Readers' Theater

The kids favorite center activity is the readers' theater basket. I use it as part of the reading station because it's not very long. Over the years, I have collected lots of different toy animals and puppets. I put a new readers' theatre once a week. Sometimes I turn our stories into scripts. This week was Frog and Toad: The Garden. It's a little late but I just found another frog puppet. I like to use figures because one student can act out all the parts by herself or with a partner. This is a little clip I took today.

Last week was Where Are My Animal Friends? The week before that was The Frog Prince. I didn't get pictures of it.

Where Are My Animal Friends?

This week we finished up Where Are My Animal Friends? It's such a cute little story that's actually a play. In the reading station, there's a readers' theatre each week with different characters for the story. I just put them in a binder. Last week was "The Frog Prince" (I typed that one up myself). You can find it here on TPT.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Frog-Prince-Readers-Theatre

 

I used a topsy turvy frog prince puppet. They LOVE those kinds of puppets. I also have a puppet like that for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood.  I had a little Red Riding Hood topsy turvy puppet when I was little and I used to love that thing.

ebay topsy turvy flip over doll Goldilocks

This is the EXACT same one I have, except I got mine for $5 at a teacher workshop. Score!

 

Anywho, I printed this week's story from soundcityreading.com which, if you don't already know, has all of the Reading Street stories. I've been gathering animals for a long time in different places- Parent-Teacher Store, Walmart, Dollar Tree, Michaels- so I have a whole bucket full. Usually pretty easy to find all the characters for each story. I took pictures today. They were having a really good time with this activity. I had a really great hummingbird but somebody lost it last year. So we made do with a parrot :(

 I forgot to remove his tag.

Also, for this story, I created some comprehension questions and a cut and paste writing activity. We will probably do that on Friday. You can find it here.

 Where-Are-my-Animal-Friends-Comprehension-QuestionsWriting-Center

That's what we've been up to this week!

Oh Dollar Tree!

Have I mentioned I really like Dollar Tree? Here are a few of my finds from today...

 

teeny tiny bags for manipulatives- 50 in a pack

I like to use these beads for counters. The kids can use them while they do their paper and they have enough room on their desks. Not so with unifix cubes. I am going to make small ten frames to go with these.

 

More pirate "gold"

The little counters in the teeny bag. I like all things smallish. There are 22 beads in this bag.  

Cheap Pirate Center

This is going to be super short. I am all about saving some money. I was at Walmart yesterday and saw these adorable pirate napkins. I think they were 99 cents. So I bought them and took them home not sure what I was going to do with them. Then I saw my super cool laminator I got for Christmas from my most awesome husband. Who is great at getting hints, by the way. Everytime we'd walk by a laminator - "ooh, what a great gift that would make for someone who's wife is a teacher..." Anyway, I've never tried to laminate a napkin before, but it works! I did have to leave about a quarter inch border so the layers wouldn't come apart. I'm going to use them for On/Off game with "gold" coins I got from Dollar Tree. How cheap is that?

Speaking of pirates, this is the anchor chart I made for the /ar/ sound. "Arrgh, arrgh! I'm driving me car!"  The kids thought that was hilarious.

This Week's Anchor Charts

 I love hearing my girls (and sometimes a few boys) outside chanting rhymes. One of their favorites goes, "If it's a girl, I'll give her a curl. If it's a boy, I'll give it a toy. If it's twins, I'll wrap em up in toilet paper, send them down the elevator..." Anyway, we're doing r-controlled vowels ir, ur, er this week, so I made this chart to go with that rhyme. I think they will like it. I made a decoding practice page also and uploaded it to my tpt store. It's free. Hope you can use it in your classroom.

Verbs that add -s.

I also made an anchor chart for verbs that add s. My little people have a really hard time with this, so maybe this will help.

This is an anchor chart for compound words that I forgot to post earlier.

A little noun/verb sort activity I found on tpt. I made the Mcdonald's carton. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it was worth it. Most of my kids can sort nouns and verbs now. They really paid attention. What kid doesn't love Mickey D's?

 

Rockin' Super Improvers

I have been testing the waters with Whole Brain Teaching this year. I haven't fully jumped in yet. So far, I really like most of it. We do the attention getters- class, yes? and the "teach-okay!" I love the "teach-okay!" It's very effective for keeping them engaged. I use it a lot with teaching our amazing words. I make up gestures to go with each word. I've been using lots of different motions for the teach-okay part which they love. I'll do stomp, stomp, stomp, salute! And they echo back. I mix it up. If you're not familiar with WBT check it out on youtube. Here's a link to a bunch of videos and a great first grade blog- http://mrsshipleywholebrainteaching.blogspot.com/p/whole-brain-teaching-videos.html.



So anyway, I have not done the scoreboard. I tried it for a while, but couldn't think of good rewards. So that's fallen by the wayside. I discovered WBT two weeks after school started, so I am learning as I go.

 

 

I am planning to incorporate the Super Improvers Wall next week. I finally finished the board (the kids have been asking me about it all week, so i've gotten their attention.) I hope it works! I really, really do. I need to find a way to motivate my kids.

 

I did a rock theme which I stole borrowed from this awesome site- http://wolfelicious.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-super-improvers-wall.html. I hope she doesn't mind. I must say, I'm pretty excited about how mine turned out.

There are ten levels. Every kid starts out with a gold star (fan). When I see them improving on something (it could be anything from making a 100 on a spelling test to raising their hand before talking) they get a sticker. Ten stickers-move to next level and get a purple star and so on... I like the idea of setting individual goals for my students. They're all so different but everyone can improve on something.  

 

These letters took me forever to draw...

 

        Rock star font- LOVE! I did extend the line on the 'a' a little further with a sharpie because it looked like it said "hell of fame."

I found these guitar cutouts Michael's and decorated them with the new fancy schmancy duct tape.

 

I am excited to try this out. It's different from anything I've ever tried before. We'll see!

Honeybees

This is a little sequencing/retelling activity we did for "Honeybees." They had to draw a picture in each cell, cut them out and glue the cells in order. Some tried to make it look like a beehive. It took them quite a while to do this. On Fridays, I usually give them some type of art activity instead of stations.