Make Fun Friday GREAT AGAIN!

Fun Friday = students being rewarded for about 30 minutes because they completed their work all week and a time for teachers to prep their stations or fill the Monday-Friday drawers to ease their anxiety over the weekend. I would venture out to stay that Fun Friday is an integral part of a teachers week. 

An obstacle I faced this year, was finding the balance between a straight free for all (just letting kids PLAY) and structuring it to where I don't lose valuable teaching time. This summer my task is create games that are fun but my kiddos are still learning. 

3 Fun Friday Staples:
-iPad time: My kiddos are allowed to play any games that are on our class iPads, which majority of them are educational.
-Lincoln Logs: This is tends to be a popular choice, because my students can build cabins and most of all work together. 
-Legos- A classic...until certain video games come to life and it gets shut down real quick! The discussion of appropriateness comes into play and then we are all good!

Now lets do the math, 3 staples and about 22 kids...yea I need a few stations and this is where a few of my new products come in! One new staple will be The Sight Word Cafe, students can role play and practice their sight words and my latest FREEBIE is a card game where student recognize the quantity of structured arrangements...pretty much identifying number patterns! 

How do you structure your Fun Friday?

Click the pictures to take a look! 

  

Back to School Radical Rules

Back to School Radical Rules-Integrating ELA & Social Studies Standards 

Click to see in store!

One thing I promised to do this year was take my time teaching behavior expectations and procedures! While I would love to spend a solid 3 weeks on expectations and procedures, I have curriculum to teach, so how do I find a balance? I am hoping to find that balance with my new product called "Back to School: Radical Rules." These 5 lessons teach essential behavior expectations while addressing social studies and ELA standards. Say what?? Yup! In this mini unit, there is one weeks worth of lesson plans that teaches classroom rules and aligns with social studies and writing standards. The anchor charts in the photos were made to help visualize the whole lesson. Although, I will remake with my kiddos so it will be more authentic and meaningful. Let's go on a picture walk to see what's included. 

 Lesson 1: Ask students why do we have rules and record their answers. The goal is to lead them to those 3 reasons. After reading the mentor text recommended, as a class draft ideas about possible class rules. 

Lesson 2: Three reasons why we have rules class sort. 

 Lesson 3: Mentor text and writing prompt to match. 

Lesson 4: Mentor text and writing prompt to match.

 Lesson 5: Teaching community laws through a mentor text and creating a class book. 

There is a Kindergarten version that contains supplemental activities! Click to picture to check it out in my store!

Both products are on sale!

Crazy Good Citizenship

Click pictures for price

I would venture out to say that I have a love- hate relationship with Social Studies. I love the content we teach in social studies, especially when I am able to teach and explain topics that are so brand new to students and their face just shows their interest level. I strongly dislike Social Studies when I am googling or searching Pinterest for fun ways to teach such abstract concepts, especially in first grade.

One of the first concepts we dive into in Social Studies is citizenship. Now this concept isn't tough at all, we are simply just teaching students new vocabulary and they are providing examples and traits on how they can be a good citizen. Easy enough right? I think so! 

I plan use my Crazy Good Citizenship for 1st- 2nd grade mini unit. I've also created a 3rd grade version as well! I can't wait to post this activity in action! Until then, I wanted you to see what the mini unit is all about!

Below is a detailed picture of the components for each mini unit. The mini unit should last for a solid week and it even has assessment for Friday!

1st-2nd grade mini unit is featured on the left and 3rd grade mini unit is featured on the right. Both units come with the vocabulary cards,  a short mini assessment for the end of the week, and "Steps to Success" to guide you if needed. On the "Steps to Success guide, there is a list of mentor text to use as well! I will be ordering a few soon!

In both units students are identifying traits of a good citizen, making connections on how they have shown those traits, and writing about them. The booklets student work in are mini books, you can print two to a page and save trees!

Both products will be 20% during the 4th of July Weekend! Stock up and save! 

Stay tuned...tomorrow I will be showing another product in action!

Two-Fer Tuesday: Steal Deals

Welcome to my first Two-Fer Tuesday Steal Deals! 

Since this is my first steal deal of the summer, I will keep it close to home and give an steal deal to my fellow teachers in my district! 

In my district, we have our own sight words we teach, which is a mixture of Dolch words and our curriculum adoption. In order to effectively teach sight words, students need to have access to the words at all times and they must be taught daily. Most sight words can't be sounded out phonetically, therefore it takes much practice for students to master. 

The products up for sale today are word wall cards specially designed for teachers within my district, but I also have Fry's first 100 word wall cards in my store as well.   

This is a picture of my word wall in my new, but old, classroom (tell you that story later). I placed it over my lockers this year, so I could use my huge bulletin board to hang anchor charts my kiddos and I create! Right now, those are all the words my future students should know coming into first grade. The previous teacher in the room, was gracious enough to share her kinder words. 

If you looking to spruce up your word wall...keep reading, you will love the deal that is to come!

The most important part of teaching sight words, is assessing your students and most all keeping track of it! Below is my new and improved "Sight Word Binder." In the binder, I keep all my students assessments sheets. Each student gets their own packet for the entire year. I've also copied a class set of each six weeks take home list and stored in protector sheets (pictured on the right side of the binder). The take home list states the students' score and the words that need to be practiced will be highlighted.

Not only will my students be able to clearly see the word wall and I will be super organized during assessment time, but they will have a fun way to practice their sight words at the Sight Word Cafe! 

The sight word cafe will first be taught and played at my guided reading table only on Friday's. It will be the special treat for reading and working hard all week long. Once students are able to role play correctly, I will allow this center as a choice during Fun Friday. This year, I am looking for a balance within my Fun Friday time...half educational (but fun) and the other half just plain fun (a kid being a kid). 

STEAL DEAL: Buy the Word Wall Cards & The Assessment Sheets and get the Sight Word Cafe Center for the 1st and 2nd Six weeks of school for FREE! Click the picture for the STEAL DEAL!

Kindergarten

First Grade

Target Dollar Spot

I finally built up enough courage go to the Target Dollar Spot! I've seen so many teachers posting all the gems they found and how they would use them, but I wasn't sure if I would find anything...because frankly I don't need anything! But I figured, hey why not just check it out...so I did! 

To my surprise I found somethings I didn't have, but I needed. I found ways to recognize my students. I believe recognition is one key to a successful classroom. Everyone loves to be recognized for even the small things, and that was the reason for purchasing the Student of the Week certificates. What I love most about them (besides they are budget friendly) was the blank spot for the reason. 

These awards allow me to find unique qualities for each child. We all have an Antsy Arthur who just tries his best to follow directions, but majority of the times he is unsuccessful. His route to following ALL directions just takes longer than others, and he may get overlooked when it is time to hand out the big awards at the end of a grading period. But what about the one week he just gave it his all, are we suppose to ignore that? Nope! Not with the student of the week awards! The student of the week award allows those Antsy Arthur's to be recognized, feel accomplished, and know that their route to following directions may be different...but hey my teacher sees I'm trying!  

The mini chalk board, well umm...that was just added bonus on how to announce the S.O.W. 

I plan to announce the student of the week on each Friday afternoon. The suspense will be high all Friday, but I think my firsties can handle it!

Okay, so my FAVORITE personal purchase was those markers!!! I stood at stared at those markers for about 2 minutes (but felt like eternity to my husband!) debating, do I really need these? Well, of course I didn't but I am a sucker for new supplies! So I can't wait to make anchor charts for my latest product...

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/1st-Grade-Back-to-School-Radical-Rules-Lessons-Printables-TEKS-Aligned-2610196