I don't know about you, but last year and this year I've kinda been scrambling to pull the needed resources to 'go deeper' with our new common core standards in math.  The book It Makes Sense! Using Ten-Frames to Build Number Sense K-2 by Math Solutions, Sausalito, Ca, has been a great resource for me.  It is full of games and routines that really make your children think.   It also has great questions to spark those important math thinking conversations with your children.  We all know that we must question, question, question, and prod, prod, prod, to develop that deeper understanding.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Sight words, sight words, we must reinforce those sight words every chance we get!  Well I am looovvvvin' this little idea, although I don't remember exactly where I saw it first. I'm sure you've seen the posts where you put the words on something and the children must high-five or say the 'magic' word before they can enter/exit your classroom door?  Well....how are they gonna know if they read the word correctly, hmmm?  Answer:  you put it in a lanyard and hang it around your door holder's neck!  If the students can read the word correctly, they get to high five (fist bump, pinkie tap, you get the idea) the door holder.  If not, the door holder corrects them, and they just keep on trucking, minus slapping the high five.  Now I know what you're thinking, and yes it makes getting in and out of doors take a little longer, but it is soooo worth it.  Just think if you will, how many times you enter, exit a door daily as a class.  I'll give you an example; just yesterday we went through a door 6 times!  Now multiply that times 5 (the number of days they tell me I have to show up weekly to get a check, ha, I kid, I kid) and you see where I'm going with this.  It's portable, meaning not just tied to your classroom door, and the kids love it!  They can't wait to be the door holder!  GENIUS!!!  Oh, and P.S.  since those stinkin' tricky teens have reared their ugly heads, I've been adding them ten frames.  Double duty!

And I apologize for the sideways picture, puleeeze, someone enlighten me how to flip it?!

My first post!

Welcome to my blog!

I'm so glad you're here!!

The time has come for me to try my hand at blogging.  I'm a bit of a self proclaimed techy-idiot, so this will be a challenge for me!

 

 

This week we are talking our our community.  It's the rural version of 'my neighborhood'.  Anyway, to kick it off, we brainstormed places we see/visit in our community.  I charted in for us using patterened writing (and including those great sightwords we know!).  The kiddos practiced the sight words on their small dry earase boards as I wrote them.  We were pressed for time, so my chart is not 'pretty', but it served the purpose.  I wrote each child's name next to their sentence because I wanted to remember who said what for our activity today. Then today I called each child to come up and 'touch read' their sentence.  They did a great job!  Then I produced..taaada...a picture of their place.  They were amazed!  Don't you just loovvve google image search?  How'd I ever get along without it?  But I digress.  Their job today was to go to their seat and write their sentence and use my picture as their illustration. 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of samples of their work.  Sorry for the one sideways, again, tech-idiot!  The top one says  I see a FedEx in my community.  The sideways one says I see a park in my community.

 

I'll post more later.  Thanks for reading my initial post.