Let’s start with the charts I made for the week we were practicing Retelling using familiar stories.  We started by introducing the 5-Finger Retelling chart and using the elements of a story to help us retell all the important parts of a story.  This chart was based on several charts and ideas found on Pinterest, particularly one from First Grade W.O.W. and one from The Techy Teacher.  We had the idea to use a hand as a strategy to track whether they had included all the important elements in order. During the week, we used the chart to help us retell familiar stories together as well as in their Reading Response journals.

On the first day, we discussed the elements of James Marshall’s Red Riding Hood and worked together to write a summary of the story.  We then paired up and practiced retelling the story to a partner using the 5-Finger Retelling strategy to help.  Students completed a story map in their journals of the characters, setting, problem and solution.

The rest of the week, we read together, practiced retelling to a partner or as a group and then completed the story map on the chart.  Students then wrote their own summaries for Reading Response using the 5-Finger Retelling strategy.

Books We Used:

Red Riding Hood by James Marshall

The Three Little Wolves and the Big, Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas

The Tortoise and the Jackrabbit by Susan Lowell

The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell

Corduroy by Don Freeman

Moving on to other charts!!  I also like to use charts to help us remember skills we’ve learned in Word Work or Writing.  Some of my favorites have been the Alliteration Chart, based on the amazing chart from The First Grade Parade!!  I added a few extra tongue twisters the kids particularly liked but it very close to hers!  It was just too cute not to borrow!

One of my other favorites is our Treasure Map of “ar” words!  The kids had so much fun adding words to the chart! I got the idea from this pin from The Inspired Apple. The purple words were the kids spelling words for the week.  During the week, the kids came up with other words to add and we wrote those in green!

These are just a few of the many charts we’ve made this year, but it gives you an idea.  Sorry the pictures aren’t great, my camera is MIA at the moment and my phone is just ok.  Hopefully I can search the house during our Beginning of Summer Purge next week!!  For those of you not finished teaching yet, have a great week!  And for those of you at home, enjoy an extra cup of coffee and an extra 30 minutes of sleep for me!!

Can’t wait! -T

Before school starts, I’ll have a 6-week Summer Art Camp, along with a Math Interactive Journal class.

So, in order to have everything ready by the time school begins, I’ve started putting my room together.  Here’s the first of many:

For my Creative Writing class – or for anyone that needs to know this.

I saw this on Pinterest, and decided to make my own version of it.  I love it!

Any skills or strategies you teach you students should be captured in an anchor chart.  This chart should include the content, processes, cues, and guidelines for the specific learning process you are teaching.  These charts should be co-created with you and the students and include examples and ideas designed with the students.

Immediately post the anchor chart in the classroom, and refer to it as often as possible.  This will make the prior learning accessible to students and they will allow them to make connections to new learning.  Model the practice of looking for anchor charts when the skill or strategy come up during instruction.

Immediately post the anchor chart in the classroom, and refer to it as often as possible.  This will make the prior learning accessible to students and they will allow them to make connections to new learning.  Model the practice of looking for anchor charts when the skill or strategy come up during instruction.

You may also want to differentiate your anchor charts, and make paper copies for students to keep in an Anchor Chart Notebook.  This way, students will have access to charts according to their needs which makes it more meaningful.

Students can also create anchor charts in small groups or independently that can be shared with the rest of the class.

Another way to keep the charts alive and relevant  is to have students add examples or additions to previously created anchor charts using post-it notes.

Check out TONS of examples of anchor charts on Pinterest…

You can also click on My Pinterest Boards in the menu above to see my Anchor Learning board!

ANCHOR…DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER!!

J.

Actually, I’d like to take a step back and talk about those old school blackboards. Say what you will, but I liked having them– the biggest reason being.. they are magnetic! It was so easy to keep the anchor charts up with magnets and move them around if I needed space to write something. After I moved schools (and countries), I was really bummed when I found out my whiteboard wasn’t magnetic! I had to tape everything… and what a pain that was! So I had to think of other ways to create and hang the anchor charts. My old way wasn’t working and I quickly found myself not wanting to create anchor charts because it was such a pain hanging and moving them. [Shame on me!] My solution was to create the anchor charts on my laptop! I’d connect my laptop to the projector and show the charts that way. Afterwards, I printed the chart and kept those up around the classroom. The charts aren’t as big but that’s okay. Once we moved into a new unit, the anchor charts were moved into a binder and students were able to look through the binder if they needed reminders of anything.

So back to the grade one teacher… She was looking for adjective activities and I share those with her. Since I already created an adjectives anchor chart, I decided to create one for verbs and nouns.

Minecraft Main Idea Anchor Chart FTW!

The Angry Birds Cause & Effect Anchor Chart  seemed to be a big hit, so I decided to make another ‘pop culture’ one for my class.  All the kids are raving about “Minecraft,” including my son.  It’s a building game, and the goal is to mine different elements and build stuff up, but beware the monsters, for they’ll tear down your structure!

Anyway, what better way to get a Main Idea (idea) across but to use Minecraft?  I was even clever enough to put some puns in there, like “craft,” “pick,” “rock,” “dig,” and “build.”

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find all the parts I used to make this anchor chart.  Unlike the Angry Birds chart, I had to do a LOT of digging for the right graphics.  Hopefully, this will save you some time.

Minecraft Main Idea Anchor Chart!  For The Win!

Schooled in Love Minecraft Anchor Chart Parts

How is your Australia Day long weekend going? Hopefully you are nowhere near the Victorian fires or the Queensland floods, love and prayers to everyone that are battling the extremes xx

After not doing any school work on the 26th, I had a dress fitting for my beautiful friends’ wedding in March in the morning and then I told myself I had to read a non-educational book before I did any more work for school.  It took me most of the afternoon but I did read David Hewson’s ‘The Garden of Evil’, it wasn’t a terribly difficult or thought-provoking read but provided enough factual information about medieval Roman society to keep my attention.

Anyway, this is not supposed to be a book review blog so back to the classroom displays Today was an enormously productive day as I have created and completed all tasks I set for myself, I even had time to water the vege garden!

I designed and created ‘Welcome’ bunting for above my classroom door (this display will be added to with Prep A student names once we have decided which of the 3 Prep classes have which students in them after a few days of behaviour observation in week 1)

Bright and colourful bunting to welcome my new students

I made an alphabet wall frieze from scratch – none of the ones I found were bright enough for my classroom! It took me a few hours to make (the laminating took 30mins!) but I am quite happy with how it turned out…What are your thoughts?

Alphabet Frieze

I also found (I didn’t create these) printed and laminated a 1-20 Number Frieze that includes subitising images for the students to have a visual representation of the number they are looking at.  I think the owls are cute!

0-9 and 10-20 Subitising Wall Frieze

I printed, laminated and threaded a very cute and colourful behaviour management clip-chart…

I much prefer a system like this where the students are responsible for their learning rather than ‘name on the board’ behaviour management.

I have my wooden pegs for the clip-chart and once I have my students names I will be able to write them on and then start the class on ‘In the Nest’.

I also found and printed off a number of anchor charts for literacy including ‘IPICK’, ‘EEKK’, ’3 Ways to Read a Book’, ‘Literacy Station Rules’ and ‘Short Vowel’ Long Vowel’ picture charts.

I am off to school in the morning to do a little bit more on my classroom, including putting up all the creations from today, which will hopefully mean I will be well on the way to having a classroom to start the year in (I will never say a completed classroom because I will always be changing and improving my classroom, teaching and learning).

Enjoy the Monday holiday!

xx Miss Bri

One way to build community amoung mathematicians is to construct with students an anchor chart about the question “What does a mathematician do? This can create rich discussions and some possible answers such as:

A mathematician…

• listens to the ideas of other mathematicians
• encourages other mathematicians
• follows directions
• knows what to do in mathematician’s workshop
• takes time to take all the information he (she) has and puts it all together
• uses strategies
• stops and thinks
• writes to remember her (his) thinking
• asks questions
• shares his (her) thinking with other mathematicians
• keeps trying
• shares manipulatives

O’Connell, S. (2005) . Now I get it. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

***I should note that my student teacher, or apprentice as Big Daddy Byron insists on referring to her as, is looking mighty exhausted. I took a picture of her plugging away at her desk but I won’t post it since I don’t have her express permission (Sarah, give me permission). I remember being exhausted as a student teacher and thinking I’d never make it as a teacher. Kind of like how I was exhausted right after I had the Gorilla and thought I would die from sleep deprivation but it turns out you just adjust and make it work. I think they call that survival.

So back to Pinterest. These may seem like “duh” types of things that I’m implementing, but the truth is, I lack a gene for creativity and one for common sense. I was probably distracted by something sparkly when God was handing those out and so the things that everyone else easily understand to make sense and be logical are the hardest for me to grasp. For example, let me show you my knew Substitute Information binder.

Look, it’s a sub BINDER…you know how awesome I think BINDERS are! (http://prayteachlove.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/fake-it-friday/)

There are colorful dividers with labeled tabs…I know those tabs make you wish you could be my substitute already, but if not…check out the next pic…

BOOM! Insert pictures into notes for substitute about your classroom procedures, routines, where to find things, etc. THANK YOU PINTEREST!

I’ll give you a minute to pick yourself up off the floor. I know you have to be completely blown away by my immaculate substitute binder complete with pictures. (Or you’ve fallen to the floor in a fit of laughter since apparently everyone but me has been doing this kind of thing for years. Whatev. I finally caught on and am trying to be one of the cool kids. Like that will ever happen.)

So next up I got the idea to create anchor chart binders. Obviously I love binders. And I think they serve several purposes, the most important being one of the most effective accessories for faking it. So while my exhausted student teacher is slaving away, I spent a few minutes flitting around my room snapping photos of all of our anchor charts.  Then I printed them, snapped them in a binder (complete with dividers of course) so that students can refer back to the anchor charts throughout the year, even after the charts have come down off the walls/ceiling.

Our expectation anchor chart folder

Impressed yet?

Look at those dividers and that anchor chart! You ROCK Pinterest!

That’s all I’ve got for now. Stay tuned though, there are still millions of pins I haven’t seen yet but I’m determined to at least glance at them all.

Not sure where I got this idea but I have used it for different posters and charts – place paperclips through the poster. The paperclips allow information to be added or taken down and practiced. This anchor chart is used to highlight important terms in story problems. I added cards as my students came across them in their math work.

Here’s the Cause & Effect anchor chart!

Before school began, I decided I was going to make anchor charts to go along with whatever subject in reading (and other subjects) I was working on.  One of the first ones I made was based on Angry Birds.  I saw this original idea on Pintrest (ily, Pintrest!), and put my own spin on it.  I found these great Angry Bird printables, and cut a few out to make the chart.  It turned out super-cute!

Here’s another great anchor chart I made up, based on the popular game Minecraft.  It’s for teaching Main Ideas!

New teacher + new blog+ new year  = new experience!

I’m starting this blog with the intent of learning more than I teach.  Isn’t that how all of life should be?

This school year, 2011-2012, is my very first year of teaching! I’m in a 2nd grade classroom with some incredible smarties, and I am loving every moment of it.  I can’t imagine better people to spend my days with.

Here are some of my favorite things from our classroom right now:

This is our interactive MLK bulletin board.  Each piece of construction paper has a question on it, and the students can flip them up to find the answers.  The pictures surrounding the questioning feature Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Ruby Bridges, etc.  My kiddos LOVE getting to use this bulletin board.

For the past 2 days, we’ve been studying Chinese New Year, which started on January 23rd.  We read ‘Lion Dancer: Ernie Wan’s New Year,’ we watched a video of lion dancers and dragon dancers, we talked about the parades, we made red envelopes like the ones they receive in China.  And then. AND THEN!  The kiddos made these dragon masks and they practiced their dragon dancing.   Then they picked up the red envelopes filled with well wishes, paraded down the hallway (always moving – the dragons must not stop moving) and into a 1st grade classroom.  Each 1st grader received an envelope from one of my kiddos and my students taught them a little bit about Chinese New Year.

Click here  for the dragon mask template.

In readers workshop, we’re working on question and the question-answer reationship (QAR).  This is our latest, and most detailed, anchor chart.  Let me tell you, these 2nd graders are expert questioners.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first post, and please, come back for more!