Dollar Tree, Literacy Tubs, and TEXAS

 Made a trip to Dollar Tree the Best Teacher Store in the world!  I found these great tongs that I can use in my literacy tubs or math stations!  They can be used to pick things up so that the children are using those pincher muscles and well as their brains!  If they go across the mid line of their body, it is even better!!!

 These will be great in my treasure box.  We are about to study insects and even the girls will like these!

 I got batteries for my bell and my lights that I thought I MUST have way back in August but never got batteries for...until this weekend!

Dust is EVERYWHERE and I know this will help.  The kids love to "help" me dust.  I am going to see how strong the magnets really are by loading them up with posters, papers and whatever else I need hung up!

 These literacy tubs were made by Miss Alkire.  This is one where the child will choose a sight word and then find the letters to make the word.  It is also practice finding the letters and putting them back in the correct slot!

 This tub has lots of stencils to trace so the child can get those writing muscles strong.  They trace as many as will fit on the paper front and back and write the label of each picture.  It is hard to see how well they did on this but they did a good job.

 This is a tub where the child has to sort the cards by the beginning sound and then record the word on a paper in the right catagory.

This is a tub that has rhyming bingo cards and there is also a set of rhyming puzzles.  We decided to use lots of rhyming practice these last two six weeks of school.

 We are going to do a Texas unit for only one week so it will be condensed into mostly facts.  This is a great book with lots of Texas information in it.

We recorded some of the Texas landforms and things that pertain to each part of Texas.  We also talked about how proud Texans were to live here.  I thought they did an awesome job copying this information.  We made a Texas flag today but I sent them home before I got a picture.

policeman and doctor

This is the policeman we made using the tree map.  I am hoping they will be able to begin writing a sentence without help now and then on to paragraphs, reports, short stories, and novels!!  Oh, the dreams I have!

 This is the doctor bag each child created.  This one seems to be missing the q-tip and the tongue depressor! 

And this is the page with the paragraph about a doctor.  I discovered how to make the tree map on the promethean board!  I didn't get a picture this time. :(

 The letter of the week is H and we read this book.  It was so funny about a little boy who got mixed up on his dates and wore crazy hair a week early.  The real problem was that it was picture day!!

 We made our own crazy hair and it really was crazy.  Especially when it was time to go home in 30 mile an hour wind gusts!!

 My wonderful sub, Katy, made this adorable thinking chart about what goes on a hamburger.

 The kids filled out their own order form and then made a burger on a fancy plate!

This is a syllable sort with kid spelling.  They actually spelled the first two words right!  I wanted to sing out loud!!  I love the kid writing on the other words though. It shows they are using their strategies to sound out words.

 One of our sight words this week was No so of course we had to read No, David. 

 We brainstormed about when our moms told us no and this is what we could remember.  It seems most of my moms don't say no!!

We made a class book and the kids did an awesome job of drawing pictures of things that they might be told no to.

Construction Workers and new literacy tubs

 This is the tree map on our construction workers.  We brainstormed ideas and then they copied me as I wrote their ideas.

We used the tree map to create a 4 sentence paragraph about construction workers and then added that to our construction man.  Girls can be construction workers too!

 This is one of the new literacy tubs for this week.  I was so excited to see them do so well.  There are six children at each table and everyone at this table did a great job of creating the CVC words.  They did not want to share the letters to make other words so we have to work on that!

 This one was a great idea but very hard to implement.  The kids had to choose one word with a capital and one word with a period and one word with a picture and no period!  And then one more word!  Whew!  Even the instructions were hard!  I will probably have to sit at this table to help them create a sentence and then write it and illustrate it.

 This tub was matching pictures to a letter card that had the same beginning sound.

This tub matched upper case and lower case because yes after 116 days of school, I still have some children who do not know their letters!

Math Stations BUILD

 I have 10 tubs for BUILD and one extra place on the computer because I have 22 kiddos!  Tub One is books about math.  I try to put a collection of new books in this tub when I change it out each 2 weeks.

 Using manipulatives in tub 2 is a game where the kids roll 3 dice and add all the dots together.  They cover the candy with that number on it.

 Independent work in tub 3 is a worksheet where the children count how many items there are in each ten frame and match the numeral.  It is a cut and glue activity.

 Learning and using numbers is fun.  I found a 20 sided die!  The kids roll the die and put a frog eraser on that number until all the numbers are covered.

 Doing math is a tub where the kids match the links by color and then create a line with 10 links.

This tub goes along with the unit of valentines and all the books we read.  They roll the die count out that many valentine people.  They take turns and when all the people are gone they count to see who has the most people.

 This is just a tic tac toe game using bugs and frogs.

 This is a roll the dice and create a tulip or a chick.  It is like cootie bugs.

 This is a game from Kim Adsit where a die is rolled and each child moves one way and then the other way until one child gets all the way to the end.

The child picks a domino and writes the number of dots on each side.  They add the dots together and write the number on the ladybug.

This is the computer station for that extra group!!

Letter E and literacy tubs

 We read every Elmer the Elephant book our library had.  We made an elephant with our handprint and added the details today.  They did a great job on the background of coloring top to bottom and side-to-side.

 Literacy tubs this week included a game called melt the snowman.  One child called a sight word and the other children had to slap their hand on the snowman first.  The card was then turned over because the snowman was melted.

 This tub had small white boards and markers which they love to use.  I had picture cards that had the word on the back.  The child was supposed to try to write the word using the strategies we learned and then turn the card over to check the answer.  This is mud just in case you can't tell!

 This tub had two sets of puzzles.  One set was wooden pieces and each word had 3 parts.  The picture below is the other set in the tub and it was 3 cards.

This set is a game from teacherspayteachers.  The card says AAlbanese.  It might have been one of the free downloads.  Sorry I don't remember!  There are 4 letters and 16 cards.  The kids had to sort the cards by the beginning sound and then write the CVC words on a tree map.  It was very easy for some and not so easy for others.  It depended on if the child knew the letter sounds!

Community Helpers

 We read lots of books about firemen.  This one was really cute and it had a CD that read it!  I got it from Scholastic.  There is also a short clip on United Streaming about firefighters.

 We made a tree map together about what we learned about firefighters.

We used those facts to create a paragraph about firemen!  There are 4 sentences.  We voted on which facts to include then I wrote the sentences.  The kids copied me on their papers.  I am excited about how well they turned out.  It is my hope that by the end of the year, this will be an independent activity!