New Planner

So, for the longest time, I have hand written my plans.  And when I say plans, I mean that very loosely. They have mostly been a skeleton, a layout, an outline of what I was going to do for that week. I have always been very grateful that I was allowed to be that way with my plans. My activities were always rigorous and relevant and my students have always made gains, so my plans weren't a worry for any of my administrators. 

Well, my friends, the tide has turned.  Now we have to have certain things in our plans that are required. I have tried to get away without doing them this way (I'm such a rebel that way), but my fear of not being that perfect student has gotten the better of me. lol. I mean, when I got an A- in my Master's class, I freaked out...lol. 

Anyway, since I had never even thought about doing plans this way, I was a little overwhelmed about how to make it all fit in. So, then I turned to my friend Traci, over at Dragonflies in First Grade.  She is a genius, I tell ya! She has created this planners that you can make to work for you. OR you can order the custom one, which is what I did. She was great to work with and my planner is perfect! It fits everything in it that I need to and it's not overwhelming to look at! Which was my biggest concern, since I've always had the minimum to look at. Plus, it's cute! I love how she used my favorite colors. Makes me somewhat happy to look at them - ha!

 So, now that I have my first week planned in my new planner, I think the rest of the year will go much easier.  Check out her FAQ page on her planner {HERE}

My center menu I'm keeping the same since my centers don't always run from Monday to Friday. Like next week, we'll start on Tuesday, but we might not do Thursday because of our Fun Run that's planned for the whole school, which will make our center menu last even longer.

I don't have a title for my Listening Center because I forgot to look at what books I had in my bin before I left Friday. So I'll just fill it in on Monday.

If you want to see how I run centers, check out {THIS} post.

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A Year in Themes - First Grade Edition!

Throughout my postings, I'm often asked "How do you have the time to teach all these book series" (and such)... "Do you have reading series that you have to teach from?"

I'm very fortunate that at my last school and my new school, all of my principals have let me teach through whatever I want/need to as long as I'm teaching the standards.  

Yes, our district does have an adopted series (we're now using the Journeys series), but even our district has said that it's just a resource. You don't teach straight from it...if you don't want to. They give us a pacing guide with what skills and standards we need to make sure we hit in that 9 weeks, and we go off of that.  I usually choose not to teach from the series. There are times when I do like to teach from the book because I like those stories.  But most of the time, I like teaching out of the book, and it lets me integrate my Science and Social Studies so much easier!  I just use it as a guide to make sure I hit what I need to, and sometimes I even get ideas from it that I can incorporate into my lessons.

Last year, I posted my year in themes for 2nd grade. 

But, I wanted to see if there were any other fun 1st grade themes that I could add/change in my plans, so I did a search. I came across Deanna's and I liked how she had hers set up...so I decided to do mine like that too! 

SO, here is my plan for this year (and hopefully I can stick with it!)

I might be slightly biased on doing Firefighters...and have my husband come in and do a little demonstration during Fire Fighter week - ha!

October MIGHT be my favorite month to teach! I just love the spiders and bats and pumpkins!! I really want to add in owls, but I haven't had time to do that yet :-/  Maybe next year!

Robert Munsch might be one of my most favorite authors. Ever.

And I just love Knuffle Bunny. I've always done it at the end-ish of 2nd grade because I did it with Easter and Silent Letters in our phonics continuum...so that's why I'm still doing it here. My teammate is doing Knuffle Bunny this week, and I was SO tempted to follow her lead...but I moved from one cat (Pete the Cat) to another (Splat the Cat).

Ok, I lied.

I really like teaching in May too... Oceans!! and Fairy Tales! Some of my favorite themes! 

I have a lot of packs for the themes I listed...some work for 1st and 2nd and some of them are more for 2nd than 1st, so I'll probably be adding to or making new ones as the year goes. 

And there are some that I've never done, that I plan to do...but we'll see how this year goes! New school, new grade, new baby! Oy!

I also added in my 2nd grade version, just so you could see it if you want to.

If you would like the PDF version for you to keep in your files, click HERE.

Did I miss any themes that you do through the year? Go ahead... tell me what they are. Make me change my plans! I know you will.

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