Writing Reviews, Accountable Talk, Subtraction and More!

Well, this momma is full swing back into teaching mode! My first graders and I are getting used to one another again and trying to continue our learning without skipping a beat. It is an interesting transition to come back after maternity leave. My classroom was in someone else's hands for longer than I had them, so in many ways this is her classroom that I am sort of "stealing" back. I am so grateful my sub kept my students safe, made a fun learning environment for them, and helped my students build their knowledge so I can come in and pick up where she left off! Now, it's my turn to grab the reigns and get my kids to where they need to be by the end of the year!

I wanted to share a little of what we have been up to in our cozy classroom.

In math, we have been finishing up subtraction and number bonds before we head into some geometry:

I will admit, I did miss making anchor charts!

A little number bond review thanks to Kelley Dolling's freebie: HERE

After we reviewed number bonds, we worked on missing addends in a number bond and completed my solve the room activity from Leprechaun Math.

In reader's workshop we spent the week reading Dr. Seuss books and practicing our fluency through partner reading and reader's theater! We have also been focusing A LOT on our accountable talk:

my little first graders need lots of help learning to be respectful listeners and we have been having great discussions through these sentence stems. Plus, it's pretty adorable to hear my littles speaking like such kind, mature adults.

In phonics, we are focusing on vowel teams! 

"igh" was on the agenda this week and it is a tricky one! We used my phonics poetms and real or nonsense sheets to help us decode and become more fluent with igh words. We are slowly building up our poetry journals that my students love to read during reader's workshop!

Writing has been all about reviews! We are learning to express out opinions through writing reviews and I have to say, I am impressed. These are the four parts of a review from my Writing Reviews Unit:

 We focus on one part each day, add it to our shared writing, and then I challenge my kids to add it to their individual reviews.

 Teacher modeling/shared writing

"Are you looking for something to eat? Well, not anymore! You could try Fridays!"

A catchy lead?! I think he nailed it! I love writer's workshop!

Well, that's just a little peek into my room as of late. I will go more into depth with some lessons and units we are working on soon :)

Happy weekend!

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Tracking Our Reading Growth in 1st Grade!

I blogged over at Blog Hoppin' today about how I have my little first graders track their own reading data:

Hop on over to read more and grab the free data-tracking sheets I use!

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Making Inferences Lessons and some FREEBIES!

Last year, I taught inferencing for quite some time. With such an emphasis on close reading, I wanted my students to read between the lines, to dig deeper, and to find out the answer to the question, "what is the author really trying to say?!" 

I spent a lot of time researching and reading picture books to find ones that would work well for my class. After test-driving each of these, I continuously referred back to them when discussing inferring and so did my kids.

These four books made for great focus lessons when we were learning what an inference is and how to make one! We started with a clear definition of an inference:

This helped guide us in our lessons.

After we defined an inference, I started by reading Duck on a Bike by David Shannon. It is a simple book with interesting illustrations and my 6 & 7 year olds just love that this duck is riding a bike. It's the simple things....

I read most of the story normally. Letting my kids take in the illustrations and giggle at what was happening in the story. Then, we came to this page towards the end of the story:

I made quite the point to say, "WOW, it seems that David Shannon didn't write any words on this page! Do you think he wants us to just skip it?!?!?!" (Imagine it being said in the most teachery "I'm making a point here" type of way). 

Most of my kids just look at me all crazy, but they know the answer is "no!" of course we don't skip the page! I let them know that this is the perfect time to make an INFERENCE! What is David Shannon trying to tell us on this page?! What are the animals thinking!? My students look at their facial expressions, they use their schema and what they've already learned from the text to create their own inference as I record them on the board. It is perfect.

The next day, I review with my students what we learned:

Just because the author didn't write anything on a page, he might still be trying to tell us something! I then let them know they will be challenged to make another inference today and we read, The Stray Dog by Marc Simont.

You can make lots of inferences in this book. I tell my students that while I am reading they can put their thumb up in front of them if they have an inference to make. I look around after each page and if a student has an inference and can back it up with their schema and evidence from the text, we write it on the board. There are plenty of pages in this book without any words so many of my kids know they will have to make an inference on those pages. However, I also like to stop on pages like this:

Here there are clearly words, but there is also something the illustrations are letting us know. I ask my students aloud, "Hmmm... Willy was in a big hurry... why was he in such a hurry?" and they all say "Duh, Mrs. Jones, he's in a hurry because that man has net and is trying to catch him!"

I challenge them and say, "Yes, it seems you might be right but Marc Simont didn't SAY that! Where is it in the text?!? HOW do you know this?!" That is when they give me evidence from the story and what they know using their schema to prove their answers to me. I then let them know that they are all little geniuses and to be proud of themselves because they were making inferences that whole time without even knowing it! Now, they make lots of inferences on purpose.

I made this little freebie page to help us document our inferences. I use it a lot when I am first teaching the skill so my students can really draw what they see on the page. They can show me their evidence:

I have them include their inference in the writing portion at the bottom using our inference "equation" [schema + evidence = inference].

The other 2 books I included on my list are two Mo Willems books, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and I Love my New Toy! If your 1st graders are anything like mine, then they are obsessed with the genius that is Mo Willems. You can make so many inferences in these books to determine how the characters are feeling and Mo Willems does a great job with his illustrations to allow the students to see the facial expressions of the characters and find the evidence in the text to support their inferences.

I also included in my freebie two pages from my Mo Willems author study that highlight the skill of inferring:

 

Once my kids become pros at inferring, we start practicing the skill in short stories that don't have illustrations. I create fiction passages in my close reading units that deliberately require students to infer and provide evidence to support their answers! It is amazing to see their growth throughout the year and watch them turn into thoughtful, purposeful readers.

Thanks for sticking with me through this never ending post! To download any of the freebies, just click the images of them above!

What are some of your favorite books for teaching inferences?!

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We Love Pigeon! Mo Willems Author Study

We have been learning alllllllll about Mo Willems this week and what author study would be complete without Pigeon?!

We started the author study on Monday learning a little bit about Mo Willems and then throughout the week we read *almost* all of the Pigeon books (Pigeon Needs a Bath is still en route via Scholastic Book Clubs)!

We completed a bunch of activities to help us dig a little deeper into Mo's funnier than funny books. I snapped a few pics:

The kids were pretty darn good at coming up with things Pigeon was thinking in "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!"

Then we summarized "Pigeon Wants a Puppy!" ^I just loved this little one's illustrations!

and in "Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog" we thought of some adjectives to describe Pigeon and provided evidence from the text to support our answers.

Today I thought it would be fun to make our cute little pigeon crafts!

Next week we will be diving into Elephant and Piggie and Knuffle Bunny with more fun!

All of the fun we did above is from my Mo Willems Author Study that I uploaded a few weeks ago:

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Text-to-Self Connections! and little freebie

Monday funday!

We started off our day making some text-to-self connections and I must brag for a minute, my kids did an amazing job. First, we reviewed what a text-to-self connection was and made a quick little anchor chart. Then, we read Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco (click below for the book). During the read aloud, I did change the name to "Falk(N)er" for obvious reasons, but this sweet book is about a little girl who struggles learning how to read. It isn't until 5th grade when she gets the help of her teacher, Mr. Falker, that she learns how to read. This story is jam-packed with themes for my kiddos to relate to: death of a family member, overcoming struggles, bullying, and more!

After we read the story aloud, we brainstormed and shared some of connections with our friends using this quick little freebie:

 Just click above to download!

 At the end, we each chose one connection to add to our anchor chart. We connected them all and the kids thought it was pretty darn cool that we could all relate to the same story in so many different ways! :)

Close up:

Some fabulous 1st grade connections:

"I feel safe wen I am with my techr."

"I hav a hrd time rding"

"I feel bad when I cant do something everybdy els can"

"My mommy pasd awy and it wuz sad for me to go to school to."

(^^breaks heart^^)

Pretty darn good, right?!?!? Sometimes, I just love my littles!

Stop by later in the week to see some F-U-N holiday activities!

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