Our Week at a Glance!

Here is a look at what went on this week in our classroom:

1.  The kids had a fun time practicing their spelling words in shaving cream!  The other good thing about it was that it made the room smell good too!  :-)

2.  We practiced our sight words by having a snowball fight!  The kids loved this one and they were able to tell me their sight words for this week quickly.  Each student wrote down a sight word on a piece of paper and crumbled it up.  I told them to throw the paper in the room and then they had to go pick one up.  When I came to them they had 3 seconds to tell me what the sight word was on their paper.  Then they crumbled it up and we continued playing.

3.  Find Someone Who-This was something we played when we first came back from Christmas Break (we didn't do this one this week).  I made up a page of the Kagan Strategy of Find Someone Who.  For example, one box says find someone who can show you how we line up.  So they had to find someone in the classroom who could show them that and then have that student sign his/her name in the box.  It was a quick and fun way for us to review our rules after our Christmas Break.

    

4.  We worked a lot on our nonsense words playing the nonsense words connect four games on TPT.

Have a great weekend!

More Sight Word Fun!

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!  We started back in school today after our break.  I introduced the kids to Match Mine (Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategy) with our sight words this week.  The kids loved it!  

In match mine you have the students pair up and each student gets a paper with drawings or symbols on it. They put up a folder between them so they can't see each others paper. One student starts and they gave the other student directions on where to put a sight word.  For example:  I had 2 rows of circles and one would say put the word people (sight word) on the first circle on the first row.  Once they had placed all the words on their paper, then they removed the folder and checked to see if their papers matched and looked the same.  This not only helped with practicing our sight words but it also worked on following directions and giving directions.  They got really excited when their papers matched.  Here they are:

I'm excited that TPT is getting in on the Cyber Sale fun! I need to get my shopping done there before it ends!

Only 29 hours and 57 minutes left for their Cyber Sale!

Happy Shopping!

Number Lines and Action Verbs

Happy Friday!

This week we worked on creating number lines and plotting points on them. We had these rolls of paper given to us--kind of like bulletin board paper, but smaller--that worked great for our number lines. 

Take a look:

Shoulder buddies worked together and used meter sticks to create the number lines. They did a great job! 

It was so fun to see them working together.

On a sad note, the girl above with the star on her face moved away this week. :-(

I baked homemade chocolate chip cookies and we had a snowflake making party. She was beyond thrilled. We also made a card for her with all of our pictures and a little note goodbye.

I cried.

Moving on...because well, I just don't want to talk about it anymore. She is such a sweetie and we all miss her!

Do you use Kagan strategies in your classroom?

I have several favorites that I like use to get my kids interacting and to get them up and moving. I used Quiz, Quiz, Trade to introduce verbs for the week. The cards had an action verb on them. Students pair up, read the verbs and take turns acting them out. Then they trade cards and find a new partner. It was a hit!

Well, basketball is in full swing. I'm the assistant middle school coach again (my daughter's team), so I'm having to leave my classroom right after school. We had two games this week AND my son started basketball practice in high school this week.

And I thought I was busy before...

But hey, I'm "embracing the day!"

Have a great weekend!

How I Organize My Reading Materials

I finally finished unpacking in my new room! Can I get a WOOHOO?!?!?!

 

The room is far from ready, but I am super excited that there are no more totes or boxes begging for my attention. I spent some time up there finishing them off and organizing my reading materials. I had finally found a system that worked for me wonderfully last year, and I wanted to have it all ready to go for this year.

 

As you're reading this, I'm probably having a scan of some kind on my gall bladder. I think the threat of surgery has motivated me to get busy... I will say--as I write this--I feel better than I have since the "attack" and am hoping they will still be able to see a problem. The battle between being hungry and the fear of eating is no fun!

 

Sorry if that was too much information...

 

Anyway, take a look at what I accomplished today!

 

First up, my leveled readers. These come from the company divided in levels - below, on, and above. I kept them (at my old school) that way for the first year, but I didn't like having to grab books from three different spots each week. The colors are all the same (within a level) and you can't quickly tell where one week ends and the next begins. Instead I merge the three boxes! That way I can walk over and grab all the books I need each week for my groups. LOVE THIS!

Second, I know many people love organizing their materials in binders, but I LOVE my hanging file folders. They can hold more bulky items...as you will see in the next few pictures I have a lot of premade cards, etc. to store. You can see that I label each folder with the unit number and week number. The big bold writing on manila folders is not mine. The former teacher left those for me. Doesn't she have nice handwriting?

I take the hanging folders for the unit I am currently working on and move them to this crate on my counter. That way I don't have to go digging through my filing cabinet when I need something--or when I find a paper that should be put back in a previous week. I also started this last year and found it worked great for me!

Close up of what you see when you walk up to my crate. I keep the current math unit here too (maybe another post)...

Here's a peek inside my Unit 1 Week 1 reading folder. I have my word wall words, vocabulary word cards, retelling cards, sound spelling cards, I Have...Who Has (for entire Unit 1 - I always start playing the first week so the kids get plenty of practice by Week 5), and the little envelopes have some word cards to make sentences because that is our grammar skill for the week.

I also have my Amazing and Spelling Words posters for my focus wall. If you use 2nd Grade Reading Street, you might want to check these (and much more) out in our store.

This is what the previous teacher left me...fluency passages.

Sometimes I will put a folder within a hanging folder.
Here is Unit 1, Week 5.

Inside I have a "Digraphs" folder because it is our phonics skill for the week and I have a lot of resources to practice (see below).

Kagan Cooperative Learning materials that I have made. I believe these came out of a K-2 Language Arts book. Anyway, on the left is Showdown. On the right in the envelope are the digraphs students can put on the pink sheet to make words.

Our grammar skill for that week is exclamations and questions. This is another Showdown activity I use so it is just loose in the hanging folder.

That is how I organize my reading materials...works for me! I hope it will give you some ideas too. I've linked up with:

 

 

 

Head on over and share your organizational ideas too!

 

Have a blessed day!

P.S. Stay tuned for something big this week! I'll give you a hint. It starts with "F!" ;-)

Action Words - Verbs - Kagan Style

How many of you have these books in your school library?

Well, let me tell you...a couple of summers ago, I spent a lot of time copying, cutting, and laminating. Then I stashed the gems I made away in the corresponding math or reading unit to supplement our curriculum.

My classroom is not a "total Kagan" room with students sitting in teams, but I do enjoy throwing in some Kagan structures. The way that I do this is by having students assigned to a "shoulder buddy" and a "team." I use the shoulder buddies for all partner work or sharing during lessons. The students know who is on their team and I will simply say, "Get with your team," to quickly transition to group activities.

This week as verbs came up in our reading curriculum, I was excited to see my ready-made Quiz, Quiz, Trade cards taken from the Balanced Literacy book above. I knew the kids would LOVE it. The students carry cards with verbs on them as they mingle throughout the room. When they pair up, they have to act out each other's verb.

Fun for the kids -- and easy for me. You can't beat that!

Hope you're having a great week!

Crystal

Shoulder Buddies - WOW!

Okay, so I may be officially addicted to blogging now. It is no secret to those who know me that I enjoy writing, but really...this is my first evening home this week and I choose to blog. :-) Here's why...

Monday was our first day back from Spring Break and I decided to try something new with my kiddos. You see, we are very blessed to have a Kagan trainer in our building and last year (my first year teaching) she began doing some district wide training for us. I will admit that I was a bit hesitant to try the Kagan structures--especially last year. I was so afraid of losing control of my classroom. I think I have mentioned before I am a bit of a control freak. Shhh...

Anyway, I managed to try some structures last year and over the summer I prepared some Kagan materials (i.e. Quiz, Quiz, Trade cards, Showdown cards, etc.) that I could pull out and use quickly and easily this year. I also created "teams" and "shoulder buddies" so that I could very easily get students into groups for various structures (Numbered Heads Together, etc.). You may be wondering about this because a total Kagan classroom would already have these groups sitting together - not me, I confess I love my rows! We move desks to sit with teams or shoulder buddies from day to day depending on what activities I have planned, but we always get back to rows at some point. I do all my direct instruction at the front of the classroom with students sitting on the rug in assigned spots. Well, I had not figured out how to make that work with my shoulder buddies...

Let me pause here and say that Kristi has the same style - or maybe I should say I have the same style as her since she is my mentor teacher. :-) We'll come back to that later...

Anyway, just before Spring Break I had my evaluation conference with my wonderful principal (heehee - blessed again to have a principal who was my friend long before she became my boss). She made a comment about using the shoulder buddy system to help some of my firsties who struggle to stay engaged...so over the break I started thinking about how to make it work for me. I also realized there was no better time to experiment and try to become comfortable with a new routine. This class is wonderful and knows my expectations. I knew they could handle it - and would be patient with me as I figured out what we were doing. LOL!

I came back Monday and assigned new shoulder buddies (I do this each 9 weeks anyway) and - SHOCK - new assigned seats on the carpet so they were sitting by their buddies. I have had an awesome week watching the system work. I ask questions as normal - only now I remember to have them talk it over with their buddies before pulling a stick to answer. It has been going great and I am tweaking as I go...

One funny learning experience so far:

Mrs. Ratcliff: Pulls stick of student with a history of struggling to listen and asks, "What did you and your buddy decide?"

Student: Scratches head and looks at ceiling. Long pause.

Mrs. Ratcliff: "Were you listening to your buddy?"

Student: Shakes head. "No. My ears were turned off."

Mrs. Ratcliff: "I am sorry to hear that. We do not have the option to turn our ears off at school. You will need to move your helmet for not listening."

That is my behavior plan - break a rule, move your helmet. See below (picture was taken before school started - now the clips have helmets on them with each student's name).

Like I said - learning experience! I then labeled each student either Partner A or Partner B so I can alternate who talks first to ensure all are participating. I can also then ask the listening partner to repeat back what the other partner said if needed.

Back to Kristi - she worked up the nerve and started shoulder buddies on the carpet on Wednesday. She's loving it too. :-)

I'm also excited about a bulletin board idea we are doing tomorrow! We'll blog with pics when it is finished, but here's a pic...and  the link to where we found it.

http://bulletinboardideas.org/1160/april-showers-bring-may-flowers/#.T3TaXraLM30.pinterest

Have a good night!

Crystal