Smart Art: A Very Grouchy {Reading & Math} Craftivity

Hi, Friends! Has spring fever sprung in your classroom already? I think my class had bowls and bowls of Loopy Fruits before school on Friday…but I think, I think we managed to survive it!

It also turned out to be a very grouchy day in our classroom….BUT, in a good way!

 

Our smart art for the week was a fun connection between reading and math. Initially, my kiddos were wondering why we were doing math during our Daily 5 block, but after we got started with a fun interactive reading of Eric Carle’s The Grouchy Ladybug they quickly understood! Reading this book together was fun and everyone was able to participate because of the repetitive “call and respond” pattern found in the text.

This little activity helped us to wrap up our time unit, practice retelling, review shapes and use fractions in a fun way!

Each student was given a time taken from the story to represent in 3 different ways…how they would “read” the clock in words, how it would appear on a digital clock and how it would appear on an analog clock. That bold little ladybug had quite the busy day, so there were lots of times to represent!

The clock hands were colored to match our classroom set of Judy clocks. Each student had to show their time and get a thumbs up before gluing it to the clock face. After gluing the hands to the clock or ladybug’s body…students wrote to fill in their ladybug labels, then cut and glued them to the wings. In our classroom, students have creative control…so they did not all have to create their ladybug in the exact same way….BUT they had to make sure their analog time was visible after having glued the wings on.

See the whiteboard in the background? That was my little example projected onto the board to serve as a guide for their completed project.

We have new math standards in TX this year…the ending of the story worked very well for explaining “about time” or how we use quarter hours on the clock too. As the little ladybug flies through the story picking fights she moves from hour to hour. At the end of the story, she harasses a whale every quarter hour, which made for a great “teachable moment”.

After leaving for lunch and recess to let our little ladybugs dry, we returned to the classroom to retell the story. Each student grabbed their little ladybug and we sat in the hall in front of our lockers. Our intent was to sequence the times in the order of the events of the story {and hang them on the lockers] and we DID….BUT, HOLY MOLY did it look busy once we were done! I couldn’t even look straight at our lockers without getting dizzy! LOL!

Sitting in the hallway added a little novelty to the lesson too! With spring fever in full swing, finding new spots to learn in will be definitely be on the agenda!

See?! BIIIIII-ZZZY! Look away….scroll down, before your eyes begin to cross!

Whew! Much better!

If you look very closely, there are two little empty spots. Smart art is serious FUN, but also serious business. Students ONLY get to participate in smart art IF they have completed the two “must do” activities from work stations during the week. If it is not completed, then they must use their smart art time to become, well……smarter…and complete the work that was required of them. NO “must-do”, no smart art.This practice prevents students from being rewarded without having earned it. In our classroom, we have a lot of fun. Students are rewarded well, but it is because we make things look easy by doing the hard work, first. =)

Feeling grouchy? Click the pic above to grab this little activity for your class of ladybugs!

Happy reading! =)

What kind of pet would YOU like to have? {Research FREEbie}

Hi Friends! How are ya? Today started out a little wonky with a dead car battery and will end with a visit to the torture chamber a.k.a the dentist….so in between all the randomness of the day, I thought I’d stop in to share a little research fun.

Conducting simple research is an on-going topic for us and my little class of curious firsties is LOVIN’ it! After completing research using biographies, we tackled pets/animals next. The little chart above was created to document partner discussions at the carpet. Kiddos shared 1 target question about an animal they would like to have as a pet. After lively discussions with partners, we listed the questions to share and give each other ideas before recording the pet/animal on one sticky note and the 1 question on another.

We visit the computer lab once each week. During our computer lab time, students worked with helping partners to take notes. Each student was responsible for finding 3 facts that were connected to answer their guiding question.

What’s a helping partner? Glad you asked! I allow students to choose who they will work with when its time for partner activities. There’s only 1 rule. You must choose a partner that is NOT in your reading group. Reading groups contain friends with like abilities right now. Whole group and partner activities involve mixed ability groupings, sooooo when we work with a partner, it’s part of our classroom culture for stronger readers to be paired with a friend that may need a little more help.

I alternate, how they choose…sometimes the friends who need a little more help get to choose a partner. Sometimes, the strong readers choose. It’s created an environment of empathy and compassion that I’m very proud of. BFFs make for great pals at recess or during free time, but they can be very distracting when it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty.

Over the course of the week, students worked together during writer’s workshop to complete their writing and illustrations. This little research project was also an extension of our story for the week, Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats. It made for a lot of connections between reading and writing and even science! In order to take care of a pet, you have to know what a living thing needs to survive.

As we enjoyed stories by Ezra Jack Keats and about real animals online, students were also exposed to elements of media literacy. It was a wonderful week of all the little pieces we’ve been learning over the past few weeks coming together in lots of teachable moments.

When I complimented the class on doing such an amazing job with their second research project, the “Teacher Jrs” came up with a great idea! The trouble with giving a class of kiddos creative control is that once they’re used to it, they’ll exercise that right…lol! So, next….they put me to work!

I was asked to create a cover, so we could compile our writings into a class book! Here’s a look at how it turned out…

…and now we have a brand new book full of facts about pets…and a class of firsties excited about research!

Just like little Peter enjoyed learning how to do something new, it’s been a joy to watch my kiddos grow as readers and writers and now…..researchers.

With research complete and open house done, smart art was on the agenda for Friday. Researchers can be artists too! Willie jumped right out of the pages of the book onto the streets of our little city! When Peter’s mom sent him to the store, it looks like he whistled all the way to HEB and back! Just in case you don’t live in TX, HEB is our local grocery store. It’s the ONLY grocery store in a lot of areas! =)

Click the pic above to grab this little FREEBIE to get your research on too! Either I really like having choices or I’m indecisive….either way {lol} there are two choices of note taking pages and two choices of writing paper for your student’s final drafts, including a “back of the page” sheet and a cover if you’d like to make a class book too.

Enjoy and happy researching!

Five for Friday {First Week Back}

Hi Friends! How are ya? Did you have a great first week back at school? My kiddos and I had a busy week of review and catch up! We were all a hot.sick.mess during the weeks leading up to Christmas…..so we had to use our first week back to review.review.review and CATCH UP! And by golly, I think we’ve done it!

I’m linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share our faves from this past week.

We skip counted through the week in math! Notice the typo on the 5’s chart? Ugh! Not sure what we were thinking…thank goodness for my eagle-eyed team mate! It’s all fixed scribbled over to say in instead of is now. When you teach syllabication in the morning, and skip counting in the afternoon…..BEWARE….you may end up with big words on your math anchor chart! =)

Simply [rote] skip counting is of days past. Now, our standards call for skip counting sets of objects….the day we worked on counting by 5’s we each traced our hands and lined them up across the carpet to count sets of 5 little fingers! Kiddos loved how long the line was and were utterly amazed when they discovered how many fingers there are in our classroom! After we counted them, 3 students worked together to label each of the hands in order beginning with 5 before I hung them up to use as a reference.

This week, Smart Art began on Thursday. What we were going to do, would take some time….so it just couldn’t wait all the way until Friday.

I absolutely LOVE using the book The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall to teach how the changing seasons effect plants. After reading it and discussing what happened to the apple pie tree during each season, we worked to illustrate what we had learned. As much as I love sharing an awesome book, I love tying in art even more…

On Thursday we worked to cut, glue, and draw details to illustrate winter and spring. On Friday, we flipped our little foldable over to illustrate summer and autumn.

The wonkiness of kids’ work adds character. No patterns were provided. I like seeing their personalities shine through their work. Each kiddo started with a blank sheet of paper and a model projected on the whiteboard as a guide to get started. Though we were all illustrating the seasons, each and every tree, leaf, and apple are unique because they were given creative control of the work they’d produce. Lots of happy smiles were seen among the mess of clips and snips of paper all over the room!

Wanna peek inside? After giving summer and autumn a little time to dry, we opened them up to prep for next week. One of our performance assessments is to observe and record the weather over the course of a week. Last week….seasons. Next week….weather. We’ll use our little foldable to record the weather and relative temperature each morning. On Thursday, during our normal science lesson, we’ll read Gail Gibbons’ Weather Words and illustrate the vocabulary. Lastly, students will illustrate their favorite type of weather!

Creating a display type foldable added a little novelty to our work. Foldables shouldn’t have to always be flat! I love using them, BUT I don’t want my kiddos to get bored with them by continuously using the same kind all the time. They watched me prep this one for them and absolutely couldn’t wait to get their hands on it!

Will your little meteorologists be making observations about the weather soon? Click HERE to grab the mini-pages we’ll be using. Check out some of the books and resources we’ll be using below!




Happy weather watching!

Let it be KNOWN…

…my lesson plans are DONE while the sun is still shining! Say what?! Boy, do I feel accomplished! Before my head swells too big, it’s truly probably because this week is dedicated to our EOY benchmark testing, but HEY! They’re done, lol! So, maybe…..just maybe, I’ll go to bed tonight BEFORE midnight! Nah!

Speaking of lesson plans, I have no idea why it takes me so long to write them! I tend to follow predictable patterns when it comes to prepping for the school day. It may have something to do with my attention span. It’s short……..SQUIRREL! See?! Ok, where were we….hmmmm, oh! Lesson plans! What’s your process like? Each week, our team gets together to throw around ideas for the following week. On Friday, I am so ready to get to the couch because I am ex…..haust….ED, BUT the joyful, genuine collaboration that signals the end the week is something that I really look forward to. It’s also the beginning of my planning process.



My lesson plans start out with those shared ideas, then take shape based on goals set throughout the week made from observing student behaviors and skills we must cover from our adopted curriculum. When I sit down in front of the computer, I generally have my plans from the previous week before me, my instructional focus document, my TEKS (standards for non-TX folk) verification document, graded work, and our timeline for the current grading period. It seems like a lot, but it’s all contained in my teacher binder so it’s really not. Though lesson plans start out neatly organized and printed, they end up very written upon, scribbled on and sometimes scratched out and edited for re-teaching. The following Monday, when I set out the new set on my teacher table to refer to, the set from previous week is placed in a little basket that sits behind my table.

This week, plans are slim because our focus will be completing EOY testing. Isn’t the timing for testing just a little hilarious…the week before Easter….a shortened week….and you KNOW the kids’ minds are on eggs, eggs, and MORE eggs!



One of the greatest motivational tools that helps my lesson plans to flow is something our class has affectionately called “Smart Art”. There are so many expectations students are expected to meet throughout the school day. One of them is completing work station activities so that we can effectively conduct small groups to become better readers. Early in the school year, we experienced some struggles in completing quality work.  They completed work, but the quality was lacking sooooo, we had to come up with a little encouragement to be our best selves. Enter Smart Art.



These little cuties were our Smart Art activity from last week. Each week, students have  1 required task (from word work and work on writing) that they must complete in order to participate. Just one…is a must do, not an “IF I get to it or IF I want to”….it’s a must. These two completed activities are students’ ticket to complete the fun art activity on Friday.

Our story this week was about the life cycle of a butterfly. This little project served a two fold purpose. Fun/Reward and a reminder that my students are changing and growing just as quickly as the little caterpillar. In just under 40 days, they will be ready to flutter away as 2nd graders. The thought of it makes me get a little teary eyed because we’ve accomplished so much together!

For each student I folded two 9x12 sheets of black construction paper in half and cut out the shape of a butterfly using an exacto knife. Each one unique. They’re a bit of a pain to prep, but the end result and the kids’ excitement about making them is worth the effort.



After labeling one side with their name and one with the 4 stages of the butterfly’s life cycle, students’ received glue to create the wings. I provided the glue for them. All they had to do was place the tissue paper in the pattern they wanted. As they completed the activity we discussed what we had learned about butterflies…their parts, how they use them, how they look, eat, can do, etc….

I thought my girls would be the most excited, but not this week! My boys were thrilled! They told me this was the best Smart Art activity we’ve done and they can’t wait to see what I come up with next week! I play to a pretty demanding crowd, lol! Love them to pieces!


 After each student finished placing the tissue squares, the remaining black outline was glued on top. We placed them on the floor to dry. At the end of the day, the extra tissue pieces that hung off the sides were trimmed away, antennae were added and students drew additional white spots on the butterflies wings. I love surprises….fun surprises. My kids are used to coming in on Monday’s “looking up” to see what’s changed. When they return in the morning, they’ll see all of their butterflies fluttering around our classroom…



…and through our little garden!

Like watching them create these little butterflies, it’s been a total joy watching each one of my students grow and change this year. We’re completing EOY testing to measure the growth, but there is so much that has been accomplished, said and done that testing won’t measure. It won’t measure the relationships, the hugs, the willingness to take risks, getting messy and making mistakes in order to learn. It won’t measure the love I feel for this group of littles that will forever be one of “my kids”. It won’t measure how much I will truly miss them in a few short weeks…..they’re getting ready to flutter away and I’m content as we sit down to test because I know they’re ready!

How do you plan? What’s part of your process? What’s YOUR great motivator?

Five for Friday~Pen pals, Pets and PLANTS

Hey, ya’ll! How are ya? It’s time for another Five for Friday with Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching! It’s been a looooong week. Life happened; we’ve been busy with a capital B! I think this might actually be the very first night since last Friday we’ve had nothing to do, so this weekend is welcomed with open arms!

I came home ready to tackle a post and got tackled instead, by my old computer that got stuck on stupid and my new one that I’m having trouble downloading new programs to. Tag teamed by technology! I’ve gotten some of the bits and pieces up and running, but need to get Microsoft Office installed to get cracka lackin’ on some ideas floating around in my head. I’m sure after I walk away from it for awhile, I’ll get it going and get busy creating. Wish me luck…cause ya girl is feeling just a bit uh-nnoyed!

Anywho…..here’s a peek at this past week!


April ushers in testing season for our upper grade friends. When you’re not the grade level testing, it can be pretty darn tough to work as quiet as a church mouse. To help our 3rd grade buddies out, we welcomed them to join us for some “get up and wiggle” time.

I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or Mrs. Patterson and I, but it was a hoot having them visit! We used to work together. Having her back on the 1st grade hallway brought back lots of happy memories. The 3rd graders were grateful to be able to move about and my firsties couldn’t believe the “big kids” were stickin’ around to play and work with them! We had just gotten letters from our pen pals and were preparing to write them back, so having some extra hands on deck for ideas and editing was a total score!!! Win-win!!


From writing letters to pen pals and hosting fun friends….we wrapped up our week with smart art to finish off our author study of Ezra Jack Keats. We read several different stories by him online at his official website and from our library. If you click the link, it’ll take you to 4 animated stories read aloud and other resources.  The kiddos were SUPER attentive and did a really good job of making comparisons between each of the stories to Whistle for Willie. Can you see him shaping up?



After reading a different story each day, students became very familiar with Keats’ style and created collages of their favorite part of the story. There’s Willie running to Peter! Do you see him hiding under the carton?


It’s beginning to look a LOT like spring! Pets, plants, pen pals….oh my! This little chart took us 3 daysish to create. We read the book Grow Flower, Grow! After reading it, we discussed the 3 things that plants need to grow and added them to the chart. The next day, I shared the pen with friends to have them label the parts of the plant. On the 3rd day, we created a booklet from Mailbox magazine and then…..


….our plant POPPED right off the page! I LOVE prepping surprises for my kiddos to find when they enter the room! Their oohs and ahhhhs spike the level of excitement and interest in what we’re going to do next. When they came back from specials today, I thought I was gonna have to throw my body over the table to keep them from attacking our real life examples of parts of a plant! Can you say best teacher ever? LOL! *Wink*….well, at least that’s what they thought once they knew they’d get to eat them! =)

Have a great weekend! Now that I’ve got one of these two crazy computers functioning for a few…I’m working on finishing morning work for April. Sorry for the delay….it may just end up working out in your favor though! Stay tuned…

Five for Friday~TGIF {Smart Art Freebie}

Hi, Friends! How are ya? I don’t know about you….BUT for me, this has been a loooooong week! The kiddos and I had something going on every night. Today {Friday}, was the first day that we were actually able to leave school and just go home. The headache that took over most of my brain required meds and a nap; NOW I’m wide awake and excited to share our Smart Art project from today!



I love linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday because it causes me to reflect over the best parts of the week. Smart Art from this week is probably my favorite…



This Friday’s installment of Smart Art was a wrap up to our focus on nonfiction texts. Wanna really know if your kiddos comprehend the features of a given text? Have them create it, extend it, connect to it. This little cutie did all 3!!! Autobiography is a big word for a firstie to wrap their mouth around, but they totally rocked writing one! Our main story was a biography written about Tomas Rivera. Students have been independently researching African American historical figures on PebbleGo.com, so we blended the two with this activity.

After testing over our story, we researched two historical figures on PebbleGo.com and made note of how the information was organized.

I helped them get started by modeling the first page with sentence starters for students to copy and fill in the blanks. For each page, a timer was set for between 6-8 minutes to write 1-2 sentences, illustrate and color. With a set time in place to complete each page, there was no time for talking…just thinking, writing, and reading. We also stopped midway for a brain break.

 

After each page was completed, we met for a sec at the carpet to discuss the next heading and appropriate information to include on the page.



Students who finished early were encouraged to add text and graphic features that we had discussed during read alouds (labels, bold print, italics, highlighting, etc…).



They had such a fun time writing about themselves that almost everyone shared today!  There were lots of smiles at the carpet and thunderous applause as each friend reached the last page of their book.

….annnnd because Tomas grew up to become a published author, we’ll further connect to the story by choosing some of these to include in our classroom library! Interested in completing a little Smart Art of your own? Click the pic below to grab it!



I assembled them by folding each of the printed pages back at the center, then stacking the 3 inside pages within the cover with the open folded edge to the middle. If you have the option to print BORDERLESS images in your printer’s settings, it will stretch the PDF file to get rid of the white edge and give your friends a little more room to write and draw too. Enjoy! 

 

Five for Friday~Happy New Year!

Hi, Friends! Happy New Year! Have you taken some time to rest? Actually enjoyed the time off?  As I wake to enjoy this final Friday of vacation, I’m linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for the very first Five for Friday of the year…


I’ve actually forced myself to rest throughout this break, so this’ll be a great way to kick start my teacher brain and begin to prepare for the new semester. I don’t know what it is about the spring semester of 1st grade, but I absolutely LOVE it! I suppose it may have a little to do with how much the kiddos have matured over the first semester. It’s truly an amazing time of reflection AND planning to finish the year as strong as possible.

Anywho…..let’s get on with it, shall we! {Sigh……smile.} Alrighty, well….we’ve been out of school for two weeks, soooo I pulled a few random moments of awesomeness to share with you from before the break.



If you’ve followed my little blog for even a minute, you know how much we love to doodle in Room 159. We use anchor charts a lot, but there’s not always room to create and keep them all, so some we put together on our handy dandy whiteboard. We used this super sneaky guy to introduce long vowel patterns.



This is another example of our ‘smart art’. This little cutie glued his flap book down backwards, BUT his examples of cause and effect are all matched correctly….looks like a winner to me! Causes are on the outside….effects, glued underneath on the inside.



Smart art + kiddo discussions in small groups = comprehension made fun! (Please forgive the naughty camera strap that made it into that photo!)



The ONE thing that I did work on over the break is our morning work. Every morning, my kiddos walk into a calm atmosphere of low lights, soft music, and instructions prepared on the whiteboard. The structure of our routine is consistent, but the tasks change each morning. I like finding little sneaky ways to get them reading all day long….without them knowing it! After all, we are learning to read for a purpose, right?

Unpack. Put your things away. Read a good fit book. Follow the directions on the board. When the long hand on the clock touches the 11, everyone should be at their desks completing the task of the day. That’s our morning routine. Every.Single.Day. Students have a journal in their book box that is just for morning work…and if they should need extra time to complete it, they know they can continue working on it the next morning. Quick…spiral review and no time wasted. Learning begins the minute we walk in the door.



This is an example of a reflection being completed. I love our morning work routine because students are also learning responsibility. They must read the directions, manage their time, and organize their journal. The tasks increase in difficulty as we move through the year. Most are reflections on “good fit” books, others….like this one are math applications. Cross curricular connections are made through writing about science and social studies topics too. And the best {teacher} part? I don’t have to make one single copy for morning work! Nada. Zilch. Zero….I come in, cue the computer and we’re off on our journey for the day! *LOVE*!!!


Interested in giving it a try? Click any of the pictures below to grab a sample.  These would also be great to print and use as task cards for early finishers! Now, that January’s set is all wrapped up, I’m looking ahead to February. Any suggestions for skills? Leave a comment below…

Grades and lesson plans are calling! Laters Gators! =)