Guided Reading Time

Do you do guided Reading in your classroom? I absolutely love guided reading! During this time, I love listening to my students read the text and answer the questions on their own!

Normally I use materials that I find, borrow or make but Carson Dellosa has made an amazing new product that makes guided reading more manageable and interesting! 

Click here for a link! 

This book has 6 different stories! There are 6 copies of each story and they are also leveled according to their Lexie level! There are 2 of each level: level 1 lexile level of 380 and 470, level 2 lexile level of 480 and 500 and level 3 lexile level 480 and 520. These stories are all laminated for durability!

These stories are so interesting that the kids just love reading them over and over! What is another great feature of this set is the discussion guides! There is a laminated discussion guide for each book. These questions are higher order thinking! 

The guided reading model allows them to make predictions, create questions, write their opinions and write downany new vocabulary! This is an awesome sheet to have during the lesson! It makes your kids accountable as well as help them dig deep into the text!

I love the making connections sheet as well. This gives them a graphic organizer to help make text to self and text to text connections! A great resource for your group! 

For the management and progress monitoring of your group, there is a guided reading observation sheet! This allows you to keep track of where your children are during each stage of reading (before, during and after) this provides so much valuable information and it is right at your finger tips!

You can either purchase this book in a hard copy or in eprint! This is a great option especially for those classrooms who are or are going to go paperless! Click here for the link to purchase!

Guided Reading is such an important time of day! This book provides us with the materials we need to have a successful small group experience! It is also a great resource for those who have to do RTI. You can use these stories and discussion guides with your higher level students!

I am a brand ambassador and this post contains my opinions! I have not been paid for my post or for the opinions I have provided. I received the materials and provided honest feedback! 

Setting the Stage with Oriental Trading

It is that time of year when our kids are so excited about going out trick or treating! When we have little activities in our classroom for Halloween. We dress up on special days and have parades! 

But it is also that time of year when many of us can not do that because Halloween is not allowed to be celebrated in our classrooms, Does that mean we can not give our kids these experiences? Absolutely not! 

We can still have storybook character days and allow our kids to dress up as their favorite storybook character. We can still have specials days to engage our kids and we can do fall activities instead of Halloween! 

The one place that you can go to get amazing costumes for storybook character day or for that special day that you want to  your kids is Oriental Trading! 

I can not do Halloween in my classroom but I decided to do Madhatter Day instead! 

Here is what I got for my day and the quality was amazing! 

My kids got to dress up as a mad hatter to get their pictures taken! This costume was true to size and so detailed! It was awesome!

I also got a hat for me !!! This certainly helped set the stage to engage my kids! But they sell so many different hats and costumes that you can do this throughout the year not just during the fall! 

Click here for a link

They also have accessories for your outfits! There was a Harry Potter Festival and thanks to Oriental Trading , we got to add an amazing lightning bolt tattoo to my daughters head to make her a little bit more realistic ! 

Whenever you need an outfit to set the stage to engage in your classroom, go trick or treating, celebrate a special day or for a festival or other event go check out Oriental Trading!!!!! You definitely will not be disappointed!

The opinions expressed in this post are my own! I have received merchandise from Oriental Trading but I was not paid for my opinions or for this post! 

We are all Mad in First Grade!

Friday, October 6 is National Madhatter Day! How many of you knew that?

I love doing classroom flips! I love to #setthestagetoengage my students! So when I saw this day on the calendar, I knew this was for my kids!!! 

Of course, who had what I needed to make this day a success??! Oriental Trading and Learn365!!!

So the thinking and hunting began! First how do I turn my classroom into a madhatter tea party because I didn't want to focus on Alice in Wonderland. The focus had to be the Mad Hatter! So of course, I first go to Amazon to find a book! 

Here is what I found! 

Then off to Oriental Trading and Learn365 I went! I wanted table cloths and tea cups and hats! I had exactly what I wanted pictured in my mind! 

They had it all!!! First I had to get a mad hatter hat for myself!

Don't you love the mad hatter costume that they also had for my kiddos!!!! 

Here it is again!

Then I searched for room decor!! Look at what they had!

These are giant tea cups that are attached to each other with fishing line. They are very long so I cut them in half and made two sets of cups to hang from my ceiling!!!

The green plastic table cloth comes on a roll so you just cut to fit to your tables! Very sturdy and I love the color of the green! The centerpieces are a sturdy styrofoam and they are easy to put together! I love how it has the colors, tea cups and tea pots and the mad hatter hat!!!

Aren't these hats adorable! They are so sturdy and they are the perfect addition for the mad hatter day! Oriental Trading has so many fun things to add to your units!!! 

I thought the candy pencils would add a little whimsy and then when I added the madhatter created by the amazing melonheadz, well it was just too adorbs!!!

I made water bottle labels and found these straws at party city!

Each child's area looked like this when they came in to class!

I found some other cute additions at Party City as well!

Door hanging tea cups and a centerpiece! The mad hatter doll is a Barbie I found on clearance at Toys R Us!!

I also got the background from party city and the giant tea cups from oriental Trading for my photo booth!!! The rabbit and other items were given to me from a friend who didn't want them anymore!

We read the book, talked about it, described the mad hatter, made mad hatters and subtracted with the mad hatter! 

Here is a collage of our room!

We got tea cups from the Dollar Tree and they decorated them with sharpies! We then tied a drink me tag to their handle and they brought them home!!!!

This was a very busy yet fun day! We learned all of our skills and expectations and had fun doing it! Once again Oriental Trading and Learn365 had exactly what I needed to make this experience a success!!!

Please tap the mad hatter below to go to my tpt store to get my mad hatter mini unit so you can do this in your class!

Here is a picture of all of us Mad firsties!

Oriental Trading and Learn365 did not pay me for my opinions! I was given the products in return for my own honest thoughts and opinions, my opinions are my own and are not influenced by Oriental Trading in any way!

Subtraction with Pete the Cat

Subtraction is always such a difficult concept to teach my firsties. They seem to just be getting addition and then wham we hit them with subtraction. To some, subtraction is mind blowing!!

Kids at this age need multimodality activities and lots of practice to understand many of the concepts we are trying to teach them. I have found that with subtraction just reviewing and having them physically put things on and take things away ingrain into them what subtraction is. 

I am also a firm believer that children's literature is needed to introduce many of the skills we teach throughout the day. 

When I teach subtraction, I always introduce it using the book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons! I mean who doesn't love the books written by Eric  Litwin! 

After we listen to the story and we do a number talk, then we dive into subtracting. I made a Pete the Cat for each of them and they get a small container of buttons! This is where the fun begins! They go back to their seats and we just practice doing subtraction problems with our Pete the Cats!

If you notice there are no worksheets present. J do not believe in giving them worksheets when I am just introducing the topic. We are focusing on what is subtraction and how does subtraction look! They are acting it out and we are talking as they add buttons and take them away! They are practicing writing subtraction sentences on their desk next to their Pete the Cat and we are talking about the sentences they are writing as focusing on the difference! And yes, I make them use the vocabulary!