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!