Hippity-Hoppity...Easter's On Its Way! 

Don't you just LOVE the spring time? It's full of fun and exciting activities to do in the classroom and outside! I love Easter time because of all the pastel colors, warmer weather, bunnies and chicks. Its a time for renewal for everyone!
I'd like to share some of my Easter activities that I do in my classroom. I have read some great Easter books. It's so hard to choose which ones to read...they are all my favorites! 

I like to do a lot of different writing and art activities with my students. When I read Rechenka's Eggs, I have my students write a procedural story about how to dye Easter eggs.  You'd be surprised at how many students have never dyed eggs before. So this is so exciting for them!  After they have written their story, then they watercolor an egg of their choice, and then glitter it!  I hang these in the hallway and they look absolutely gorgeous! If you're interested in checking out Rechenka's Egg, click here

I also have this resource by itself with just the Easter Egg Procedural Writing. If you're interested, click here

You can also use a lot of different reading skills with these stories: Author's Purpose, Retelling, Main Idea, Theme, Characterization, Cause and Effect, Story Elements, and Inferences. Here are some of the skill cards that I use for my pocket chart: 

Following these skill cards, you can use your reader's notebooks as a follow-up or extension activity. Here is one that I use for cause and effect. Notice that I put the skill card on the "teacher" side and the student template on the "me" side.  

When I read the Easter Egg by Jan Brett, or the Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas, you can have your students write a persuasive piece about why they would like to be the Easter Bunny or the Easter Bunny's Assistant.  The students can make an Easter Bunny craftivity with their writing. If you're interested in checking out The Easter Egg resource, click here

The students can fill out an Easter Bunny Application and answer questions about if they would make a good Easter Bunny or not. They can also fill out an Author's Purpose template about their story that they wrote. After completing the application, students can write their persuasive story using the writing template. Isn't writing fun! These can be glued onto the Easter Bunny and hang in the hallway. If you're interested in checking out the persuasive writing craftivity, click  here

I've also had my students make an Easter Bunny Bag to use when they go hunting for Easter Eggs: 

If you just want your students to have fun writing about their favorite thing about Easter, check out these cute writing craftivities! 

                                        My Easter Chick 

            

                                                        My Easter Lamb

                                        My Easter Basket 

If you're interested in checking out this resource, click here

Who loves to try and catch the Easter Bunny? Here's a fun writing craftivity! 

If you're interested in checking out How to Catch the Easter Bunny, click here 

How about math? You can use Easter Eggs to write addition or subtraction facts and the students have to match the egg with the correct answer in their Easter Tray. This is so easy to make and the students LOVE it! 

I hope you can find something that you would love to try with your students! 

Happy Easter Everyone! 

Love, Kara 

                                      120th Day Celebration- Texas Style! 

If you LOVE having a 120th Day celebration with your students, check out his blog post! We dressed up as cowboys/cowgirls and had a Texas themed celebration. We also asked some parents to help out for our stations. Here are some great activities you could do with your students! 

120 Exercises: 120 Jumping Jacks, Sit-ups, head rolls, shoulder rolls, jumping on one foot, etc...

120 Cup Stacking: The students can stack 120 cups and make their own structure: 

120 Snack: We used 12 different ingredients: cheerios, goldfish, gummy bears, m&ms, raisins, white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, fruit loops, Kix, and cheese-its etc... We used the plastic chip trays from the dollar store. The students had baggies that they put their snack in to eat later. 

120 Necklace: We used 12 Penne Pasta for the 10s and 12 Wagon Wheel Pasta to separate the 10s to make our necklace. 

120 Hats: 

Race to 120: We used plastic horses and a foam dice to roll to race to 120 on the floor mat. 

120 Quilt: Each student made a number to make a 120 chart on the carpet. 

120 Commitments: We wrote on the stars about making a good choice and put it on the bulletin board. 

Snake in a Boot: The students used rubber snakes to throw the snake in the boot to see if they could make it. 

120 Penny Flip: the students flipped a penny 120 times and then colored in their mat. 

I hope your 120th Day is just as exciting! Have fun!

Love, Kara 

          Integrating Balanced Literacy and Thematic Units! 
                               What a Perfect Combo! 

Did you know that you can integrate Balanced Literacy and Thematic Units to make a "Perfect" combo? Of course it takes a lot of planning, creating, organizing and time, but once you have all of that accomplished, it will help your teaching flow a lot more effectively. I will walk you through it...so keep reading to find out more! 

The first thing you need to do is look at your standards for science and social studies. That's where your main drive for your thematic unit will stem from. Decide which thematic units you and your team want to teach. You may be thinking...yuck thematic units are a trend of the past! Well, that may have been true back in the 80's where you would only teach about apples and their life cycle and not use apples to teach properties of matter, adjectives, or 5 senses. The standards have changed a lot since then, and so have our approach to teaching thematically! I've found an easy way to integrate Reader's Workshop, Writer's Workshop, Math Workshop, Guided Reading, Focus Poetry and Word Work together so my students can make better connections! It's amazing and fun! 

Let's start with a standard for social studies. I live in Texas, so in March we do a big thematic unit on Texas Symbols and Historical Figures since March 2nd is Texas Independence Day:
 Here are the TEKS that help us know what to teach about Texas:

1.) Identify historical figures such as Sam Houston who have influenced the community, state, and nation.

2.) Describe the origins of customs, holidays and celebrations of the community, state, and nation such as San Jacinto Day.

3.) explain state patriotic symbols including Texas flags and the Alamo. 

4.) recite and explain the meaning of the Texas Pledge and identify the anthems and mottoes of Texas. 

Ok- so now that you selected your standards for your thematic unit, break up your balanced literacy components and subjects. This is helpful to know what genres and what mentor texts you will be reading for each subject: 

Reader's Workshop: Fiction Texts
Armadillo Rodeo, The Legend of the Bluebonnet, Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, Click Clack Moo Cows that Type, Who Took the Farmer's Hat?, When the Cows Came Home, The Big Red Barn, Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch and When The Cows Came Home. 


Writer's Workshop: Fiction/Procedural Texts 
Armadilly Chilly, The Lonesome Star, and How to Be a Cowboy.


Math Workshop: 120th Day Texas Celebration!  Texas Counting Books, The Three Little Javalinas, 123 Texas, Counting the Texas Way, and Horse and Hen Count to 10.


Word Work: 
Texas ABC Books, Words in ABC Order/Syllables
L is for Lonestar, T is for Texas, and Texas Alphabet.


Guided Reading: Leveled Books about armadillos, rodeos, cowboys, horses, cows, deserts, or The Alamo and Magic Tree House: Ghost Town at Sundown. 


Focus Poem: Texas Our Texas-anthem.


Social Studies: Non-fiction Texts 
Texas Symbols, Texas heroes, The Alamo, San Jacinto Day, Sam Houston, Texas Pledge, Texas Motto, and Texas State Anthem. 
Alamo A to Z, Voices of the Alamo, Cowboys and Cowgirls, B is for Buckaroo, Goodnight San Antonio, Texas Jack at the Alamo, and Susanna at the Alamo. 


Science: Non-fiction Texts
Oil Spill - science experiment about how oil and water mix. 


Spelling: You can do any word list you want, and I make our challenge words theme related for example: Rodeo, Cowboy, Texas, Oil, Cowgirl, Horse, Alamo...

Next, I like to set up my Theme Center with Texas. This is a center that can be switched between science and social studies depending on your theme. Here is what my Texas Theme center looks like: 

I have posters of the Texas Heroes, Regions of Texas, puzzles of Texas, Texas books, an Alamo model and soldiers, stencils, 6 flags over Texas, oil in a jar, pecans, bluebonnets, models of cowboys, cattle and much more. This is the center template that I use for my students to complete at the center after they observe the items there: 

Ok- are you still with me? Next you will want to decide which activities, interactive notebooks, craftivities, experiments, shared reading, interactive writing, story templates, etc... that you will be having your students engaged in. I'll give you a couple of examples of some activities: 

Reader's Workshop Mini-Lesson: Review Sequencing: BME and Text Connections
My students make craftivities of The Legend of The Indian Paintbrush and Legend of the Bluebonnet during their independent reading time. Click here for The Legend of the Bluebonnet. 

Click here for The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. 

Writer's Workshop Mini-Lesson: Procedural Texts
How to Be a Cowboy/Cowgirl

My students write a procedural story about how to be a cowboy/cowgirl and then we watercolor a sunset with silhouettes of a windmill and cowboys. 

How to Make Chili: 

We make chili in the crock pot and then we write about the procedure: 

                       Click here for How to Make Chili Craftivity.

                       Math Workshop: 120th Day Celebration 

We have our students dress up like cowboys/cowgirls and we have stations around our neighborhood with 120/Texas games and activities. Here is the 120 Ten Frame Counting activity we use. The students created a trail mix and counted out 10 of each snack. We had goldfish, raisins, pretzel sticks, chocolate chips, gummy bears, marshmallows... it was so much fun! 

Click here for 120th Day Templates. 

Social Studies: Texas Maps and Regions, Texas Symbols, and The Alamo. Here are some vocabulary cards that I use: 

We made an Alamo using beans and wrote a story about it: 

We also made a Texas Map with the Cities and Rivers: 

We also make a Texas Symbol Book with a cover page, table of contents, each state symbol, author page, may favorite symbol and a glossary. 

Science Experiment: What happens when oil and water mix? We learn about how one of the Texas natural resources is oil and how oil is used in our everyday life. We talk about Spindle Top and how it was the first famous oil rig in Texas. Then we mix oil and water and predict what will happen. Here is an interactive notebook template that my students do: 

Then, we end our thematic unit by visiting the Alamo on a Saturday field trip! We have a picnic lunch on the grass and go shopping at the gift shop! So fun! 

I hope that I helped give you some ideas about how to plan for a thematic unit. It can be done if you carefully plan. And, the best part is... you'll have it for next year! And, your students will learn so much and make so many great connections! 
If you're interested in check out my Texas Thematic Unit, click here . Hope ya'll have a great time! Please comment down below if you have any questions. Happy Teaching! :) 

Love,
Kara 

                  Literature Circles: How To Organize Them 

I LOVE teaching reading through Literature Circles. It allows me to have an extra group of high readers self managing themselves and using reading strategies to become independent thinkers. It does take a lot of work for me on the fore front with teaching and modeling, but it is well worth it. Many teachers I've talked to are afraid to try Literature Circles. They are afraid of messing them up or not teaching them the right way. Well, I have to admit, I was too at first, but with practice I got better about my expectations and therefore my groups were getting more self managed and independent. This then allowed me to focus more time and energy on my low readers during guided reading while my Literature Circle was meeting. Here is a picture of my group I had last year. They met on the carpet in a circle, still visible to me as I was sitting at my horseshoe table with my other guided reading groups.

Here are some questions that other teachers have asked me: 
"How do you organize this?" 
"How do I get them started?" 
"What reading levels do the students need to be at for this?" 
"What books do I use?" 

I usually start my first graders in Literature circles in January. At this time of year, they are more independent and self managed readers that can easily carry out their job roles with no problem. 
Each student has a red folder. Inside their folder is the chapter book, job role calendar, journal and job description page. 
I sit with them for about 6 times before they are able to carry this task out on their own. I have them sit at my horseshoe table first so we can practice what it looks like and sounds like. 

Starting in January 

Starting in January

I prefer the students to be at least a level J or higher to be in my Literature Circle. I like to have them read Magic Tree House books, but you can use anything that you think you're students might be interested in as long as it's not too hard or too complicated to comprehend. My students LOVE the Magic Tree House books, because I read them all year long. So, when I tell my Literature Circle that they are now reading Magic Tree House books by themselves... they are super excited about reading! I just love that! 

Each student has a job role description page and a calendar that they refer to so they know which job role that they are for the day. I have six different rotations of jobs:

Here they can refer back to the job description page if ever they are confused about their job. Of course, I model each job for them so they know what to do, but just in case... I've found this is helpful to have in their folder. 

Here is the job calendar that the students have in their folder too:

You could have your groups meet two days or three days a week, I usually have mine meet two days a week on Tuesday/Thursday.
I want the students to each read one page a day. This way they are not taking so long to read a whole chapter. Each student is responsible for reading their own page and responding in their journal in the back of their folder. So, whatever job they have for the day, that is how they will organize their information to share with the group. When everyone is finished responding, then they each take turns to share their journal and this is where the discussion about the story can really take off. It's so rewarding to hear the vocabulary, inferencing, predicting, and talking about the story and they LOVE it!  Here is my template that I use for their responses:

Whoever the Discussion Director is for the day is my helper. They are in charge of keeping the group on task and not talking off subject. They LOVE this job and it makes them feel so proud! 

I hope you got some good ideas for how to set up your Literature Circle in your classroom. If first graders can do it, I just know that the older students will REALLY do a great job with it. I know that if you try it, you'll really love the outcome and then it frees up your extra time to work with your low readers too.
If you are interested in seeing more of my Literature Circle packet, click  here. 

Happy Reading! 

Love, Kara