I have to say I am REALLY loving Daily 5 this year.  I am joining First Grade in Foxwell Forest for her I'm Loving the Daily 5 on the fifth. My implementation is not perfect, but this is my fourth year using it and works really well.  I thought the kids would get tired of the same five activities on a daily basis, but this year's class has really embraced our Daily 5 time. (Yes, happy dance!)


This year I have also been consistent in following the Sister's suggestions of a short mini-lesson then a rotation.  I use our Wonders Reading series to pull my mini-lessons from and concentrate on reading strategies during small groups. This works well for this class, this year.

I have to fess up now and admit that I am a bit of a control freak!  I do have my kids rotate through 4 centers with the same group and the fifth center is where they start the next day.  The groups are mixed ability and I love that.  I then pull my small groups from centers and work with them.  My goal is to move to the children picking their own Daily Five Center so they have a choice and a buy in to what they are doing.

I would love to hear thoughts and feedback about choice during the Daily 5.  The best resource is truly The Daily 5 book.  I am going to go back and reread the section about choice.  As a side note, the second edition is being released in early February. Click on the picture to check it out!


Well, being that the linky is I'm Loving Daily 5 on the fifth and today is the sixth (and my son's 10th birthday), I have put my TpT store on sale through Saturday. Happy Birthday Zach:)


 I have also uploaded my newest Fry word unit called Treasured Readers {Fry Words 301-400}. 


I put the flash cards onto rings and the students can use them during read to self or read to partner.  This set has adorable pirate graphics to go with it.

I will giveaway this unit to one lucky follower who pins this unit and leaves feedback before Saturday.  Don't forget your email address too:)

I am jumping into November with both feet and right into Farley's Currently!  Last weekend at this time I was on a scrapbooking cruise with sweet friends Cathy and Diane:) I then went back to school for 2 days of parent conferences, Halloween and our pumpkin exploration day!  So, I crashed this weekend!

But alas, I have made it to the land of the living.


 My very favorite fall recipe is called Pumpkin Crunch Cake.  It is delicious, but don't even look at it if you are even mildly trying to watch what you are eating!  It makes a Paula Dean recipe look like Weight Watchers!  You can check it out on Pinterest HERE.

The end of September leading into October is the perfect time to explore graphing!  It is included in our Common Core standards, but not in our Go Math! book.  Go Math has stepped up to the plate and has online resources now for those interested.

Graphing is such a fun, interactive math concept that I try really hard NOT to use unrelated worksheets.  At the end of September we had an apple taste test.  The students were then able to paint their favorite apple.  They had definite opinions about apples by the time we were ready to graph!




The kiddos took the reigns on this activity and helped create our graph from the apples to the title to the labels and the numbers.  THIS MADE A REAL CONNECTION to graphing!

On Tuesday, each friend will receive a package of  Bones Halloween Candy.  We ordered them HERE from Oriental Trading as they are hard to find in regular stores now. 


We will be reading Dem Bones before we start the activity. Dem Bones is a super cute book by Bob Barner with a catchy tune. You can find it on Amazon HERE.


You can find an amazing Halloween Themed Math Centers with a Dem Bones graph, sorting mat and questions over at TpT with Erica Bohrer. 

I love this "get me through the week" idea!  Yes, its HUMP DAY and Teresa at Fun in K/1 has started a fun, new linky:)  She shared about a super engaging activity for spelling practice so check it out!


I prefolded the papers for the kids just to make it go a little quicker.  They were instructed to write the two words on the front of the fold. They then cut on each side of the letter that is taken away...

When they lift the flap up, they make their apostrophe under it to make the contraction.




And when everything was written correctly, they went back to trace the words in crayon for extra practice and to give it a pop:)

And there you have it, simple and easy contraction practice.

Now head on over to see what other helpful hints you can find:)

Sight words are always such a hot topic for firsties:)  There are so many choices out there.  You could use your reading series, Dolch Words or even Fry Words.

This year I have decided to try a combination of our Wonders Series and Fry Words.  In our reading series, we introduce 4-8 new words weekly.  We practice these words whole group, in small group, at the word work center and they are on our study guide too!  The sight words are incorporated into our weekly anthology, our leveled readers and then into our weekly test which consists of a cold read story and fill in the blank sentences.

At the end of each unit (5 weeks of curriculum), we give a Unit sight word test for a grade. YES, we take numerical grades here in first!  So I made this Super Sight Word Review for a little practice that can be used before the tests, for review or even for first grade practice if you do not use Wonders!


This unit comes with BINGO, I Have, Who Has..., Sight Word BOO and Mixed Up Sentences. Lots of extra practice for those firsties who need just a little extra practice.

I can not count how many times we have said this during the week!  We have introduced not only nouns, BUT nouns in a series!!  Yikes!  Anywho, thank goodness there are so many fabulous resources out there to get the kids thinking and moving!

Visuals are the name of the game.  First graders need a connection.  We started off the week with Pumpkin Noun Sort by Michelle Oakes. The kids loved coming up to pick a card and decide if the picture and words was a person, place or thing.  The best part was because everyone wanted a turn you could hear a pin drop!  You can click on the picture to see Michelle's blog post.



My poor intern had a fabulous lesson planned with this activity today and was going to be observed by the college supervisor.  However,  he came an hour early as we switched for intervention groups.  I have to say as a middle school principal, he was very impressed by intervention groups, the rotation we had set up and my intern's higher order questioning.  Needless to say, the noun lesson was still engaging and the kids loved it!

We then used this super cute nouns interactive activity.  I wish I know who to credit, but is was a single page download with no named creator.  Does it look familiar?  I would love to give credit!


And last but not least is Pinterest.  I have to say I do not spend a ton of time on there anymore, BUT I love the app on my phone when I have a minute or two.  There are so many wonderful anchor charts for nouns, but I will just share my new favorite one for nouns.  You can click on the picture to find the pin...


Or you can head over to Mrs. Dwyer's A+ Firsties and check out Tanya's blog!  Super fun and jam packed with lots of fabulous ideas!

OK, tomorrow is Friday.  WE CAN DO THIS!!