Math Tubs and Literacy Centers

Two blog posts in 2 days- must be some kind of record! Actually, school has been closed since Thursday due to weather so I have a lot of free time on my hands.... Well, I could clean the house but this is more fun. 

I just wanted to share our math tubs. I wish I could say we get to them every day but .... something seems to always come up. I'm going to do better. I have to redo all of them anyway but these are from a while back. Basically, I have 5 math tubs. I pull a small group and the rest of the class does one tub a day. This way it is very easy to maintain because each tub can last 4 weeks. The directions for each tub stay the same- the activities change. So the kids already know how each tub works. 

Math Tub 1- Roll a die, count out that many erasers, put them on the background, and complete the recording sheet. The recording sheet is front and back so the student has to roll the die a total of 8 times before getting another background. I have collected erasers for years so I have many different counting objects. I am going to make this center harder. Next time, they will have 2 dice and a different recording sheet where they have to add and write a number sentence. 

Math Tub 1

Math Tub 2 

Math Tub 2 is the pattern block center. In this tub, the children were making numbers out of pattern blocks. 

 Math Tub 3

Math Tub 3 is the playdough tub. In this tub, they were making gumballs. I have lots of different playdough mats and I change the activity out monthly. But it always involves play dough.

Math Tub 4

Math Tub 4 is the file folder games tub. This tub is the hardest one to maintain. I made a whole bunch of these folders and that took a lot of work.  I thought I had more pictures of the folders....Next year it will be easier. 

Math Tub 5

For some reason, I don't have any pictures of tub 5. It was a writing numbers center but I changed it to the clip card center. Basically, there are 5 or 6 bags of clip cards with paper clips inside and the kids match the number with a paper clip. I also have some bigger ones with clothespins. These are the ones I'm going to put in the tub for this month.  I've been putting my husband to work laminating this weekend. I think these were all free on TPT. :) 

Literacy Centers

I don't have many pictures of the literacy centers. I did want to share one or two. I finally finished putting my listening center onto donated iphones. It was a lot of work but I think it will be worth it. Now to get the kids to actually listen to the  whole story...

Another center that has worked out pretty well is what I call the Shower Curtain Center. Not a very catchy name but it's the best I could come up with. It's basically a word work/phonics center made out of shower curtains. Here are 2 examples:

I just do activities on a shower curtain. I buy the cheap ones, cut them in fourths, and come up with an activity. They are very durable as they have been stepped on numerous times. I wrote all their names on one chart and they had to match with letters. (I couldn't take a picture of that one.)  Several charts I wrote sight words for them to match. The possibilities are endless.

Goodbye, Mr. Troll, A Rolling You Go...

My little girl is sick today so we are at home. She is taking a looooong nap, so it's given me a chance to work on my latest project which I just uploaded to TPT. My mom used to tell this version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff to me when I was little. I wanted her to tell it to me all. the. time. It has a song in it that the goats sing. Anyway, a few years ago, we found a record at her house and it was the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The troll had a song too. I wish I could find a link so you could hear the song. I wrote it up as a readers' theatre last week and have been working on my own clipart. I bought some from melonheadz illustrations and it was very cute. But I love to draw and wanted to make my own.

 

Whew! There has got to be an easier way to make clipart. I don't have any expensive programs like photoshop. I downloaded Inkscape (free) and tried to scan my handdrawn pictures in. That didn't really work. So I drew them on the computer which I had never tried before. It took a good while, but I finally finished. I think they turned out rather cute.

I want to make my own clipart to sell one day but I can't figure out how to get rid of the white background. Does anyone know how to turn your drawings into clipart without it taking forever? I'm sure there are programs out there.

 

Here is the link to Three Billy Goats Gruff: A Differentiated Readers' Theatre Station.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Three-Billy-Goats-Gruff-A-Differentiated-Readers-Theatre-Station

 

There are two versions- one on grade level and one for students who read on about a 1.3-1.4 level. My kids loved the Little Red Riding Hood one I made. I used it as a literacy station with only one or two kids. It was probably the only station where somebody wasn't playing. (Do your kids ever do that? Maybe it's just mine...)   I'm thinking about making one for Peter's Chair. That's our story for this week. That one might have to be a freebie. I'm not sure about copyright laws on stuff like that. But if I make it, I'll post it on tpt.

 

Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me In!

    When I was a little girl, we didn't have a TV. Sooo, I did a lot of reading. I also listened to a lot of stories on records. Let's Pretend was my favorite. Let's Pretend is an OLD series of fairytales on record. I think it actually was a radio show.

Some of the stories were a little macabre. Jorinda and Joringle was really dark. It was about a stepmother who accidently kills her stepson and then buries him underneath the juniper tree. He comes back to life, but still. Creepy.

 

So anyway, I also had this old record of The Three Little Pigs. I don't remember the name of it but it's still at my momma's house. I typed it up (which was fun) a few years ago. I had to keep stopping the record and write down what I thought it said. The wolf actually sings his lines. I made it into a Readers' Theatre and we performed it for the parents. The kids did a fantastic job.

 

All that to say, I just uploaded it to TPT! However, there are three versions so it can be differentiated. The first version is straight from the record. It's for more advanced readers. Although I had a struggling reader play the part of the wolf. It took some practice though. But if you use it as an independent station, it's definitely for advanced readers.

 

The second version is like the first, but I took out some of the more difficult words and shortened it a bit.

The third version has been totally modified for readers who are on a lower level.

There are also character cutouts you can use to make puppets. Just laminate, cut out, and tape a Popscicle stick on the back.

The Three Little Pigs- A Differentiated Literacy Station

Hey There, Little Red Riding Hood...

I just finished uploading a differentiated literacy center- Little Red Riding Hood Readers' Theatre scripts. My kids LOVE this station. I try to change it out once a week- sometimes I don't quite make it. I wrote the script myself (first time attempting that). I wrote two different versions- one for my on-level and advanced students and an easier one for my strategic level students.

Here is the link for anyone who wants to buy a copy.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Readers-Theater-A-Differentiated-Literacy-Activity

The easier version is probably somewhere in the 1.3-1.5 range. The on-level version is probably 1.7 or so. I use pictures to tell which character is talking. I find that they keep up better that way.

I also did 2 versions of the puppets. After I printed the first version, I thought, "Whoa! I'm not going to have any ink left." So, I made a more color friendly version. The puppets are smaller and on a white background. This is a picture of the first version. If you have plenty of ink, knock yourself out. But that stuff gets expensive after a while.

          I taped pencils on the back. Couldn't find any popscicle sticks.

The first person who comments gets a free copy! Just leave your email address. I don't think there will be any major fight over who wins seeing as how I've only had like 3 comments since I started this blog. But you gotta start somewhere, right?

Now, I've gotta get back to this sweet baby of mine before she figures out how to unlatch the baby gate.

Speaking of my darling baby girl (and she is precious), when do they get to the stage where you can go to the bathroom or anywhere else for that matter without them? This is what I saw when I came out of the bathroom yesterday. And she was hollering,"Momma!" the whole time I was gone.

            Ignore all the clutter in the background. You didn't see it.

Also, just randomnly, I got the SWEETEST present from one of my little boys. My birthday is Saturday, but this week is our Spring Break, so the kids knew we wouldn't be there on my birthday. First graders are all about birthdays. So I got a couple of homemade presents. One little boy "wrapped" his present in a diaper case with a whistle. Inside was an orange for me and a little toy "for Baby Joy." Melt. my. heart. :)

Literacy Stations

I thought I would share my literacy stations. I have seen such awesome stations on other blogs but mine are a little different. I have 6 stations- library, abc, listening, writing, spelling, and fluency/poetry. I have a ten month old so I try to make the centers as easy as possible to maintain. Plus I cannot stand copying things all the time, so none of these centers require any copying. Yay! (Well, except the first time you make something, you might have to copy it.) I do have a lot of materials that I have made and laminated over the years so it's a lot easier to get the centers ready every week than it used to be. I can usually do it in under an hour. -- IF I don't get distracted and forget what I was doing (which happens pretty often).

Library Station

I have a forest theme for our classroom library. I bought the big chair, shelf and bench at an art show.

   Students read out of their basket independently. Each child's name is on the basket.

The kids also read the big book for the week. This week, they are doing an activity I learned a few years ago at a workshop. They will read the big book once and then write words that begin with l-blends, r-blends, s-blends and ending blends on little sticky notes. Then they stick their words onto the chart. Previous classes have loved this activity. The chart is laminated, so I use a vis-a-vis marker to write the skill and just erase at the end of the week. This goes well with lots of sorting activities.

I have a binder of poetry all the kids can read. Plus, they read the big songs and poems for the week. I also have lots of readers' theatres I put in the station. (I will write another post about that sometime.) I have little figures and animals the kids use to act out the parts. They LOVE readers' theatres.

ABC/Word Work

There are two activities the kids do each week. One is a fill in the blank pocket chart. The other activity is making words. I put pictures for a skill (this week's short u) and the kids spell it in chalk and use magnetic letters.

These are pictures from a phonics book I cut, laminated and put a magnet on. I keep them in labeled baggies. That way it doesn't take me long at all to change them out. The first year was time-consuming but easy peasy after that.

Listening-  The students just listen to a book. I have a ton of listening center books.

Writing Station

The kids have a writing bucket with supplies. Their task varies from week to week. This week, they are retelling one of our Reading Street stories (A Fox and a Kit). I cut sheet protectors and put magnets on the back so I can slide the new ones in and out easily.

Spelling Station

In this station, the task is the same every week. The kids build their spelling words for the week and write them in little notebooks. I have lots of different kinds of small notebooks. I found some really cute Halloween ones I'll put out next week. They all share the same notebooks. I have 3 rotations for centers. When I ring the bell, the students from the writing and spelling stations bring me their work and I quickly check it. If as student finishes early in the spelling station, he or she writes a sentence with each word.

This is a picture of the mini journals I got at Dollar Tree. I have lots of different types of manipulatives for building words- cards, magnetic letters, foam, tile, cubes that they put together and letters that go through pipe cleaners. I change the kind of letters each week.

Fluency Station

The kids read different fluency passages that we have practiced first. Mostly, I use sentences from our Reading Street series. When they are done with the passages, they can read the big poems, little poems and fry phrases.

I stapled page protectors  onto butcher paper so the kids could stand while reading. Plus they're easy to change out each week.

I had to repeat the directions one more time because they just weren't listening!               

 These are really boring  decodable sentences from our series. They are really for assessing the phonics skill (and I use them for that first) but the kids like to practice timing themselves.

                                                   fry phrases and big poem



Well, I think that's all of them. Whew! That took longer than I thought. I hope someone out there finds this helpful and can use some of these ideas. Please comment on how you run centers so I can get some ideas too. :)

Dollar Tree Finds

I think my husband's going to ban me from Dollar Tree. I found some great things to use for math tubs (which I haven't created yet). My kids have always done literacy stations, but I've never seemed to be able to get math stations together.  We switched to a new curriculum this year so it's probably a good time to try it. Anyway.....

My favorite find~ coordinated cutouts... I think I'm going to laminate these and make a math game. There are 24 in each pack. There are lots of different ways to use these. Compound words...number words...

Peanut Butter & Jelly

                                                               

frog & lily pad

mouse & cheese

bee & honeypot

paint & paintbrush

They also had these pumpkin ice cube trays. I am thinking we can use them for ten frames!

They had these awesome Halloween erasers, but there was only one pack. I want to use them for counters. I'll have to try another Dollar Tree.

                                                   Tray from Fourth of July

mini-hoodie journals! So cute! Think I will use them in a spelling station.

addition and subtraction workbooks- actually from Target. Thirty cents! I bought them out.