Trying to Stay Organized!

Hello Everyone!

I am stopping by this lovely Wednesday evening to share how I attempt to stay organized during my guided reading time! I am not a naturally organized person but I can't stand not being able to find something when I need it so I force myself to try and stay as organized as possible. This summer I went and bought some plastic storage bins from Walmart and revamped my little guided reading corner…

These little storage bins have been such a life saver and makes it so much easier to stay organized! Each week I put what I am working on with each group in the correct bin and wha-la everything I need is in one place, no more "where did I put that again?" I use the empty drawer space to store manipulative's, sight word flash cards, letter tiles, and other items I may need.  

I also keep these binders in the bins...

I keep a binder for each group. Inside I keep my lesson plans, running records, and notes I take during my small group time. 

Yesterday, while blog hopping I got some really great ideas from Tiffany over at KTeacherTiff and I decided to try her format… We started with a sight word review of words we had previously learned, then we read our book, and finally we practiced building sight words with letter tiles. 

Finally, since this post is about organization, I thought I would share how I attempt to stay organized throughout the week. I bought this nifty storage container and added labels to reflect the days of the week. I do not always get to it but my goal is to have what I need ready to go the Thursday or Friday before the upcoming week and placed in the correct drawer. 

So there you have it, a little glimpse of how I try and stay organized! 

How do you organize your guided reading area? 

So Thankful It's Friday...

Hi Everyone! 

I am here to link up with Five for Friday and…

I am so excited to share that I am officially on Teacher's Pay Teacher's! I uploaded this FREEBIE which I use on my guided reading focus wall but they can be used in various ways. Click here to get your own copy! 

Here is a picture of how I use these mini-posters in my classroom...

Just so you know, this is only half of my guided reading focus wall, I will have to  make a post about my guided reading area in the future :-) 

 I love my writing center and the neat thing is my kiddos do too! They are always engaged and actually display a love for writing! I use  Caitlin Clabby's "Awesome Words for Inspiring Author's!" in my writing center. Click here if you would like to purchase them, they are AWESOME! Here are a few pics of what some students did at the writing center this week...

This week for our reading series we read " A Bed for the Winter" and our focus was main idea and key details. We showed what we learned with this sweet ice cream craftivity…

Finally, I am thrilled to share that I finished my Thanksgiving Literacy and Math Stations unit! They are now uploaded to TpT's. Please click here if you are interested in downloading :-) 

So there you have it, a look into my week :-) 

My Week in Rewind!

Hello Again! 

I am just stopping by to link up with Five for Friday and share a little peek at what happened in my class this week! 

This week we had a lot of fun learning about adjectives. I was inspired by the cute shape monsters I have seen on pinterest and ta-da the shape turkey was born! 

Each student chose a shape, constructed their turkey, and then came up with adjectives to describe their turkey. 

They had so much fun making our adorable little turkey friends! 

We have been working so hard during our writer's workshop and I have been so thrilled to see the progress my sweeties have made. This week we have been working on narrative writing and we started a new book. Here are a few samples...

I am so excited to share this next sample. This little guy has made incredible progress! It was such a struggle to get him to write and on top of that he knew very few letter sounds but now he is loving writing WAHOO!

I absolutely love Deanna Jump's Interactive Reading Journal!

We wrapped up our story this week with an activity from this packet. My kids had so much fun recalling key details from the story. 

This week in science we talked all about matter and how it changes. We added various items to an ice cube tray and recorded what we observed. We came back the next day, after the tray had been in the freezer overnight, and observed how the items changed. We discussed what we saw and recorded our observations.

Finally, I just have to share what my sweet hubby did for my birthday. He surprised me with a candle light dinner that he set up all by himself! I have to tell you, he's got decorating skills for real! 

Pumpkins, Bats, and Owls, Oh My!

Hi Everyone!

My name is Erica and I am so excited to be making my first blog post ever! I absolutely LOVE my job and thought it would be fun to share what is going on in my classroom. I am also linking up with Five for Friday, so here it goes! 

This week we focused on plural and singular nouns. I thought it would be fun to turn it into a craftivity so we made a fun little pumpkin patch. I created the worksheet to go along with the fall pumpkin theme...

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Last week we wrapped up our Bat Unit with this sweet little writing craftivity. I used The First Grade Parade's bat freebie for the template and then created my own worksheet to go right along. It was awesome

to see my students using the batty vocab we learned.

This week we learned all about owls and then we compared and contrasted them with bats. We talked about their similarities and differences and wrote them on our chart.

We followed our venn diagram with this simple owls v. bats writing activity. They had to write something they learned that is unique to owls, something they learned that is unique to bats, and then what they both have in common.

The scrapbook owls look super cute hanging on the wall! I still have to find a place to hang the rest…so much to hang but so little room! 

For math we did a super fun and simple addition activity I found on the First Grade Parade (here).They did an awesome job! 

This week for our reading series we read the book "Animal Babies". Together we found the main idea and listed key details we learned.