Look at URIAH!

The casts are off and take a look at him now! :) 

LOVE that face! 

If you are not already, you can follow Uriah's 

progress on facebook at Uriah's Journey. 

New Wall Art for my Classroom

I had a great time decorating these letters from Hobby Lobby. :) 

Spelling Tests = No More, Thing of the past, not effective, just memorization

Memorizing a list of words each week is not effective and not best practice in teaching children to read. 

Parents, don't worry! 

Your child will learn to read, spell, and write this year. 

Just not the way you may think is the "best" way or the way you learned. 

Instead of relaxing by the pool EVERY (wink,wink) single day this summer, I've been busy at teacher workshops and team planning for a new program GCS is implementing this year called ...FUNDATIONS. 

It is a literacy program that helps teachers teach Phonics in the most effective way. 

I'm truly excited about this change and welcome it. 

After sitting through a 7 hr workshop on just an overview of the new program...I'm very motivated and feel this is a great addition to our daily lessons. 

I look forward to implementing it this year and teaching phonics the way I have always thought would work best for most students. 

Although I hadn't originally planned for my "beach reading" to be materials about phonics... I'm actually (secretly) excited. 

(Only a first grade teacher would get excited about something like this.)

More info to come soon.  

Change is Good,... Right? 

Here are the First Grade teachers from Stokesdale Elementary at our FUNDATIONS Workshop. 

Game Day

Aloha Math and Literacy Centers

What are we doing while the "Big Kids" are testing and we have to stay in our classroom?
We are having fun learning (quietly)! 
Just because it is the end of the school year doesn't mean that we are not learning. It is just that the kids THINK we are having fun because of the wonderful literacy and math centers!

Take a look below at our centers and what we are learning/reviewing. 

Ask your child tonight which centers they completed today. 

FLIP FLOP True or False Equations
Students decided if each problem is true or false and then records it in the correct place on their recording sheet.

PREFIX and SUFFIX Paradise
Students sort the word cards and place them under the correct prefix or suffix. Then they will write the meaning of the word on the recording sheet.

FLOWERING Fact Families

Students draw a number card from the baggie and record it as their first number for their fact family. Then they roll one or two dice to get their second number. They add those two numbers to get their third number for their fact family.

Tropical Number Boxes

Students fill in each box with as may ways as possible to get to that number.  They can use tally marks, equations, money, etc.

Vacation Making Words

Students make as many words as possible from the letters in the word VACATION.

Cool Contractions
Students will match the contractions with the words that make that contraction and record it on their sheet.

POOLSIDE Problem Solving
Students draw a picture and write a number sentence to solve each tropical word problem.

TiKi- ToRcH Time
Students match the clocks with the digital time then record the time on their sheet.

SEASIDE Sentence Structure

Students match a subject and a predicate, write the sentence, and then illustrate the sentence.

Moon Fun

We have been learning about the moon and doing lots of fun activities! 

We talked about Facts and Opinions.  Students pulled a card out of a bag and read the sentence on the card.  Then they had to decide if it was an opinion or a fact.

Moon Goons

Our class has being learning all about the MOON this week! Today we got to do a fun activity for writing. We created our own "Moon Goons" and then described them in our writing. What creative kiddos they are! 

I modeled by making my very own Moon Goon. (They love to watch me do anything artistic!!) Here it is below:

We drew out two slips of paper from the baggie to NAME our MOON GOON.  On each slip of paper was a make-believe word. When you put the two words together, you get a funny name. 

Look at the mess we made!!! :) How fun that was for them! But I assure you they cleaned it all up!

Students wrote sentences to describe their "Moon Goon". This gave them practice using adjectives and details in their writing.

This student highlighted all the adjectives he used! 

Catherine made a life size Moon Goon.