Noun Alphabet

Our next noun activity was to brainstorm a noun for each letter of the alphabet. Each child drew and labeled a couple of nouns using a portion of this form. This available on my Teacher's Notebook store.

After everyone was done we sorted the pictures by whether it was a noun that named a person, place, thing, or animal. Each set of nouns was mounted on a separate color of paper. It was interesting to hear the kids' talking about the noun "nest". Did it name a place or a thing? Love those discussions!

They loved this activity! Stay tuned to see what I am going to do with these noun squares next!

Noun Song

This week we are working on recognizing and sorting nouns. I teach the kids this song, which they LOVE! The song is available in my noun quilt in my Teacher's Notebook store.

If you can use it, please leave me a comment!

Speak Like a Pirate Day

We had some fun Monday in honor of Speak Like a Pirate Day. I took pictures of each of my students wearing an eye patch and a pirate hat while they held on to a Fur Real parrot. Of course, they had to make a pirate-like face because pirates don't smile! Then they each wrote a super sentence using the pirate form from Mrs. Candau's super sentences freebie on her amazing website. Next, I made a page with their picture and lines above for them to write the final copy of their sentence on. (Our first "published" piece of writing!) Here is a sample of what one looked like.Microsoft Word - Pirate Jordan

The kids had a blast doing this and put a lot of effort into their sentences. Some were bummed I wanted to hang them up for a while instead of letting them take them home right away. This may be our first class book if I can convince them! :) I also read aloud Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long. It was a fun day!

Bee of the Week

Every member of my class gets a special week to be the "Bee of the Week"! I made this poster and enlarge it on our school copier to fit on 11 X 17" paper. In addition to sharing their poster, the Bee gets to bring in five to ten photos to share, two items for show-and-tell (only one of which can be a toy), and a favorite book to read aloud to the class. I also encourage parents (or another special adult) to come for lunch one day during the week. This item is available at my Teacher's Notebook store for $1.

Here's hoping you all have a special week, bee or not!

The Doubles Chant

I don't recall where this chant originally came from. Possibly Math Facts to the Max. (If you know please let me know.) My kids love it and the military march beat. I made it into a Power Point presentation for initial teaching and also a poster for my math wall.

I uploaded the presentation to Google docs so we'll see if it works. Click here to get it. (I've never tried this before, so let me know if it doesn't work.)

The picture shows a portion of the poster. Sorry about the glare! After we do the Power Point a number of times we only need the poster's minimal cues to remind us of the chant. It is fun to see kids who are doing math problems do the movements to the chant when they think no one is watching! Love that!

Double Chant

Look Who's Here!

This week with the cooler weather, I was able to bring to school two of my classroom pets. The kids were SO excited!

While the tarantula isn't my favorite warm, fuzzy pet...the kids love it, especially the boys! In the spider's defense, it is probably the lowest-maintenance pet I've ever owned. One little darling was overheard saying "Kiwi doesn't do much." So then we discussed what nocturnal means. That prompted another kiddo to remark that the spider had moved when it was supposed to be sleeping. Then we discussed how we move around a lot while sleeping (some more than others) and also sometimes wake up during the night and go to the bathroom (some more than others...ah, aging! :) )

The guinea pig made her grand debut also. I pulled out the Fluffy books and the kids are going "hog" wild on them. Someone brought in the shoe box for Antonia (it was Antonio before figuring out she was a GIRL last year!) and she loves it. The class was so impressed with how she chewed this whole in it so quickly. Here she is peeking out at us. So, besides chewing, the kids wanted to know what else she does. Eat, sleep, poop. "Like a baby." someone said. Yeah, pretty much. Once Antonia gets used to the kids, she will get vocal. (Anyone unfamiliar with guinea pigs...they make a lot of vocalizations, chirping, purring, whistling, etc.) The kids will love that!

Do you have a class pet or pets? If so, what do you have and how do you incorporate it/them into your curriculum and lessons? I'd love to hear from you.

Home Away From Home

Finally I've got some pictures of my classroom. (New camera...love it!) Take a look and let me know what you think of my already "lived in" small home away from home!

I didn't realize how small and crowded my room was until I began taking pictures and looking at them. Wow!

I'm Alive!

Wow, the first two weeks of school are behind me and I survived, which is remarkable considering the heat we've had.  Blessedly, the last few days have been cool and rejuvenating, and the three day weekend allowed me to really recharge.

I have the smallest class of I've ever had (only 16) and they are wonderful!  I have some corkers, quite a few with dyslexia that are very low level readers, a handful of talkers, and a couple that need meds BAD!  But they are nice, kind kids.  It will be a fun year I can tell!

Sadly, my digital camera decided to "cross over to the other side" the first week of school.  BOO HOO!  I gave in and went and bought a new one today.  (Can't live without a camera!)  So I will be taking pictures of the kids and classroom this week.

I got this great writing center idea from Mrs. Gilchrist's blog.  She had all the printables available for FREE!  I redid the alphabet so that it was D'Nealian font and also made my own story so that it was a bit longer.  Mrs. Gilchrist had her writing center on a tri-fold board like you'd use for a science fair display.  Love that idea...especially since I am so short of bulletin board/wall space.  I cut my tri-fold board in half horizontally to make it a bit smaller.  (I think I will make an author display board out of the other half.)  I glued ribbon on the bottom edge and two side edges to spruce it up a bit.  I couldn't do the top edge because some of the letters would have been covered. :(  But I am very happy with it and I know as soon as we start D5-Work on Writing the kids will love it.  (Just ignore the messy kitchen in the background...)

Thank you Mrs. Gilchrist!!