Sunday Smorgasbord plus a Journeys Freebie!

So I was going to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching but I just didn't get my act together. I went to see Chris and the boy scouts on the fourth and then got back kind of late in the afternoon yesterday. So I thought I would like up with Fabulous in First for her Sunday Smorgasbord party.

So I really didn't get all the things I wanted to get done this past week done at all. I haven't even started on the nursery yet. But I did have a good week with my family and friends. So this week it is on. I have to get busy on the guest room or I won't get it done before school starts. And we all know once school starts it is going to be hard to do the clean out I want to do. My sister in law was talking about having a yard sale next weekend so I'm hoping that's the motivation I need. This is what I'm working with:

I need all this stuff cleaned out and whatever can go somewhere else or I can get rid of I need to do it. (I kind of can't believe I'm sharing this on my blog. So embarrassing how bad it is) Be sure to ask me how it is going. Maybe that will keep me motivated and accountable.

I did finally sit down and work on a couple of things for school. Nothing earth shattering but what I needed to get done before I could move on to my homework. I took all the teacher's editions of the first grade Journeys series and put together an outline for me and my team to help us with planning. I don't have that to share because there are similar things my blogging friends have come up with to sell. But I do have the sight word list for you. Last summer I made some sight word sheets for Journeys Kindergarten to help you with planning and assessment. I finished the one for first grade. I put this sheet in my students' notebooks at the beginning of the year and then parents had the sight words for the whole year. For kindergarten, I was able to fit all the words on one sheet. First grade, it takes two. These sight word list are for the Common Core aligned version of Journeys that was adopted in our county last school year. I think it is the 2014 version. So that is why it might seem like there are a lot more words in kindergarten. I promise I didn't add any words to the list!

Click here to get the first grade file on Google Docs. 

Click here to get the Kindergarten file on Google Docs.

It isn't much accomplished on my to do list but it's a start and it makes me feel better. This week I've got to tackle the homework pack. I want to have that ready before school starts too. Last summer, I did the first half of the year in the summer and the the second half when I needed it. This summer I really need to get them both done. Since I'll be on maternity leave the spring semester. So I might just have to hole myself up with the computer rather than having so much fun everyday. 

There is one thing I have to make time for and that's the reading program I'm part of with our local public library. We have partnered up with a local church and we bring the books to the church and the church runs a van to pick up kids. The kids are part of our ELL population in the county. We had 14 kids this past week and 6 volunteers. The volunteers read with the kids or listen to the kids read. Then those kids who have brought back the form, can check out books. We haven't had a ton of success with getting the forms back but we do have 3 kids checking out books. It is pretty exciting stuff. My partner in crime, Cassie and I are on the local library board so we're really representing the library but using our connections as teachers to make the program happen. All of our volunteers were either teachers or parents we know through our school. Our librarian suggested this week we submit this to a conference in the Fall which is kind of exciting. Here are the kids listening to a read aloud. We were trying to engage all the kids in it. 

It is so much fun to be a part of this program and to get to read with kids one on one. I love it!

So that's my randomness for the week! I have plans to be back tomorrow with a Monday Made it! I would love to hear about how your summer projects are going! I hope they are going better than mine! 

Be sure to head over to Fabulous in First and check out the rest of the party!

Reading Plans for the week and my new love.

So I'm so excited. I am blogging from my brand new computer. Yesterday Chris took me to the Apple Store and we brought home a 27 inch iMac. I'm in love with it already. We traded our mouse in for a track pad and I love all the things I can do with it. Although I don't always remember how to do what I want to do with it. As soon as we got home, Chris got it set up for me. I've been playing on it ever since. Well, other than that pesky thing called work. There was part of me that really wanted to just stay home and play on the computer today. I figured out how to load my fonts, installed my clipart and have been playing around with iPhoto. If I can figure out how to get all my photo stream photos I'll be good to go. I was using a tiny dell netbook for the past 7 years or so. This is what I was using (or basically)

This is what I have now.

It is pretty amazing. I pulled up pinterest yesterday and I was a little overwhelmed by how many pictures were there. I will probably use my iPad for pinterest. It is a little more manageable. 

So here I am finally on my computer ready to do something. Hopefully this will inspire me to get creating some new things and to get to blogging more often. 

I tried out Keynote using my Visual Plans powerpoint file. It took a little work to figure out somethings like hyperlinking and then exporting to an image. But I think I'm going to like Keynote as well as powerpoint. Or at least well enough so I don't have to buy Microsoft Office right now. So here's what we are up do in reading this week. 

I'm not uploading this file to google docs right now because I plan on adding our centers to the week but I haven't gotten them all together. I'm on a weird rotation of centers. We have 12 centers so it takes about 12 days to get through them. We've had a couple of weird weeks thrown in there so we'll be changing out centers in the next day or two.
You can find the story maps and sequencing maps we're going to use in my Monster Mapping Unit on TPT.
This has taken me way longer to write than I thought it would. It could be because Chris got home and started playing with the computer while I finished up dinner. Then we ate dinner and then I had to figure out downloading pictures and inserting hyperlinks. So that's a taste of what we plan on doing this week. Hopefully, I'll remember to take a few pictures and I'll be back later this week with our centers.
If you use a mac and you have any great tips to share, they would be much appreciated.

Visual Plans for the week - Winter Olympics, Valentine's Day and other topics

It has been a long time since I've linked up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten and her peek at week linky party. It takes me so long to create these visual plans and I really wasn't sure anyone was reading them. But I'm going to try again. I have a weird hodge podge of plans this week. We were out last week for 3 days due to snow. So all Valentine's Day plans were put off. We've only been to school one full week since we've been back from Christmas break. I feel like I'm falling further and further behind so instead of pushing my plans from last week to this week. I mashed them together with a new week in our reading series. So my theme is a little off. We're going to be doing a variety of things and working on a lot of stuff. I hope my kids are up for it. Better yet I hope I'm up for it. I am planning some fun things to talk about the Winter Olympics. I hope to be back later this week to share more. Anyway, here are my plans.

To be able to click on the links you need to download the plans from this link here. It will take to the google docs file.
I would write more but I have dark chocolate brownie, vanilla ice cream, the Winter Olympics and my hubby waiting for me. Be sure to head over to Mrs. Wills Kindergarten to check out the party. 
I would love to hear what you do when snow days get in the way of your plans and how you handle it.

Fourth Grade Reading Buddies

I have this idea in my head of my perfect school. I'm sure I"m not the only teacher out there who has this perfect school planned out. A place where the ideals and values I hold dear are expressed. One of my ideas is to have older kids mentoring younger kids. I love the school I teach at now. It is the school I went to in 7th and 8th grade and it's where I want my kids to go to school. We have a lot of history and it's a unique place. One of the unique things about it is it's a k-8 school. I enjoy getting to see my kids that I've had in class grow up. My first loop is in 6th grade now and it has been great to see them mature. One of the downsides to the k-8 school is that eighth graders don't always pay attention to the younger students. They don't set the example I think they should. I think mentoring could help that. Well, one of my best friends teaches fourth grade. (We might or might not be planning to take over the world by teaching reading.) She and I worked on the summer reading program. As school started, we started talking about pairing our students up for a buddy program. And about 3 weeks ago we got this buddy program going. We met before hand and talked about what our goals were and worked on pairing up the students apropriately. It worked out well, because her class was part of a loop I had a few years ago. So I knew quite a few of the kids already and their backgrounds. We worked too on pairing up our ELL students so they could learn from each other and be supported with language.
Our first meeting, we had the kids interview each other. They asked questions about reading and learning preferences. We came up with 4 or 5 questions and the fourth graders recorded the answers. Then they read a few books together.

This was one of our favorite pairings. They were so cute together and it was beneficial to both students.
The next week we read books all about fall and fall things like spiders and bats. There was a mix of fiction and non fiction. Together they worked on coming up with facts and the fourth graders recorded them on paper. Then we gave them an apple and they picked one fact to write on the apple. My intention was to put up a tree on a bulletin board and then add the apple facts. But it hasn't happened yet. I wish I had taken some pictures because they were really engaged. My kids were asking when their partners were coming all day and were so excited.
This past week we had each student bring a couple of favorite books. The fourth graders picked out characters and books they enjoyed to share with the kindergartners and then my students picked a couple of books they have been reading to read. My friend and I walk around the room while they are reading and listen in on the reading. It is so neat to see the fourth graders teaching the kindergartners. There was one fourth grader asking the kinder to predict what was going to happen. Here are a couple of pictures from this past week:

We've started making some plans for upcoming meetings. One of our ideas is to celebrate fall and Halloween together. We are no longer allowed to have parties to celebrate Halloween so we thought we'd meet on Halloween and do a fun activity together. I have seen a couple of good ideas on pinterest. One that I like is making pumpkins and then describing the pumpkins with adjectives. We've been working on sensory words and I think this would be a neat activity. Another idea we've been working on is a reading scavenger hunt through the school. I have a students who claims he doesn't want to learn to read. (That's a first for me) We're hoping we can show him that he needs reading in his life. We've also been discussing doing a visualizing activity. The fourth graders have been working on this skill. 

This week our reading skill is character. While in Kindergarten we are only trying to identify the characters and starting to describe them. In fourth grade the skill involves describing and using text evidence. I'm trying to come up with an activity for us to do using this skill.

So do you do anything like this? I would love to hear about it if you do and what kinds of activities you do. I'm really excited for the potential this type of relationship has. 

I'm hoping to be back to regular blogging soon. I've been working on some ideas and scheduling some posts. Things have been crazy the past few weeks and I think they are finally calming down some. I'll be back tomorrow for a peek at my upcoming week. 

Reading Outreach and a Freebie

So I have been MIA all week long. We had Vacation Bible School this past week and I was exhausted from it. Our church does something a little different and we create all our own materials. We don't use a prepackaged theme but create it all. Chris and our Pastor come up with the theme. This year it was "A Tennessee Hillbilly in King David's Court." I'm amazed by my husband's creativity. He writes skits for all the nights. This year King David was "The King" like Elvis. It was hilarious and so much fun. I worked in the nursery. This was my third year there and it wore me out. My sister in law and I decided next year we were doing something different. Like crafts. We were tired of saying no don't hit and share over and over. So between that and working in my room I just didn't have the energy for the blogging. I can only imagine what it's going to be like when school starts.
I am on the board of our local library and this summer along with another teaching friend, Cassie, we've been working on a summer reading program. It started out as a program to bring books out in the community to the kids that live in hotels that have been turned into weekly rentals. (I live in a tourist town.) These motels aren't the greatest places to live and these kids don't have access to books in their home. Most of them are living in a one room with no kitchen and not enough beds. But as we went out in the community to talk to people and get the word out, we found that there weren't as many kids living in this motels this summer. They  closed down one of the larger motels and a lot of the kids moved. So the first week we went out we had no kids. The second week we went out we had no volunteers. But the third week, we tried something a little different. One of our stops was an apartment complex where some of our ELL students live. We talked to their parents and we had 5 kids come down. (Which was really good because we had 7 volunteers.) This seemed to be the direction we should be moving.

 So this week we changed our locations up some. We went to this location above and then added another apartment complex. We had 3 more kids this week. The best thing that has happened was one of the boys told us he didn't like to read before. But reading with us has changed that. It made my heart smile! I know that whatever we did this was worth it.

We're hoping to adapt some and be able to do something when school starts back. We have one more week with this program and I'm excited to see what will happen.
Before starting the reading program, we held a training session with all the volunteers. We modeled a way that we wanted the volunteers to read with the students. It was adapted from Richard Allington's book What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. 

I made a book mark with the prompts on it. I think that I'm going to use it if/when I have volunteers come in the classroom to read with students. I thought I would share it in case someone else wanted to use it. 

Click here to get the freebie. 

I have about 2 weeks before I got back to work officially. We have a staff retreat week after this coming week and then I go to the beach for one last hurrah. Then it's school time. So much to do in the next few weeks. One thing I need to catch up on is my Next Step in Guided Reading book reading. I've gotten behind. Hopefully I'll be back with a post soon. I hope to have some Monday Made its at least and some classroom pictures. 

Journeys reading Series - A linky Party

This coming school year, my school system is adopting a new reading series. It is time although I liked the older series. Probably just because I was familiar with it. But it's time for something new. Something that meets the common core standards and is a little more vigorous. Our system looked at three different series. Wonders, Journeys and Reading Street. I was lucky enough to get to review all three series as part of a group at my school. One of my fellow first grade teachers was on the county committee. I really liked Reading Street the best out these series. But the county decided on Journeys.

It was my second choice so I'm ok with it. Luckily my principal is of the opinion that our instruction isn't driven by the textbook but by the standards and the students. So I have some freedom to deviate if needed. But I like using the reading series for sight words and phonics skills. My first year in kindergarten (6 years ago) we adopted the reading series Treasures. After using it for a year, I realized I needed a better way to organize what we were doing. I created a document that helped me with planning. It was like an overview of all the units. It made planning easier and it made sharing with our special area and ELL teachers a lot easier. So the last day of school, I found myself on the online portal of Journeys creating this document and recording all the sight words for the series. This helped me to start thinking about what I needed for the upcoming school year.
I knew this series was much more vigorous than what I was used to but it shocked me to see the amount of sight words the kids are expected to learn this year. For the first 2 units it is one word a week, much like what I was use to. The third unit it goes up to 2 words a week. But the 4-6 units, the kids are expected to know 6 words a week. To me that seems like a lot but I'll be jumping in with 2 feet. I have a freebie for you to help you wrap your mind around all the sight words.

Click here for this freebie. 

Along with this freebie, I've created a couple of items for Teachers Pay teachers that use the words and letter order from Journeys. I would love for you to check them out. 

Click Here for the link and a freebie. 

This is 15 weeks worth of homework using the sight words and letter order, I am so excited about this unit. I have been using fluency homework for the past 2 years. I usually throw it together the week before. So I'm excited to have it done for the first semester. If you check it out on TPT, download the preview. It has a freebie of the first week. The first week is all about their name. 

The second product I have that uses Journeys is a word work packet. 

Click Here for the Link on TPT. 

I'm excited about this unit too. It has activities for the whole year. So I have word work stations done for the year. That's exciting to me!

I also thought I would share a few of my friends products too. There are a lot of great resources on TPT for Journeys. 

• The first is from Lori at Teaching with Love and Laughter. This is what you need to get started with Journeys. (She has a fantastic scope and sequence. I wish I had seen it earlier.) Journeys Through the Year Kindergarten Edition.  Click on the title to go to the unit. It is awesome. Lori also has a sight word sentence unit. Kindergarten Journeys Sentence Puzzles. Check it out. 
• The next on is from Erica at Sprinkles to Kindergarten. It is an alphabet bump game. My kids love love love bump. Check it out by clicking here. 
• The last one is from Sarah from Kindergarten Korner. It's Reading Words Around the Rainbow. It's a great way to have the kids practicing all the words they need to know. Check it out by clicking on the title. 

So those are the resources I've found so far. I would love to see what you've found or what you're working on. Please link up with your post all about Journeys.  

My favorite reading pins

It's time again for the pinterest party over at Just Reed. I have had so much fun joining her pinterest parties. This week it's all about reading. I love teaching reading and it could be because I love to read so much. Reading is one of my favorite things. That has been the only plus side to my hubby being out of town this week. I've been able to stay up late and read. I've read 3 books since he's been gone.

1. This first pin is from Meaning Matters. It's a retelling bracelet made from a pipe cleaner and beads. I've used this a couple of times. I first saw it on Fran at Kindergarten Crayon's blog for Thanksgiving. But I've also used it for Pete the cat.

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400135524/

2. The next one is all about foldables. I use foldables some but not as much as I would like. This is from A Teacher's Treasure. She has a ton of examples on her blog. Check it out here. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400728563/

3. The next pin is one of my own products. It's my Monster Mapping unit on TPT. It has different story maps and graphic organizers. I use it a lot with my kids and their reading journals. I shrink them to a half page and they fit perfectly in their reading journal.

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400732782/

4.The next one is from my friend Jennifer from Herding Kats in Kindergarten. She has a great elements of a story pack. I have all the posters printed out and in my binder that I use for reading groups. It's great to use to introduce different story elements. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467399023054/

5.This anchor chart is all about talking about books. I would love to get my kids talking more about books and what they have read. This pin didn't lead anywhere but it's good inspiration.

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400625743/

6.This is another anchor chart pin. Only this one is from Fabulous Fourth. I love the idea of having a visual reminder of character traits. It's so hard for kids to think of traits beyond nice.

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467399461859/

7. Have you checked out the Teacher Tipster? I saw this idea over at that sight. They are power tower sight words. You write the words on the cups and then make towers with them. (This picture comes from this site http://lewislearninglibrary.blogspot.com/2011/02/managment-monday-tuesday-other.html?showComment=1310685889346) This is on my to do list this summer. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467398902737/

8. My class this past year loved Pete the Cat and so do I. So I'm planning on starting the school year off with some Pete the Cat fun. I found these super cute necklaces over at Coyne's Crazy Fun Classroom.

 http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400776587/

9, Vocabulary is a very important part of reading and I love this idea from My Heart Belongs in First about ways to display vocabulary words from books. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400726874/

10. My last pin is all about finding the right book. I hope that I can help all my kids to find the right book and they won't dislike reading. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/167055467400704195/

Those are some of my favorite pins about reading. Be sure to head over to Just Reed and check out the party.