Brown Bear, Brown Bear

This week has been all about Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? We use it to introduce colors, patterns, repetitive text, sequencing, color words and on and on. The book is not the most exciting of the year, for sure, but the kids LOVE it. It always is the most popular book in the Book Nook because it usually ends up being the first real book they can READ!! I looked around on other blogs and websites and took what I believed to be the best ideas and tried to create some fun sheets and activities to work through this
week.

Before we read the book, we practiced identifying color words. I make them match the word to the words on the large crayons I have hanging in my room. 

After reading the book, singing the book, and acting it out, students got their OWN Brown Bear book to color and read. I purchased large "bulletin board" cut outs of the actual Brown Bear illustrations from Barnes and Noble a few years ago. The student each get to each be one of the characters as we act out the book. They have to try to remember which animal comes next before I turned the page.

This student is using the ever popular "monster pointers" from Really Good Stuff that I purchased last year. My kids LOVE these!

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We practiced sequencing by coloring and placing the animals in order of the story on a sentence strip. Then we turned them into hats!!

Here are a few more Math activities we did with Brown Bear.

Graphing with M&M's. We sorted by color first. Before we ate them we made tally marks for each color. Orange won :) by far!!

Graphing sheet

We have been working on AB patterns since day one. They did amazing on this sheet!

More to come...

Literacy Stations: Word Work!

One of the literacy stations for Reading Group rotations will be Word Work. For the first few months I will be focusing on Popcorn words at these stations. Each of the first stations coorelates directly to List 1 of the Popcorn book. Students are working on sight words at home, but I want to try to keep them working on these words as much as possible throughout the day until the entire class is able to easily identify most of them. Later on down the road I will start adding list 2, 3, and so on for those who need more of a challenge.

Students in this station are using stamps to spell the words. This has already become the favorite of the word work stations!!

More Popcorn word building

Popcorn Roll! Students roll the die and color a block above the word they rolled. They try to see which word will get to the top first!

Reading Popcorn words in sentences.

Many more word work stations to come! These are only the first round. They will get to choose any of these stations if they are assigned to Word Work for the day. No more than 2 students will be assigned word work at a time. They will be given the choice to work together or alone. Hopefully they will keep students busy and QUIET once we start small groups!

Warm Fuzzies and Behavior

I am working on a more consistent behavior management plan this year that doesn't break the bank with having to always resupply my treasure box every week or two. I am using a new token system called "Warm Fuzzies". I found the idea to use pom poms from another teaching blog. I used a token system a few years ago, but the items I used were not as easy to manage and maintain as the pompoms are. When students earn 5 fuzzies, they can trade it in for a MEGA fuzzy. I also traded the day to day treasure box rewards for small prize certificates. Students can purchase one certificate for five fuzzies or use 10 to go to the traditional treasure box. I am hoping the MEGA fuzzies will also help with addition and counting by fives. :)

Students earn 2 new fuzzies everyday./ They can gain or lose them by following simple directions. For example, if a student yells out without raising their hand, they lose a fuzzy. They can also gainm new fuzzies by getting "caught being good" when I see they are making smart choices without being told.

I still have a green, yellow, red light system in the room. If students repeat the minor "fuzzy offences" They may have to change a light to yellow. Serious offences would lead to red with a phone call home or a visit to the principal. Hopefully we will have VERY little red lights this year! I made a behaivior book to go along with our light system that students color everyday. It ties into our BEE Book (Being Everything Everyday) and is called the BEEhavior book.

Popcorn Book for Sight Words

Today I sent home the new and improved Popcorn book. The Popcorn book is a flip book that has 10 pages of sight words with 10 words on each page. Student take the book home and practice these words with their parents. Once memorized, parents indicate they are ready by initialing in the box on the front. If the child is able to read the words to the teacher they get a check and a trip to the treasure box. We adapted this idea from another school in our district. It has worked wonders for sight word recognition in my class!!! The students really want to earn a check to win a trip to the treasure box. We make a big deal when someone completes a list. All students clap and I do a little dance. :)

Business Day

Today is Business Day! I have been preparing all week. I GUTTED SOOO much junk from previous years and feel like this year is going to be my most organized yet. At least for a few weeks.

I have stolen, adapted many wonderful ideas from others teachers via Pinterest and other blogs. I created a few stations around the room to keep students and parents exploring and feeling more comfortable. Here is what they will see when they first come in.

They will pick up these directions and proceed though the stations. Stations include Bus List/Car Rider info, signing up for special events through the year, snacks, etc. These little bus cards will be attached to their bookbags in case the students have trouble finding their way the first day. They list my name, room # and on the back is their name and bus #.

While parents are making the rounds through the stations, students will come pick out their own "smart cookie" to decorate. We will put the finished product on our bulletin board!

The second student station is picking up their very first homework assignment. 

As of now, I have 22 students. A bit overwhelming, but I feel more organized than ever. This will be a Great year!!!