We Adopted a Fourth Grade Class During Testing!

Last year our school decided to have our younger students 'adopt' an older class during the week of testing.  We did it and it turned out great!  

Kelley over at the Teacher Idea Factory created this wonderful free pack FULL of fun ideas called State Testing Adopt-A-Class Project & Ideas for you to do to support the older kiddos who are taking important tests.  

Last year it was such a hit that we decided to do it again this year.  My kiddos were so excited to make cute little gifts for the 'big' kids and write them good luck letters.  They got even more excited when I told them that they would get treats from my new first graders when they are in fourth grade.  They don't realize how important those big tests are, but that's okay.  Ignorance is bliss!  :)

There are so many ideas in Kelley's pack, but we chose just a few.  The way our school decided to do it was the Kindergartners adopted a third grade class, the first graders adopted a fourth grade class, and the second graders adopted a fifth grade class.  

Our fourth graders are only testing on 2 days, but we made 3 days worth of treats and wrote letters to go with them.  

Here are some pics of what we made for our adopted fourth graders: 

I also have a gift ready for their teacher who I'm sure is very stressed.  She likes to walk and bike in the summer so I filled this cute cup with coffee and chocolate...what every teacher needs!  :) 

Does your school do anything to cheer on the testing kiddos?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!  

Leveled Reading Comprehension Passages

A couple months ago I was on the look out for some comprehension passages for my kiddos.  For one of our second and third 9 week assessments our kiddos had to be able to read first grade passages and answer questions citing text evidence.  

This is hard to practice when you don't have printable passages that they can highlight and write on!!  

So my search began....

Then I found Anne at Common Core Connection and I was so excited!

She has created leveled comprehension packs for reading levels C through J and they are wonderful!  Most packs have fiction and nonfiction stories and they all have 4 multiple choice questions with each passage.  

To help with text evidence, I have my kiddos underline or highlight their answers in the story to prove their thinking to me.  I have also added some written response questions to the back of their question page.  Due to lack of time I just quickly write a few questions and draw lines for answers.  These don't come with the stories, it's just something I added for my own kiddos!  ;)

This practice has helped my kiddos so much.  I have used these stories for morning work, in guided reading groups, and during Daily Five.  They would be great for homework too!  I have seen a lot of growth from all of my students and it's fabulous that each kiddo is reading stories on their own level.  I differentiate the questions with each story and it's great practice!  

As you can tell I highly recommend these reading passages!  

I have bought all of them.  Here is what her Level I and J pack looks like:

Click on the picture to go purchase this pack! 

This pack has a lot of nonfiction stories.  My kiddos love reading these stories and then sharing with me what they learned...win-win!  :)

Here is what it looks like after my kiddos are done:  

I just noticed on that third question he should have started his answer with 'My favorite fact is'....oops!

  

My kiddos have to underline their answers.  This story was done independently.  I have asked several written response questions on the back to help with writing answers in complete sentences.  We call it restating the question.  We do it in reading and math (story problems) to help us know how to find the correct answer.  

To keep track of which stories I have used I have printed them all and put them in a binder.  I have them categorized by levels and I keep a small post-it on the next story so I always know where I have left off.  It's not a fancy system, but it's easy and it works for me!  

I also created a cute cover for this binder and I am sharing it with you.  Whether you have purchased these packs or have others, you can always use a cute cover!  I included 2 different covers that have one with first grade and one without since you can use these stories with several grade levels depending on your students' needs. 

Click on the picture to download for free!  

If you purchase these passages I hope you like them as much as I do!  They have been such a huge help with my kiddos!  :)

The weather is finally nice and my hubby is on his way home so I'm going to go enjoy my Friday evening.  Have a great weekend!  

Poetry Notebook Fun and FREEBIE

Today was our 8th day of school and we fully ran Daily Five today!!!  I was so proud of my first graders!  

I think this may be the earliest I have ever felt like my kiddos could do it.  We used our Smart Board to make our choices and I had kids reading to self, reading to someone, word work-ing, and listening to reading all at the same time.  I've decided to wait on work on writing because I have so many kiddos that just aren't ready to be independent with that yet.  

Then, in the middle of our Daily Five greatness we had a fire drill!  I was working with a kiddo on his DRA when it went off and the sound of the alarm literally made me jump.  I think I totally scared my little kiddo!  Oops!!

Something else I have already implemented in our classroom are our poetry notebooks.  We had our kiddos bring 3 ring binders this year instead of using folders like I have in the past.  I used my *FREE* Poetry Notebook pack for our binder cover, table of contents page, and poetry log.

I gave my kiddos a cover and wrote their name on it which is covered by the crayon in the picture:

This next picture is the inside and I hate that it's upside down.  I changed it when I saved it to my computer, but when I uploaded it here it went upside down.  :(  If anyone knows how to fix this I would love to know how!!

The purple paper in the front pocket is the parent log.  My kiddos take their poetry notebooks home every Friday and read their poems over the weekend.  I don't require this, but I do highly encourage and reward it.  This encourages reading at home over the weekend without officially assigning homework.  Parents can sign the log one time each weekend.  I don't care if my kiddos read 1 poem or 20 poems.  Once the log is filled up my kiddos get Class Dojo points.  The green paper attached to it is just an explanation for parents.  

The yellow paper is their table of contents page.  We give each poem a page number and then we write the title and page number on the table of contents.  It helps keep us organized.  I gave my kiddos 3 copies of this page on the front and back because we fill up our notebooks with so many poems that I don't want to have to add more pages later.  

Each week I give my kiddos 2 poems (front and back).  The first one is usually a phonics or sight word poem.  The one below is for our -at word family.  I have a notebook full of poems, but this year I decided to retype them so that I could make the font bigger, add an illustration, and add a place for my kiddos to write the page numbers.  I'm loving this idea.  :)

The second poem this week was called My First Day since we just started school.  The second poem is usually about a holiday or content area.  I will be using one on tally marks soon as well as apples as we begin our apple unit.  I typed this one up too and added a place for my kiddos to illustrate a picture.  This kiddo drew her at her desk and me in front of the room.  :)

I love our poetry notebooks.  My kiddos read these all the time during Daily Five and when they finish their work early.  They also enjoy showing their families how well they can read on the weekends.  :)

You can download my *FREE* Poetry Notebook pack here to get started.  I didn't include any poems because I use ones I have in books or have found online.  I'm not creative enough to make my own or I would totally share them with you!!  :)

If you have any other suggestions or ideas for a poetry notebook, I would love to hear them!  I'm always looking for new ideas to help my kiddos read.  :)

To read about what causes rain, follow my Facebook Fan Page and see what one of my kiddos told me this week!  LOVE first graders!!  :)

Homework FREEBIE and Laminator

Homework is such a tricky thing with first graders. 

I struggle every year on what to do for homework.  Part of me thinks they should do homework every night to help build responsibility and to help them understand the importance of homework and doing well in school.  Then another part of me thinks they're so young and so many of them don't have parents willing or able to help them....so the struggle continues.

Last year I tried something new.  

I had created this Chapter Book and Picture Book Literature Circle Pack a year and a half ago:

There are several jobs for students to do and one of the jobs is Artsy Arnold where my kiddos have to write "My favorite detail is..." and draw a picture of their favorite part of the book or chapter.  I started using this 'job' as homework towards the end of last year since it was something my kiddos could completely do on their own and it meant I didn't have to use a traditional reading log!!  

I loved it!  And my parents did too!  

My kiddos didn't have to just read and get a parent signature anymore.  They had to think about their favorite part of the story, write a sentence about it, and draw a picture.  All on their own!!  :)

This year I decided to start this right at the beginning of the year so I created a reading homework log.  My kiddos will just write the title of the story and draw a picture for now.  I will add more to it as the year goes on.  

You can click on the picture below to download the freebie if you would like to use it:

It's nothing fancy, but it helps my kiddos be more independent and I love that!  

Before I go, I have to share this wonderful laminator I received from MyBinding.  It works wonderfully and I love it!  

It was so easy to use.  I plugged it in, waited a few minutes until the light turned on, placed my papers in the pouches that came with the laminator and sent them through!  So easy!  

I was lucky to try this laminator out and I highly recommend it.  It has done a fabulous job on everything I have sent through it.  You can click *HERE* to go purchase it now!  You won't be sorry!  :)  

First Week Fun with Crayon (FREEBIE) and Guitars

Whew!  This was our first week and I'm still exhausted after sleeping in this morning!  

We had so much fun this week though.  We learned our Whole Brain Teaching rules, practiced for a fire drill, started Daily Five, and made some cute craftivities!  

We read The Crayon Box That Talked during our first class meeting.  I have an autistic student again this year so we had a class discussion on how we are all 'different colors' in our classroom's crayon box and we are all an important color.  

It's a cute story if you've never read it before.  The crayons in the box realize that it takes all the different colors to make a pretty picture.  

I told my kiddos it would be really boring for me if there were 20 Mrs. Seymour's in my class!  It's such a cute story and great to use to show that every kiddo is important.  

After reading this story we made these cute crayon craftivities from Cara Carroll! Click *HERE* to go visit her blog and see all of her crayon color cuteness! My kiddos had so much fun curling their arms and legs.  It's always interesting to see who can follow directions the first week of school with a craft.  :)

 Here's a close up!  Sorry it's sideways!!

We also made guitars this week to go with our Rock Star theme.  I took pictures of my kiddos on the first day and I will hang those up next week between their guitars. 

Click *HERE* to go purchase your own guitar! It's actually an end of the year craft, but I use it at the beginning and at the end of the year.  They say First Grade Rocks right now and at the end of the year they will say First Grade Rocked!  :)  She has included signs up to fifth grade.  

This is my display in the hallway:

 The banner on top says Mrs. Seymour's Rock Stars.  

Here is a close up:

It says First Grade Rocks on the top and I love first grade on the white part.  

Well I'm off to a late breakfast with my dad....his treat!  :)  Then I need to relax after such a long week.  Have a great weekend friends!  

Don't forget you can now follow me on my Facebook Fan Page and Twitter!  I feel so grown up and techy!!  :)

Teacher Tired and Back to School Freebies

All I can say about this quote is AMEN!  

We had a fabulous first day of school today, but I am exhausted!  My little kiddos did great.  Not one asked to go home early or say I miss my mom.  Woohoo!  That's a successful first day right there!  :)

If you don't follow me on facebook, check out my fan page to see my personalized computer backgrounds!  

I have four student computers in my room and I created personalized backgrounds for Open House yesterday.  I number my computers so now I just have it right on the computer and each with a different color.  They are so cute!!  :)

I want to share a couple back to school freebies with you.  This first one isn't mine, but my kiddos loved it!  Kathy over at First Grade a la Carte shared a couple of these puzzles a few weeks ago.  Click the link *here* to go to her blog to download it.  She also came out with a whole pack of puzzles if you want to purchase more!  The kiddos cut out the capital letters and then matched them to the lower case letters....really tells you a lot about what they know on the first day of school.  

We also read The Night Before First Grade by Natasha Wing and used my Night Before First Grade- Back to School Pack.  

One of the activities we did was First Grade Worries.  We discussed what we were nervous about and how/why we weren't nervous anymore.  This little girl was nervous about getting her clip moved down, but realized that if she followed the rules she wouldn't get her clip moved!  :)  

I love her drawing of my curly hair...looks just like me!  And my color 'wheel' is actually a guitar so her picture is very accurate!!  Sorry it's sideways, but it was so cute I had to share!  If you click *here* you can download this page for free.  

It is going to take me awhile to get used to getting up so early again.  I am so tired I hope this post makes sense!!  :)  

Night!  Have a great week!  

Meet and Greet Gift Tag Freebie

Our school has a Parent/Teacher Meet and Greet the day before school begins so that our kiddos get a chance to see their classrooms, meet their teachers, and bring in their school supplies if they want to.  

It's really nice being able to meet parents and family members before the kiddos come on their own.  Sometimes first graders 'think' they know how they are getting home until 3:00 rolls around and they suddenly don't remember if they are going to ride the bus, walk, or get picked up in mom's car!  :)

I try to spend at least a few minutes with each family to answer any questions, reassure my new kiddos that first grade is really going to be awesome, and ask a few questions myself.  

I also like to give my kiddos a little treat so that they feel more comfortable in their new classroom and look forward to coming back!  I have a Rock Star theme (and polka dots too) so I created these little tags below:

These tags can definitely be used with any theme though!!  

You can download them for free in my TpT store or my TN shop by clicking on the links!

I put a hole punch in the corner and then attach a glow stick.  I did this last year and my kiddos LOVED it!  

I have one for the girls and one for the boys.  I have these tags all ready to go.  I wait and attach the glow sticks right before the kiddos come in so they last longer.  

And you can get the glow sticks at the Dollar Store!!  I bought packages of 7 for $1 which I thought was a great deal.  

I love using these for Meet and Greet, but they could easily be used anytime throughout the year.  

Hope you enjoy them!  :)

Saint Patrick's Day Activity Pack Freebie

Every month I create an activity pack for my kiddos.  It's a great way for them to review important first grade skills in fun way.  

It's also great for me.  If I need a few minutes to talk with someone or I need a couple minutes to work with a kiddo, I can just say take out your March packet and work for a few minutes. 

The kids love it and I love it so it's a win/win!  

I always use Natasha Wing's books as inspiration for these monthly packs.  Most activities can be done without the books, but they make a great addition!  March is no different.  I read The Night Before Saint Patrick's Day to my kiddos already.  They LOVE it because it's mostly about catching a leprechaun!  

This month I decided to give away my Night Before Saint Patrick's Day March Activity Pack for FREE!  It includes a class book too.  We make one each month!  :)

I know it's late in the month and Saint Patrick's Day is today so many of you might have already celebrated, but you can save this pack for next year if you like it.  There are still 2 more weeks left in March so some of you may have time for it.  

I just print it off and then staple the pages together into a book.  You could also print one page at a time and do them together.  Make it work for you!  

If you do like it and can use it, check out my TpT store which is on sale today at 20% off for my other monthly activity packs.  They can be purchased for $3-$5.  

I am currently updating my April Activity Pack so it will be up soon!  

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  

My kiddos made leprechaun hats on Friday and we're hoping our leprechaun friend Lucky shrinks them over the weekend and leaves us a treat!  I'll share pics later this week!  

Book Hospital FREEBIE

Every library needs a hospital...a place where broken and damaged books can go to heal.  

This is our book hospital:  

 When books look like this...

 ...they go to the book hospital.  

This book hospital has saved me a lot of interruptions when my kiddos are reading my older books and they fall apart during Daily Five.  We review how to treat a book carefully, but I know some of my books are hand me downs and are not in the best of shape anymore.  When they need a little surgery they have to go to the hospital.  

This hospital saves me from being interrupted over and over again while I'm working with my reading groups...and my kids think it's funny when I say my old books need a little surgery and some stitches.  :)

Our librarian has been wonderful at helping me repair some of my books.  I'm hoping they make it to the end of the year and then I'll send them home with my kids for the summer and replace them.  If some of my books can make it to May I'll be very happy.  

Here is what the rest of my book baskets look like in my class library.  I purposefully made my book hospital a different color so that my kiddos could find it easily.  

I originally got this idea from Pinterest (where else?!) and before that it came from the 2 Sisters of Daily Five.  

Here is my book hospital freebie:

Hope your library can benefit from a book hospital! :)

Inside Recess Center Labels FREEBIE

We had an in-service today and it was split into 2 parts.  In the morning we had a local university professor who travels the country helping kiddos read fluently.  

His name is Dr. Tim Rasinski.  He has written many books and participated in a lot of reading research studies.  He was very inspiring.  The two biggest things I took away from his visit were I need to be singing and reading poetry with my kiddos EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. and that my kiddos need repeated readings whether it is reading with me, their parents, or listening to reading on tape/computer.  

He shared so many stories of increased reading performance in kiddos who were well below grade level through the use of poetry and repeated readings.  Of course there was more, but those were the biggies.  He was such a great speaker!  

In the afternoon we had another speaker and she talked to us about SLO's.  She came from a nearby county and gave us some much needed info.  After her visit I feel much better about creating these SLO's.  

All in all it was a gooood day!

I shared my inside recess centers with you last year, but I have now created signs to go with them.  You can see my last year's post here.  

Here is my Inside Recess Center Labels Freebie to help you with the long winter days of inside recess craziness.

Here is how it works in my room:

I have 7 inside recess centers.  Each group has 4 kiddos in it.  This is because I only have 4 computers.  I rotate the centers every day so they only get to each center every 7 days...this helps keep them from getting bored.  

I have a small pocket chart that I got at Target.  I have a picture card at the beginning of each line with four kiddos following.  The first kiddo in each group is the one who gets the recess center out of my cabinets and puts it back.  This keeps my 28 kids from gathering  at my back cabinet and not being able to move.  

Each center has a certain place in the room.  The first person gets their group's things and takes them to their group.  The rest of the group goes to their spot and waits.  I have a larger size picture card matching the one from the pocket chart in my recess cabinet so my kiddos know exactly what they are doing and where everything belongs. 

These centers cut down on the inside recess craziness.  Now they don't argue over what to do or who to play with and there is no arguing over who has to clean up and put the toys away.  

Inside recess is soooo much more tolerable with centers.  

I hope you can use this freebie and that inside recess doesn't drive you crazy anymore!  :)

Here's to a quick winter so we can get back to outside recess!!

Night Before the 100th Day of School Giveaway and FREEBIE

My kiddos are so looking forward to the 100th Day of School!  I don't usually make as big a deal out of it as other holidays, but it has to be celebrated at least a little!  

Yay for us making it 100 days!  Sometimes it's tough!!  :)

I created this quick little pack to go with Natasha Wing's The Night Before the 100th Day of School.  Everything is ready to be printed.  

I have included a parent letter if you want your kiddos to bring in 100 items, a badge to wear, a class book to make, and an activity book to do.  

Click here or the picture to go to my TpT store and purchase it! 

**This pack is on sale today, January 6th.  Grab it today for 20%off!** 

I will give this pack away to *three random people* who leave their email address and a comment about how you celebrate the 100th Day of School!  

I will choose 3 lucky winners on Saturday!  :)

Winners have already been chosen.  See here.  

Make sure you follow my blog so you know when I'm giving away freebies!  I always give away a few of my newest TpT packs for free when I'm done posting them!!  

Here is a freebie from my newest activity pack:  

Happy 100th Day of School!  :)