Halloween Glyph

Can you guess whoo? This is the cute way we displayed the information we collected about our Halloween treats and costumes. We were able to use this information to graph  and categorize the data using a Venn Diagram. We had a lot of fun trying to guess which jack-o-lantern represented each student. I highly recommend this activity! :)

This bulletin board set is available at TPT. Would you like to guess whoo? Click here

Diagramming Sentences

       Does this look familiar?   I remember diagramming sentences when I was in middle school. I also remember looking around the room at all of the faces and noticing that some children did not seem to enjoy identifying the parts of speech, identifying the modifiers, etc... Fast forward twenty years... I was standing in front of a first grade class teaching students how to write a sentence and that every sentence needs a subject and predicate. I was not surprised when I saw many of the same facial expressions from my middle school classmates.

Throughout the years I attended many professional development courses and stumbled upon a wonderful way  to teach the complicated task of diagramming sentences with a very simplistic approach. Fast forward eight years... We are creating M&M sentences!

   
    The M&Ms are used to represent each part of speech and modifier in the
sentence. The color coding is red=articles, orange=verbs,
yellow=nouns, green=prepositions,
blue=adjectives, purple=adverbs,
brown=conjunctions, and white=interjections.
The picture represents the following
sentence: Mary and Susan ate the cookies. We are introducing the different parts of speech as they appear in our grammar lessons. The program has many components and color coding the sentences is only one part. I hope that with a lot of practice students will become more comfortable and familiar with sentence structure and enjoy diagramming sentence :)
Try it out!

Cute Rewards!

Today I found another tool to add to my pencil pouch :) Office Depot has reward message tape that looks and works like correction tape! I have not seen a similar product elsewhere but that doesn’t mean it may not exist. These are very easy to use and faster than writing messages or peeling stickers. The designs are colorful and the messages are encouraging. This adds a bit of excitement to grading papers this week.

Seat Crates: Creative, Comfy, and Functional

     The newest Pinterest craze are these wonderful crates turned into seats! The norm has been to use fabric, padding, and a staple gun to construct this comfy seat! I am going to put a spin on this creation because I have a habit of changing my classroom theme quite often. This method of creating the seat cushion will allow you to remove the cushion to be washed or change your theme.

Materials: Crate, wooden seat frame, fabric, padding, 1/4 inch elastic, sewing machine, and thread.


Step 1. Cut out your fabric to fit and allow for at least an 1 inch seam allowance.







Step 2. Cut the corners of the fabric as
            pictured, this will create a mitered 
            corner for your cover. These 
           corners will help your cushion fit 
           into the slip cover. 





Step 3. The right sides of the fabric
            should face each other 
            while the fabric is folded.
            Sew the two sides 
            together to create this 
            pocket corner. Complete
            this step for each  corner.
                                                                  

Step 4. While the fabric is on the wrong
            side, using a ½ inch seam
            allowance, sew around the 
            edges leaving space to fit your 
            elastic through.

Step 5. Run the elastic through the seam
            and sew to seal it. I use a safety
            pin to run the elastic through 
            the seam.



Step 6. Turn the cushion on the
            right side and place on 
            your crate!






My 14 month old is trying it out :)

Literacy Instruction

     Summer reading :) I just finished reading Next Steps in Literacy Instruction and I decided to share my opinion with a quick review. I really wish I had this book to read when I taught first grade because it covers a lot of the information I learned during my first three years of teaching. The authors do an awesome job of explaining why and how DIBELS and AIMSweb are used for RTI.  I am glad I finished reading this book prior to school, rather than reading it throughout the year. I will be using this book to help plan my intervention lessons.

Teacher M.O.O.S.E. Binder

     I have been working hard to create all of the wonderful projects I found via pinterest. One of my favorites is the teacher M.O.O.S.E. binder. It is a great way to organize all of the information that teachers may need to take home without taking three or four binders. Any acronym can be used and Ms. Smith has compiled a list of over 280. I decorated my binder using 12 x 12 scrapbook paper so that it could fully cover the front.

 
  I prefer to grade papers, take notes, etc using colored pens. I added a pencil pouch to organize my pens, highlighters, and tabs. My only binder that is not decorated with my classroom racing theme. :)






     
     My binder is divided into eight sections. The sections can be changed base on your needs. I have added the template and it can be modified for your needs. I also used the Avery Big Tabs dividers. There are directions on how to modify the Microsoft Word Template for the new dividers. I have provided the template for the dividers.





Links for the binder:
Title Pages
Labels

Planning for Next Year :)

Hello. I have started planning for the 2012-2013 school year and I stumbled upon the new curriculum for third grade! Yes, the new transitional curriculum has finally arrived. All that to say, if you have started planning, check out the new changes. Enjoy your summer :)