Texas, In My Heart and Prayers

The Daily Five: Focus on Writing

Our class does The Daily Five during our literacy block.  I like the structure and independence that it provides.  If you are unfamiliar, check out The Daily Five by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  It is a fairly quick read and tells you everything you need to know to begin The Daily Five.

Once you get started, like anything else you will want to put your owe spin on it.  The first year I used The Daily Five, I pretty much followed the book to a T.  However, since then I have played around with some parts to find what works best with my class.

One way I have varied The Daily Five has been during my writing instruction.  I like to have all my little sweeties writing at the same time, instead of during rotations.  The Daily Five does not advocate a specific writing program or curriculum.  So long term, how you want to teach writing is up to you.  I use a variation of 6 Traits Writing.  

Throughout the year I continuously touch on the different traits, depending what mini lesson I am teaching.  The trait of Ideas is one that new writers struggle with.  Left to their own devices, first graders may write about loving their moms 50 times during the year.  While I am glad students love their moms, I want to see them branch out in regard to topics.  I want them to be able to, independently, come up with topics.  (Not, that I don't give a prompt every now and then.)  If first graders can produce writing based on their own topics and ideas, the writing is usually much richer.  Plus I think they really enjoy writing more if some choice is involved.

To help strudents' ideas flow, I like to use graphic organizers and model writing.  Below you can check out a few pictures of what these look like in my classroom.

 The writing binders and journals are not in The Daily Five book.  However, writing certainly is.  In my class, having the writing binders and journals help students organize their ideas so that they have plenty to write about through the year.

Questions, let me know.
Have a good evening.

Honoring Boston...Say a Little Prayer

The Skittles Game (Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party)

Hi.  I'm linking up again with Flying into First Grade's Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party.

This week's topic is the Skittles Game.  

Thanks for reading.  Now go check out some of the other links.

Have a fab Monday!

Measuring Penny: A Must Read Mentor Text and a FREE Measurement Activity

Hi Friends.
I am linking up with the Collaboration Cuties to share a favorite book to use with math instruction.  My favorite math based text is Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy.

This book covers every type of measurement a early elementary teacher might ever want to talk about.  The story is cute and the illustrations are fabulous.  I actually need a new copy of this book because I reference it with the class over and over as we work on measurement.

If you would like a free copy of the measure the room activity I used to go along with this story this year you can click on the picture below.

The clip art is from Scrappin Doodles, Melonheadz, and JW Illustrations.

I highly recommend this book for your classroom.  Now if you would like to check out some other math text suggestions hop on over to Collaboration Cuties.

Have a great week.

With My Own Two Hands a FREE Earth Day Writing Craftivity

Hi friends.
Can you believe it is nearly the middle of April???  Time is racing.  We are just a little over a week away from Earth Day (April 22nd).  Before any more time slips away, I wanted to share a couple of things I will be using with my first graders on that day.
First up is this cute writing craftivity, based on Ben Harper's song With My Own Two Hands.  As a class, we will brainstorm ways to help the Earth.  After creating our list, students will write some ways they can change the world with their own two hands.

If you would like a FREE copy of this activity, click on one of the pictures below.

Just a few notes about this craftivity:  the sandals are made from scraps and I'll show the kids how to put them together, I included a color option or black line option for the Earth, the clip art is from Scrappin Doodles, I also plan to hot glue the hands on the Earth for the kiddos (simpler that way).  Oh, and one other thing, I made a writing page for younger students with no lines, just in case you would like to have your darlings draw, instead of write.

Moving on . . .

I will probably start the Earth Day with Victoria Kann's newish book Emeraldalicious.  It came out in January of this year.  In it, Pinkalicious helps beautify a park that has been filled with stinky trash.  This story may help my little learners come up with some great ideas for our brainstorm list and to complete their writing assignment.

I hope I have given you some ideas for Earth Day.  Oh, by the way if you would like my free math Earth Day activity, you can click here.

Best.

Stuck on You (A Writing FREEBIE)

I have been eyeing this book on amazon for a while, Stuck by Oliver Jeffers.

As luck would have it.  It was finally available in paperback through a recent Scholastic book order.  I received my class copy and one for our house on Wednesday.  I read it to  A  that evening and we both really loved it.

You should check it out.  The story follows Floyd's attempts at throwing various things into a tree to get his stuck kite loose.  It is pretty funny.  

This book is a great jumping off point for many reading comprehension topics.  However, I decided to use it for a quick writing activity.

I read a portion of the book, but not how Floyd (sort of) solves his problem.  I ask the students to come up with their own ideas how they would get everything unstuck from the tree and illustrate what the tree looks like.

Here are a couple of the responses.

After the students completed their responses and shared, I read the remainder of the story.  My sweeties really enjoyed this book and did a good job with this writing assignment.  The illustrations were great.

If you would like a free copy of this activity, you can click on the picture below.

Best.