A Peek at Our Week!

 This past week was a busy week in our classroom. I have to say, I think my kiddos are really starting to come together with our routines and classroom procedures. The first few weeks are so important for setting up how the rest of the year will go. 

This week the Desk Fairy visited our classroom! I have been talking about and showing my kiddos how to keep their desks neat and tidy. The Desk Fairy checked each desk, and left a ribbon on the students' desks that were neat and tidy with all of their tools tucked away in their toolboxes. 

I took a picture of each student. Here's a couple of them.

They were so proud of their ribbons! 

In Math this week we played Don't Spill the Beans! 

We used these Bean Counters.

We have been working on sums of 10 so we put 10 beans in each container. They each shook their container and spilled the beans on their recording sheet. Then they counted their red beans and added them to their white beans. They recorded their math sentences on the response sheet I made for them.

If you would like your own copy of this game you can get it from my Teacherspayteachers store for free HERE

I can't believe the weekend is over and it's back to school on Monday. I guess we will do what we do, all over again! I think it's going to be a great week!!

A Peek at Our Week!

 This week was our first week of school. We had Monday off so it was a four day week. I think my kiddos and I both felt like it was 5 days long though! We are all still getting used to being back in school and we are all wiped at the end of the day! 

This week we really worked on routines. How to line up quietly, how to work together, how to write our letters neatly, and so much more. We started our Take Home Folders that go back and forth each day. Every morning they show me their folder, and then they get a sticker. My kiddos love stickers and are excited to pick one out. Each child has a sticker folder where they have a baggie of special stickers that they can choose from. They also have a monthly sticker sheet that they put their sticker on. At the end of the month they get to take the sticker sheet home and show it to their parents. Then they start the next month's sticker sheet. 

If you would like to check out my sticker folder cover and monthly sheets CLICK HERE

On Friday afternoon we finished our bible lesson on Abraham with a fun sequence of events activity. We worked in groups putting sentence strips about our weekly bible story in order. They worked together to read the sentences and then had to decide and agree on what order they should go in. Once they thought they had the correct order, one person in the group would hit the buzzer. If they were correct they won, but if not they had to keep working on it. Even if their team didn't win each group had to continue until they figured it out. I was there to give clues if needed. 

This activity was a huge hit and is always a favorite! I use this same activity in reading, social studies and science. 

You can purchase the buzzers   HERE

By the time Friday rolled around I was ready for the weekend. I attended my nephew's varsity football game. I have to be honest, I do NOT know the rules of football (my kids played soccer and basketball), BUT I had a lot of fun cheering him on.

Time with the family at a football game was a great way to wrap up the week.

First Week of School

 The first week of school. Do I need to say more? Excited, busy, exhausted, did I say exhausted??? There is always so much to do before school starts. I am always so busy getting ready and then before I know it, the halls and classrooms are full. Lots of backpacks, lunchboxes and little ones, talking and laughing with big smiles on their faces.  😀😀

Here's a little peek into our first week of school.....

On the first day of school I took a class photo on the steps of our school.

It is always good to have a group picture that you can use throughout the year. I also took a group shot with our mascot, the lion.

I take a lot of pictures throughout the year. At the end of each school year I print all of my photos. I fill a brag album for each student so they have a way to remember all of the fun things we did. My students absolutely love them! 

Each album has a sweet poem on it. I can't even remember where the poem came from but I have been using it for years. I took an individual picture of each student by our school sign and that will go into their first page of the album. It's always fun to see how much they have grown by the end of the year.

Another first day activity is the mystery box. I use the mystery box throughout the school year. I like to use it to introduce new themes for social studies or science. I also use it for introducing new phonemes and for math concepts. On the first day I used it to introduce myself. I wrote 4-5 things on index cards and pulled them out one at a time.

Then I gave each student a brown paper lunch bag with 5 colored index cards in it. Their homework assignment was to take it home and write 5 things about themselves. The next day each student took turns and pulled out their cards one at a time. It was such a fun way to get to know each other. 
 

There are so many great books to read aloud during the first week of school! One of my favorites is "You're Finally Here!". Have you read it?  If you are interested, you can check out my blog post on this book HERE

After we read the book, we completed this anchor chart.

Then they filled out this book, writing everything they did over the summer.

We finished our first week of school with Art For Kids Hub. My kiddos love Art Hub!!! Rob Hub shows children how to do step by step drawings.  For the first week of school I decided on how to draw a person. My kiddos did a great job! 

 Great first week of school! How was your first week? Share some of your favorite ideas in the comments below. 

 

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A Peek at Our Week!

We have finished our third week of school. Our students are coming five days a week. Yay! It's exhausting, but so good to be back in school with kids! I have received so many notes from my kids saying how much they love school. My teacher 💖 loves that!! 

We have been doing a lots of fun review so that I can assess where my students are. I am amazed at how quickly it is all coming back to them. 

This week we have been working on CVVC/Vowel team words. They loved this video that teaches when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.

We also reviewed CVCe words and talked about how the Super e at the end tells the vowel to say it's name. We used a video by Kathy Griffin to help them remember the rule. I love all of her videos!! You can see her video here

We've also reviewed CV words. We discussed that it was an open syllable and that the door was left open (no consonant at the end) so the vowel was yelling it's name out the door and was long. Over the years, I have found that using stories, songs and a 2-3 minute video helps the skill stick. Love that!!!! 😀 

In Math this week we reviewed related addition facts which I also call "flip flop" facts. I find it so important to use the math vocabulary so they know what it means. We reviewed the vocab every day so that by Friday when I asked, "What is a related addition fact?" they answered, "It's a flip flop fact! The addends can go either way!" My kiddos LOVE to use their math vocabulary because it makes them sound so smart! AND they are!!!!  We reviewed ways to make 10 and sung a little song I learned at a conference. 

I have a 4

I need a 10

Oh, how much do I need oh?

You need just 6 more

You need just 6 more

You need just 6 more

And then you'll have a 10 oh

Then we made these cute little apple trees. 

They had to write addition facts with the sum of 10 on each apple. Then cut and glue them onto the tree. I think they did a great job on them.

We also reviewed fact families and made these sweet fact family houses.

The houses were a great way to assess what they knew and have fun at the same time.

It was a busy week and I'm exhausted, BUT it feels good to be back with my kiddos!! 

First Week Back

 We are back to school full time, five days a week! It feels good to be back together again! At times it felt like we would never get there, but we did. 

We started our week with a fun read aloud called You're Finally Here!  

I made a really big deal with my kiddos about where they had been and what took them so long to get back to school. I gave them each a post it note for them to write what had taken them so long to come back to school. Then we made this anchor chart. I loved their responses! One of my kiddos said they were busy riding bikes and another said they were on summer break. So cute!

We also made this cute bunny craft to go along with the book.

And then I took a picture of each one in front of my bulletin board.

If you are interested in any of these activities you can purchase them from Linda Kamp HERE She has a ton of activities in this product. 

STINK The Incredible Shrinking Kid!

Have you read this book to your class yet? I read it with my second graders this Fall and we LOVED it! We fell in love with Stink! Stink is the shortest person in his family AND the shortest boy in 2nd Grade. On top of that, his sister convinces him that he is shrinking!!! Poor Stink! 

We spent two weeks on this book. We did vocabulary throughout the book. One of our favorite ways to learn vocabulary is by putting vocabulary words and definitions on cards. Then we spread them out onto the middle of the tables. Each student has a fly swatter and if I read a definition they have to be the first one to "swat" the word. OH MY!! They love this! I have two main rules. First rule is everyone has to start in the starting position with their fly swatter against their chest. The second rule is that the fly swatter on the bottom is the one that got it first. If they picked the wrong card or didn't pick any card they have to sit down. This game is a favorite!!

 We also did this fun cause and effect activity! They worked in groups matching the cause cards with effect cards. I made enough cards to have them working in four groups. I also have these fun buzzers from Highlights that they love to use when they think they have found all the correct matches. 

Definitely set up some ground rules before you use the buzzers!

As much as we love hands on and movement activities we also did some worksheets. 

When everything was completed we put it all together as a booklet.

 

You can grab my Stink The Incredible Shrinking Kid book study at my TPT Store by CLICKING HERE