The Daily Five

The Daily Five has become my favorite part of the day!  I love reading and literacy (so much show I'm attaining my masters in it :)!  My kiddos have quickly fallen in love with participating in the Daily Five as well.  Since I learned about the Daily Five by browsing through teachers blogs (and then purchasing both books and attending a conference put on by The Sisters) I decided to share my own twists to this WONDERFUL literacy block!

First things first... the "Sisters" rave about the importance of creating a warm and comfortable environment within the class, much like a home environment.  In 'revamping' my room I was looking for all sorts of different lights.  Without having a lot of extra outlet space I found these nifty stick-on lights at Bed Bath and Beyond for only $10! (I had a coupon too, so it was even less).  I choose places around the room where I knew those little kiddos would crawl and hide to read.  They simply press the light to turn it on and off!  They love and I do too!

These are our "book luggage."  I snagged each basket from The Dollar Tree!!  The tags were die-cut ovals that I wrote their names on and laminated, then attached with some cute ribbon.  Inside their book luggage you will find "just right books" that I have selected for them, as well as their library books (that are also on their reading level), our little decodable books, their magic reading glasses (also purchased at the Dollar Tree-lenses popped out), and a reading strategy bookmark!

 These little check marks were handcrafted by my one and only, most amazing, FATHER!  :)  Since I KNEW my husband would never get around to it, I talked my crafty father in to whipping these up for me.  This was an idea taken straight from The Sisters themselves!  The kids use these check marks during their "Buddy Reading" time.  There are three ways in which they can read to each other.  If they choose to 'check for understanding' then they grab one of these check marks to use during their reading time.  It's such a cute way to help them remember what they are suppose to be doing and really helps them stay focused!

 This is our CAFE menu.  I realize now that it's just not quite big enough to fit ALL the strategies that we will be placing on our wall!  It's also hard for the kiddos to be interactively involved in placing items on the board, however, this is the only space I had available half way through the year and it seems to be working well so far!  

 I added two more 'helpers' in our book luggage this week.  A coaching sheet, which simply helps them remember how they can help their buddy during reading time and another cute bookmark that gives them great questions to ask when retelling a story!  The bookmark I snagged from The Mailbox Companion and the coaching sheet I created using information provided in The Daily Five book!

 Floor pillows are a MUST during my first grades Read to Self!  They eat these little guys up!!! I have five little pillows, two rugs, three large floor pillows, a small couch and chair.  It's little things like these that really get the kids excited to go curl up and dive into a book!  I purchased my pillows at Hobby Lobby with a 50% off coupon (YAY!!!!), my mother made some - yes, I'm spoiled still - (however, pillows are SOOO easy to make), got some from TJMaxx ($5 for the large floor pillows), and "stole" from teachers who were getting rid of their "trash!!"

 My sweet first graders are such visual learners.  I decided the best way for them to remember the three ways to read a book would to have our anchor chart made in the shape of the number three!!  It has worked marvelously! 

 As I have spent many countless hours browsing other amazing teachers blogs I've noticed that EVERYONE does the Daily Five in a different way.  For me, a pocket chart is the simplest way to operate (granted, I haven't tried any other way)! :)  After my kiddos decide where they're going to go, they find their name and place it in the correct row.  We do this during each check in.  It's another great visual for some of my students and for ME!  I can quickly glance up and see where each student should be!  I made the Daily Five sign out of cute paper on top of round magnets!  Easy as can be!!  The cute illustrations to go along with each component of The Daily Five is from, none other than, ThistleGirl Designs!  I LOVE HER STUFF!!!!  

Any other great ideas out there?  I would love to hear how you're doing the Daily Five too!! :)

Happy MLK Day!

My first graders and I still are finishing up some of our MLK projects but here's a great one that I snagged from Primary Perspective!  It's a great directional art project!  I also loved having the kiddos rearrange their words to complete the fact sentence about Martin Luther King Jr.  They love getting to do fun art craft and I do too!

 I love how different each one turned out!  They are so adorable.  I did not have the dimensions, so I just guessed the sizes!  I don't think I did all that bad! :)

I am so excited... tomorrow we will be celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday! We will be eating one of his favorite Southern meals: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and sweet potatoes!  Of course, we will be having white and black chocolate chip cookies for dessert! mmmm!!  Pictures to come! 

This week...

This has been such a fun week!  In my first grade classroom we wrapped up our unit on Penguins and continued our unit on Martin Luther King!  My kids are LOVING learning all about Martin.  Yesterday one of my sweet girls cried during one of our nonfictional stories about Dr. King.  It was so sweet and touching. 

Below is a wreath that we created for MLK Day.  I was so impressed.  MY STUDENTS were the ones who came up with the idea for a wreath of many colors, to use their hands, and to write the saying "we are all equal!"  I could not be more proud of my kiddos!

This is a penguin idea that I snagged from another great teacher.  After discussing what a habitat was and where a penguin's habitat is they filled out the paper and painted their penguin in it's habitat.  Any day we get to paint is a good day! :)

I have some extremely artistic kids in my class this year and they LOVE to do art work!  We created these penguins by simply tearing apart pieces of paper and gluing them together!  They did such a fabulous job of this! After they created their penguin they had to write a story about them!  They came up with names, where they lived, and worked on adding lots of detail to their stories!  

 This is one of our Martin projects we created this week.  This idea stemmed from a unit from Chalk Talk!  I had my kids write 'peace' or 'love' on the heart, then we cut around them to make a cloud shape.  We put these on our classroom windows with the title "I have a dream" next to them.  The idea is that the words are representing what Martin dreamed about for our country.  The clouds represent the word dream and the hand colors...well you know what that's about! :)

 We have been working on introducing each component of the Daily Five upon arriving back from the Holiday Break.  Here's a peak at my SWEEEEET kiddos Buddy Reading!  I got goosebumps listening to them read to each other and listening to them "coach" each other when they came to words they didn't know!  They are so sweet to each other!  Love them!

I must say I LOVE FIRST GRADE!!  :)  Happy Friday

Setting the tone for today!

Happy Wednesday!  Although in Florida it's ridiculous cold (for us), I can only imagine what it would be like during this horrible freezing weather to live above the Georgia line. Here's a quote passed on from one educator to the next...


"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”  Goethe

Book Publishing

Another amazing teacher is Mrs. Carroll! I have spent countless hours browsing her teacher blog jotting down TONS of ideas. One idea that I have "borrowed" from her is the idea of having a Publishing Mom. This is a great opportunity to have parents become involved in the classroom and to have students really get excited about their writing. My first graders love to write stories and during any "free" time they always choose to write and create stories! I love reading what their imagination has to offer! Over the Christmas break I got to work and created the perfect little book publishing area.

This is my publishing mom basket. Everything my publishing parent needs is located in this basket, equipped with detailed instructions.

This is a look at my student's book baskets. Each basket has been labeled with their name and inside is where they will keep all of their 'work in progress.' They also have Book Luggage that has been created for The Daily Five. They have an option to place their 'published' book in their Book Luggage or return it to their book basket. We began publishing this week and my kiddos are already obsessed. Mrs. Carroll has generously given us fellow teachers a link to download a copy of the publishing parent letter. You can receive her letter and a look at her blog HERE!

Happy Publishing!

Penguins!

Not sure where you stand...but I am OBSESSED with Deanna Jump's website and all of her amazing ideas! One of the recent unit's I have used in my classroom is the unit on Penguins!

My kids have loved learning all about the little guys and the activities provided in Deanna's unit are AWESOME! Here's a look at our "All About Penguins" book we just finished.

I ran out of time to make an actual penguin to use as our chart :(, however, the kiddo's LOVED placing the sticky notes onto the Schema chart and the loved learning all about the word schema. I love getting them excited about expanding their vocabulary (one of our Daily CAFE words) by telling them they are about to learn a "high school word" (I usually use "fifth grade word).

We also wrapped up our unit on Penguins by participating in a science experiment that had to do with blubber (an activity also located in Deanna Jump's unit). Of course, I forgot my camera that day! :(

We are now working on our Martin Luther King Jr. unit I took from Chalk Talk, another awesome website!

So excited for more pictures and ideas to come! I LOVE spending my nights browsing teacher blogs while sipping a glass of wine! Such a great way to end the day!

-Mrs. McHaffie

A Peek Inside

I have been hard at work attempting to "revamp" my classroom to prepare for the implementation of The Daily Five and the Daily CAFE. What I love about teaching are the awesome fellow teachers who love to share their ideas and findings with others. Many of the things that I have done in my classroom where ideas taken from some of those amazing teachers! With that here's a peek inside Room 309!

Customize your own photo slideshow

New Year, New Class

I'm super excited about getting a brand new website started for this school year. I will be posting pictures, ideas, and classroom tips that I have collected throughout the years to share with the rest of you. I love browsing the web for great ideas from great teachers and would like to offer the same to you! Hope to get it up and running soon! Stay tuned!

What is a Circle Map?

What is a Circle Map?

A Circle Map is one of the first Thinking Maps we use in Kindergarten. It is probably one of the easiest for young children to grasp and comprehend because basically they are taking a single (one) idea and defining it in its context.

Circle Map=a thinking map used to define information


Here is one way to use the Circle Map in a writing lesson on describing apples.

Explain that today the children will be writing about apples, but first, we need to gather information. Show the apples, and have the children talk about the color, shape, etc. Cut the apple (if possible, cut the apple beforehand OR cut it in front of the children and make this into a math lesson as well!). Pass out the slices. Have the children use their sense of sight to look at the slice, touch it, smell, and finally taste the apple. Ask children to provide words that describe the apple.

On a white board/chalkboard or a large sheet of butcher paper, draw a small circle and write the word apple in the middle. Now draw a larger circle around it. Explain that we are gathering information about the apple so we write APPLES in the middle circle of the Circle Map. Now we will be writing words to define apples in the larger outside circle. Write the words/phrases the children provide in the outer circle.


Now, take those characteristics or 'definitions' and add a sentence pattern that a beginning writer can 'read and copy,' adding his/her own selected characteristic from the Circle Map. Using the word Apples as the initial word an adding the are for the verb (which is also a High Frequency Sight word) reinforces the vocabulary that they are familiar with. The children now simply look to the Circle Map to select a word that they want to use to complete the sentence and copy it into their journals!


You can also provide an alternative pattern such as


Although this seems to be awfully simplistic, it is a very effective introductory way to use Thinking Maps and sentence patterns/forms with Kindergartners. It also provides them with a high sense of pride to think they were able to create their very own sentence and read it all by themselves!

Free Write!

Free Write!

Now that we are into the 3rd trimester it is time to begin to get really serious about sentence writing. At the recent Parent-Teacher Conference, the importance of writing was discussed as well as how our writing has progressed from the copying to the dictation of the individual letters in words to the use of Circle Maps to now making Tree Maps. Being able to simply 'write off the cuff' is not an easy task. This is MUCH more difficult than any other type of writing done thus far, particularly for English learners, so additional practice is necessary.

Thinking Map activities have been included on the website but these are not the same as 'free write' activities. Free writing activities are not structured and because of this, the more opportunity your child has for practicing this the better it will be (especially as we get closer to the May Writing Proficiency Test!). The following are some ideas for providing children with 'free write' ideas.

Note: In May, the Writing Proficiency Test is administered and Thinking Maps are not permitted. A test prompt (topic) is given and the child must write all by him/herself. No help can be given. Period.

Colouring Book
If your child adores Dora the Explorer or Spiderman or the Disney Princesses, go out to Target or Walmart and get a $2 colouring book. Cut out one of the pages from the book, have your child color the page, then say, "What is happening on this page? Tell me what's going on." Children have great imaginations are often more than happy to share their thoughts about what is happening in their drawings. Whatever the child's response is, tell him/her, "GREAT~Let's write it down!" The response becomes the journal entry, word-for-word.

Family Activities
If the family does something special together (goes to the beach, has a picnic at the park, visits relatives, etc.) upon returning home, ask your child, "What did we do today? What was your -favorite-best-etc." or have your child simply tell you what the family did. Then, based on the response, this is what becomes the sentence(s).

TV/Movie Show
After watching a particular tv or movie together, have your child describe what happened, who the characters were, what the setting was, etc. You can use the 5Ws (who, what, where, when, why/how). This can be used to form the basis for the sentence.