First week!

This week was a very exhausting but wonderful first week. Typical first graders...it's a big transition year from Kindergarten to 1st grade.

To get some fun assessment data, we have students make letters, numbers, shapes, and animals out of Play-doh. It really helped us to see if students were reversing letters and numbers and if they were familiar with shapes. Today was free play day with the Play-doh. Here's my favorite sculpture!

In math, we made pictures with pattern blocks. I walked around and talked to them about the pictures they made, asking them to count the number of blocks, identify shapes, and let them explain things they discovered while working with the blocks. Here are a few pics they made.

My class definitely worked well with manipulatives!

2 must have apps

You guys are lucky! 2 posts in one night! 

I want to share 2 apps that are must haves for reading teachers. 

The first is called Common Core Concept Bank.

This app is from the makers of ScootPad. You launch the app and press your grade level, subject, and specific standard. Then an amazing thing happens! Instant question banks that address that particular standard. It will definitely help with CCSS instruction and Smarter Balance.

The next is Record of Reading.

This app is made by Clemson University (GO TIGERS,)

The app lets you record student reading, take a running record, type in student info at the top and type a short summary of student reading. But wait...there's more! Once you are finished with the running record, you can save it to a folder and email it to yourself. Imagine how awesome this paperless data will be. Not to mention instead of lugging around your data notebook or forgetting your clipboard in your car (yeah I've done that), all you would need is your iPad. I think this is one of the most useful apps I've seen.

The best part is that both of these apps are totally free!

So what are you waiting for? Get off of this blog right now and go download these apps!

How my 2 yr old inspired my 1st grade classroom....

Meet Micah.

This spunky and smart 2 year old loves books. He loves to listen to stories. He loves to talk! Everyday when I pick him up from daycare, we have conversations about what he learned that day.

Two days ago I picked him up from daycare and told him that we were going to see his grandparents instead of going straight home. He was cranky from taking a shorter than usual nap. So naturally he wanted out of the carseat. To take his mind off of the  mini meltdown in the back seat, I started telling him what I could see. The conversation went something like this:

"I see a truck." "I see a truck too." "I see a tree." "I see a tree, too."

The longer we drove the more the conversation built.

"I see McDonalds." "I see McDonalds, too." "What color is it?" "It's yellow!"

As the conversation continued I began thinking about my beginning readers. They need to build a sight word bank. They pass lots of places and things on their way to school, and around the school.

EPIPHANY!

I decided that since emerging readers build confidence and stretch their reading muscles by reading...and that young students also tend to write higher than their reading level...I came up with the idea that my students can write about the things they see. Since we have iPads, students can take pictures of their surrounding and put them into a predictable book where they have written the words. That also means that with these students, they will instantly be successful readers and writers! They can put their books in the classroom library to read over and over again. And being able to integrate technology is a nice little added bonus.

I am so excited about this project and I can't wait to tell my 1st graders about it!