Daily 5 Rotations

All of the daily 5 rotations have been introduced and practiced, and we are excited to get started next week!

Read to Self

Read to Someone

Work on Writing

Word Work

Listen to Reading

Read to Someone - EEKK

Today I introduced EEKK, (Elbows, Elbows, Knees, Knees) during Read to Self which is part of the Daily 5 rotations.  The kids did a wonderful job reading with their partners.  

Number Line Squeeze

For Daily 5 Math, I will be introducing a few games each week. 

Number Line Squeeze

Object:

To identify a mystery number in as few 

clues as possible.

                                                

Players:

2 – 4 players 

Directions:

Player one chooses a number as the mystery number, 
for example,

13, and says “I am thinking of a number between 1 and 30. 
What’s my number?” The other student(s) act as bracket holders 
and covers the numbers 1 and 30. 

The same student (or other student if there are more than 2

players) guesses a number; 15. Player one says, 
“No, my number is smaller than (or less than) 15, 
or 15 is more than (or bigger than or

greater than) my number. The right counter is then 
moved to cover the 15.  Another player guesses 4. The leader says that the mystery 
number is greater than 4. 

The left counter is then moved to 4. Players continue to guess. 
Eventually, the mystery number will be“squeezed” between the colored counters. 
The player who guesses the mystery number becomes the next leader. 
 

The Name Jar

The first few days of school have been filled with fun activities to help us get to know each other.  

The first day of school I read "The Name Jar." The Name Jar is written by Yangsook Choi and is a great beginning of the school year story to read to students to help them to be accepting of themselves and others. It is a story about a little girl from Korea and her first day at her new school in America. She is welcomed warmly by her classmates even though her name is different and hard to pronounce.  After reading the story, we did several name activities.  One of our favorites was making our own name jar book. 

Each child wrote about something that they like to do and drew a picture.  We then compiled all the pages into a class book.   After reading the book together, we took different letter tiles and replaced the first letter in our names.  So using letter tile S, Jorge became Sorge, and Nick became Sick.  The children had so much fun with this silly game!




You can find this activity and many more name activities
in my store at teachers pay teachers.   Have fun!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Name-Jar-Back-to-School-Fun-with-Names-794141

Name Wall and Name Poem

I love my desk.  I had so much fun decorating it with the chevron stems and the black and white flower collection.  It turned out great!

I love chevron!

I love, love, love, chevron!  I found these great chevron designed folders at Walgreens.  The best part is that they were 2 for 99 cents!

Daily 5 Math

I have been using Daily 5 and CAFE in my classroom for the past few years and I love it!  So, I decided to try Daily 5 Math this year.  The "sisters" came up with 5 categories that I call the "Daily 5 Math Menu."  They are Paper Practice, Number Games, Fact Games, Strategy Games, and Math Tools.  The 5 rotations are Math by Myself, Math with Someone, Math with Technology, Writing about Math, and Math with a Teacher.

Below is how it will look in my classroom.

 

Classroom Tour- 2013

Classroom Tour
For my 2013 classroom decor, I went with the primary colors, chevron stripes and polka-dots along with an apple theme.  My red desk with white chevron stripes, gray chevron reading table, and my polka dot shelves are perfect. 

Bean Plants

Sprouting Beans!

Today the kids were so excited to see tails (roots) growing out of their beans.  Each child was provided with a cute little window greenhouse to sprout their beans.  The students started by wetting and placing 3 beans in a paper towel. We checked them after a few days.  We will plant the beans in a cup tomorrow.

Rainforest

I love the month of May!  We will spend the month of May learning about rainforests.  Monday, we created a beautiful garden in the sky. 

Tuesday, I gave each child 2 rainforest fact strips to read to the class.  After reading the facts, we glued them to a rainforest anchor chart.  The children then wrote 2-3 facts about the rainforest and chose a rainforest animal topper to color.  They had so much fun and learned a lot too! 

 Thank you Anne Hofmann for the great ideas!

Earth Day

We love the Earth!

Such a fun writing activity!  The children wrote why they love the Earth and made heart shaped Earths.   I love all of the reasons they love the Earth.   So sweet.  :)