1st grade.

I can't believe we're 3 weeks into school and I haven't posted any classroom pictures! Crazy. 

Most of these weren't taken with my good camera, so they aren't awesome quality. 

Several people have commented on how much bigger my room is this year. But I was able to take out 4 desks! That's huge!! I only have 4 teams this year, instead of 5. I am loving that we have room up in front of our whiteboard to sit on the floor. That's where we gather for math now. 

I didn't change anything with my calendar board this year... just added the sign language alphabet (I use sign language LOTS) and got some cute new schedule cards. 

Aren't they cute? {Free download here}

My cute little lunch system I made last year. I love it. But we don't use it this year. Our district started a with a new food service program (which is really good food, but wow... it's been a bit crazy.) There are 3 different options for school lunch each day. The older grades have been able to use a system like this (with the 3 options) but my kiddos can't read the choices yet. So it's easier at this point for me to just ask them and highlight their choice on a clipboard. So I need to either take these down or find another use for them... 

This was my biggest project this summer... organizing all my books into guided reading levels. I used two big Fountas and Pinnell books to look up lots of the titles (thanks, Jean!) but I still have two big tubs full of books that aren't listed. I need to just look through them all and level them all using my own judgement. And I'm still baffled by the amount of Level J and K books I have... (Some of you will understand what that means.)  

Our year is off to a good start. I have a sweet group of little people, but I am a bit overwhelmed with our new math curriculum and how crazy long the lessons take. I could literally fill my entire day with teaching reading and math. 

I got this little card on the 2nd day of school... 

I'm usually pretty good at reading 1st grade phonetic spelling, but I'm pretty sure these are just random letters... {I fuzzed out the name at the bottom} We've got a little work to do... =)

Our first day of school (actually 2nd day) "Ways we get to school" graph... {We make a class book, too.}

I always start the year by doing interviews with each kiddo. They choose 5 people for questions, then they help me write a story about that person (this is when I introduce the little tongue click sound for periods). Then we read the stories together (making our little period clicks!) and practice spelling that child's name. I use magnetic letters and mix their name up, another child puts it in order, we chant/check it and then do little cheers. Then the kids all practice writing that child's name, write a sentence about them and then draw a picture of them on the back. I staple them all together and send it home with that child. 

They write about me first, so all my drawings are basically stick people. I do a little mini-lesson on drawing people before we start the first kiddo. (And then do quick examples the first 3-4 days.) It's amazing the difference in their drawings after just a bit of instruction.

They choose want sentence they want me to write and I write it on a sentence strip. Then I take that sentence and cut it into words. "But... we can put words together to make sentences!"

We still need to make our 5 point listener rubric. This is my one from last year...

I don't like doing tons of worksheets and in 1st grade there is so much stuff that we just do together... up on the floor or whole class at our desks. Our district requires us to enter grades every two weeks. This rubric gives me a way to take "grades" for our whole class learning and group work times. I just mark it as "Attentive Listener" on our gradebook.

We did do one fun project earlier this week...

Our number words! {This one I take the words and cut them into letters. "But... we can put letters together to make words!"}

My para did #13. =)

Obviously I forgot the part of my instruction where we only make the number, we don't decorate all around it...

I did this last year, just because I realized one day that I didn't have any number words displayed anywhere. I didn't feel like going out and buying any, so we did this. Now, it's one of my favorite lessons. They get so excited to see them hanging up the next day. =)