Early Finishers

If your classes have been anything like mine, then you have students that finish work in a wide range of time. One challenge is deciding what to have early finishers do. Busy work is not an option! Anything that my students do in the classroom needs to reflect the rigor and learning that we must fit in our day… not a minute wasted. So… here is the anchor chart that hangs in my classroom to ensure the students have a sense of urgency, are on task, and know what to do when they are finished with an assignment.

The first thing students must do is check their work to make sure it is neat and complete. This prevents the rushing to complete an assignment and then the inevitable re-do when a question is missed or something was done incorrectly.

The students then need to check their work folder to make sure they have completed all assignments that may need finishing from centers, math, or other times of the day.

Then the students have a few options of what they may do. They may read from the selection of books found in their book boxes. Some of these books are leveled, some are high interest picture books, classroom library books, and school library books. Each child also has a phonics strips ring in their book boxes so they can practice decoding words with the phonics skills we have worked on throughout the year.

If the student feels inspired to write, they may finish or start a piece of writing in their writing journals.

The students may also shop for books in our class library if they have kept their books a few days and have read through them. This of course is a popular option, so only 3 students are allowed to shop at a time. If a student can see the library is full, they must read or write until there is an open spot.

This chart has really helped my class become successful and independent when they have completed an assignment. It takes patience and practice at the beginning of the year, but is sooooo worth it when you no longer hear "I'm DONE!" or "What do I do now?"

What works for early finishers in your classroom?

Happy Teaching!

Informational Anchor Charts

When conducting our ocean research this year, my students and I needed to find a way to record the information we were learning from informational text. I have used Have, Can, Are charts in the past and they worked wonders for this unit! Not only do the students have to recall important details from the text, but they need to decide which category is best for their fact. These charts are wonderful tools for students when writing informational text and compare and contrast writing. Check out our fun ocean anchor charts below!

I love to make the charts colorful and pretty so I like to draw the animal we are studying in the center. I then divide the poster in three parts for each section. If you are interested in learning how to draw these ocean animals or want to teach your students how to draw them, check out my How to Draw Ocean Animals Writing Center!

Happy Teaching!

Frog and Toad Opinion Writing and Art Project

Today I want to share a cute project that my class completed to celebrate Frog and Toad. My students LOVE the Frog and Toad stories and as you can see in this post, we learned so much about the central message by reading the adventures of these characters.

I wanted to showcase our knowledge of these characters in an exciting way, so I had my students write an opinion piece on their favorite character. I had them choose their favorite character and tell me the reasons they liked this character the best. I think there are definite "Frog people" and "Toad people". "Frog people" usually love his kindness and enjoy his great advice. "Toad people" think his stubborn ways are hilarious and enjoy his silly antics. It was interesting to see which students chose Frog and which students chose Toad. Some of my students really surprised me with their choices!

We then created scenes from the stories we read and I taught the students how to draw both Frog and Toad and a few scenes from the various books. The students outlined their characters and scenes with black marker. Then they used watercolor pencil to color in the scenes. The watercolor allows 6 and 7 year-old fingers to get the pigment right where it needs to be. Then I had them use a small brush and water to make the paint blend nicely. We then used a pop-up method to help our characters pop out of their scene.

My students LOVED this project and it is one I will use year after year. Frog and Toad are classic characters and they are perfect for a first grade study of characters and central message!

If you want to check out my Frog and Toad Together Unit click here or check out this post!

Happy Teaching!!

Frog and Toad and Teaching Central Message

As I was looking for a way to teach the concept of the central message of a story, I stumbled upon some of my favorite books… Frog and Toad! I realized I had just found the perfect fiction books to help my students understand the concept. The children LOVE the characters of Frog and Toad. The students practically roll around on the carpet with laughter as I read them. After the reading, I had students think about the central message of the chapter read. I was amazed at the deep thinking of the students. In many cases, they came up with more advanced central messages than I expected! Check out our chart below! We are also in the process of creating Frog and Toad art and writing and I can't wait to share them soon.

We also compared Frog and Toad and brainstormed words to describe them. Check out the chart below. The students had so much fun with this chart. We will use it for our opinion writing coming up soon!

We have been doing an informational study with frogs and toads as well. We will compare the characters to real frogs and toads when we have completed our study. Check out the information unit here!

If you want to check out my Frog and Toad Together Unit, click here or check out this post!

Happy teaching!

Penguin Anchor Chart

Happy February! Wow! I can't believe that January is already over. This has been a whirlwind start to 2015. During the winter months I love to teach informational reading and writing through polar animals (as you can tell from my last few posts!). After studying polar bears for a few weeks, we have switched it up and started our Antarctic penguin unit. Today I wanted to share an informational penguin chart that my students and I created together. I used their  ideas from reading informational text to complete the chart as a class. The "Have, Can, Are" chart style is great for teaching informational writing. It is a great scaffold to assist the students with the informational style.

This chart has been an excellent resource for my students when writing about penguins. When we have completed the unit I will share some samples of the activities. If you are interested in the unit, check it out here.

Happy Teaching!

Informational Writing

This week my students have shifted their writing from narrative to informational/Explanatory writing. They have been LOVING this change. We have been learning about polar bears and they were so excited to show off their knowledge in their writing. To get them started I made an informative writing anchor chart and used the image of a hand to help them with the structure of an informational writing piece. We hold up our hands and review the structure during our writers workshop time before we begin writing.

After my students understood the informational structure, we used our knowledge gained from our polar bear unit to create a Have, Can, Are anchor chart. This chart assisted the class in creating their polar bear informational writing piece. 

After the students finished their writing pieces, we shared them in partnerships and gave compliments and suggestions. Right now we are working on giving helpful feedback and avoiding the "I like your writing" comments. Some students grasped this idea very well and gave wonderful suggestions to others about word choice, punctuation, and addition of sentences.  After editing, we will publish the writing and present it on our bulletin board accompanied by our polar bear art! Here is the art project we are working on right now.

We have really enjoyed our polar bear unit and our informational writing has started out very well! More to come! If you are interested in the polar bear unit, check it out here. The art project is a part of the unit, but if you are interested in just the art project, you can get it separately here.

Happy teaching!

Engage New York Subtraction Anchor Chart

As I navigate through the first grade Engage New York curriculum, I realized that my students need a visual to remember all of the great subtraction strategies we have learned. I have taken many of the strategies and have written them on this anchor chart:

I have been impressed with how well the students understand subtraction with the strategies provided by the curriculum. I LOVE the application problem portion of the curriculum and stretch this section out as well as add additional problems into my routine. I also provide my students with additional practice with independent cut-and-paste activities that reinforce the concepts taught. Today I want to share my "Change Unknown Subtraction" supplement I have created. This pack has two versions of practice for this skill (one matches number bonds, the other matches the missing part). Click here to get the packet!

Happy Teaching!

Narrative Writing Rubric

Happy Sunday! Today I wanted to share the narrative writing rubric that I use in my classroom. Students need to know where their writing stands to understand how to make improvements. I created this rubric to show the students what is expected at each rubric level. Our district has provided us with a teacher rubric for scoring purposes, but we did not have student examples at each performance level. I wanted to post the expectations in my classroom so I decided to create the samples myself with illustration expectations as an additional component.

Our class has discussed each performance level and we have had many conversations about the similarities and differences. We have looked at student writing exemplars (teacher created versions, too!) and have graded them together using the rubric. My students have grasped this concept quite well and I have observed a strong drive to achieve the next level in many of them. The biggest challenge was getting the students to see that both the illustration and the writing needs to be adequate to achieve a score on the rubric. Some of them of course focused mostly on the pictures at first!

Achieving mastery of the first grade narrative writing standard would score a 3 on this particular rubric. Four is considered beyond, two is approaching, one is needing improvement within the standard.

Happy Teaching!

Writer's Workshop Resources

At the beginning of the year I decided that my students needed resources to assist them in becoming independent writers. I developed some helpful pages to put into their independent writing folders. I include a mini word wall that matches our larger version in the classroom. I also include a page of "School Words" to help them spell words related to school that are commonly used. I also created a book titled "Words I Want to Remember" this book is for students to write their friends' names as well as other words they will use frequently throughout the year. There is a writer's checklist that can be used with dry erase marker as well as a practice page to try words with dry erase marker before writing them on their paper. Lastly, I created a page of strategies that good writers use. These are the same strategies we have in our classroom on an anchor chart. These resources have diminished the "How do I spell…" question and have provided my students with more writing independence. Click here for the link to the resources. Click here to grab a freebie of the writing paper I use.

Happy Teaching!

Main Topic Key Details Anchor Charts

We have continued our practice of Main Topic and Key Details with various texts within our first grade  classroom. During our exploration we have completed a few interactive anchor charts that have helped the students internalize the concept of the main topic and key details. The first chart was created after a thorough discussion of main topic and key details. The second chart was created as a interactive graphic organizer to visualize our thinking after reading the MMH Treasures story Animal Moms and Dads. Representing our thinking with a chart assists learners of all kinds. I am a huge supporter of interactive writing. Not only do rich discussions occur before the composition begins, but students practice phonemic awareness and phonics skills, writing skills, comprehension skills, and feel a sense of ownership of the final product. Interactive writing also appeals to a vast array of learning styles. For this chart, the visual/spatial learners can refer back to the chart to remind themselves of the main topic and key details . It also appeals to the kinesthetic learners, who have a chance to assist with the writing. Linguistic learners benefit from the written word, and if the chart is posted, all learners can refer back to the content repeatedly.

My little first graders have also been using foldable graphic organizers to assist with their understanding of main topic and key details. My next post will explain these in detail! They have been wonderful and engaging for my students and I know we will use them for a variety of informational text discussions.

Check out my foldable graphic organizers in my TPT store! Foldable Graphic Organizers for Common Core

Main Topic Hokey Pokey!

Welcome! To get things started I would like to share a fun song that I have created to help my first graders with the complicated task of understanding Main Topic and Key Details. The Common Core Standards use the language "Main Topic" instead of "Main Idea" in first grade. In order to ensure consistency, I decided to use this CC language for my song.

The song is called The Main Topic Hokey Pokey. I created silly gestures to go with each section (the kids love it!). For example when we say "Main Topic" we create a rectangle with our hands above our heads. Then for "Text" we make a book with our hands. When we say "Key Details" we create starbursts with our hands while turning around. Then we clap our hands for " The most important thing" and put our hands on hips for "Learn about".  This song loops around so the ending sentence is "The most important things we learned about the… Main Topic."

This has been an excellent resource for my students while we grapple with the main topic of many texts we encounter. Not to mention it is super engaging! Enjoy this resource... Stop by my TpT store for a freebie of the lyrics! Main Topic Hokey Pokey Freebie!