Word Work ideas and a Great Find!

It has been a crazy two weeks! I had my very first picture day! Had one of those "I want to go home and never come back here" days. My school had a fall festival on Friday! Today, I had my first formal evaluation. And, today one of my cuties gave me the cutest little gifts!

Every Friday we wear out school shirts! Every Friday one of my cuties comes in with the cutest red and white (our school colors) bows on her head! Every Friday I tell her to be careful because I just might want to take one and wear it! So this is what I received this morning when she walked into the room! I cannot wait until Friday! I may be an "adult," but I am still a total child at heart!

Anyone else out there have troubles coming up with fun activities for word work each week? I sure do! This week it took me a while to come up with enough ideas, but this week my kiddos are so excited! I found three old keyboards in the cabinets in my room so Type your Words came to be! I was at the dollar tree this weekend and found those bingo dot markers, TOTAL HIT! My teammate had these wonderful construction paper crayons! 

They show up so bright and colorful on black construction paper! Those are the kiddos favorites this week! I also did the activity Trash or Treasure for nonsense words! Hop on over to Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten to check that out!

I have also been needing to start read to someone! I have been trying to figure out partners and reminding kiddos who reads when and all that! At the dollar tree this weekend I found these beauties! Are they not the most adorable things ever? 

These definitely saved me time from printing and cutting! All I did was laminate and cut! I hope the kiddos love them as much as I do!

I cannot wait for Halloween! I am at a small school so K-1 is doing a group costume! Here is a sneak peak at what I will be wearing on Wednesday! Some old white vans...turned PINK and SPARKLY!

I hope you all have a great Halloween, come back to check out our awesome K-1 costume! 

Sub Plans and Word Work!

I cannot believe how fast time goes! Days just fly by...well most of them! Some days can be brutal! Overall, most have been great and each day just gets better! I had to write my first set of sub plans and I hope they are okay! I do so much on the smart board, my calendar, word work, my mini lessons, my math, my writing...that is almost my entire day! With that being said writing sub plans were difficult because I am not going to assume that he/she knows how to use a smartboard. What do you all have students do when you are out and have a sub?

I really thought back about what we have been learning and did a lot of worksheets that correlated to those concepts. We have been doing tons of work on sums to 10! So the lovely Kathy Law over at First Grade a la Carte did a color by the code with sums to 10! Thank you Kathy there is my math time for tomorrow!

Fingers crossed that my plans are detailed enough and he/she doesn't hate me for not leaving enough details!

On another note Daily 2 has been progressing well in my class. The kiddos Reading Muscles (stamina) is keeps teetering around 18-19 minutes! That is almost 20 so I am very proud! We have also started word work! Yes I know this is out of order, but being a new teacher I was having a hard time getting my students into good fit books! Luckily, my school just got a huge order of leveled books to go along with Houghton Mifflin! Yahoo! I hope to start read to someone after fall break!

Back to word work! I was freaking out last time I posted and you fellow bloggers are so supportive! The lovely Miss Cosby over at You Might be a First Grader... helped me add a station to my word work! Nonsense Word Fluency Mini Unit! Yay!

I have fell in love and so have my kiddos! With the DIBELS Next nonsense word fluency is a huge component and this unit is so helpful with nonsense words!

So far their favorite game is Real or Make-Believe.

I had some foam blocks I got at the dollar store over the summer and I made letter dice. So I had two dice that were the same color and then one that is red. The two dice have consonants and the red one has vowels! It is so funny to see what words they think are make believe and hear little giggles coming from that station during word work! If your kiddos could use help with nonsense words I would definitely recommend this mini-unit! Click here to pick up the unit or here to stop by Miss Cosby's blog!

I hope you are all having a great Sunday! Hope to get back into the swing of blogging and I get more in the groove with teaching!

Wonderful Find for Word Work!

So I have been trying to implement the Daily 5 in my class! We are at the Daily 1 right now doing read to self! Being a new teacher I am having a hard time having enough "just right" books for my kiddos so our stamina was stuck at 7-8 minutes. Then I was told of old Harcourt decodables in the bookroom at my school and picked those up! Yesterday and today my kiddos read for 10 and 10 1/2 minutes! I was so proud of them! I am thinking that the same thing is going to happen with our time going up until we flatten out again. So, I was talking with my teammate and she began word work with her class this week. HOLD ON...first year teacher problem...I have not accumulated all these wonderful materials like stamps and wiki-sticks and so on to have word work stations!

TARGET TO THE RESCUE! Target just put out their new dollar spot items yesterday! I was checking it out and WALLAH! I found sets of alphabet stamps for $1! I grabbed 3 and wish I would have grabbed a few more. They are small, but for a 1st year teacher on a budget I am thrilled with the find! I ran next door to Michaels and grabbed some ink stamps, also for $1. Here is how my sets turned out!

The tub is from Pei Wei. Yes, I still eat like my firsties! I rock the kids meal! When my honey and I order to-go we ask for extra sauce and it comes in these beauties! I keep each one! They always come in handy!

Now I just have to get all of my other stations/centers ready for the start of next week! What are some of your kiddos favorite word work stations? That colorful 10-drawer caddy is sure coming in handy for organization!

Have a wonderful evening and a great rest of the week!