Common Core Research

With the beginning of Common Core in our district there was a huge change in the writing curriculum. I LOVE the differences! GASP, but I am so glad to get away from the small moment-personal narrative that I was stuck in. Of course, at the beginning I felt like I was transformed into the Wizard of Oz. Just click my heels and away I went.

This quarter of our writing samples that go in each child's Reading folders was the research section. We seem to have worked on this for several weeks. The kids LOVE it! We always knew that when they pick up an information book about an animal they just can't wait to share--with you or a friend--just can't wait to share an amazing fact!

We began by doing a whole class theme on Owls. We used this as a tool to review the non-fictional text features. Following that we moved to choosing an animal to work with a small group (with support from others part of the Common Core standard).

I placed seven stations around the room with the animal choices (sharks, snakes, dogs, cats, apes, rabbits, bats). I let them browse the room and then called them back to the floor. Using our tub of student number sticks, I pulled a number and that child took a sticky note and placed their name on their choice. I limited each group to four students. 

Then began the fun part--reading, reading, and talking, sharing. 

Pebblego has also been a fantastic source. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Book-A-research-based-informative-writing-project

We've been writing. I purchased a set from TPT.

 I hope to get them finished and published next week. The All About Book--A Research Based Informative Writing Project has given us the structure for this Common Core Standard.

Basal toss!

My district has always had a basal in my lifetime as a first grade teacher. This is reading adoption year for the state of Tennessee. I am serving on the adoption committee. We listened to the sales pitches of several companies. They fed hundreds of teachers a buffet light dinner, gave their "my company is the one company that is truly Common Core". The state allows the companies to send out a small sample of certain grade levels--no more letting us see every grade's materials. Throughout the process, I became more and more confused. I became convinced of my choice. It was another basal--but one that I felt had the closest ties to meeting Common Core standards.

Then...the committee met to hear the last sales pitches. Each of the top three companies (these were narrowed down in a previous meeting) were allowed to present their final --you need this--- presentations. We asked a few questions. Then..we talked. We viewed our positives and negatives. And...we went with a non-basal company--Benchmark Literacy. It is a very different type of reading program.

The positive is that we will be not tied to a basal in our district. We will use Reader's and Writer's Workshop. Due to this I feel FREE! Free to go back to using RW and WW. 

I jumped in this week. I took an idea from a blog: I put four questions on poster paper and let the kids travel to all four--answering questions about what we have talked about in our shortened RW meetings.

These questions have become my teaching points this week. I also kicked this change in MY teaching by beginning a chapter read-aloud of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. The first day I told the kids that reading is such a marvelous journey and read the first chapter. They listened. But not much of an eye opening for them.

Day 2--I pulled out their chart of "where do you read"? We have talked about this back in August. They had some good thoughts and a variety of places. Then I read Chapter 2 of Edward Tulane. This time they were "into" it. So much so that they groaned when I finished it. I knew I had made a step into taking this journey. 

I have gotten help and inspiration from this blog: Once Upon a Reader's Workshop on Teachers Pay Teachers. "Bookmuncher" has since retired from teaching. But I refer to her posts when I need a push!

I have about 12 weeks of school left. I am determined that these kids will leave with an idea of how wonderful books can be. After all--MY blog is Booky4first!

Help for Sure!

I haven't posted in a while. With the cold Winter blues it hasn't inspired me.It's been a while since I can settle into a five day school week--actually the middle of December!  With our ice, floods, snow days (along with MLK day and sickness) I haven't had a five day school week until last week. That's right--two months of playing catch up with three and four day weeks. We have missed five days for weather related "stuff", two early dismissals, and one delayed opening.

So, that's my excuses!

But...Common Core doesn't seem to have weather related days off. And SAT 10 will be administered the end of April. AND...my state uses test scores as 35% of our evaluations. So, on to the race...to...cram teach as much as possible in a short amount of time.

I actually like Common Core. (gasp). I like the fact that there aren't  956 standards (I just estimated on that one) to teach. 

The help I have gotten came from a  talented lady. She made some great, fantastic, true common core activities. Most of them are for reading responses and close reading. Reading a "cold text" and looking for evidence or comprehension skills.

            

Sarah Paul has created these and it is so strong in helping first graders understand and use the skills that we are teaching.

I do hope that she comes up with a "spring" one soon! I am ready for Spring.

And a little look at some of our latest happenings:

Valentine compound words.

First grade program: An opera of the Three Little Pigs. (no, we aren't pigs in real life!)

And I moustache you a question....

Snowmen Grammar

This week we are working on "extreme" weather. It IS January. Last week we were out of school for ice. Today...it was 70 and we were outside with no jackets! Extremely unpredictable for sure.

I saw this idea (don't ask me where) and made a simple three circle handout for the kids to write two nouns, two verbs, and adjectives. The kids loved it. With so much "teach to the common core" and testing and just regular curriculum standards there isn't time for fun. So...shhh...I gave the kids a "creative" way to assess their knowledge of the parts of speech.

Once they had recorded their "knowledge" I gave them free reign of a tray full of recycled items. 

And a request from one of my firsties: "Are you going to hang them up and put a slideshow of our pictures on the website?" Melt my heart! Yes! 

I do plan to make a movie maker video of some more "snowy learning" and add it to our class videos.

So what is special for your kids? 

Weather Stamina

January has been a little un-predictable. We haven't had a five day week. We have had holidays, floods, snow, and now ice. It's hard to keep our stamina going for reading and writing workshop. It is even harder to make sure place value is understood in Math.

But, I did have time to work a little more on my home office.

I wanted these little shelves. They were a great buy at TJ Maxx. But, oh they gave us a run when we tried to hang them. Let's just say swiss cheese walls. Which meant some dry wall patch and that gave me the dreaded task an opportunity to paint the walls a little lighter color. I used SW Versatile Gray--mixed at Lowes in their brand. This paint is eggshell finish and much more durable. See--the shelves are now hung (minus decorations) and no spackling staring at me when I work on the computer. And I changed the room arrangement a bit.

I made the bookcase a different direction. That;s what it deserved after having to empty several shelves again in order to paint the walls. I got a $10 table cloth at Wal-Mart to cover the table top. I know...it's a dining room table. But it has memories!

And I removed the blanket hangar from this shelf and painted it black. (I tried sawing that pole until I realized that there were screws in the outside that held it on. 10 seconds and a power drill and that baby was gone! 

I've already purchased a nine-cube bookcase to go below this shelf. That should give me extra storage so I won't have so many piles!

Now, on to school. Our theme this week is Stormy Weather, Seems appropriate! I made a powerpoint to use with Learn360 and PebbleGo lessons. It allows us to use fewer paper copies and use the whiteboard to work together. I plan on the kids using their reader response journals to work on this also.

Weather powerpoint by Jean

We are going to brainstorm types of weather. There is a great video on Learn360 about the Alphabet of Weather. I plan on the kids watching and listing on slide 3. I'll probably print that one off for us to use. Slide 3 will follow along with our basal story: Stormy Weather. We will compare and contrast extreme weather according to moisture or sunny days. The kids love to work with the Tornado in the bottle. Since we are writing "how to" this will work out great!
Since we are all into assessment the last slide will serve as our formative assessment on the study. So, lots of research, lots of visuals, and hopefully nice weather to actually go five days!