February, Braille, and Frog and Toad

Happy Monday!! I feel like today has been super busy....has it? Or is it just me???

So, today our Family projects started coming back....This one is SO cute! He took the names off of the list (cut them out) that I sent home for Valentine's Day cards (get that list HERE) and put them on the heart...LOVE this! And his writing part to the family project is behind his heart.

Here's another one that came back.she loves donuts and cupcakes and ice creams! haha! And then she added in her family....hehe!

So this week, we're going to be doing the Helen Keller story in our reading series...(I KNOW...the 2nd story out of the reading series...WHAT is wrong with me?! ha!) So I got out my Braille file (which I've had since I lived in St. Augustine, 10 years ago!) and we did a little background knowledge on Braille before we started reading the story. I gave them a "cheat sheet" that they used to write out their name. It's one of my favorite activities to do.  I don't know where I got this sheet, and I googled it, but it didn't' come up, but TONS of other Braille alphabets did. When the glue dries, the dots are raised like Braille.

We also started our new Read Aloud series....Frog and Toad. I LOVE these books! I'll use my Bloom's Taxonomy questions after each day of reading it...but I also have a Frog and Toad pack

And my kiddos have been HARD at work during centers working on all the different activities in my February Common Core Centers.

Collective nouns....

Digraphs...

Poetry center with 4 different task cards...

This is one of my favorite centers - 3 different paragraphs that they have to put in order. They have to use the clues in the sentences to SEQUENCE and figure out which sentence was the topic sentence...reading AND writing skills all in one!

Pronouns...

vowel teams...

AND, I wanted to let you know that I just uploaded my Candy Heart Math pack!! It's a lot like my Fish Math and Marshmallow Math packs....I can't wait to use it on Friday! Snag it up -it's on sale!

TpT

Here are all the packs I listed in this post, with the links to take you to them!

TpT

You can grab a freebie for February on {THIS} post!

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TN

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Read Alouds and Centers

Do you do read aloud chapter books with your students? I mean, of course read aloud picture books, but I also try to read aloud chapter books every day too. It's our calm-down time after recess. It works really great for the transition. After I finish reading for the time that day, I pull sticks and that person gets to pick an M&M (or sometimes I have Skittles) and then whatever color the Bloom's Taxonomy question is (they are leveled), I ask them a question from that level. If they answer correctly with a valient effort, then they get a few more M&Ms. It's AMAZING what kids will do for 2-3 M&Ms - ha!

This last week, I read My Father's Dragon to my students - it was a GREAT book! and a QUICK chapter book read! I actually have the 3 Tales book, where all 3 books are in one, and my kids were begging me to move to the next book!

Here's how I have my posters hanging up....on the side of one my bookshelves. I just don't have any wall space this year for some reason...it's driving me BONKERS! lol. BUT, this works out great because my reading rocking chair is right there next that bookshelf, so all I have to do is reach over and grab the posters off the shelf (they are hanging up with magnets).

When we finished reading the book, I "test" them with doing one of the higher level questions on paper...I print up the page and the journal prompt, finish writing in the prompt, they cut it and glue it on the paper and then they answer the question. 

Click on the pictures of the books to check them out on Amazon.

****Update!*** I just got the brilliant idea to print them 4 to a page, glued them to black paper, laminated them, and made a ring of them to hang on my board!

You can check out {THIS} post to see more on my Bloom's Taxonomy!

I'm now reading Gooney Bird Greene - I just LOVE this book!! She's like the older version of Junie B. Jones! The kids love to just see how she's dressed during the whole book and our memorized by her stories.

Yesterday we made our new names using the formula that Gooney Bird Greene used. My name was Mrs. Beatrice Wynonna. All day I heard "Mrs. Wynonna!" This is an activity found in my Gooney Bird Greene activity pack. You can check it out at TpT or TN.

Yesterday, I was able to sneak around the room during centers time to take a few pictures! It's always so hard for me to do that because my small group time is always so jammed pack, I barely get through everything I need to get through. BUT, I got a few pictures so you can see some of my January Menu Centers being used.

Math - Roll and Add

Measure and Compare

Mixed up place value - I don't know if you can see, but the expanded form is mixed up to make them really apply their place value knowledge.

Spin a word - silent e edition

Missing adjectives - love this one! It's amazing what they come up with... they really need to use their context clues to figure out which ones belong there. 

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TN

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I know January is almost over, but I also have my February ones posted now!

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Getting in our reading groove

Today, we started our Bloom's Taxonomy  Read Aloud time. 

I'm starting with one of my favorite series....

This is just the cutest pig ever!!

I read out loud for about 10-15 minutes, then I choose a stick (it has their number on it.) That student then picks ONE M&M.

(I usually use Skittles, because I tend to eat the M&Ms...lol. I just use the brown as the purple for the posters...since M&Ms don't make a purpe)

Whatever color they pick, that's the level of question they get. They don't know they are levels. But I do. Sneaky, sneaky!

If they get the answer correct, or are pretty close, then they get 2 more M&Ms, whatever color of their choice. It's amazing what they do for candy...lol. Next week, I'll be introducing the writing portion of the pack, which they'll write in their Reader's Notebook.

I'm excited to start the next part to the pack! 

Check out this pack at any of my stores:

TpT

TN

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Speaking of Readers' Notebook....today, we did our first entry!

We've been reading Chrysanthemum

I got Michelle's pack (from Teach123), it's her Chrysanthemum Sentence Shuffle pack. We're doing the sentence shuffle tomorrow, but today, we did the reading flaps in our Readers' Notebooks. They did great!

How's getting into the groove going in your school?? We haven't as much gotten in our groove, BUT as soon as we do, we're going to have to add in our mandatory 30 minute intervention block, which takes away some of my extra reading time I like to do. BOO! Oh well. What can you do? (beside whine...lol!)

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