Monday Wrap UP and FREEBIE

Man, what a day! It has been a fun filled day of learning. I have been working on narrative writing for quite awhile. The kindergarten and 1st grade writing classes have been coming along and seem to be mastering those standards. My 2nd graders are still really struggling. I have had to pull out some kinder/1st grade lessons to help fill the gap for those 2nd grade kiddos. It just hurts me alot when they struggle. Does it you? Anyway, today we were working on building a narrative using only pictures in a Beginning, Middle, and End organizer. Click to Download this freebie.

What I have the students do is to think of a story that they want to tell. They draw what happens in the beginning, Middle, and End. I model for them what I am expecting. After I draw mine, I tell my story to them. I send them back to their seat and then they begin their work. I just do that on day 1. Day 2 I have them get their paper out and we get in a circle. I have the students number off 1, 2, 1, 2, etc. Then the ones get in the middle and make their circle while facing outwards. The two's stand in front of a 1. The 1's talk first and tell their story. Then the 2's tell their story. Once they have shared one time, then they count 5 students and move around the circle. They share the story again. When they finished sharing the 2nd time, I asked "Did you say or do anything different the 2nd time that you didn't do the first time." It took a bit but one student said,"Mrs. King, I added a detail." DING! DING! DING! By George I think they got it! Day 3 will be just taking the Beginning picture and putting it into writing. Day 4 will be the middle picture into words and Day 5 will be putting the final picture into words. Then I can spend a few days adding details and making their final copies. Fingers crossed that this method will help my 2nd graders. 

Now on to another part of my day! I was sitting at my desk at lunch and trying to make since of all the things that needed to get finished today. When I decided to check my email. I had to check my google mail on my Iphone because my district has it block on their server. (Seriously! I have yet to understand that!) When I opened the email, I saw Congrats! in the subject line. I quickly opened it and saw that I had won an AMAZING Science bundle from The Hands-on Teacher in First. I entered her giveaway on FB and never dreamed I could or would win. I am so blessed to have this because it will totally help me in working on these new Science Standards. You guys should really check her out! She has awesome post on FB and blog. 

The next thing that made this day great was that I uploaded 7 (YES, 7) new products to my store. I made 6 Fall Sight Word Flash Sets. Every set is $2 except the last one it is $3. I even bundled them all together for $10. The picture below is for the Bundle. I will leave links for all of the sets and the bundle. I am currently working on Fluency Passage Set now. I hope to have it finished tonight or tomorrow. 

Click here for the Bundle Set

Set 1 Preprimer: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-1520762

Set 2 Primer: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-2-1522355

Set 3 1st grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-3-1564254

Set 4 2nd grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-4-1564260

Set 5 3rd grade: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Set-5-1564266

Set 6 Noun Set: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Sight-Word-Flash-Noun-Set-1564275

Well, I must go plan some more. I have a new motto courtesy of Hello Literacy Jen Jones. If you don't know her. OH, you are missing out. She is amazing! 

Project Child????

Recently, I was a guest blogger on Learning to be Awesome and I had several ask about what Project Child is and how it is ran in my school. Today I thought I would tell you about it and give you the pros and cons of this framework.

1. What is Project Child?

1. Project CHILD (Changing How Instruction for Learning is Delivered) is a research-based teaching and learning system for grades K-5. It emphasizes reading, writing, and mathematics. The triangulated design of the model focuses on: grouping three teachers over three grade levels

2. How it is suppose to work?

I am a Writing Teacher with the homeroom for 2nd grade. I spend half the day with my 2nd graders. I spend 90 minutes with 1st grade and 90 with kindergarten. For Writing and Math, they are to have 60 minutes for their subject area and the other 30 is suppose to be for Social Studies or Science. Reading has 90 minutes of uninterrupted time. Each subject area is to have stations.

3. How does it work in your cluster?

Math does stations, RTI, and Whole group time. Reading does the same. I do stations, then whole group, sharing time, read aloud and RTI. In my room my ESL teacher comes and works with her students as well. SS and Science has fallen to the waist side bad. I have made Friday to be my Friday Science day. 

4. Pros

The pros to this to me is that when you have a rough behavior class then you only have 90 minutes and there is a break. The next pro is that you are only planning for 1 subject. Another pro is that you have a team to work with. 

5. Cons

a.) It is very hard to build an authentic relationship with my students. 

b.) The students who have behavior issues in other places tend to do well with me. This means that if I had them all day, I would be able to maybe stop some of that behavior. 

c.) Conferences are a nightmare because I am talking to over 60 sets of parents.

d.) When a parent calls me upset about reading or math, I hate having to tell them that they will have to contact the other teachers. I like to know everything about my students.

e.) Reading and Writing should go together. It is too hard when I see issues they are having in reading that effect them in Writing. 

f.) Some staff members get very upset if you "teach something in their subject area."

I truly this would work well in a school that is not deficient and whose climate is positive. There are some schools that are very successful using this model. If you want to know more about how it runs with them. Just click here. 

Guest Blogging

I am super excited to be guest blogging over on Learning to Be Awesome. You should go and check out how I use Writing Boot Camp in my classroom and how you might could use it in yours. Plus, I would love your feedback on what you think.

http://learningtobeawesome.blogspot.com/

Five for Friday

Hey everyone! I am linkin up with DoodleBugs for Five for Friday. This has been a great week so I can't wait  to share.

This week my baby girl turned 3. I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. She even is starting preschool on Monday. WHAT? It is just crazy to me.

I went to my doctor's appointment to check on how well I am doing since I had my gastric sleeve surgery 18 months ago. Well, I am officially down 154 lbs. It is so hard to believe how big I allowed myself to be. I am so blessed and so grateful to have had this surgery done. I will work hard to not ever go back to  382 lbs again.

  

I am sure that my teams wants to choke me at times. LOL! I am blessed to work where I do. These team members truly care about our students. It has been fun!

  

I am thankful for a loving husband who takes really good care of me. With all the late nights I have had, he has been there to support me and be my rock.

I am so super excited for all my new followers and blogging friends. This journey is new but I am so blessed to have met all of you. You make this journey so much fun and truly a love.

Wordless Wednesday

Hey everyone! It's Melinda your Sassy Teacher. I am coming to you tonight because I am linking up with Miss DeCarbo for Wordless Wednesday. I thought I would share my pictures of my Kindergarten Writing class working in stations for the first time this week and my 2nd graders are on the computers doing Lexia and Imagine Learning.  At my school every grade is suppose to get an extra hour a week for Lexia or Imagine Learning (ELL students). I love both of those programs. They are great in helping students with their reading and with helping their understanding of the English Language. If you get a chance to check these programs out, I would. They are AMAZING!!!!
I hope this will help you in the future.

Love,
Melinda
Sassy Teacher

Fun With Kinders

Hey everyone! It's Melinda your Sassy Teacher. I thought I would come today and tell you about some fun that I'm planning for my kinders. Since I see k-2 for writing, I have been really struggling with making kinders more engaging and to have them ready for 1st grade. So, I have  been reading blogs and watching Pinterest ( who isn't addicted to it?) trying to find some fun ideas for them. Well I thought color noodles and a sensory box. Some of my kinders have been struggling still with letters and sounds. I just drill and practice with some of them. I have 3 that are still missing letters. The rest of the class has been really working hard on sight words. I'm proud to say that out of 19 students, 16 of them know all 13 words we have learned. So I am making a sensory box using color noodles and sight words inside them. I colored some noodles tonight. I will definitely have to buy more. I hope they have as much fun as I am having getting it ready. If anyone has more ideas to do with sensory boxes please share. I am very excited about how I'm teaching now with these kinders. 

My Teacher Bucket List

Yep you read that right, I made a a teacher bucket list. It's  just a list of things that I want to accomplish. Some may not seem like teaching specifically but it relates to teachers. Here is a copy of my list. 

As you can see I got to mark one item off the list. I was so thankful to get to chat with Greg Smedley-Warren from Kindergarten  Smorgasbord. It was great to get to talk "shop" and to just share in the passion of teaching. I feel like I made a life long friend. I hope to someday to inspire others the way he inspires me. Thanks Mr. Greg! 

I want to end by saying I hope that you think about making your own Teacher Bucket List. It may just help you make those professional goals. 

Much Love, 

Melinda aka Sassyteacher75