. The kids loved our "EEKK!" story :)

Today we reviewed our I-Chart, and modeled how to choose a partner and how to do I Read, You Read. When choosing a partner, our students must ask, "Will you please be my partner?" And the only answer is, "Yes, thank you!" Amy and I modeled first, then we had some students model. I will be completely honest. After the lesson, I walked away feeling like it did NOT go well, and Amy agreed. But when we let our kids pick partners and get started, we were surprised! I guess they did get it and were listening, because they did Read to Someone for about 10 minutes on their first try! And they were all engaged in reading with their partner! Oh happy day! :) I leave you with a photo of our Read to Someone. Happy almost weekend!

Work on Writing {and a little Mumford & Sons!}

You guys. YOU. GUYS. This weekend I crossed a big something off my bucket list! I saw one of my favorite bands, Mumford & Sons in Guthrie, Oklahoma for their Gentlemen of the Road Stopover! I cannot even put into words how amazing their show was! And the other bands that came along were great! The town of Guthrie went ALL out for this event. It felt a bit like Beatle-mania :) Not to mention the night ended with some Beatles covers! Could it get any better?! Did I mention that we did the whole camping thing? Yeah... Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT the camping type, especially in close to 100* heat... {I would prefer "glamping" in an air conditioned building with a shower} but it was all worth it to see such an incredible show!

Okay, thank you for letting me express my excitement :) Now on to school related topics! We kicked off Work on Writing a week or two ago. Before we even started writing, we read the book The Best Story to the kids. It is a great way to get your kiddos thinking about writing!

We then went on to make maps of our hearts-the important things we hold close to their hearts! I modeled this for our students, and then we let them make maps of their hearts! The kids put a lot of thought into their heart maps and did a great job! They glued them to the front of their WOW journals so they can always find them when they need a topic to write about when they can't think of anything. No more "but I don't know what to write about!" :)

 

The next day, we came to the carpet and I told the kids I had the funniest story to share about my furbabies, Lulu and Molly {who I also included on my heart map}. I started writing right away, and modeled "underline and move on!" We discussed what they noticed me doing as I was writing {I wrote the whole time, I stayed in one spot, I didn't bother the teacher when I didn't know how to spell a word, I underlined and moved on, I used our word chunks, etc.) This really helped with our I-Chart for Work on Writing! Then we let them start writing! We could not believe that ALL 45 of our kids were writing! On the very first try I would say that they got to about 5 minutes of stamina before someone got off task, which is pretty good for a first try! That first 5 minutes gave us a lot of information about our kids' writing abilities.

 

 

The author above was so excited to learn that she could just "underline and move on" and that it was going to make writing SO much easier for her! LOVE IT!!

 

I just love seeing all those underlined words :) We have built our WOW stamina to about 15 minutes in about a week! We are so proud! Not one kiddo has gotten up during any of our WOW time to ask how to spell something, which is allowing us to work with so many students one on one or in small group! We are constantly modeling work on writing for the kiddos to reinforce expectations and strategies {stretching words, using chunks, etc.}, as well as how to use heart maps when they don't know what to write about. I just love that Daily 5 teaches the routines and procedures that allow your students to be truly engaged in a meaningful task independently! We will be launching Read to Someone this week, and I am so excited :)

 

Back to the real world tomorrow! Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday and an amazing week!

Daily 5 Board #teachertalktuesday

The first day of school is August 16 {yes, a Friday, UGH!} Amy and I fiiiiinally went up to school yesterday. We made a list AND WE STUCK TO IT! And we guess what? We actually got a lot done! {We are known to be pretty ADHD...}

My sweet mom helped me today and I just feel so accomplished! Our rooms are pretty much done {minus some cleaning} so I think we are going to be able to start copying stuff for open house, parent night, and the first few days of school. PTL!

One thing I worked on today was our new Daily 5 board. My anchor charts were inspired by Amy Lemons and I kinda like how they turned out :) We will fill out the anchor charts as we learn about each part of Daily 5. Our old D5 board was pretty small, and I love that this is such a big focal point in our carpet time room.

I also used some posters I printed off from TpT! Have you downloaded this HUGE {FREE!!!!} pack from The Teaching Reef? There are like 70 pages of D5 posters and other resources! I love her EEKK poster :) Be sure to pick up your copy if you haven't yet!

Monday Made It on a Tuesday :)

Welp, I just checked the mail. It's here. Our back to school letter. Which means I need to soak up every last minute of summer, because it is over VERY soon!

I am linking up with Tara again for Monday Made It! Except I am a day late :) Forgive me!

First, I made some class journals for our kiddos to use during Work on Writing! Here is the Pinspiration :) I tweaked it a bit and whipped up four prompts real quick to use in our classroom. {I did not post these, as they are not my original idea. But you can purchase your own class journals from Teach-a-Roo! Check out her TpT store!} I may add more journals as the year goes on! I am excited to see how it goes :)

 

Next, I made a new wreath! I think I will wait to hang it up a little closer to fall. This thing cost me a whopping $7 to make. Thank you, Hobby Lobby for 40% off coupons and 50% off ribbon!



 

Thanks to everyone who helped me get to 200 followers in my TpT store! I will be thinking of something special for all of my amazing followers very soon, so be on the lookout!

 









A CHEAP Listen to Reading Idea!

Yesterday I did a little shopping at Mardel, Michael's and Target! All of this for under $20! Woo!

 

Cute bird name tags, cute notepads, tickets for behavior management, but what I am most excited about is the clear dry erase pockets that I got from Target... FOR A BUCK!

 

 

I already have a few that I bought at other stores in the past {for WAY more than $1, I might add!} and I didn't know if I really needed them. But at a buck a piece, why not? And surely I could find SOMETHING new to use them for! Plus, the blue matches my classroom :)

 

Then it dawned on me that I could use these as an easy way to hold my kiddos accountable at Listen to Reading during the Daily 5 that wouldn't use all my paper counts! 

 

 

I whipped up some Reader's Response Sheets that we will be using! After listening to a story, students will fill out a response sheet with a dry erase marker. It is something that Amy or I can check really quickly! AND no wasted paper! Plus, writing with dry erase markers is waaaay cooler :)  I just need to buy some skinny, colorful dry erase markers!

 

We will need to decide if we want to have all the same response sheets, or to have a few different ones available for the kids to choose from. Either way, I am really excited to add this into our D5 time :) It may even be something that we could use during Read to Someone as well. The sheets can be used for any reading time, really!

 

You can check out my Reader's Response Sheets by clicking {HERE} or on the picture below!

 

 

Happy Friday, sweet friends!



Daily 5, Mini-Tour & Bucket Fillers!!!

YOU GUYS. I loooove our class!! All 44 of them! They are doing AWESOME! I am loving this team teaching thing! We had our parent meeting last night, and we had a great turn out, and the parents all seemed excited :) Made us feel really good! We have great kids and great families for sure!

This week we have started the Daily 5. We are using Daily 5 for Dummies to help us plan our lessons. HOWEVER, we are taking it a bit slower. So what D5 for Dummies says to do in one day, we are doing in two. Yesterday and today we learned 3 ways to read a book. We also learned the CAFE strategy of Check for Understanding. Then we worked and worked on building our stamina for Read to Self. Amy and I were honestly a tad worried about how Read to Self would go with 44 kiddos, but OMG they were AMAZING!!! I am so excited for Daily 5 to really get up and running in the next several weeks :)

Okay, last week I was very busy with Open House and other last minute things, so I did not get to post photos of my classroom. These are from Open House night {so excuse all the baskets and whatnot all over the place!}

These are the packets we had for Open House... A checklist for what to do that night, Magic Confetti {I cannot remember who I got that from-if it's yours PLEASE leave a comment so I can give you credit!}, Cara's Student Info Sheet and Getting to Know Your Child sheet, my Helping Hands sheet {from my Beginning of the Year Forms}, and a Welcome letter explaining our class!

My teacher table {with the lanterns I bought and pom poms I made}

Our Classroom Jobs {from my store} and our library pockets. Each pocket has a popsicle stick in it. We write each child's reading level to help them find books in the library. It also serves as a hall pass!

My giant leaf from Ikea! This is a favorite reading area :)

Our Writer's Eye board {pick up your FREE copy here}

My teacher computer & Word Chunk Wall..... AND where my Smart Board is supposed to go.... still hasn't been installed :( I am getting impatient and antsy!!!

Our morning routine board. We say our pledges, then do the school creed, school song, class creed, character trait of the month, word of the week {not posted yet} and quote of the week {not posted yet}.

Our Tree-riffic Words! We will add each word of the week to this tree, so it will be FULL by the end of the year! This is also our turn-in station. Kiddos highlight their names on their papers before turning them in. No forgotten names!!!

Our Bucket Fillers!

To kick off Bucket Filling, Amy demonstrated using a tube of toothpaste. She squeeeeezed it all out.

Then we tried having a few friends put the toothpaste back in using toothpicks {because Mrs. Lynes has no toothpaste at home! Haha} Of course, we couldn't get it all back in! So we talked about how we can't take back our words, and if we say something hurtful, those words stick-even if we say sorry.

Then we read

and discussed what it meant to be a "Bucket Filler" and "Bucket Dipper." We made a Bucket Filler anchor chart and a Bucket Dipper anchor chart.

We threw away our Bucket Dipper chart because we will only fill buckets this year! :)

It's been a great year so far, and I am SO EXCITED!!

Daily 5 Freebie!

Is everyone on summer break? I am, and I have been enjoying it! Today is the day I am going back to the gym (yay!/blah!) I am also getting a MUCH needed 90 minute massage!! I. CANNOT. WAIT.

Before I head out, I just wanted to share a quick FREEBIE with you, in case you are doing Daily 5 in your classroom and you want a little project to work on over the summer! These are Check for Understanding Tissue Box Dice for your kiddos to use during Read to Someone! All you need to do is save several cube tissue boxes, print off the pages from my store, laminate and hot glue!

I am excited to use these next year. Click HERE to get the copies :)

I hope everyone is enjoying summer, or if you are still with your kiddos, I hope the days flyyyyy by and that you have a lot of FUN!