Reading Street Pumpkin Contraction Sort

Our school year is rolling right along with the seasons. As I was planning for "The Big Circle", our next story in our Reading Street Series, I thought....

"Hmmm, wouldn't it be nice if I had something fallish to do with this story."

So, I decided to whip something up.

We are covering contractions with not, am, and will. Contractions are tough at first, so I thought a sort would be perfect. Thanks to some great FREE clipart from Sear Bear's Kindergarten, A Turn to Learn, and Tales from Outside the Classroom it was a breeze to create. Click here or the picture to grab yours. I hope you enjoy it too!

Now, I need to get back to work and stop procrastinating. It is rainy, and nasty outside. I WANT to curl up and veg but I NEED to get some planning done. It is so hard being responsible. Oh well, let me grab a cup of coffee and get to work! 

I've Been Booed!

Oh my! Busy, like crazy busy year! Can anyone else relate? I feel like teaching is jazzed up on too much caffeine, spinning out of control, and I'm holding on for dear life!! You know maybe I should just let go and watch it spin. I could take a breather and wait for it to slow down.

Hmmm...Thank goodness for this little fellow who should up with perfect timing from Owl Things First! I needed a little reminder of the fun of the season. Thank you!

Here are the rules:

                           
1. Fall is election season and we have been talking about government leaders which of course led to a discussion about Duck, as in Duck for President.

My students loved reading about Duck and his adventurous journey to the White House, which we learned has 35 bathrooms and an indoor bowling alley. They loved it when he kissed the babies. I don't know why, they just thought it was funny.

I have to give a shout out to my husband and fellow blogger at The Udder Side. My husband spotted Duck on the farm one day, but thought nothing about it.

Click to go to the post about Duck on my husband's farm.

He had no idea that Duck had ulterior motives until he spotted this little treasure.

Click to go to the posts about Shirley Cow and read about her campaign race.

That's right...Shirley Cow is making a bid for President. My husband is writing a whole series of blogs about his cow Shirley running for President. I see some election fun and writing opportunities here. You have to check it out!

2. It's Fall and that means Halloween which means bats, spiders, pumpkins, and owls. We are going to read this book by Gail Gibbons. Then the kiddos are going to record one fact they learned on their own owl and put it on a display. Click below to grab one for yourself.

           

3. My next little gem is another book by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort that my teaching partner stumbled upon and has become my absolute favorite. You must get this book and the little freebie that goes with it (click on the pictures below) from Missy Gibbs. She also has an activity pack as well if you are interested. I know I am. My students LOVED the underpants and laughed every time I said the word.  

                             

4. Last but not least, I know its Halloween when Dunkin Doughnuts starts offering their Pumpkin cappuccinos and pumpkin doughnuts. This year they have Pumpkin Mocha and Pumpkin White Chocolate coffee flavors. I'm in heaven! You must try them.

                                       

Now to Boo! me some bloggers:

Learning 4 Keeps

All That Glitters

Castle and Crayons

Heather's Heart

You Might Be a First Grader

Where Is Your Habitat?

We have been studying animal habitats for the past 3 weeks and having a blast. There is something about children and animals. They love talking about them. A few items in our Science and Social Studies curriculum make me tilt my head in wonder, but studying animals in first grade is not one of them. This standard is a natural.

We started out by comparing and contrasting forest habitats and grassland habitats. There is a great site called Africam that lets students view animals live! They love it. I used it one year and had to leave it on all day for them. Something might happen...you never know. You can get to it by clicking on the picture below.




After that we had some fun creating forest habitats using the resources from Mrs. Wheat's Forest and Habitat unit. You can click the picture to go check it out.

 After studying about the different animals and their adaptations, we created a forest habitat on one of the boards in my room.

Forest Habitat

 I loved the results so much, that I just had to first thank my teaching partner for the great find, and then used her desert habitat unit when we studied the arctic and desert habitats. Click on the picture to check this one out.

After visiting Brainpop Jr. to explore the arctic habitat, we used Mrs. Wheat's unit to study desert animals and their adaptations. Then we created cactus with the help of toothpicks and tissue paper and labeled them.

They even told me that cacti have glochids that protect them from enemies and their roots spread to soak up more water when it rains. Awesome! I had to put their thoughts above the board. We also did a little desert writing.

I was so impressed with their writing and the facts they remembered! Now we are studying ocean habitats. We started by reading A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle. This book is a classic and a must! Using the activity suggestions from Erin Sample's Ocean Habitat-An Arts Integrated Science and Literacy Unit, we discussed the story and created our own little hermit crabs. You can go to Erin's unit by clicking on the picture below.

I thought the hermit crabs turned out great! I literally raided my big black cabinet and pulled out whatever looked like ocean material. Floral grass became seaweed, pink pom-poms became sea urchins, macaroni shells became snails, and glitter became lantern fish. The glitter was a big hit! Then we went over the adaptations for hermit crabs and they told me all about the shell, the pinchers and the protruding eyes (their favorite part).

Now we are ready to study whales using the story Amazing Whales! a common core text exemplar. If you click below you can go to Watch Know Learn to have the story read to the students. I love this site. Many of the text exemplars are available here.



We are going to wrap up our study of habitats with a visit to the aquarium. The students are super excited about this trip because it is our very first field trip of the year. We can't take very many anymore because of budget cut backs, so we appreciate every trip we get.

Am I Doing It Wrong?

As I celebrated Labor Day working on lesson plans and grading papers a question kept popping into my head:

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Am I doing it wrong???






When I say wrong, I mean planning, structuring, organizing, common core - time management. Let me explain with a sample of my "planning schedule" from last week.

During the Week

 Work Day is usually 7:30 - 5:00 so 9.5 hours

After school I plan after the kids go to bed so 1.5 - 2 hours

Friday, regular work day plus 4 hours

Weekend

Saturday I visited family - an indulgence I know - so 4 hours

Sunday after church I put in 9 hours

Monday (Labor Day) I worked for 16 hours 

(I paid for the Saturday indulgence - usually I put in those hours on Saturday)

So to break it down - I spend 88.5 hours planning/teaching. If I assume 8 hours of sleep a night (ahhhh, a woman can dream) then that is 56 hours sleeping. That leaves me 23.5 hours a week to spend with my family and to eat.

So one day. Oh yeah, so that is why I don't sleep. I knew there was a good reason. My groggy mind just couldn't figure it out. Ha, ha!

This is why I asked my husband last night, "Am I doing it wrong?" (Whoa, ladies, out of the gutter, this is an educational blog!)

His advice was to ask the blogging community. Pretty good advice. So I'm asking you.

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What is your time break down?
Am I doing it wrong?
Does your  planning time look similar?
Thematic planning? Does anyone do this? Does it help? How do you structure it? Does it change the way you plan to make it better or worse?
Can I get my time back OR do I need to put on my big girl panties and deal with it?

I would love to hear your thoughts because I fear I'm burning out and we're only 3 weeks in. Yikes! As a 12 year veteran I know the danger of that. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. Stress and time management are huge for teachers. I would love your advice.

Just to thank you for letting me pick your brain, here is something I made during that 88.5 hours. It is a Reading Response sheet for main idea. Thanks to Tracee Orman for the great frame! I hope you find it useful!

School Days, School Days...

School days, school days,

Dear old golden rule days

Meetings, and messes, and lack of sleep,

So much to do it'll make you weep!

And so it begins. The pictures above are the horror I created as I tried to clean/set up my classroom between many meetings. As I was putting them together for the blog, I noticed my daughter - teeny, tiny in the background. I had to laugh. Like many of you I'm sure, I bring my children with me to work and throughout the day they get buried in the mess. Looks like she found a good spot to bury herself! She would never get away with that much computer time at home. She's a crafty one.

Well while the youngest daughter was locked in the computer corner, my oldest daughter decided to organize my BIG BLACK CABINET. It is the cabinet that houses everything that has no home, that is out of place, and that needs to belong. I wish I had a before picture of the cabinet and one of my daughter's face as she pulled Cheerios (for counting activities), scraps of paper (you never know), pretzels (hello...log cabins!), macaroni (I had to keep those; dried macaroni is so useful), goldfish (oceans, I don't need to explain), and other sundries from its depths. In the end, I thought she did a nice job. She works for Sonic Blasts if anyone is interested!

The rest of the room came together as well...eventually. It was a hard pull at the end. I was done around 8:00pm the night before school started. I heaved a sigh of relief as I snapped these pictures on the way out the door.

My AR board - compliments of The Teachers Cauldron
Sailing Through A.R. Pirate Theme

Part of my A.R. Library. There is a shelf like this on either side of my Promethean Board with  a display shelf in the middle for the books we are studying right now. I'm fairly proud of the shelves. They were ancient throw aways that I put contact paper and polka dot ribbon on to dress up. Turned out rather nice and saved me a bundle!

My computer center. You can see the Birthday Board back there. That is from the  Pirate-Themed  Classroom and Decor Organizational Pack from Rachel Parlett. I used it to deck out my room in pirates.

My Math Focus/Calendar wall. Again compliments go to  Pirate-Themed  Classroom and Decor Organizational Pack from Rachel Parlett.

My Morning Routine, Clip Chart, Daily Voyage, and Listening Anchors. I can't tell you how many times I have said...Listen like a Pirate. At the beginning of the week it was the happy "Arggh, we listening like pirates?" By the middle the week..."We need to listen like Pirates, please." At the end of the week..."Class, are we listening like pirates? Ears, feet, hands, and eyes, thank you. (In my head I'm thinking, "For crying out loud, sit still and listen! Whose idea was it to start school when it's still summer outside!!")

My room from the door. Not huge, but it works. I love the big window out to the courtyard. It us fun to watch the seasons unfold outside.

Diving Deeper into Questioning

I have spent my day in Teacher Evaluation training for Common Core. I attended two sessions and presented as well. The first session I attended was great! It talked about thinking and strategies to encourage higher order thinking in students. It tied in very well with the presentation I helped with about questioning.

One of the determiners on the teacher evaluation rubric for Tennessee Educators is  questioning. According to the rubric

1. Questions should be varied and high quality, providing a balanced mix of question types. 
2. Questions are consistently purposeful and coherent. 
3. A high frequency of questions is asked. 
4. Questions are consistently sequenced with attention to the instructional goals.
5. Questions regularly require active responses. 
6. Wait time (3-5 seconds) is consistently provided. 
7. The teacher calls on volunteers and nonvolunteers, and a balance of students based on ability and sex. 
8. Students generate questions that lead to further inquiry and self-directed learning.

Whew! That is a mouthful! Most teachers are fine with numbers 2 through 7. It's numbers 1 and 8 (the bookends!) that get you. One deals with our friend Blooms and 8 puts questioning into the hands of students. Most teachers solve #8 through coaching, modeling questioning, and providing students with flipcards with question stems as scaffolding. I want to focus on #1 because thinking of those questions can be difficult.

I'm analogy person, so here I am thinking layers and questioning trying to create an analogy. Hmmm, onions have layers, but I don't get excited when I get to the bottom of an onion...no. Some say that ogres have layers...

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Definitely no. Then it hit me. Oceans! Of course, oceans have layers and as you dive deeper they become more interesting. I can relate this to Blooms and higher order questioning.

Imagine the ocean. You start at the top swimming happily in the surface waters of Knowledge and Comprehension. You are having fun. You are challenged, but not too much, just enough to keep things interesting. Maybe you are snorkeling or swimming or just floating.

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Then your friend comes by and wants to dive a bit deeper. You will need some support for that, so you grab your scuba gear (scaffolding, modeling, guidance, yeah, you know). Now you're diving into the Application and Analysis layer. The challenge increases but so does the interest level.

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You and your friend (because you can only get this deep with help of course...ha, ha) decide you must dive even deeper. Scuba gear won't be enough, so you grab your submarine. (Doesn't everyone have one of those lying around??) Now you are immersed in Synthesis and Evaluation. You look around in awe. It is amazing the perspective you get when you are covered by a ton of water. There was a challenge in going this deep, but the rewards are the inspiration of the beauty and wonder surrounding you.


When your students are encouraged to think deeply through higher level questioning, it makes their learning more tangible and it can inspire them to want to learn more about the topics they are studying. Our job as teachers is not just to provide knowledge but to inspire learning. Questioning is one tool that accomplishes that goal.

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One tip is to plan your questions as you plan your lesson. To pull upon a little Backward Design, start with your end in mind. What big idea do you want your students to understand at the end of the lesson or unit. Then build your questions diving deeper each time as you reach for the big idea.

Click on the picture above to grab a small freebie about questioning. It includes definitions of the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, question stems, key words, and a guide for planning questions. You or your students can use it to practice making higher order questions. Enjoy!

Getting Ready and an Award

Well, it's here...my first day of work. I go back on Tuesday. I always have mixed feelings about this. I like getting back into a routine and the excitement of a new school year, BUT I miss the lazy summer days with my family, especially my kids. I'm blessed in so many ways because my school is five minutes from my house (past a few farms, some cows, and a couple of fields), and there is a nursery on site. I know how lucky can a girl get? The whole family is in one spot! Having everyone close does make it easier, but I still miss spending time with those crazies!

Little brother on his hand-me-down big wheel.

With school starting I've been hard at work trying to get myself organized. I've spent some time at school, but I try to finish what I can at home first. This way my little shadows can continue to soak up some summer fun.

Soooo, my room is still a mess. No pictures please. I have crossed several things of my to do list though: science and social studies pacing guides, my year plan, printing/laminating/cutting my word walls, pirate numbers, and calendar/math focus pieces. I've also dressed up some power verbs for my room.

What? Last year our county decided the students needed to be familiar with the verbage used on standardized tests. When they evaluated us they wanted these words used in our lessons. These words are: analyze, categorize, examine, explain, justify, prove, summarize, compose, relevant, irrelevant, predict, compare, and contrast.

These can be difficult words for primary students to grab onto, so the teacher down the hall from me had a brain wave and made posters for each word with the definition. She hung these in the room to remind her to use them and to help the students remember them. I loved the idea, so I've dressed them up in pirate gear to match my room.

They will become my Pirate Words of the Week and I'll introduce them one at a time until my firsties have them down. Then they will be posted in the room as a little reminder. What do you think?

And now for the reward....

While I was two-steppin' in Nashville at the DFA YC Southeast Dairy Conference (loads of fun, lots of dairy info about stuff like milk prices, cheese, cows, grazing, you get the idea), I was nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award by Laugh Live Love Learn, Crazy Daze in 1st Grade, and Smiling and Shining in Second Grade.

               

     

Now, its my turn. Here are the rules...

1. Follow the person who gave you the award.
2. Link back to the person who gave you the award.
3. Pass the award on to at least 5 new bloggers.

Here are my nominees...

First Grade with a Cherry on Top