IRLA POWER WORDS practice

In my District, we use a program called IRLA. The students need to learn "Power Words".  They are pretty much sight words however there are a few differences.  I made some Power word practice books to use with  my students this past year.  I did not finish all 60 of the 1G power words. However, I decided to sell them in sets on Teachers Pay Teachers.  For some reason I can not download more than twelve books. So I will be selling them in sets of 12.

 

I only posted the first set, which include the power words: 

a, all, am, an, and, are, at, be, big, can, can't, come. 

Click here to visit my TPT store to try the "at" book for free by downloading the preview. 

My students really enjoyed these books. I hope you do too!

Summer Vacation ?

 I feel like I blinked my eyes and it is summer. Our school is getting an new air conditioner this summer SO we literally had to pack up EVERYTHING!   My shed is full... my husband's man cave is full a fact he is not thrilled about. I am hoping to ORGANIZE  everything this summer...  Not going to lie.. it is not my strong suit.  What do you spend your spare time in the summer doing? 

   I am SUPER excited about the upcoming year.  I'm trying something NEW! YAY! I will be co-teaching with  Mrs.P.  AAAHHHHH!  I am SUPER excited about this because she is very organized and I can not wait to learn her tricks. We are both excited about this. We both have strong suits... and are super excited to learn from one another.
   So far this summer,  My family and I visited Orlando-( yes sadly the same week as these horrible tragedies. ) My most heart felt sympathies go out to the families of  Christina Grimmie, all the families from the Pulse Night Club victims, and the family of Lane Graves.
  We spent a lot of time at the resort swimming and reading by the pool. This allowed me the time to read Mindset by Carol S. Dweck.  I started reading it because Kindergarten Smorgasboard is doing a book study on it. If you haven't read it... Get it and follow along with Smorgie! I just love him!
   I am not sure if I have mentioned this.. But I am a HUGE BOOK WORM!  I am also reading 1-2-3 Magic for Teachers by Thomas W. Phelan and Sarah Jane Schonour.  

What are you reading? Any suggestions of Great Summer Reads? Educational or not..

3D Shapes

This week we have been learning about 3D shapes. We made super cute hats of the solid shapes.  My students love making things they can wear. I really like the 3D hats. The packet includes two of each hat depending on how you teach it. one hat asks for how many faces, edges and vertices. The other hat asks for curved surfaces, flat surfaces and vertices. It has a spot for students to draw a sample of the shape. and identify if it is a solid or plane shape.

                 If you print the preview it has a sample of the cylinder hat, like the ones below. You can purchase this here. 

We did this great Walk the Room center. Students match the object on the ship to the similar 3D shape on the worksheet. I had 3D shapes available in case anyone struggled, for instance this little one struggled and colored in both shapes. So I gave here both shapes and we looked at the picture together to see which one it resembled the most.

We also compared and contrasted the shapes to tell how they area like and how they are different.

  I like it when they can think it through and write out their thinking. It shows me evidence of their learning. I usually try to correct just the subject at hand, however, this little pumpkin forgot to start with a capital letter so I would be sure to mention that to her when I conference with her.

We sorted shaped by flat surfaces and curved surfaces and objects that had both.  I passed out one object to each student and had them sort it into the correct category. I later put this in a center for them to do as a group. It was quite cute to hear their thoughts about why each shape went where as they explain it to their peers.

Then they did this worksheet. Sorting shapes into categories based on curved or flat surfaces.

We worked on other attributes such as can shapes, roll, stack or slide. I passed out solid shapes and had students try to roll them, stack them and slide them. This brought up GREAT conversations in class. Do cubes roll? Dice are cubes and we "roll Dice" which made us look at what the definition of roll means for this activity.

The other BIG question was do pyramids stack? As you can see here our friends said YES. but only sometimes, if they are on their sides.

The Best Part of Me Opinion Writing

 I am super excited about my little pumpkins writing yesterday.  One of my coworkers found this great opinion writing lesson on the blog  Lessons with Laughter.  Although this lesson was originally for 3-5th graders, we made it simple enough for our kinders. We read the book The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald.  We brainstormed different parts of our bodies. Then, each child thought really hard about which part was the best part of them.

"I like my teeth be cause my teeth go fhrough my food. I like strawberries because the taas is yumee. "

           This one tickled me because  of the vowel pairs.  This little guy knew he heard a long vowel sound and made it by adding vowel pairs. I also love how he spells what he hears himself saying, notice the f instead of t for through.

                                           "I like my feet because they can take me places."

This was an easy peasie lesson. I took the photos with my cellphone, printed them on the black and white printer, and then used black construction paper as a base. How stinkin' cute did they turn out?

Last week, we read What if I had Animal Teeth by Sandra Markle. My coworker suggested a great lesson by Oceans of Firsts.  Students wrote their opinion about which animal teeth they would prefer to have.

If I Had Animal Teeth

   I printed out the teeth choices provide by Oceans of Firsts but also gave my kiddos blank white paper to freestyle their teeth.   I didn't use the face template, instead I took pictures of the students and had them glue the teeth on their pictures.  How stinkin' cute did they turn out?


  We  also practiced counting on.  Most of my pumpkins can count to 100. 

We counted to 100 on our 100 poster.  I put post it notes over random numbers and asked the students to tell me the missing number. I asked how they knew which number was missing. Most said they looked at the number before and counted up. Most of my pumpkins can count to 100.  I strategically gave numbers out. For example, When I had my pumpkins orally count to 100 to me. I wrote down the numbers they struggled with. So lets say little Bobby counted 38, 39...60... He got number 39 and a 100s chart. So .. I gave them a number, a fish and five 1 inch circles... they wrote the number on the fish and counted on putting each number after on the air bubbles.

Next, time I need to do a few things differently, cut 1 inch white circles for the bubbles.. not blue it was too close to the water color and I would have them write their thought process of how they were able to know which number came next.

Yesterday, my little pumpkins had a half day sub.  I was shocked by the behavior of my students with the sub.  Seriously, I saw them running down the hall, screaming. Not acceptable behavior.  So today, I dressed up like Viola Swamp from Miss Nelson is Missing.  I wore a wig...a bad, mullet wig...it is the only one I had.  I changed my necklace, rings and earrings. I raided my moms closet for some clothes to wear.  I painted my nails a different color.  I took the cover off my computer and cellphone. I changed out my teacher bag and lunch bag.  I put a pillow in my clothing to make me a little thicker. I spoke in a stern voice. I did not yell. I spoke calmly and firm. 

You can watch it by clicking here

 I explained that I was Mrs. Hann's sister, and I was filling in for her today. I pretended that I didn't know their names, or how to use the Apple T.V.. They asked a few question like why we looked so much a like. We did not sing or dance today. We did discuss appropriate behavior for when a substitute is there. It was actually really good conversations about how they should behave. I asked them why they were behaving for me but not the sub yesterday. One little pumpkin answered," Because you are so serious."  We discussed why the other sub was not so "serious".  My little pumpkins thought maybe she was a new sub, maybe she didn't know our class rules. Which led to conversations about even if the sub doesn't know the rules, we know the rules.  I asked if they learned anything yesterday and they said, "No". We discussed their job at school is to learn. So, because they did not complete the assignments yesterday we needed to do it all today. ( We did not really do two days worth of work, but I promise there was no down time today.)
   My little pumpkins worked very hard today, but surprisingly at the end of the day, they said they would miss me. I did not let on today that it was really me. Tomorrow, I will read Miss Nelson is Missing. 

 On another note,  our school is encouraging Number Talks with our students.  So I made version of their dots Images for my team to use. I am including Dot Images with the Number 6 Set 8 here.
I really enjoy the conversations that happen. It helps them to see that its okay to see numbers different, and helps them to see it different ways. 

You show students this and ask" How many dots do you see? How do you see it? "

The last two weeks we have been practicing for our spring play. My students did a play on growing plants.  I am proud to say they ROCKED it! 

I am just a little seed, some day I hope to be

a healthy, big and bright, green plant for all the world to see.

                   I am the soil.  I give the seed a cozy home to grow in.

        I will keep it warm and snug in March when the cold winds start blowin'.

I am water. I will give the tiny seed a drink. And then the seed will start to grow much sooner than you think.

I am the sun and my strong rays will shine upon the seed. I'll give it warmth and my bright light, both things a plant will need.

Wow, Look now. I am a plant. All of you are great at what you do, each one of you is special and I needed everyone of you.

 They did great! We also planted seeds this week. We are hoping they grow for Mother's day.

  We practiced our sight words with these awesome 1G Power word Dominoes.  It has a great little accountable piece, having children write the words they struggle with and the words they thought were easy.  It also has a smaller sets of Dominoes fro your kiddos that are overwhelmed with too many words. So my struggling kiddos work on the smaller sets, with only ten words. There is a great little parent letter included I just highlight the words the kids struggled with and send it home for parents to help with.  It is available at TPT

I love this piece. It really makes them think about the words they struggle with.
 

You can visit my Teacher Pay Teacher sight for a free one more one less write the room math center by clicking here.

Leprechauns and Bunnies

What a week ... A week full of Leprechauns and Bunnies!  Friday started our Spring Break and we do not come back until after Easter. SO... we had to fit it all in.

   We made Leprechaun traps to catch those green little rascals but they were too smart for our traps and got away. They made a mess of the classroom and left us a clue to where we could find some gold. This is the first time we searched for clues to find treasures. It is an idea my co worker shared with me that she has done for years, and it was so much fun. Our first clue was at the end of our read aloud, Too Many Leprechauns. Then we searched for clues throughout the school, leading us back to the classroom where a pot of (Rolos) gold was discovered.   For centers we did a fun, free cvc write the room activity .

  

We couldn't catch those leprechauns even with our clever traps.

We watched Duck or Rabbit ...

I had the students write their opinion on whether or not they thought it was a duck or a rabbit. This fabulous idea came from First Grade Fairytales.

If you haven't checked out her blog, you should, she is amazing.

 

Only one little friend thought it was a duck.  

We did this very cool cvc center  by Maureen Prezioso I'm not going to lie. It took some time to cut the letters out. My little friends could not wait to open the eggs and figure out the words. 

Students pick an egg.

They open the egg and arrange the letters to match the picture in the egg. This picture you can actually see that I wrote the number on the egg top. My fabulous co worker, Miss Jessica, suggested I put the number on the back of each  little orange piece of paper in the egg , in case one egg open in the bucket, I know where the letters go.  She is a genius. It made this center rock. The kids loved it and I had no worries about missing pieces.

As the student wrote the cvc word on the answer key, we had them write the number of the egg by the word. 

 For math, we practiced skip counting by 10s with this cute little chick activity. I made it with the help of some talented clip art from Educlips.   I love it.. LOL.

We used it in an independent center. 

I made this center for my classroom, with everything I want in my class.  It has the learning goal right on the paper, so the students know why they are learning this. I created it with easier and harder levels for differentiation. To make it more rigorous, I included a writing piece, so students have to provide evidence of their understanding. My favorite part is the check for understanding at the bottom.  I used the Face It font from West Winds fonts. 

We counted cube trains to match the number the chick is holding.

  I used it with my little friends in a small, teacher led group. I think this is important because my challenge was to incorporate more hands on.

Then we found the matching cube train card.

Once the students were able to do this I sent them to this independent center.

Then the next day we used it as a write the room center.

We also tied in science with a cool egg experiment. 

Students kept records of their observations. You can get the sheet we used for free by clicking here.

It was a great week for learning.  But now it's time for SPRING BREAK! Enjoy.

It All Started with the Dinosaurs

 I am starting this blog to challenge myself to create more hands on learning opportunities for my students. I am a nerd at heart. I love learning. I want my students to love learning. Learning should be fun especially for five year olds. 
   I am not new to this blogging thing. In 2011, I started a blog about my son's medical journey with HCM. But shortly after his open heart surgery, I stopped blogging. It is a bit different. So, be patient with me ,dear reader, as I figure all this out.  

 What I do know is teaching and as I say this, I have no disillusions of being Deanna Jump , Greg Smedley-Warren, or Melissa from The Printable Princess. If you haven't checked out their pages, you need to. They are AMAZING! I am just your average, kindergarten teacher at a Title 1 school. This is my twelfth year teaching. Most of my time has been in kindergarten but I have taught 1st, 2nd and as an intervention teacher.  Reading is my passion, but this year I have made it a challenge to get better at teaching math. 

We love Math. This week my little friends worked on identifying greater than and less than in numbers to 20. Like I said Hands On. So, I created some centers. I feel like even in centers students need something to turn or they get off task. I totally made these worksheets for me, this is what I want on my students papers. I included the learning goal right on the paper. Let's face it, it is best practices for students to know why they are doing what you ask. Also, if you are required to follow Marzano, it is providing a clear learning goal.  I created the worksheets to have a writing component to add rigor and to show evidence of learning. My favorite part is the check for understanding at the bottom of the page. It gets students thinking about where they are in the learning process.  

 Dinosaur Greater than Less Than  

 We did this activity as a mini lesson for my little friends who needed a little extra help. I differentiated this even more with my struggling students by having them put beans on the black dots in the tens frames as they counted. This activity was put in a center for my friends to practice the next day.

 Getting these little ones to talk in the beginning of the year is like pulling teeth. We practice a lot of accountable talking. As we finish up centers, we do a quick check for understanding. Students tell a partner how they know which card has more.

 

We like to keep our hands busy. So to practice our sight words, we write them in shaving cream. The school I am at uses IRLA.   Our high frequency words are referred to as power words. I play a power word video from you tube and deliberately stop the video on the words we need to focus on. The students read and write the power word.

My little friends LOVE to play Jenga.  On one side of the each block,  a sight word is written. On the other side I wrote either a letter or a number.  When a student pulls a block, they read the sight word to the other players. If they do not know the sight word, they can  choose another option on the block, either ( depending on their skill level) say the letter and sound it makes, say a word that begins with the letter or count to the number on the block.

   Reading is my absolute favorite. I want my little friends to LOVE reading as much as I do.  During independent reading time, I pull out a small tent, a tunnel  and some comfy pillows for the students to enjoy while reading quietly.  My students LOVE to read in the fun spaces.

These are put away super quick as students put their book boxes away.  It makes reading fun for my little ones.

On nice days we also do buddy reading outside.

I am hoping to have weekly updates with fun "Hann's On" activities to make learning fun. If you have a favorite blog that you like to read or a fun hands on activity, please share in the comments below.  I am always looking for ideas for the classroom. I promise to give credit where credit is due.  I know as teachers we spend way too much time planning.  With this blog, I am hoping to help share ideas and hold myself accountable with my challenge to create more hands on activities to make learning fun.