A Few Things I'm Loving Right Now!

Mystery Words: New Word Work Center

I recently stumbled upon a post from Cara Carroll of the First Grade Parade from 2010 for a great word work center! Click the link to view her blog and get a copy of her free printable!! I love her ideas!! I re-created the labels so that I would be able to create more bags.

I put seven consonant and two vowel magnets into each mystery bag! Students dump out the letters and make as many words at they can with the mystery letters. If students got to a point where they could not find any more words, I had them write sentences with their words on the back of their paper.

 

They LOVED it!! This little sweetheart spent the whole 20 minutes of our Daily 5 round finding words and didn't want to clean up when the round was over! Thank you to one of my favorite bloggers for this great idea!

Our Martin Luther King Jr. inspired bulletin board:

With Martin Luther King Jr Day a few weeks ago, my students and I had some great conversations about equality and racism. For a lot of my little firsties, this was their first experience discussing the civil rights movement and there were many questions and thoughtful comments! We read a few books that I would highly recommend. The illustrations are vibrant and the text is rhythmic and inspiring (even for a young reader). There were many words that I had to explain, but that opened up great conversations. Here are my favs...

After reading these texts and discussing civil rights, students wrote about a dream that they have for our world. Here's a copy of our writing paper. I thought that I would have to really help kids this about THE WORLD AROUND THEM as opposed to THEMSELVES. I expected many kids to say things like "I have a dream that I will get to play my wii," etc, but my students' dreams and visions for the world inspired me!

Students traced their hand in two different colors to add to their writing.

Amen to that!

Happily Awaiting our DR. SEUSS PAJAMA DAY!

Each student has a 20 time slot each week to use our classroom computers for our "Listen to Reading" center. For the next few weeks, students will get to play Dr. Seuss themed games on Seussville.com! They love it!

In preparation for our Dr. Seuss Pajama Day Extravaganza, I put together this packet of Dr. Seuss activities for students to do as they lounge around the classroom in their pajamas, enjoying their favorite Dr. Seuss books! Click the link for a free copy! Can't wait for our Dr. Seuss Day!