Monday's Mystery Words

At our school we use the Words Their Way Program for Spelling and Phonics in the primary grades. 

I know I will be sorting and creating lots of lists with our spelling each day however I still want to include Monday’s Mystery Word.  My kids just loved this activity last year.  In kindergarten we did this whole group with the pocket chart.

Now as first graders, I purchased their own letters to work with from Lakeshore.  I liked these letters because they were made out of cardboard and appear to be laminated.  The vowels are printed in red and the consonants are printed in blue.    I was disappointed that they only had lowercase letters on one side.  I wish they had the capital letters on the other side.  

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  I found 24 tool drawer organizer to store at Home Depot to store the letters.  I added red-letter stickers on the outside to easy organize the drawers. W,X,Y,Z had to share drawers. 

I am going to follow the structure in Patricia Cunningham’s Book for the first year and go from there.  

I think the kids will love sorting the letters on their own and finding some of the words before we do the activity as a class.  I can hear the excitement already. 

Keep yours eyes open I will be creating a recording sheet for this soon.   

Just Smile

Go to Google today to see the video clip.  It is very cute.  

My oldest son gave me the heads up about this on Google today, June 10th, 2013. 

 It is Maurice Sendak's 85th Birthday.  

I love how my children know all about children's literature even though they are grown ups.  All their friends are amazed that they still remember all the stories from when they were little.  

It was time well spent.  I miss having them here with me.  

Ready or Not......First Grade Here I Come

It’s official; I moved all my things into my new classroom, Room 105.  As of right now I am the first grade teacher.  It has been eleven long years since I was last in first grade.  There have been lots of changes, Daily 5, Common Core….just to name a few. 

I feel like a first year teacher.  I have lots to learn and I am not wasting any time.  My goal is to work on something each day. 

Since I used a lot of my poems in kindergarten I need to find some new material.  My job today was to find a poem that I can use for the first week of school.  I purchased a great poetry book from Scholastic books, Pick A Poem!  It has a great selection of poems.  I highly recommend it, if you are looking for some material. 

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Each week I like to have a poem that will review the sight words, practice rhyming and work on a word family.  This poem will be perfect!

I already created a poetry basket where I keep copies of the poems for the reading center.  The students will create a poetry notebook with 3 prong folders to keep their copies for home reading. 

I created a worksheet to review skills as well.  The first one is very simple just to get us started.   Click Here if you would like a free copy of the poem and worksheet. :)

Let me know your thoughts.

Sue

Poetry Basket

One of the things I did last time I taught first grade years and years ago was......

 I worked hard to find thematic poems that incorporated the spelling words and vocabulary I was teaching.  So that is one of my goals again this time.  I don’t know exactly what poems I will be using yet however I do know poems will be an important part of my classroom.

The first thing I organized for my new first grade classroom is a poetry basket.

I made this label using graphics from Jessica Weible Graphics and the fuzzy border is from the pond and then taped it to red polka dot scrapbook paper.     

 

Look What I Bought

The First Purchase for My New Classroom

 

Ok so maybe it is not the most practical thing for a classroom however it is the cutest thing for a classroom.

I just love it.  My biggest fear is that the children will get it dirty and I have no way of washing it.   If you are interested in purchasing your own pillow 

Click Here! 

I do not benefit from purchases I am just sharing the source with you.