New Button and Link to Tutorial

Well, luckily I only have two faithful followers, one of whom was nice enough to try to grab my button.  Alas, it did not work!  Of course I couldn't just leave it until morning.  Nope... had to fix it tonight!  Went back to the drawing board because I guess it was easier to have a square design (and I was willing to try anything to make it easier), signed up for Photobucket, and started coding.  Wow.  This website stuff is hard!  I found a great website with a tutorial that helped a newbie like me.  Thought I'd share!

http://snapcreativity.com/how-to-make-a-blog-button-with-grab-box/
Kendra at Key Lime Digital Designs is a genius!  Go visit her site if you want to make a button!

The one thing I kept doing wrong on Photobucket was copying the link instead of the html code for my picture.  Once I figured that out (only took me an additional hour and wanting to throw my computer out the window), I was golden!

Anyway, I hope that this helps someone else.  Hours of my life that I can't get back... haha.  The satisfaction of knowing I learned something new makes it (almost) worth it.

So I said luckily I only have 2 followers because hopefully only Jill tried to capture my old broken button.  Someone please reward my hard work and capture away... did I say please?  Did I mention how hard I worked? :)  Ok, off to bed!

Words From Earth/Words From Mars: Real vs. Nonsense Words

4 posts in 4 days... can you tell I am on fall break?  Well, I guess I am not taking much of a break, but I love when time off lends itself to some creative time in between paper grading!

So... nonsense words.  I used to have a HUGE problem with this.  I mean, we're always telling kids, "Does that make sense?  Does that sound right?" and then here I am, giving them nonsense words?!  I figured out something, though.  Well, I think I did anyway.  When kids are learning to read, don't a lot of their words sound like nonsense words to them as they are trying to decode?  Does it really hurt to show them how to decode any word, real or not, and then decide if it is real?  I have decided that it's not so bad, especially when I get to do a fun activity like this with the class!

Words from Earth/Words from Mars takes common word families like -an, -ad, -am, and -at and gives kids a list of real and nonsense words from these families.  They have to decode the word using the phonics rules (in this case using the short a sound), and then decide if the word is real (from Earth) or nonsense (from Mars).

Click here to grab this from my TpT page!

This came from one of my many many word works activity books I have stashed in the closet.

 
 I LOVE this book!  Sometimes I just don't feel like doing a worksheet, though, and if I don't, I can guarantee my kids don't!  As I said in the last post, I was looking for some brain breaks to work on reading skills and decided to turn this activity into something I could use on the projector.  A word flashes on the screen and the kids have to decode the word.  Then they make an Earthling face or a Martian face (see how quiet this one is... yeah!) to vote whether it is a real word or a nonsense word.  I made it self-checking by making the following slide have the same word with either a picture of a boy or girl astronaut or an alien.  This way it could be printed out and put in a binder for work in small groups or centers.  I was also thinking about printing smaller cards and laminating them to make flashcards and a Memory game! 

So far we have just done this either with the worksheet or I have handwritten the words on sentence strips and done them as a whole class pocket chart activity, so I am super excited to try this as a brain break when I get back to school on Tuesday!  The real test will be whether or not the kids find these as fun as Mr. Harry's songs.  I can only hope to be a close 2nd!










http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Practicing-Real-vs-Nonsense-Words-Short-a-Words-From-EarthWords-From-Marshttp://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Practicing-Real-vs-Nonsense-Words-Short-a-Words-From-EarthWords-From-Marshttp://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Practicing-Real-vs-Nonsense-Words-Short-a-Words-From-EarthWords-From-Mars

Pirates and Parrots

It's the end of the first grading period and sight word assessments are in.  While I'm happy with the progress of the class, there is always room for improvement!  This class LOVES brain breaks in between activities, and it really cuts down on transition time.  Students are excited to get cleaned up and get to the brain break, and the brain break not only gets the wiggles out, but also provides extra practice on skills.

So far this year, our brain breaks have been mostly math songs from Harry Kindergarten- if you haven't checked out his work on You Tube, you really should.  But, I digress!  Back to Pirates and Parrots.  I needed some brain breaks that focus on reading skills.  This is something I learned from the I Teach First Conference with speaker Laureen Reynolds.  She told us about a game called Cowboys and Chickens, where students read sight words until they come to a cowboy or chicken on the screen.  When they see a cowboy, students yell, "Yeehaw!" and when they see a chicken, they yell, "Bawk-bawk!"

This is an adaptation of that game.  Basically, you can pick anything your students are interested in, or can match it up to whatever you are studying, like owls, bats, etc.  I chose pirates because, well,  I love pirates and who doesn't love making the good old, "Arrrr!" noise.  It's also a great tie in later to the /ar/ sound.  Personally, I'd prefer to use Johnny Depp as Captain Jack, but this is probably more school appropriate.  It's called Pirates and Parrots because I used to have a parrot in there, however, that noise was just too annoying!

So the rules are like this:  see a sight word, read it, see a pirate, yell, "Arrr!"  Easy, right?  The point is to get the kids to read the sight words as quickly and accurately as possible.  The pirates are just a fun way to keep the kids engaged.  I've been making these for my class and have posted one on TpT to share.  I really love this game and recommend it for whole class activities, small group interventions, or print out small slides and give them to individual students to practice on their own.  So fun!   

Being Odd is Fun!

This is a picture of one of my first graders exploring even and odd on a homemade (and tasty) arithmetic rack.

So I wandered over to Jill's blog to see what I could learn, and guess what?! We're on the same page in math, too! Both of us taught an Everyday Math lesson on even and odd numbers to our first graders. It is fun to see how we teach the same lesson, but in two different ways. Last year I was lucky enough to work with Purdue University Calumet's math gurus (shout out to Diana!) and add some inquiry math to my teaching. When it came to even and odd, I decided to draw upon this and introduce the arithmetic rack on Wednesday. I did not tell my kiddos what even and odd meant. Instead, I represented even and odd numbers on the arithmetic rack and let them discover even and odd. It is so hard sometimes not to just tell them, but I worked hard at keeping quiet.  They turned and talked to their partners and kept working at their definition and understanding of the concept. It was fun to watch the kids' faces light up as they discovered the meanings on their own!

They were so excited about the rack that I had to promise to let them use their own the next day.  They actually groaned when the math lesson was over! Well, we had a really great week, so I decided to combine two favorites...math and snack. My kiddos LOVE breakfast snack, so I made a late night run Wednesday night and got some Pull N Peels to go with our Apple Jacks and on Thursday we made arithmetic racks. Yup, we played with our food! We used the orange and green cereal pieces to make two rows of 10, one on each of two strings of licorice. Then the kids played with the concept of even and odd, and we even made videos of our explanations. EVERYONE wanted their moment in the spotlight, which meant everyone was engaged!

I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging... I'm just excited. I didn't expect the rack to be such a big hit, but when it was, I had to capitalize on it. On top of that, I have the best parents that send in so much snack for the class that we have enough laying around to inspire spur of the moment lessons! Later when I passed out fruit snacks, kids were doing even and odd on their own. Now the question is... How do I keep this momentum going into the next math concept?

First blog... sliding headfirst into it!

Hola fellow bloggers!
After some inspiration from my coworker Jill, I've decided to give this blogging thing a whirl.  I've had some experience blogging for some of my BSU classes in the past, but I basically blogged what I needed to blog and didn't look back. :(  I see now that this is a great way to share ideas and celebrate success!  My first grade friends make me so proud every day and I can't wait to share what we are doing and learn from all the other teacher/bloggers out there!  :)

Ok, now that I've got the layout and some basics down, I'm going to go enjoy the beginning of my fall break with some World Series baseball.  The Sliding Into First blog title is definitely a baseball reference... my classroom is a mini Wrigley Field!  Surprise, surprise, they are NOT in the WS, but I am having fun cheering on the Giants, especially since they knocked out the Cardinals.  Anyway, I'm always trying to get my baseball theme into lessons and classroom decor when I can, so if anyone has ideas out there, I'm all ears!