What’s up with this CRAZY Weather?

One thing that’s so wonderful about living in the upper midwest is that we always have 4 distinct seasons.  However, each season is not always equal in length.  Although it is officially spring, we still have snow on the ground.
Our forecast for the next week doesn’t look great either…
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*sigh*
So, this week, we are going to learn all about the wild and wacky weather that we experience!
Here’s is what is in our Math center drawers and our Daily 5 word work drawers:
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All this and more can be found in my Wild and Wacky Weather Math and Literacy center pack.
Wild and Wacky Weather! Math and Literacy Activities
Here are some other things we will be doing…
During math time, we will read this book and make symmetrical kites:
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We will learn about clouds by reading lots of books!
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and looking at this website.
This site also has lots of fun cloud pictures.
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If we have time, we’ll make some fun cloud shapes…
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This book is also on our to-do list:
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We will use straws to blow different items across the tables to see what the wind (us) can and can’t move easily.
I found this anchor chart, so I plan to replicate it: (Click on the image to go to the original source)
I love this poem from Teaching With Love and Laughter and will add it to our torn paper rainbows that we  make every year!  Click on the images to take you to Lori’s blog to download the poem for free!
I adore these projects from Julie Lee! We will definitely work on these too!
We already chart the weather every day in our daily calendar books…this changes slightly each month.  We’ve also been tracking the temperature, and using a pie graph to graph the type of weather we are having. Sorry I don’t have a current picture!
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Hope has some weather vocab cards that we’ll put up as we learn the weather vocabulary.  Just click on the image to go to her blog to download for free!

I like these anchor charts too:
Of course, when talking about weather, it's necessary to talk about different ways to measure weather in order to incorporate math into the unit.  I think it would be fun for the students to create their own thermometer (as shown in a different pin) or their own rain guage. Those are both cheap yet creative ideas. 
(Click on each image to go to the original source)
I also love these books for teaching about weather:
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We will wrap up all of our weather learning by watching parts of this fun video!
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We love Sid the Science Kid!!
Here are a ton of other great options for learning about weather!
It Looked Like Spilt Milk Big Book Cloudy With a Chance of MeatballsOh Say Can You Say What's the Weather Today?: All About Weather (Cat in the Hat's Learning Library) Sun Up, Sun Down (Voyager/Hbj Book) What Will the Weather Be? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) Weather Words and What They Mean Weather Forecasting Splish! Splash!: A Book About Rain (Amazing Science: Weather) Rain
While we are learning about weather this week, I’m going to be dreaming about this…
Tropical Beach, La Digue Island, Seychelles
by Angelo Cavalli
Think warm thoughts, friends!

A Little Writing Intervention–Day 1

I want to share with you one of our RTI Interventions today.  Although we LOVE to write in our classroom, and we write every.single.day, there are still some sweet babies that struggle with composing and transcribing their thoughts. 

We’ve started using a writing intervention from Linda Dorn and have had some great results. 

Here is in a nutshell….

My set-up looks like this.  You could use an easel and chart paper too, but I don’t have space around my reading table for an easel, so I just staple paper to my bulletin board.

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Step 1:

Shared Reading of a poem or nursery rhyme.  You should choose a poem that contains a target sight word that your group needs to learn.  *Be sure to take data before you start – sight word check and sentence dictation to get a baseline of where your kiddos are at.

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After you read the poem (the goal is not for them to read it, but to hear the language and how you read it), do some quick phonemic awareness activities and comprehension questions.

*What happened in the poem? What was it about?

*Then, read part of the poem and tell the children to listen for a word that starts like ___ on our abc chart (you’ll need these for your kiddos too)

*Say ____ and ____ (say the two words)

*What letter sounds that same?

*Where is it at? (on the alphabet chart)

Step 2: 

Ask the children if they can think of any other words that start like those 2 words.  As they name off words, write them on the top of your chart paper. (Ignore the bottom paper for now – that is part of day 2).  Next, read all of the words together, and ask “What part is the same in all of these words?”

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Step 3: 

Read through the alphabet chart together.  (Sorry, I forgot to snag a picture of them doing this).  This is very quick – the kids get really good at it after a while.  So you would say, a /a/, apple, b /b/ ball…etc.

Step 4:

You will have prepared bowls of magnetic letters using the letters of your focus sight word.

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Have the children line the letters up across the top of a white board. They will pull down each letter quickly practicing the left to right motion and saying the name of the letter.

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Then, starting on the left again, they will push up and say the letter names again.

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Next, tell the children to take ____ letters (how ever many letters are in the target word) and build a word they know – build ______. When the build the word tell them to take a good look at it, slow check it, and read it again.

Then mix the letters up and do it again.

Next, have them put their letters away, and practice writing the word on their dry erase board.IMG_4240

Then, put away the markers and dry erase boards. (leave the abc chart).

Step 5:

Next, you’ll have the children add the focus word to their dictionaries. 

Ask:

*What page are we adding it on? Why?

*Find the letter on the alphabet chart. Is the “_” page going to be at the beginning, middle, or end of your dictionary?

Write the word in the dictionary with a marker

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All of these steps is day 1 of our writing intervention process.  I’ll write another blog post to tell you what we do in day 2.  Once children get the hang of the routine of this, it will only take about 20 minutes each day. 

If you want to read more about it, check out this book:

Linda Dorn sure knows her stuff :)

I know it’s a little late, but I did just finish my March Word Work pack.  I designed this pack with ease of prep in mind – there are color and black and white versions.  I have a January pack, but never finished February (wah wah).  I’ll be working on April’s this week. 

The March pack is on sale right now, so grab it and file it away for next year (or squeeze in some activities this week!)

March word work 1

March word work 2

There are 12 different activities included in the pack (the previews only show a sampling…)

Here is what’s included:

*I Can Cards
*Common Core Correlations
*Color and Black and white pages
*Recording sheets for every activity
1. Pot O'Sight Words - sorting words by the number of letters
2.Shamrock sounds - identifying medial vowels and writing CVC words
3.All Sorts of Gold - E and I vowel sort
4. Silly Sounds - identifying ending sounds and writing CVC words
5. CVC Puzzles -building and writing CVC words
6. Leprechaun ABC's - reading sight words and putting them in ABC order
7. Shamrock Syllables - counting syllables
8. Shamrock Scramble - sentence reconstruction
9. Read, Clip and Write - identifying real and nonsense words
10.Loopy Leprechaun Word Sort - sorting and reading real and nonsense words
11. Star Bellied Sort - s, t, st sort
12. Lucky Digraphs - wh, th sort

Stay tuned for Day 2 of writing intervention!

Have a great weekend!

Happy Weekend | Tomorrow I go to Texel with my Love and the family | just getting some fresh air | walking down the beach | Happy Weekend People!!

March Madness!

…and January, and February…. I am hoping for some normalcy in my life soon!  I am working on this though…

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I hope to have it finished in the next couple of days….

For this week, here is what I have going in my Daily 5 Word Work drawers and in my math center drawers…

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So, Daily 5 is a work in progress for me.  I’m really trying to figure out what works for my teaching style, my group of 24 kiddos, the extra reading help we get, and also how I can make this work without extra Title 1/Reading help next year….it really makes my brain HURT!  Here is what our rotation chart looks like now…

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Where the kiddos have “read to self” this is when they will be pulled for RTI, guided reading groups, or 1:1 conferences.  I was doing 3 rounds, but I just felt TOO rushed, so I backed off and am now doing just 2 rounds.  If one of our reading teachers or RTI support staff can’t take that particular group of kiddos, they will stay in the classroom and “read to self”.  When children are finished with their activity, they’ll do the activity on the far right hand side of the chart.

Clear as mud?

I have also been working on incorporating more sorts into our day – I’m anxious to share with you the work we have done over the past year in our school! I’m going to snap some pictures {soon} and blog about it {I hope!}

In the meantime, be sure to enter my giveaway from the previous post!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day :)

Irish Blessing Subway Art Free Printable-- I could decoupage this on a plaque or canvas... :)

Oh, by the way – the activities above came from this unit:

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St. Patrick's Day "Lift the Flap" Consonant Digraph  Liter

I’ve got this prepped and ready to go for this week too!!  I love all the activities that Cheryl packs into her “old lady” packs! Makes my life SO much easier!There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Clover (Sub Tub)

Have a great week!