Click, Clack, Moo - Reading and Writing Activities!

This week, we did a lot of activities from Click, Clack, Moo.

We did sequencing, cause and effect, problem and solution, we hit all kinds of ELA standards! And that's not even talking about our writing activities.

I didn't take pictures of it, but they did a Story Structure activity with problem and solution that they glued into their reader's notebook.

Then, we did a team building activity with sequencing. I gave them the cards (2 each) and set the timer for them to illustrate what the card said. 

The, I gave them some time to work together to put the cards in order of the story.

Then I turned on the book on Bookflix, so they could "watch" the scenes as they checked their work.

This is how they came out.  I'm actually quite proud of how they turned out! Now, if I was in 2nd or 3rd, I probably would've made them do this activity alone, but my little firsties did a great job as a team.

 Then, we talked about the parts of a cow. I gave them a page for directed drawing. I found TONS of great guided drawings from ABC Schoolhouse on TpT. I feel like I need to get them all now. ha! They had some great activities to go with them too.

Then, we brainstormed ideas of everything a farmer has to do on a farm.  

We used those ideas to write our "Day of a Farmer" which hit the standard of using "temporal words."   I was actually really impressed with how a lot of them wrote their own sentences, helping them write their own version of the "story." 

I wrote all of my new sentences in different colors so that they could see when to start and end sentences. They used their planning page to help them with their writing.

After they finished their writing and drawing with labeling, they got to do their craft part to the writing. This activity came from one of my go-to books.

They put them on their "green grass" paper. I really like this one. After we did our cows, I had a few students come up to me and say "Where is the tracer for the udder? Our cow needs an udder!" lol But that the time I was too busy and didn't have any pink paper, but I like how they were thinking! I will definitely add that next time!

Here's how they turned out. SO stinkin' cute!

You can check out my pack on TpT or my Shop on the Blog. The only thing that you won't get is a craft - ha! I'm not crafty. Sorry.

Want to win this pack? Comment below with your favorite farm animal! Giveaway ends Saturday morning with my morning coffee! Make sure to leave your email!

Congrats to Lee Ann! 

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Farm fun, Bookflix, nonfiction, and text features

It seems like Fridays are the only days that I have to blog lately..lol. I guess that's because my Fridays are usually taken. I leave work RIGHT at 3:00 and meet with one or two or a few of my girlfriends for "sprites" after work, then I pick up the girls (or the hubs drops them off on the way to his auction) and we go to the beach.  I must say, it's the combination of seeing my friends for an hour or so and then hitting the beach with my girls is seriously a GREAT end to my week!

Sorry, back to school related.  This week, we used Bookflix. I L.O.V.E Bookflix! I've talked about it before in THIS post. I actually posted a video of myself giving you a "tour" of it - check it out! (it is a paid for site, but I love it! Our media specialist "buys" it for us every year with her  media funds, and I'm very grateful!

So, this week we "read" Click, Clack, Moo and A Visit to a Dairy Farm.

The next day, we discussed how one was fiction and one was non-fiction, and they had to find evidence (common core buzz word!) to prove that it was either one.

Yesterday, our morning meeting reviewed what we've been doing in our morning meeting, and we did some post it note learning (man, I just LOVE post it notes!)

Then, we took their ideas, and turned it into a venn-diagram, and turned that venn-diagram into paragraphs! Say what?!!? PARAGRAPHS? Be still my heart. But I KNOW they can't do it on their own, but the fact that they understood that each paragraph was about something different was just awesome.

We've also been discussing the different parts to non-fiction, like the text features. You can check out THIS post to see how we've been using our reader's notebooks to help us out in our small groups with text features. So then we used that practice and did an informal assessment! I gave them strips of post it notes and they had to label specific things in the magazine.

I was so impressed on how they did!

(see? I love post it notes!)

Today, we added one more bit into our reader's notebooks in the text-features section. Diagrams.  And since we are doing farm themed activities, then I did a cow.  

Let. Me. Tell. You. I am SO impressed with my drawing!! I can NOT draw. And my anchor charts are NOT cute...lol. But I am pretty darn impressed with this. Aren't you!?

I did the cow in front of them, so they could see how I drew it (almost like a directed drawing activity), so theirs came out pretty darn good!

Well, I didn't get through A LOT of my plans from last week, so I'm just moving a lot of it to this week. Please tell me that i'm not the only one that doesn't get through her plans on a weekly basis!

Please.

Make me feel better.

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Math centers, Pete, phonics, and readers notebooks

Time to catch up on what we've been up to!!

I've been teaching addition strategies in my whole-group math time, like doubles, near doubles, and making ten. We've been spending a little longer on making ten then I thought we would, but in all honesty, I really want them to be able to do mentally, so I keep on working with it! 

We started off using unifix cubes, and doing what I call "Build, borrow, write" Build the first two numbers (with 2 different colors), then borrow from one color to make the other color 10, then write your NEW math problem....does this make sense???

While I've been pulling my struggling kids working on this, my class has been working on my 2-Digit number sense centers. 

We've also been trying to finish our Pen pal letters...to JAPAN! Woo!! I've only got a few finished, addressed, and ready for delivery, so hopefully by THIS Friday, I'll have the class set ready to go!

Last week, we finished our Pete the Cat unit.  

We compared 2 of the books, using a double bubble (thinking maps!

Which, the students wrote in their Reading Journal.

And for their "test" I had them compare 2 other Pete the Cat books, this one was I Love my White Shoes and Four Groovy Buttons. They did it ALL on their own...and most of them did REALLY good!!

Last week, we worked on our Floss Words....words that have one syllable and end in F, L, S or Z. They did the matching activity in my Floss Pack

and then we put them on in our phonics notebook

I've had a few people question about using notebooks all the time and if it's time consuming getting them to color, cut, and glue in their book. Well....my friends, let me introduce you to my best friend...the timer! lol. For real. Each group has a timer (Each student has a job in the group, and one of them is the timer.)

Check out my post {HERE} on my group jobs! There's a Team Job Freebie!

Anyway, when I tell my time keepers to set the timers, then it's like magic how quickly they work! Do all of them finish?? No, of course not, BUT it makes them realize that we are moving on and they need to pay attention to me, or whatever we are doing at that time.

What timers am I using?? I bought a six-pack of timers from Lakeshore.

(this girl had a minute left before the timer went off!)

What have we started today?? Text features!! I don't know why this is such a hard concept, but I'm sure glad that we have Nicole Shelby's Interactive Reading Notebook to use! I love it!!

Today, we put in her inserts of the notebook, and then labeled everything (during whole group). Then, during small group lessons, I had them come back WITH their reading journals to use as a reference to find non-fiction text features in the Scholastic News that we are reading in small groups.

Tomorrow is an early release, after we just had yesterday off (teacher inservice day). I kind of feel like I dont' have enough time to teach everything I want! lol

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Last week in review - with a freebie!

I'm a little behind in showing you what we've been up to...here are some highlights from LAST week. (woops!)

Our story in the reading series was part of Henry and Mudge. I know, I know, I don't usually use the reading series, but since I love Henry and Mudge, I wanted to do this one....

We worked on Author's Word Choice in our Reader's notebook by using adjectives to describe Mudge (he's SO cute, isn't he???) You can download him HERE.

Then they wrote a sentence using a few of the words from our web.

They're "test" that week was to show me how well they could sequence, and I wanted them to PROVE to me where they found the "answer."  Do any of you remember the 10 Important Sentences from the Scott Foresman series (that was like 3 series ago for us)??? Well, I didn't really like how they had the sentences already in order, so I always mixed them up and then had the kids put them in order. So that's what I did with this....my teaching partner found a cute idea online somewhere (I couldn't find the site again, so if it's yours let me know!) so I made one for our book. They had to put the sentences in order, and once they finally did that, then I let them do the cute part of the activity. Trust me, it was a good way to see who could do this and who needed more practice. 

But didn't they turn out soooo cute??

Click HERE for the sequencing activity freebie.

It was our first week in our spelling, so we dove into our phonics notebooks too. 

We wrote our spelling words in the notebook, and then throughout the week, we added more words that fit the rules.

We also wrote our sight words in the dictionary part.

Checkout my phonics notebook at 

 my TpT store

my TN store
Shop on the Blog

We've also been digging into our poetry journal.

Last week, we did a poem from one of my favorite phonics poetry books...

I retype the poems so that they can't see all the words with the phonics skill (they're bolded in the book), and they glue it into their poetry journal. We practice it all week; whole group, shoulder partners, around the world, individual, whatever, just to keep getting better at it. We highlight the words that follow the phonics rule for the week, and we also circled the words that rhyme - so we can find rhythm and repetition 

*common core! Then I have them illustrate what they visualize while they read the poem (which is another reason I retype it because it also has a picture...lol).

We've also been working a lot in math, and in my math tubs for each group is a few deck of cards, and boy have we been using them! One way is for place value!

Check out my Deck of Cards pack on THIS post - it shows how I keep it all organized!

Today was my baby girl's birthday - she turned 4 years old today!! She came to have lunch with me at work today - happy birthday pumpkin!!

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