Five For Friday- It's May!

Happy Friday!  I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! Thank you for always hosting this, Kacey. I love it.

I had such a wonderful time meeting and learning from Dr. Jean this past week.  She put on the best Professional Development workshop for our district on Friday afternoon.  There was just a JOY in the room that hasn't been there at other PD workshops.  It was fantastic.  I posted about it HERE!

(My sweet teaching buddies and me with Dr. Jean in Tooty Ta mode!) 

                                   
Friday night I was lucky enough to get to go to  dinner with her and three other friends.  We had such a great time. I, of course, have no pictures because I didn't want to be so annoying, star-struck, needy, rude- you pick. But I will never forget it.  It's like the olden days when we had memories in our heads and not on the phone.

 On Saturday, she put on such a fun concert for our Kids' Book Fest, took pictures with the kids, and signed their books.
                                      

I love the faces!

If you haven't had a chance to see her or go to a conference she puts on, GO! You will just be a better teacher- because she makes you feel like what we are doing- singing, finger plays, dancing, telling stories, AGE APPROPRIATE activities- are the right things.  The children are not only learning all the while, but they are making memories while they learn.  AND she will take one song and magically give you ten different extension activities that you can do with it.  On her website she has so many freebies that are SO wonderful!  Check out her Cheer Cards if you don't have them.  Here are a couple of  our favorites this week:

And OF COURSE the Firecracker Cheer!
                               
I had used some of her cheers, but somehow some of them escaped me! Not anymore- we are cheering up a storm!

Next is... GO NOODLE!  I posted about my love for it HERE.  It's a FREE brain break site that offers calming, energizing, and focusing brain breaks. They include Olympic Track and Field events, Youtube video dances, sing-a-long songs, Zumba, yoga, calming activities, plus more.   
                                  

Your class chooses a Class Champ Mascot, and each time you complete 15 minutes of brain breaks, he goes into a transformer machine and grows.  It is magical.  

                                      
The children try so hard to do their best, concentrate, run fast, or sing along- because I may have told them that they think they may earn more points if they all participate and do their best.  Magical.  

They are twisting to warm up for the long jump!

Here is one little movement Youtube video that my kids love.  I complimented one little guy on his very fast feet, and all of a sudden I had 34 VERY FAST FEET dancing away.  Magical.  

Cleaning up to Happy-  Magical.

Sometimes this time of year, you need a little magic!

                                                             

I wrote a post about practicing recognizing and writing sentences, AND using periods correctly. We had lots of fun, learned a lot, and only ate 6 mini m&m's in the process. Not too bad!

Angela, from The Cornerstone shared such a great tip, that I can't stop thinking about it.  If a child answers with, "I don't know," she said that one simple phrase can get a child talking.  You just say, "If you did know, what would you say?"  This takes the pressure off of the child, and let's him/her answer without worrying about being right or wrong.  I loved it!  She also give some other possible responses.
I just want to remember that tip! And I also want to remember that it's OK not to know sometimes, and I just have to say, "Well, you don't know YET.  Let's find out!"  There may be a thing or two I don't know, so it's even good for adults.

My fifth one is just a sweet moment.  This morning after morning work, these little guys finished up, got a book, and decided to go into housekeeping for a quiet spot to read together.

I wish some day, when they were all retired guys meeting for coffee at a diner, I could send this to them and say, "Remember when!"  (My one little guy wouldn't even stop reading for the picture. It must have been a great book!)  This picture also made me smile and take a moment to think how FAR everyone has come this year. Sometimes we get so busy trying to get them to learn more and more, we forget to enjoy that part.

Have a wonderful weekend! Happy Friday!

Sentences!

Doesn't it do you so much good to  look back and think about how far your students have come about this time of year?  I remember in the beginning of the year always thinking, "I would give just about ANYTHING for some 'I like________.' sentences. I will NEVER again complain about those sentences if my kids will just write one of them!"  

And then, somehow, day by day, lesson by lesson, those little darlings start writing real, live sentences, sharing their thoughts and ideas, experimenting with words and punctuation, and moving beyond those "I like..." sentences.  

My class now, is needing  a little help remembering when to use a period or punctuation mark.  They use them all the time. It's just that sometimes they are after every. single. word. 

                                     

And sometimes, they are just at the end of a line of writing, whether or not the sentence ends there or not.  

                                    

To start our little sentence recognition lesson, I wrote some sentences on a chart, without any punctuation.  I showed the children some of the different ways I have seen them experiment with periods.  I explained that I LOVED seeing those periods and loved that they were using them. 

But now, they were ready to learn exactly where to use them correctly.  We read this chart together and noticed where we naturally stopped, because it was the end of a complete thought.  We reread the chart and really paid attention to where we stopped.  I reminded the children that we had learned that a period means STOP.  That pause where we stopped when we were reading is exactly where the period should go.  It may be in the middle of a line, or even after one word in a line. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that a period goes at the end of a whole thought that says something.  I had different students come up and put a red magnet circle at the end of each sentence.

I always have the children answer questions and speak during show and tell in complete sentences. Every day they tell me, "The author writes the words." "The illustrator draws the pictures."  We review how they do this- and how they never just say, "Writes words."  They know that a sentences tells someone something in a complete thought. 



After we practice with our chart, I tell the children that I am going to read some groups of words to them.  IF it is a complete sentence that needs a period at the end, they need to push their hand out in front of them and SCREEEEECH (like a car screeching to a STOP!) so I know to stop. They LOVE this. Love. If it is just a group of words and NOT a complete sentence, they stay completely quiet.  You can also do a thumbs up for sentences, thumbs down if it is not a sentence- but it isn't quite as much fun.

I read several groups of words like:

I like to play

I like to

I like to play with

I like to play with my friends

We can go to the

We can go to the park

It is my new

My teacher is

My teacher is nice

Broccoli is

Broccoli is green



After all this practice hearing when to  use a period, it was time to show me their stuff, with a delicious little assessment.  The children each got six mini m&m's in a little cup.  I told them that the mini m&m's were perfect because periods are just miniature.  I showed them how a period is NOT a colored in letter "o" (which I see sometimes), and it is not a practically invisible pencil mark. Even learning to write a period correctly is a skill!

The first job each child had was to decide their favorite color mini m&m and eat it for "Period Power."  I only needed five periods on the paper I made.  The m&m's were now going to be periods.

I gave each child a paper like this: 

If you would like a copy, just click on the picture.  It's simple, but it's already made, so why not! 

Next, they had to read the paper themselves and put an m&m where a period would go, at the end of a sentence.

                                     

As they ate the "periods," they substituted a pencil period for the m&m on their paper. 

Later in the day, the children practiced making sentences and using a period at the end of a sentence with this game.  I have several of the links to different games on my Primary Writing Prezi, so I just click on one for us to use when I have a few minutes throughout the day.  This game is called Simple Sentences.

Have fun writing!  Thanks for stopping by!

Letter-Word-Sentence Lesson

We had lots of fun learning about letters, words, and sentences. This is a good time of year for these lessons, because some of the children are really ready to be writing sentences in their stories.  I am always  having them answer questions in complete sentences, too- so we have that L.K.1f CCSS all set here!  Oh boy...

I teach the class that (with hand motions) a letter (hands close together and small) is a symbol that stands for a sound. I put a "c" on the board.  A word (hands a little bigger) is a group of letters put together to mean something. I put "cat" on the board with a beanie baby cat beside it. A sentence (hands wide apart) is a group of words put together that mean something.  I put the sentence, "The cat is here," on the board with the cat beside it.

The students teach this to each other using hand motions.

The first day, we read The Alphabet Tree by Leo Leonni. 

This is a great story to reinforce letter/word/sentence.  I like how the letter bug tells the letters they will be stronger as a word, and then the caterpillar comes along and tells the words that they will be stronger as a sentence. It is a great representation, even with size.

We talk about how a sentence isn't just a group of ANY words, but that it has to mean something.   I have some kids who, bless their hearts, are trying to write words in their story, but will write four random sight words.  This visual helps them to understand that the words have to go together and mean something.  I show my own caterpillars, and we talk about which one is a sentence and which one is just a group of words.

We also talk about how our sentence needs to match our illustrations.  I show them some examples that they like... (Don't judge the artwork... please...)

The wonderful "I Can" statements are from Erin Dowling's TPT store. I got all of her "I Can" statements, because I just love them.

I made a Letter/Word/Sentence chart.  We talked about each, and then I drew a name and had that child come  to the front and choose a letter to glue on, then another child to glue on a word, and finally a child to glue on the  sentence.

At Center Time, the children each made their own Letter/Word/Sentence chart so I could see if they understood the concepts.  I just put a bunch of letters, words, and sentences on the table, and each child had to choose two of each to put onto their own chart.

The next day,  we read Max's Words, by Kate Banks.

I always have the children tell me in a complete sentence what the author's job and illustrator's job are.  "The author writes the words. The illustrator draws the pictures."  I explain to them that a complete sentence  gives the listener so much more information than if I just said, "writes words." 

In this story, Max's brothers both collect something, and Max wants to have his own collection.  Max decides to collect words.  After we read the story, I tell them that they have their very own collection of words in their head!  All the time!  They can create any story they want with that wonderful collection.

I put some magnetic letters on the board. (The magnetic letters were under the chart- and when I flipped the chart over, the kids all gasped.  When THAT is magical, you know you have the best job!)

 I have different students come up to make the words "can," "go," and "in."  As they make the words on the board, I have the other children think how to spell the word, and then spell it out loud.

 I choose another student to make the sentence, "I can go in." We praise the meatball spaces between words to make the sentence easy to read. 

I change it around to so we can use that question mark...

Then comes the exclamation point.  They LOVE reading with expression to match the punctuation marks.  I am training them well. They love punctuation marks already.  

We say our Punctuation Poem.  The kids love this poem, and just randomly say it all day. I sort of completely love that!

We read through our Sight Words, just as a reminder that those are great words that we know how to spell, to include in our stories.  Other big words are great to use, too, and we can write the sounds we can hear in those which is wonderful.  

Throughout the day, we do lots of activities from my Primary Writing Prezi on the Smartboard.  The children LOVE the Smartboard games. I have been reinforcing sentences with the Writing Sentences games.

I share a few of the students' stories who have used sentences , to reinforce what it should look like.  Here are a couple of my favorites so far- not because they are the "best" ones- but because these children have come SO far!  This first little boy wasn't writing ANYTHING at all- and was only grabbing one crayon to scribble a quick picture.  Here is his story all about his dad shooting a deer. 

 He even heard the "sh" "oo" and "t" all. by. himself! 

 Look at that deer hanging up in his garage- and the "camo" on all the boys looking at the deer.  He even made dad bigger- and gave them some hair. That was huge for him!

(He also wrote "he cut it up"- I know it's there...  :)  

This one was just too sweet/sad.  Her kitten died.  :( 

Hopefully we can keep up the good work using real, live sentences in stories.  They all have the best intentions. It is just what happens between the intention, the ideas, and the actual writing down on paper that doesn't work out as well as planned sometimes.  But it gets better every day most days!  (OK- not EVERY day-  some days it seems like landslide backwards and I think- WHAT?! ) 


Thank you for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day!