Behavior Plan

This year we have started a school-wide behavior plan.  Each teacher has this poster in their classroom (I added the positive parts to my classroom poster)

This system seems to be working FABULOUSLY.  Each time the child makes a good choice they move their clip up.  Each time they need to be reminded of the rules they move their clip down.  At the end of each day the students colors their behavior on this log and they write a word to describe their day.  This allows the parents to see how their child’s day was each day.

I Can DRAW

This year I have noticed my students really need practice drawing.  I found this Follow the Directions and Draw It All by Yourself book. 

Each week I pick an animal from this book, then I find a book that will teach the students about that animal.   Next, I use the book to help me draw animals.  This model how to draw the animal.  We then create a Story Map of details from the book.  My students use this map during writing to help them recall the facts from the story.

Word Families

For the last several weeks we have been learning all about word families.

We have been reading:

My students love these books.  After reading we guess the missing words for the Fill in the Blank sentences in the back.  As the students guess I record their answers and make a word family poster.  Then we display the posters in the phonics station.

We have also been singing some word family songs:

My students LOVE these songs!!

Each day in the phonics station my students practice these new word families.

We have sorted words into the correct word family:

I have also created my own words and had the students cut them out and glue them on construction paper.

Build words with bottles caps:

Used word family slides and wheels to make words and then recorded our work:

I use black and white slides and wheels that I have colored and created but I found this book of wheels that are already in color and ready to go!

Classroom Tour

Birthday Board

Center Rotation

Each year I group the students by ability and then create four heterogeneous groups.  By grouping my students heterogeneously they are able to work together to complete center work.  Since my classroom has a fish theme each group is named after an ocean animal.

Chores

In my classroom everyone does their part to take care of the classroom.  Each child has a chore. Everyday I move the names down one and put the bottom one on top.  The students get excited to see their new chore each day!

Word Wall

Each week we add words from our stories to our word wall!

Mini File Folder Word Wall

To help make my word wall more user friendly I created mini wall walls!!  Inside each folder is a list of all the words, beginning with that letter, we will learn during the school year.

Center Work Display - "FINtastic" Work

Classroom Library

I store all my books in baskets so the students are able to see the front over of the books.  I also group books but subject or author to help students find books they are interested in reading!  It also helps them put the books back! :)

Classroom Objectives

If you work at a school like me we have to display our objectives daily.  I got the idea to post them in a pocket chart so they can easily be updated.  I store the objective sentence strips in a closet on a ring by subject so they can be used again!

Pencil Baskets! 

Each student has a pencil basket that stores their crayons, pencil, glue stick, scissors, spaceman, and stickerbook.