Anchor charts & YIKES!!!

Hi, Friends! How are ya?

I’m just stopping in to share a little of what we’ve been up to! I love anchor charts! Doodling, drawing, shared writing……I just *LOVE* anchor charts! There are very few commercially made posters in my classroom.  As I think about, there are about 4. Everything else? Class made charts.

 

Last week, we had fun exploring skip counting patterns on the hundred chart. We’ve been singing them since the start of the year with calendar, but dug a little deeper by working to identify and create patterns to skip count by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

We had a lot fun creating this little chart. We started by wiggling with Jack Hartmann’s Count by 5’s and then moved to our desks to trace and cut out our handprints. As the students were creating their handprints, I walked around and wrote a number on their desks with an Expo marker to make sure we had each of the numbers we needed.

One of our campus AP’s came in during the middle of this lesson. It was loud, incorporated a LOT of movement, and kept everyone actively engaged. Luckily, he has a fun, hands-on personality, so the noise didn’t bother him {too much}, lol! Admittedly, math in our classroom, is exactly the opposite of Daily 5.

And wouldn’t you know it, my firsties wanted to keep right on going. Let’s do 10’s! Let’s do 10’s! rang out just as we glued 100 to finish  the 5’s! Chart it and they will learn!

The ONE thing that I know my son learned for sure in 1st grade is homophones! He still comes up with random pairs at some of the MOST random times! We read the book Dear Deer and experienced some fun ‘Aha moments’!

Like usual, my little Einstein’s took over the lesson and I knew they fully understood when they started suggesting word pairs for the chart that were NOT included in the book! {Enter content sigh & smile -----------------> HERE!} The discussion continued way after we had recorded a few responses on the chart and we’ll review this concept using this book next.

We also create a chart each week to document our comprehension skill focus.  My kiddos really look forward to these! Last week, we worked on using time order words to sequence events.

Meet our Len Leopard BEFORE he got his spots!

For our first carpet meeting (during Daily 5), we read our story and discussed what happened first, next, and last. After checking in and meeting in small group, we moved back to the carpet again to add to the First and Next spots. Before heading off to Round 3 (of Daily 5), we completed the chart by adding what happened Last.

By then, Len Leopard still hadn’t gotten his spots. BUT, we had finished summarizing the story! I’m always looking for little incentives to encourage good behavior. For morning work the next day, 3 students making “wise choices” were selected to play the part of Fred and got to “paint” Len Leopard.

Here’s how he looked after he got his spots!

And this is what my bed looks like most nights now that I’ve begun working on earning a master’s degree!

I know! Yikes!!! Gotta get back to it! Took a brain break to blog, lol! Happy charting my friends! 9 more days ‘til Christmas break! Can we make it?

Oh! And I’ll see you again for Wordless Wednesday. With all I’ve got on the brain these days, I thought I’d use midweek to share a few pics, when my brain may be too full to write another post to accompany them, lol! I’m super visual and love pictures, so I hope you’ll enjoy them too!

9 more days ‘til Christmas break in our neck of the woods! Can we make it?