End of Year Emoji Writing and Bulletin Board

I decided after having my bulletin board the same for the past 4 months, I'd change it up.  I love incorporating writing with my bulletin board and this one was so much fun! As the school year is winding down, my students keep saying how much they are going to miss me OR they can't wait for 2nd grade.  I decided to have them write about how they felt leaving 1st grade and we of course had to use EMOJIS!

PRE-WRITE:

I printed the emojis on yellow paper and glued them each to a white poster. I had the students walk around and write different emotions that each of the emojis were showing. 

Here's an example:

THEN WE TALKED:

Then we gathered the posters and talked about each emotion and how they relate to how we are feeling about leaving this grade-level and entering a new one. 

THEY PICKED THE EMOJI:

They then picked the emoji that most strongly represented how they felt. I went through each poster and they raised their hand to tell me if they wanted that one. If so, I put a tally of how many copies to make of that emoji on the back of its poster.

WRITING:

They then began to write using the circled writing paper. When they were finished, they brought up their writing paper and picked up their emoji cover. I stapled the two at the top of the circle and they cut both out at the same time. This way, it remained stapled.

Check it out here!

Halloween Activities for K-6

Let's be real. October can be a crazy month for teaching. Between students being excited about dressing up in costumes and all the candy they eat during the month, kids can have a hard time focusing and working hard on school work. 

We have both created some resources that are fun, engaging, AND educational that you can use during the month October. It's a great way to keep them excited about learning. 

This Halloween Writing Pack has been in my store for years. It's actually one of the first things I posted in my TPT store back in 2012. This year I gave it a major makeover to update the design and add some new features. 

• This writing pack contains two parts – 4 Halloween Writing

Assignments and 5 October themed journal pages.

• Each of the 4 Halloween Writing Assignments have a

brainstorm page. These pages have directions for each story 

and will get your students thinking about what they write 

before they begin.

• I have included 3 different differentiated writing pages for

each of the Halloween Writing Assignments. This will help

you meet the needs of your students, and also allows these

writing pages to be used for all grade levels K-6.

• I have included two different grading rubrics. The first

rubric can be used for grading each of the 4 Halloween

Writing Assignments. The second one can be used as an

overall grading checklist for the entire Writing Pack. Full

sized and quarter sized rubrics are included. (I like to staple

the smaller sized rubrics to the top of each story after I have

graded them.)

This unit was originally created for grades 3-6, but I've had teachers of younger grade levels use this and love it too. With my update, I created differentiated writing pages so it can be used will all grade levels K-6.

3-6 example:

K-2 Example:

(My own sweet daughter, Allie, wrote this story. She's in kindergarten! I obviously helped her with spelling and punctuation, but she wrote the story all by herself!)

Rachelle also has a Halloween pack in her store made specifically for grades K-2. It's a fun unit that integrates Halloween into math, literacy, and art! 

This unit has over 100 pages and is full of fun activities your students will love! It's differentiated for Kinder, 1st, and 2nd grades (black and white options available to help save ink.)

Here's what's included:

Scoop and Sort Place Value

Patterning

Greater/Less

Problem Solving

Graphing

October Battleship

Place Value Game

Bat Writing

Spider Writing

Spelling Game

Q-Tip Skeleton

Paper Plate Spider with Writing

Paper Plate Scarecrow

Hand Print Spider with Poem

Spider Web Chart

Don't Munch the Mummy! (sight word game)

Reading Response Activity

Interactive read-a-loud

Original Poem

Green Witch, Green Witch book 

Student Mini-Book

Class Book

Word Search

October isn't quite so scary when you have your students working on fun, meaningful activities that keep them engaged. We hope these resources will help save you time as you plan and prep your lesson plans over the coming weeks and also offer educational Halloween activities your students will love! 

Want to save these ideas for later? Feel free to pin any of these images. 

       

Creating Independent Writers with Journals

Say goodbye to "bell work" and hello to independent writing time!  

If you walk into my classroom right when the bell rings, you will see a class full of quiet students writing in their journals. Not once do I have to say "get out your journal" or "please start writing". My students arrive at school, hang up their backpacks and they pull their journals out from their desk. There's no explaining, no questions, and it's eerily quiet.  How did I get them to be this wayyyy?

First, you'll want to set up your writing journals. You'll want to pick out a cover to use (I've created 16 different varieties) and you'll want to pick how many lines you want to start out the year. These journals can be changed out each month or however often you want!

Here is the journal cover that I picked for the beginning of the year:

They never ask me what they should write about because I teach them how to come up with topics on their own. Now... it didn't start that way, of course. They make HUGE progress throughout the year. They go from one sentence to 5+ sentences by the end of first grade! Many of my students like to use two whole pages to write one journal entry. :)

I teach 1st grade so on the first day of school my students walk in and I already have a sentence stem on the board that they will copy down in their journal. Then, there is a blank at the end of the sentence that they have to fill in their own word. After they copy the sentence stem, they sound out their word, draw a picture, color and then bring their journal up to me. I will check it off.  As the year goes on and depending on the student, I will circle a mistake or two that I'd like them to fix and bring back to me. I basically have 3 types of writers: Emerging, Developing, and Advancing. I obviously expect more from my advancing writers than I do my emerging. It's up to you what you decide to conference with them about.

When they finish and get their beloved smiley face on their journal, they will do a fast finisher (read a book, puzzle, etc.).



I only tell my students what to write about for the first 9 days of school. After that, they pick their own topic or write about what they did yesterday (that's their go-to if they "can't think of anything")

Day 1: I like to eat_____.
Day 2: My favorite color is _____.
Day 3: My favorite animal is a ____.
Day 4: I like to drink______.
Day 5: I am scared of_______.
Day 6: I am not scared of _____.
Day 7: My favorite movie is ______.
Day 8: At school I like to _____. (a little more open ended)
Day 9: I like to_____ because _________. (we add the word because)
Day 10:  WRITE ANYTHING! (Sometimes this comes a few days later. It just depends on the grade you teach and your class.)


At day 10, I teach my students that they can write about whatever they want in their journals and to write about different things each day. I only require 1 sentence at the beginning of the year to get them adjusted. If they "can't think of anything", they write about what they did yesterday (or...If you're desperate, you can see the bottom of this post for some prompt ideas).

1st Grade (can be adapted and differentiated based on each student):
August/September- 1 sentence
October/November- 2 sentences
December/January- 3 sentences
February/March-4 sentences
April/May- 5 sentences

{This journal time is separate from my "writer's workshop" time}

This is what we do every day and it takes 30 minutes:

Starting in January, I give my students a writing checklist. As their writing starts to develop, they tend to make a few more simple mistakes and I want them to check their work before saying it's finished!  They are very familiar with each part of the checklist because we've been working on these all year and they've been hung up on the board (and I refer to them frequently)!
After they finish their journal, they read their own journal to themselves and use a dry-erase marker (the checklists are laminated) and they check off to make sure they meet the expectations.


After about month of them just using their checklist to check their own work, they get to graduate to having a friend check it off as well. This friend has to be either finished with their journal already or at least finished with the writing portion. So, student #1 would use their checklist to make sure their writing is ready for a peer to edit. Student #1 finds someone to check their journal off. Student #1 reads their journal to student #2 and he/she will put checkmarks in the second column and sign their name.  Then student #1 brings their journal up to me and hopefully many mistakes were found before they got to me! This does add a few minutes to my journal time- so I'd say instead of 30 minutes, it's 40.


Here are the posters I have hanging so when we switch over to the checklist they know exactly what to look for:

The progress they make is amazing!

From the first week of school:

Towards the end of the year:

You can snag everything I talked about in this post in my Journal Through the Year Pack! This pack would also work great with Work on Writing in Daily 5.

For those of you that REALLY want journal prompts (although I do not use them in my classroom), I've included over 150 picture prompts! You can print them and make them into booklets of ideas or you can cut them out and make picture prompt cards. I've also included a black/white version is you're low on the colored ink like I am. #printallthethings

Let me just finish with the fact that this pack is COMPLETELY re-done! I took the feedback (not-so-nice feedback might I add) I got and changed this pack to meet the needs of my readers. Hopefully this helps! If you already own it, re-download in your my purchases!!!!!

Do You Want to Build a Story? {A Narrative Writing Lesson}

Do you have that Frozen song in your head now? DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?
Well, your students know that song and it's your gateway to teach them about narrative writing. Narrative writing can be a HOT MESS if it's not structured JUST RIGHT! As I'm teaching my students about narrative writing, I have them help me build (draw) a snowman. I relate narrative writing to a snowman! PLUS I wrote a song to go along with Frozen's "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"  to introduce narrative writing but we call it...
"Do You Want to Build a Story?" (special thanks to my friend Alyssa who graciously and beautifully sang it for me! You can preview the song here!

This pack is perfect for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade 

narrative writing standards!

Included in this pack:

Do You Want to Build a Story Song (and lyrics)-You can sample the song here

Snowman Storyboard (pre-write)

Story Element Cards

Story Element Posters

First Draft Writing Paper (snowman themed)

Final Draft Writing Paper (snowman themed)

Pre-Write Storyboard (pre-write)

First Draft Writing Paper (no theme)

Final Draft Writing Paper (no theme)

Narrative Writing Rubric

Narrative Writing Editing Checklist

Bulletin Board Letters (Olaf not included)

Check it out here!

Our final products turned out great and now they are on display in the hallway!

Vacation Journal

Have a student who is going on a vacation? I have just the thing for them! Send your student with a Vacation Journal Pack! They can write in it like a daily journal and bring it back to class to share when they are home from traveling. It's a great way to have a little academics on their vacation and to make a great connection with classmates when they are back! I send the student with a Ziploc bag with the journal (labels with directions for the student are included), a pencil, big pink erasure, and a new box of crayons!

*Journal Cover

*Journal Writing Page (handwriting lines)
*Journal Writing Page (lines)
*Labels for Ziploc (use Avery Template 5163)

Fonts: KG Fonts
Clipart: Dots of Fun

Computer Class!

I thought it was time to give ya'll a little update about how my computer teaching job is going. In a nutshell, I love it! I still really miss being in a regular classroom with my very own group of students to love, but teaching every kid in the whole school definitely has it's perks. If I ever walk into the lunch room while the kids are eating, I feel like a celebrity with everyone yelling my name and waving to me. Same goes when I pass classes walking down the hall. Overall, I love my job in the computer lab!

So, what have we been doing in computers? A whole lot of keyboarding techniques, internet safety lessons, Google Apps, and some fun writing projects. Today I'm going to share 3 things I've found great success with.

1. Power Position

One of my pet peeves is when I have kids sitting in their computer chairs incorrectly. I see them come in, kneel up on their chairs, sit with their chairs crooked or tangled with their neighbor's chair, etc… and it drives me bonkers! It's my job to teach them correct posture and somedays it's like they walk in and forget the correct way to sit in their chairs.

This year I finally started something that has made all the difference! It's called "Power Position" and we do this little cheer when my students come in and sit down in their chairs at the very beginning of class. Anytime I see anyone sitting with their feet up on the chairs or have their chairs scooted back, I just yell out, "Power Position" and they all straighten! Sometimes I can just privately walk up to individual students and remind them politely to sit in "Power Position!" It's worked wonders in my classroom!!

Here's how it goes:

(For younger kids, I usually just yell out the first three lines and stop there. I use all 5 lines with my 3rd-6th graders.)

Download the free printable HERE!

2. Home Row Chant

I'm trying to drill the importance of keeping your fingers on home row, but my kids have some really bad habits. It seems like whenever I turn my head, I see a handful of students picking at their keyboards again. 

I started using this chant with my students every day before we start typing as a reminder to keep their fingers on home row. I yell each line really loudly like an army cadence and then the students repeat each line after me.

(Sometimes I actually make my students type the letters as we say them, other times they just place their fingers over each letter. When we do the space bar, I have them click it twice with their thumbs on the "bump, bump" part.)

Download the free printable HERE!

3. Writing Projects

In October I had my group of students do a fun Halloween writing assignment. The project was adapted from one of my activities in my Halloween Writing Project book called Create-A-Story. 

   

I did this project with my 1st and 2nd graders and they turned out SO cute! First they brainstormed, then they typed, then they got to draw a picture on the bottom of their page. The kids were so proud of their work when they were done! As you can see from the picture above, I spiral-bound the pages together to make a book and gave it to their classroom teacher to keep in their class library for the students to read.

Now that it's November and I have a new batch of students, I am doing a Thankful Book. This one is based off of a product in my store called My Thankful Book.

    

I'm adapting this project so that my students are typing in PowerPoint. Each topic will be a new page. When they're done we'll have about an 8 page story that we can staple down the sides and they can take the books home to share with their families at Thanksgiving. 

Projects like these usually take 4 or 5 thirty minute class periods to complete. I'll introduce the project the first day and model how to get started, then they write for 2-3 days, and then the last day they finish, print, and can illustrate if they have time. I love doing these types of writing projects because not only are the students getting to practice their typing skills, but I'm also helping their classroom teachers with meeting some important writing standards! Win-win!

Does anyone have any specific questions about the way I run my computer lab? Would you be interested in the websites I use for Kindergarten or the Typing websites I use with my 3rd-6th graders? Do you have any questions about using Google Docs, Google Slides, or Google Classroom? Let me know in the comments what information you'd be interested in and I will try to answer them in future blog posts.

As always, thanks for reading and stopping by our blog! 

Favorite Freebies

Can you believe that we have been blogging here for almost 5 years? WOW!  It's been such a fun ride and we will continue to share our ideas with you. I hope that people still read our blog!!! HAHA!

I just wanted to stop by and share our favorite freebies with you from the past 5ish years!

Eye Spy Time {Click here to download}:

 

Put the clocks around the room and have your students walk around with a clipboard "spying" the analog clocks and writing the digital times on their recording sheet.  Easy, peasy, lemon, squeezey {mac and cheezy}! The best part is, I include the clocks for you to use and they are blank so that you can write in your own times.

Writing Prompts {Click here to download}:

 These are writing prompts and paper that I use throughout the whole year. There are over 25 of them...all for you! :)  I put them in writing centers, sometimes use them in whole group lessons, and even use them as "fast finishers". The kiddos love them!  

Here are some of my favorites {and the kiddos too}!

Spring Fever Behavior Management {Click here to download}:

Are your kiddos feeling the spring fever or are you the one going stir crazy!?

This management tip is used on our 1st grade team but will work in any classroom. 

It's great for springtime spring fever.

You need 2 Easter baskets and plastic Easter eggs (you need double the amount of eggs as you have students...so if you have 25 students, you need 50 plastic Easter eggs).  Can anyone say Dollar Tree?

In basket #1, you fill the eggs with the students' names (one name in each egg).  In the other basket, you fill the eggs with strips of papers that have prize names on them.

Randomly throughout the day/week, pick a student to come and pick an egg out of the name basket.  They open up the egg and read the name {or you can pick from the basket instead of having a student do it-I just like to involve everyone}. If that student is on task they get to pick an egg from the prize basket (If they are not on task, you just quietly put the egg back and the students know that someone that was picked was not on task).  Here is a list of the prizes I giveaway. Some of them might not be applicable to you, but you can just leave those out.

After the winning student gets their prize, you also give them one of these certificates!  It makes them feel so good and you'll have VERY on task students all week.   

{Click HERE to download certificates}

clipart and or fonts from DJ Inkers (djinkers.com)