First Day of Student Teaching!

Today was my first official day of student teaching. I began my new classroom management strategy and the kids loved it! They noticed it as soon as they walked in the room and began asking tons of questions. I read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud to go along with my classroom management strategy.

Every child gets their own mini bucket and when they perform behaviors that are extra special they get to add a Pom Pom ball to their bucket. They can also get class compliments and get to add a Pom Pom ball to their class bucket. After two weeks every child dumps their individual bucket into the class bucket and when their class bucket is full they get a class reward! 

I'm excited to see how this new strategy works! I had a successful first day and I can't wait to see what the following months have in store. 

Anchor Charts

Tonight was my last KSRA meeting as an officer, even though I'm ready to be student teaching next semester I was sad for it to be my last meeting. It has been such an amazing experience and I have grown so much throughout it. We presented on anchor charts tonight. We discussed the importance of them in the classroom and how they don't just have to be used for academics they can be used for classroom management as well. Below is a link to our PowerPoint. We also did raffles and had some snacks, it was a great last meeting!

Anchor Charts Powerpoint

Tutoring Week Seven

Today was my last day of tutoring, I was so sad to leave my kiddo. He has grown so much over the last few weeks and I am so proud of all he has accomplished. Today we reviewed all the blends we have covered which are initial l blends, initial s blends, and initial r blends. For my activity today I wrote words with these blends all over a piece of cardstock. Then I put the paper into a freezer bag and poured a bag of white rice into it. My tutee would then play "eye spy" and try to find the words in the bag. After that he would write the words on the correct paper depending on which blend it was. Here are some pictures!

Leveling Texts and Blogging

At this week's KSRA meeting we focused on two topics, leveling texts and blogging! Leveling texts is something that as future teachers we need to have an understanding of. Although there are apps and resources out there to help us level books it is important to have our own knowledge base of the Fountas and Pinnell and DRA levels. Readinga-z is a great website that has a ton of leveled texts and also helps with leveling other books by comparing it to their leveled texts. I specifically focused on blogging at the meeting and shared ideas for blogging for teachers, but also ways we can use blogging in our classrooms with our students. Below are the links to the leveling text powerpoint and the blogging powerpoint!

Leveling Texts Powerpoint

Blogging Powerpoint

Tutoring Week 6

This week for tutoring I focused on initial l blends. I was also excited because based on the data from last weeks session and my running records the last few weeks, I decided to move my tutee up a DRA level! He did awesome with it today, I was so proud! The activity I created for initial l blends used magnetic letters. I created picture cards with the ending of the word already spelled out. He then had to use the magnetic letters to fill in what the initial l blend of the word was. Then we used stamps and stamped the words onto a table I created! Here are some pictures of my activity! Below are also links to my activity that can be printed out!

bl blend freebie

cl blend freebie

pl blend freebie

Reading Fest

Today I got the opportunity to help out with a Family Reading Fest that goes on every year in my area. I helped out my home school district and the elementary school I went to as a kid, Blue Mountain Elementary West! The book we chose for our theme was The Very Hungry Caterpillar (definitely a favorite) and we had a caterpillar craft that went with it! We had so many kids come to our table and they were loving it! I also got the opportunity to meet a few children's book authors like Gene Baretta, Lee Harper and Andy Myer! It was a great experience!

I also created the banner for our table with my Cricut!

Dear Deer is an awesome book about homophones to definitely check out! Now & Ben is a great book as well!

Tutoring Week 5

This week for tutoring I focused on initial r blends, particularly tr, br, and dr. The activity I created was like a puzzle. I used each blend as a large puzzle piece and three little puzzle pieces connected to the large piece. The little puzzle pieces were pictures of words that have these blends. After he finished each puzzle he would use play doh and Popsicle sticks to review the blends again. I decided to incorporate play doh into my activity again because he loved it last week and it really is engaging for him. Here are some pictures of my activity!