Those Tricky High-Frequency Words

The school supplies are out, the teacher discounts have started, and the coffee is flowing.  It is that time of summer.  The time when we begin to pull out our curriculum and dust it off in order to give it a fresh new look.  It is a time to reflect on what worked and what didn't from the past year and begin to make some planned changes.

A few years back we adopted the McGraw-Hill Wonders curriculum for language arts and now that we feel like we have a handle on its ins and outs we have started to make it our own.  This summer we have been working hard on some new phonics and high-frequency word resources.

We don't know about you but we absolutely LOVE any sort of trick or short-cut that can help our students.  Over the years we have discovered that using visual and mnemonic tricks can be really helpful for student when learning words that just "don't fit the rules."  These high-frequency "rule breakers" are a pain to spell and an even bigger pain to teach! So this year we have decided to put all of those tricks and shortcuts together and organized in one place.  We have put together a great resource designed with the first grade McGraw-Hill Wonders curriculum in mind but adaptable for any first grade curriculum. Check out these handy High-Frequency Word Memory Cards that we just uploaded into our TPT store!

1st Grade High-Frequency Word Memory Cards

Each week we give ours students the blank high-frequency cards for that week’s lessons. Then, during one of our whole group mini-lessons we introduce each high-frequency word and model each trick on our interactive white boards.  We usually have our students write and draw along on their own white boards.  Once we have gone over all of the tricks for the week we post them in the front of the classroom where we can refrence them over and over again throughout the week.  For our struggle-rs we use small group instruction time to help the students draw the tricks right onto their blank cards.  On level and beyond level students are encouraged to fill out their own cards during their word work time.

We encourage students to utilize these tricks as they write and read their high-frequency words.  They keep their cards right in their take home folders where they can access them throughout the week and reinforce at home.  It is amazing how much our students actually use these tricks.   Often times they even draw the tricks right onto their spelling tests! 

So, if you haven't already, grab another cup of coffee and start that planning!

As always,

Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

PS...here is a sneak peek of our next TPT project!  Enjoy a free download and keep a lookout at our blog for updates!

Phonics Word Construction Practice Preview: Short a

Our Very Own Plays!

This year has flown by and we were TERRIBLE about blogging!  We tried so many new things this year that we SHOULD have blogged about but for some reason we just never got around to it.  To our loyal followers we humbly apologize...

Puppet Pals 2: School Edition

Now that that is out of the way, lets move onto something really neat that we just finished trying out on this year's guinea pigs first graders.  Just like many of you we really try hard to squeeze in technology all throughout our curriculum.  Unfortunately, many of the activities out there that we have found are just not "meaty" enough.  They feel like filler or the technology is just an add-on.  We feel like we are always shouting "Give us the MEAT AND POTATOES!" But alas, the technology is either boring or not educationally worth the time and energy.  After much time researching in the the blog-o-shere for a completely unrelated technology initiative (that we will talk about in our next blog post) we happened to come across an i Pad App called Puppet Pals 2: School Edition.  You can find it in the Apple iTunes store.  They also have a free version but for $5.99 we thought that the purchase was worth the extras that were included in the school version.  As we explored the App we thought "What a great way to have students publish their writing!"  Since we had been reading some short plays and reader's theater stories in our reading curriculum, we thought that it was fitting to have the students write their own plays as well.

Available on TPT

So we created a TPT unit called "Our Very Own Play: A Writing Project" to help our students plan and write their own plays.  We spent a lot of time discussing the text features that make a play or skit a unique type of text.  When the students completed their plays we let them act out and record their plays using the Puppet Palls 2: School Edition App.

Character Options

The App allows the students to choose a background, choose their characters, move them around the background, talk, enter and exit vehicles, and move from the foreground to the background and back again. This App would also work great for non-fiction reports on major historical figures since the character choices include select historical figures such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks and some others.

Please feel free to view our awesome sample of a published play below.  Keep in mind that these plays were written by first graders...beware of the cuteness!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Super September

Wow!  School sure has gotten off to a super start here in first grade.  We decided to start fresh with a new theme this year.  Out with sock monkeys and in with...much to our students delight...SUPERHEROS!  We even went so far as to dress up as superheros on the first day of school, capes and all.  We took pictures of the first graders using a gigantic cardboard superhero cutout (we had to have them stand on the table because it was so TALL!) cut them out and had them finish the sentence starter "God made me a superhero.  I can..."  They added a background picture to finish it off. 

"Daily Five" Math

This year we set a goal to REALLY try and best meet the needs of all of our students.  We had language arts down...daily five had us in our groove.  Next was math.  We were pre-assessing math and using the information to differentiate the best that we could and our students were showing growth, but we just felt that we could do more.



Deanna went to a conference and ended up meeting a teacher who was implementing the Daily Three.  She brought the idea back to school with her and....we played with the idea...a lot....and well we made it into "Daily Five" Math.  We have just begun this journey, but are super excited to share our successes and our failures with you as we embark on this adventure.  Stay tuned for our email to parents, our organization tools, and some of the games that we will be using!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

New Year's Resolution

Well, many people vow to exercise, eat healthier, become organized, or give up a bad habit.  We on the other hand resolve to get back into the habit of blogging.  We don't even know what happened to us.  It should have been SO much easier this year seeing as we are ACTUALLY in the same grade teaching the same thing ACROSS THE HALL NOW FROM EACH OTHER!!!! Or is that the actual problem...

Regardless, we promise to be better bloggers AND creators.

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

We've Been Grinched

It been a while...sorry about that.  We have been having so much fun in first grade this year that we have been too busy (a.k.a. Exhausted) to blog.  Since our last post was in the fall we thought we should at least get a Christmas post in BEFORE Christmas.  So here it goes...

On one of our many adventures through Pinterest-land we came across a photo that blew our mind and inspired us to go Christmas crazy.  It was a photo of an Elf on the Shelf who had tied up a Grinch stuffed toy.  So fun!  So we decided to go all out and had our stuffed Grinches wreak green havoc on our classrooms.  He even taped the Elves to the wall so that they could not escape!  When the students came into the classroom it was like an explosion of excitement and panic (Our poor elves!).  We took action right away and wrote top secret letters to Santa letting him know that the Grinch had been very naughty in our classrooms!  Of course we made sure to say how smart and wonderful the Grinch was out loud so that he would not suspect that we were tattling on him.   The Grinch also left us some really fun outfits to wear in his honor..AKA gave us a really great excuse to dress up!!! We followed up the next day by having our elves tie up the grinch and then finally on the last day of school before break they were both sitting together reading a story about the true meaning of Christmas (magically throughout the day the pages even kept turning).  We know that this post is BEYOND late, but we wrote it and never posted!!  Oops!!!!
Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!
Deanna and Jenelle

Happy Fall From Scooter and Socks!

Scooter and Socks welcoming the First Graders on the first day of Fall!

 

Now....if only the weather would cooperate.  Or the leaves would change colors and stay on the trees for a while so that we can actually enjoy them....and then fall off so that we can jump in them!  

 

OR maybe we will just love the fact that there isn't any SNOW in the forecast yet!

Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Spider Fun in October!

We could not believe it!  A REAL author...a REAL, AMAZING, TALENTED author, Doreen Cronin, has allowed us to use her book Diary of a Spider in our amazing and fun letter and journal writing unit!  We can not sing her praises enough!  She was so kind and we appreciate her generosity SO much!  EEEEEEEE!  In fact, when we received her e-mail giving us permission we both danced around the room jumping up and down like crazy people.  We originally created this unit when we first began selling on TPT but after realizing that we may be infringing Doreen Cronin's copyright of the book we pulled it from our sight.  As we were pulling out our October files to begin planning next month we decided to ask Ms. Cronin if we could post the unit...and she said "YES!"   So it is up and ready for you to purchase and it is perfect for the month of October.  Here is the original post from our blog detailing the unit.

Halloween is just around the corner and while looking through our October files we began to feel a bit pumpkin-ed out by all of our regular go-to activities for the season.  Each year we have done some kind of fun and interactive character activity, such as the Pumpkin Elf or the Candy Corn Bandit. While this has always been a HUGE hit with the kiddos we were feeling the need to try something new.  This gave us the perfect excuse to be creative (otherwise known as "not getting our correcting done during our prep")  One of our favorite book series to use during Writer's Workshop are the Diary of a Worm, Fly, and Spider books by Doreen Cronin.  Being that spiders make the perfect Halloween character, we ran with it and this is the unit that we ended up with!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Diary-of-a-Spider-Mini-Unit

Keep in mind that while spiders are perfect for Halloween, this unit could really be used at any time of the year to teach all sorts of writing concepts including voice, point of view, friendly letters, diary entries and so much more!

Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

What Are We Doing this Week?

Each week as teachers we inevitably have to answer the question,"What are we going to do this week?"  In the primary grades its more like every five minutes we are answering, "What are we going to do next?" 

We decided that we wanted to come up with a creative and exciting way to answer this question.   Since we have classroom sock monkey mascots, Scooter and Socks (See our previous post)...we figured why not make them a part of our weekly antics?  So we decided that they should drop the first graders a clue on Monday mornings that will give them a hint about what is to come later in the week.

This week we will be learning how to write in our science notebooks and will be completing our very first SCIENCE EXPERIMENT on Friday!  So fun!  Check out how Scooter and Socks were dressed this morning!  The first graders were so excited and spent all morning guessing.  Oh, and we had a blast not telling them if they were right.  I guess they will just have to wait and see right?

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

We Are Alive!!!!

Wow! Well....where have we been... EVERYWHERE and no where and mostly have been buried in our classrooms bursting at the seams with excitement!  Why...finally WE ARE TEACHING PARTNERS!!!  Yes, we know it is more exciting for us then it is for you all, but really it will make our blog more exciting (we promise) and our creative lesson posting more often (we REALLY truly promise).

So what's the FIRST GRADE news around here you ask?  Or we will pretend that you asked, so we will answer!

We are busy "Sock Monkey-ing" around with our new favorite theme of sock monkeys, thank you Trend for such AWESOMENESS!!!  We have a freebie art project on the way so keep checking back in with us!!! We have also adorned our classrooms with Socks and Scooter.  They are our official classroom mascot over sized sock monkeys who will wear costumes to match weekly themes in various subjects.  So exciting!!!!  Pictures soon to follow.

Sock Monkey Love!
Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!!
Deanna and Jenelle

Turn Off The TV Freebie

It is up and it is FREE!!!  You cannot beat free, right!  Our kids had a blast turning off the TV, they were surprised how easy it was and how quickly the week went without the screen!!!  They played outside!  They played with their families!  They had a blast and cannot wait to find out who won the Subway lunch delivered to school!!!  Click here and get your kiddos set on a screen free week!

Screen Time

In honor of turn off the TV week (I know, a little late) we are turning off our screens and getting active!

At home students are encouraged to turn off all screens: TV, computer, iPads, the works and be active.  As an incentive they can turn in a ticket for each day that they meet this goal.  At  the end of the week we will draw from their turned in tickets and one student in each grade will win a Subway lunch!  We interviewed our students this morning to see how they planned on giving up the screen....most are playing outside and reading, the usual.  Many also said that they challenged their parents to join them.  They are a little worried about their parents making it! :)  Overall they are pretty excited about it.  We'll see how they are feeling on Friday.  It isn't them that I am worried about...their parents may be in for a bit of a surprise.

In school we are turning off our screens too!!!  One whole week of teaching "the old fashion" way. We will turn off our SMARTboards, computers, iPods, and anything else that flashes at us and teach using our creativity and imagination and secret bag of tricks and well....we'll see how it goes.  We have become dependent on those things....no telling our kiddos that we are blogging! ;)

Check back later this week for our "Turn Off the Screen" freebie!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

It Has Been A While!

I am back and so far have survived for four whole days.  Coming back was tough, but I actually realized that I really missed my little darlings!  Teaching REALLY is the best job in the world!!!  Coming back to my excited kiddos made my transition a lot easier.  Now if my little one would let me get some rest...

This week Deanna is keeping me a float!  You forget about all of the small things...like passwords (I won't share how many times I had to run down the hall for forgotten passwords) and meetings and going to the bathroom and eating on on schedule.  But, it is MAY!  And soon I will have the summer to reforget all of these important things that I will have to relearn in the fall.

As for this week we are working on the wonderful sound of ow/ou.  We made OWls and adorned their cute tummies with ow and ou words!  Aren't they sweet!

Keep On Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!
Deanna and Jenelle

Native American Legends

At our school grades 2 and up rotate to different teachers for the subjects of religion (we are at a private Catholic school) science and social studies.  So, for an hour and a half out of my day I am in charge of teaching social studies to 51 second graders.  I honestly don't know how middle school teachers do it!  I go stir crazy teaching the same thing three times in a row and in order to save my own sanity, I try to make any lesson that I teach exciting and interesting for both the students and myself.  In preparing our next unit on Minnesota Native American tribes and their history (Specifically the Ojibway and Dakota tribes), I decided to share many of the legends of these tribes and then have the students write legends of their own.  Here are a few of the books that I chose to share.

(Ojibway/Woodland Tribe Legends and Stories)

The Legend of the Lady's Slipper by Kathy-jo Wargen

The Legend of Minnesota by Kathy-jo Wargen

The Legend of the Loon by Kathy-jo Wargen

Dakota/Plains Tribe Legends and Stories)

Buffalo Woman by Paul Goble

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble

The Mud Pony by Carton Lee Cohen

Sky Dogs by Jane Yolen


Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Fun at a Dominican School

First of all let me apologize for my lack of posts in the last few weeks.  I promise I have a good excuse!  Jenelle is still on maternity leave and snuggling that adorable baby of hers, and the hubby and I were out of the country on SPRING BREAK!  Don't worry, we went somewhere warm...the Dominican Republic...and to make it an even more exciting trip, we had NO kids with us!  This is primarily thanks to my parents who so VERY generously watched our two boys (ages 5 and 2) while we were gone.  So the hubs and I got to spend some actual quality time together. A rare occurrence as you other parents out there know.

The building with kids wishing they could join in the classroom.

Now, like many of you teachers, my brain still works in "teacher mode" even while on vacation so I "convinced" my husband that it would be a "fun" day trip to go and visit a Dominican elementary school.  Being the super supportive guy that he is he agreed and off we went onto the back-roads...if you can actually call them "roads"... of the Dominican countryside.

The teacher's desk...

RY poor country with over 70% of the population making only $250 a month per family.  A few years back they had an earthquake that destroyed quite a few buildings and unfortunately the country's infrastructure is not that great.  Things like regular garbage pick-up, plumbing, and electricity are sketchy at best.  Most families live in one or two room shanties and have very little in the way of luxuries.  The school system in the Dominican is a new addition over the last few decades.  In order for children to attend school (which is free) they must own a pencil and a notebook (unfortunately a lot of families cannot afford these basic supplies so their children just don't go to school).  Although it is a very poor country, the people are rich with culture and family values.  I have never met such a fun loving, appreciative, and welcoming group of people in all of my travels.  So needless to say, the Dominican Republic has easily become my most favorite destination and I recommend you give it a try!

Deanna in the classroom...

3rd & 4th Graders...they vary in age depending upon when they started school.  One child was 13 and another was 8 but in the same grade.

So, back to the story...

Knowing that these Dominican kiddos could not attend school without supplies, I packed my suitcase FULL of extras from my classroom and brought them with to the school.  As my husband and I exited the tour bus, we were practically mugged by elementary aged children who couldn't wait to see what treasures we had brought with us.  I have never seen children so excited over notebooks, pencils, and crayons before!  One little girl (about 3rd or 4th grade) hugged me over and over and with tears in her eyes said "thank you...thank you! Now I can go to school!"  All of this over a simple hot pink notebook and number 2 pencil.  My heart just broke as I saw how little the students had...and couldn't imagine how hard it was for that teacher to teach multiple age levels (think "one room schoolhouse") with very little in the way of supplies and resources.  The whole experience really made me appreciate what my students and I are blessed with.  It really put things into perspective for me and I will truly think twice before EVER complaining about anything school related again.

Handing out supplies...

Deanna and her new "students"...

So give your students a hug and look around your classroom...we are so lucky...and sometime we just need a little reminder of that!





Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes

Deanna and Jenelle

Fabulous Family Trees

I have been blessed this year with an amazing student teacher who is filled with creative and interesting ways to present our second grade topics and objectives.  One of the first areas that she took over was social studies...an area that I have always struggled to make "exciting".  This past week the students have been learning about history.  They have learned that they have their own history and so does their family.  Their lives, traditions, and values have been influenced by the actions and ideas of their ancestors.  While this is a VERY abstract concept for second graders, she did a wonderful job of explaining it and created this adorable art project/learning project to help them grasp the concept.  The students took home a worksheet with questions similar to the ones below:

Me: __________________
My Mom:__________________
My Dad:__________________
My Mom's Mom:__________________
My Mom's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Mom:__________________

Words that describe my family and the things that they value are: (circle at least 7 or come up with your own!)

Loyalty                  Education             Charity                   Creativity        
Love                      Honesty                Celebration             Hard Work
Faith                      Togetherness        Humor                     Fun
Laughter                Hope                    Music                      Truth
Tradition

Heritage or Nationality: _____________________


Notice that the worksheet not only asks for the students family history information but also asks them to circle or list words that describe their family and what their family values.  The students then drew and colored a family tree and listed their family members names on the branches (we tried to have them keep it mono-colored, but otherwise gave them free reign to be creative).  Then the students used colored paper dots as leaves and wrote their "family description words" on the dots.  They turned out AMAZING!!! I love how different and interesting the color choices were!  Do you have any fun social studies ideas that you love?

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Life Skills and St. Patty's Day Fun!

Last week flew by and before I knew it, it was over...and I hadn't blogged!   Sorry for neglecting my blog post duties last week.  I'm still getting used to flying solo while my amazing teacher counterpart Jenelle is on maternity leave.  We have conferences coming up so I figured that I would remind all of you that we have a FREE "Work Habits and Behavior Student and Teacher Assessment for Conferences" available at our TPT store.  We find it so useful, especially in a primary grade where that side of the report card is really the most important thing we talk to parents about at conferences. 

She found a puppy named Lucky!

Another found the "Best Family"

 

We have also been busy getting the hallway ready for St. Patrick's Day.  We made a rainbow pot of gold writing activity (Thanks to First Class Teacher Resources for their FREE St. Patrick's Day Writing Craftivity).  I had the students write about what they would find at the end of a rainbow...their ideas were too cute!

We also made these HUGE but adorable leprechaun glyphs (Thanks to First Grade Blue Skies "Let's Make a Leprechaun-St. Patrick's Day Glyph, Literacy, & Math Pack").

The students wrote about what would happen if they caught a leprechaun...the leprechaun on the right is sad because he was caught!  Gotta love the freckles and pink cheeks on the other two!

As for what we have been up to at our own TPT store....A LOT!  We have added EIGHT new units (And two more are almost done)!  These units are all you need to teach a variety of monthly life skills in your classroom.  Each unit includes five activities, art projects, or games that will assist you in fostering life skills in your classroom.   We have also included a suggested book list for each life skill. The life skills that are covered include:

September: Respect, Friendship, and Responsibility
October: Cooperation, Patience, and Organization
November: Courage and Pride
December: Compassion and Generosity
January: Resourcefulness, Problem Solving, and Flexibility (Coming Soon!)
February: Caring, Perseverance, and Effort (Coming Soon!)
March: Humility and Integrity
April: Humor and Initiative
May/June: Common Sense, Punctuality, and Curiosity

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Fun with Babies and Verbs!

Hurray for Baby Day!  I am happy to share this great news with you all!  Jenelle and her family have welcomed baby Bianca into the world this past week!  So excited for all of the pink ruffles and baby cuddles.  Hurray! Hurray!

Unfortunately, even though I am "over the moon" for her and her family...I realized quite quickly this morning that I AM ON MY OWN! Ahhhhh!  What will I ever do without my partner in crime/creative springboard/confidant/best friend!?! This should be an interesting eight weeks!

Since last week was so crazy with Valentine's Day, and 100th Day, and Ash Wednesday, and Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday, and a day off for President's Day yesterday, we decided to teach the same grammar, phonics, and comprehension skills for two weeks.  We are covering irregular verbs in grammar and I was desperately looking for some way to make that sound like the most fun thing my second graders were ever going to do...that's when I came across the "Phineas and Verb" game created by Sublime Speech.  My second graders love the Disney show Phineas and Ferb so what better way to get them pumped! 

Since we were going to spend some extra time on irregular verbs, and I really wanted something non-valentinish hanging in the hallway, I decided to whip up this adorable Ferb/Verb craftivity.  The students cut out the pieces and then wrote the present and past tense of an irregular verb on his shirt!

Swim/Swam  and Deal/Delt

Phineas and Verb Crafitivity

Aren't they so FUN!!! And the kiddos were singing the theme song to the show while they worked!  Priceless!

And one last thing...Here are some of the Valentine's Day art projects that the second graders made last week.  They used little colored magazine squares to make mosaic hearts.  This is one of my favorites because they always turn out so gorgeous!

I've scanned in my pattern for Ferb from our "Phineas and Verb" craftivity below.  Just click and save the .jpg to your desktop and enjoy!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!
Deanna, Jenelle and Baby Bianca :)