Friday, October 25, 2013

Pumpkin Investigation

Special thanks to the 3 moms who took time out of this busy day to help make some pumpkin memories. You would be surprised how many students have never carved a pumpkin before. No they can say they have!! 

Friday, October 18, 2013

READ to SOMEONE

We ❤️ READ to SOMEONE. Students share reading with friends in our class.  
They sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) and share their books with each other!

Friday, October 4, 2013

ELA Rotation


ELA Rotations 
Monday through Thursday we do ELA Rotations as a part of our ELA block. The rotation strategy was created by teachers who blog on "Made for First Grade."  The (most) students have a partner and move through the room to our different rotations using a nametag that shows them where to go according to the specific day.  Each student will go to 4 rotations each day (Guided Reading, 2 rotations, and desk work) in varying orders so that all groups are busy doing something different.  There are 8 different "centers," each student will go to 2 a day including something at their seat (usually some kind of writing activity) and the main purpose of this whole thing... Guided Reading.  While the students are working in the rotations or at their seat I am able to meet with students according to their reading ability to work specifically on reading strategies to make them better readers.  This keeps all of my students challenged and focused for a more specialized reading lesson. 
Below are pictures of our name tags and rotation order list.




 Here is a little tour of our rotations...

WORD WORKS- Working with words using the white board, magnetic letters, keyboards, and many other things here.

The SCHOOLHOUSE rotation changes every week. Sometimes it will be a hands on activity, others a puzzle or Legos, many times a new fun app on the class iPad



Computer Rotation

(Pictures to come...)
APPLE ROATATION- Students work with our class iPods. 


STAR rotation- listening to books on tape on our back computer. 


WRITING TABLE- students use scrap paper and paper to work on writing


READING AREA / BARNES and NOBLE- reading from our class library in the comfortable chairs. 


CRAYON ROTATION- changes occasionally from Math manipulatives to reading our unit study books.