Listening Center

  I think the area in which I excel the most as a classroom teacher is organization. I pretty much never have anything out of place in my classroom, everything has a place, it even has a place to be before it goes to its home! I am actually so quick to put things away it might be inefficient. I put things away BEFORE I am done using them sometimes. I drive myself crazy. I am going to share with you my listening center organization, it is super simple and just *POOF* came to me after four long years of tangled wires and upset firsties at the listening station. Its hard to teach a small group when you have kids tangled up in wires and crying..okay I exaggerate a little. But just a little. Here is my listening center as of today:

 

 

I have tried the Leap Frog touch pen & headphones books, a tape player, computer listening center. We don't have Ipads or anything that fancy at my school for listening as of yet. I have always wanted to have my kiddos enjoy a good listening center, but each year I end up putting it away because of battery issues, headphones breaking, walkmans breaking. You name it, each year it was gone by October.   I use Ikea tables and stools for my listening center. Click the pictures for the link to the item. They are both super cheap and absolutely adorable! They come in lots of bright colors too! I used black zip ties to hold two of the small black tables together! I got so tired of them shifting apart!

     Step 1:  I only have two students here at a time as personal preference. I use a two part headphone splitter, there are ones that split up to 6 ways. Click the picture to link to one I use in my classroom. You just plug it right into the headphone port in your CD/tape player and you can plug the headphones in! It really is great and the best part is its only $3!   

  Step 2: The first thing I did was use a basket to store the CD player, the books, and the CDs. I usually have about 2-4 choices and have not had problems with the students changing the CDs out by themselves. I keep a smaller basket in the big basket to store the CDs/tapes.  

  

 

 I threaded each wire through the basket handles on each side! WHAT. So simple and it literally solved all of my listening center problems in thirty seconds.

 

Here are some baskets that are similar and would work for two partners. I set the CD player in the basket, along with the books and smaller basket to hold the CDs. One set of headphones goes out the handle hole on the right and the other set goes out the handle hole on the left.  

    Step 3: Hang your headphones! I used two XLarge thumb tacks on the bottom on a bulletin board but you could use 3M or even a clothes pin with a tack on the back. I also color coordinated my headphones with colored Washi tape to match the tack they belong on for extra measure to keep them untangled!  

Its that simple! I did this in the beginning of October and I have not heard a single student asking for help with the listening center! A dramatic improvement, I used to spend 20+ minutes each day fixing it and being annoyed, now I only have to change out the books and CDs every month! Easy!  

  If you are looking for even more amazing ideas on how to organize you listen to reading center head on over to Sarah's Blog: Yee Haw Teaching in Texas to see the amazing way she stores her Books & CDs! I think I need to get started on that too! Mine are just in one big tub as of now! I hope this helps you get organized!

Classroom Library

Ever since my first year of teaching, I have been collecting, buying, finding, scavenging books for my classroom library. It is mostly picture books and several baskets of chapter books. First graders tend to gravitate towards picture books or easy readers, even if they are capable of reading longer and higher level chapter books. I wanted to discuss how I run my classroom library today and how it has changed over the last four years. Here is a total view of my library! 

The first tool I have my students learn to use is clips to mark which basket they will be pulling books from.Before I even teach my firsties to use the five finger rule to choose just right books, I focus on getting my books put back into the correct baskets! It really is the most important tool to keep my library organized and running smoothly, WITHOUT my help! 

 One of my biweekly classroom jobs is "Librarian", this student checks at the end of the day that all the books are turned correctly, the clips are on the ribbon, labels are still on the baskets securely, and if there are any books in the "book hospital". I wish I knew who had the original book hospital idea, because it really is a lifesaver, to keep students from bothering me during small group time.

The rainbow of book baskets you see are not by accident or just for fun, I use them to color code my book genres. I use the term genre, very loosely in first grade. I aim to expose these first grade students to different genres and the vocabulary that it entails, not have them memorize the proper genres of a public library! I have tried a leveled library in the past, and it just wasn't for me. A regular school or public library does not  level the books for you. So instead I organize by 'genre' and teach the students to choose books that are on their instructional level, its a life skill. I'm not going to go down to the library and check out a book on "thermonuclear ..whatever" just because I like the way the cover looks, because I KNOW I CANNOT READ IT. Five finger rule, y'all. 

Here is the key the students use to help them remember which color is which genre. Each basket also has individual labels within that genre. The students use their clothes pin to clip onto the label of the basket they are currently reading a book from. 

My school does Accelerated Reader, AR, so I simply write with sharpie...gasp...on my books. I put the AR level on the cover and I put the AR quiz number on the inside cover for easy access for the students when they are ready to test. My students learn early on in the school year to memorize their AR range and can quickly use it and the five finger rule to choose books for their personal book basket that are on their level. 

 

I teach two classes of reading with integrated social studies and  my team teacher teaches math & science. So two students will share this desk, with one basket each. They will keep their reading notebook and their books in these baskets for easy access. I use three drawer Sterilite containers (one per group) to store Writer's Workshop folders, textbooks, and other materials. I don't use any sort of formal check out/take home procedure for my books. I think I have had maybe five books go missing in four years. I think my students can see how much I LOVE my books and how proud I am of them for taking the same care with them as I would. It really cuts down on theft and loss. 

My library is one of my 'must do' literacy stations, each pair of students visits the library once every 11 days. They take 1-2 books from the classroom library each time they visit, returning the other books they had from my library. They also get their AR book and free choice school library book, and their leveled reader each week. So at any given time, each student has six or seven books in their book basket to choose from. This set up is super low key & has worked wonderfully for me! Here are some bonus pictures of my completed and ready to go library for my new firsties!!

 My reading tub is always a class favorite! The two kids who are at library station can curl up in there with a good book for independent reading, to read more about where this tub came from click on the picture!

These are my holiday and seasonal baskets.

Fables, folktales, and fairy tales in light blue!

Most of my chapter books are housed on this small added shelf on the side of my library. 

 I try to make at least one class book per student each year, those go here throughout the year. At the end of the school year, I draw names to see who gets to take which book home. It is always a very exciting time to reflect on all of our learning in first grade! The book that is in the basket is one that I keep, my amazing mentor teacher had my student teaching class write me letters right before I graduated. 

Just a close up of my favorite picture book author/illustrator's basket. 

I am done with my classroom library post, but first let me take a #selfie! 

Spreading a little bit of Christmas cheer!

I am already all wrapped up in the Christmas season! I just love it! I have been working on several small centers and activities for my class! The first is a class favorite with my firsties this year! They loved the back to school edition, and then the pumpkin edition last month. I create a circle map of the theme word and we come up with adjectives to describe it in a whole group mini-lesson. Then I leave that chart in my poetry center and the students use the words from the circle map to create this fun little poem! Click on the picture below to grab it for FREE in my TPT store.  I have noticed that my students really struggle with ABC order this year, it is just difficult for this group to put a few words in order. So I have been working on a Christmas and Winter themed center for my kiddos to grab some extra practice with! Click the picture below to grab it in my TPT store!  Earlier in the year, I taught subject and predicate using a student response foldable and some mini-anchor charts. My kiddos ACTUALLY enjoyed learning, a hard to teach concept, so much, that I decided to use the same approach to teach cause and effect to my firsties this week. Click the picture below to grab it from my store. Everything is 28% off until tomorrow!  Only 14 more days until Christmas Break y'all!

Words their Way

Let me just start by saying, I have a total love/hate relationship going on with this program. Words their Way is a differentiated phonics program that can be taken in about a million different directions. I use this book for my firsties. I first heard of the program through colleagues and with the help of one of my super fantastic academic coaches, I decided to give the program a go this year with my firsties. I really DID NOT know what I was getting myself & my students into! I started off by (frantically) reading The Tattooed Teacher's blog post on how she uses WTW in her classroom, that was big help to get started. I  also purchased her Word Sort activities pack which helped me understand the different sorts you can have students do each week. It also aided me in setting up my own WTW schedule. You can click the picture below to go to Rachel's  TPT and check out the file.  However, the program is set up to be completely differentiated, so in the end I had to decipher what would work for my students and my class schedule. I came up with 2 schedules, one for at school and one for the students to do at home for their 'spelling homework.' More on that in a bit.  First things first, I administered the Letter Name test. This test results in a LN stage score (# of words spelled completely correct\25) and a feature score which is the total # of features spelled correctly\5 in 5  different categories. 5\5 feature score would mean the student has mastered the feature, 3-4\5 means the student is using the feature but is still confusing it, this is their 'instructional' zone. 0-2\5 means the student knew only individual words, not the pattern\focus feature.  I used this information to group my kiddos based on the feature that was in their instructional zone, I keep my groups to a max of four per reading block. I started with more, but it is just too much to keep up with. Four really does provide just enough differentiation to keep my kiddos on target and to keep me sane.  After grouping the students and selecting their focus feature, I make the copies of each sort (4 different ones/per reading block).  Each student has a folder, notebook, plastic baggie, and index card. The folder has a short blurb to remind the students and their parents of the HW schedule, the notebook is for the sentences & word hunt. We also glue old sorts down on Wednesdays before the test. The baggie holds the current weeks words/pictures and the index card. The index card is for students to record their time and date during the speed sort.  Here is the schedule I use in my classroom, nothing fancy, if you want a copy, just click the picture! I have found that each group doing the same thing each day on their own level works best for me, I can not keep up with one thing on Monday, then next group doing that on Tuesday...this does work for some people & I saw tons of awesome set ups on the web, just not for me!  On Thursday, I call each WTW group one at a time and hold a mini-meeting. We discuss our focus feature, the pattern(s) we will be sorting by and go over the words (pictures) because some of them are odd (thimble, thermos, pin, pipe, jax) and the kids will be asking all week if not! When we close our mini-meeting the students return to their desks and scribble color the back of their sort for easy lost piece identification and sort their words a couple times before heading off to literacy centers. I find doing centers after WTW speeds up the scribble color & cut time from FOREVER to about 10 minutes. ;) The rest of my schedule is pretty simple!  On Wednesdays, I give the test in the same small groups I handed the sorts out in. I can usually test all 4 groups in less than 45 minutes while the rest of the class is at literacy centers. I use plain old hand writing paper cut in half. The kids draw 3 or 4 categories depending on their sort. I call out the words and they write the word in the correct category and spell it correctly, this includes the kiddos who had pictures instead of words. For my picture sorting friends, if they had 8 words, I grade 16. To get each +2 the word has to be in the correct category and the feature must be in the correct position and of course the correct letter or letter combo. This grading system works pretty well for us! My word sorting friends must have the whole word spelled correctly and in the correct category to get +2 for each word.  Here is a copy of the letter I send to parents to explain what we are doing in class and what they need to be doing at home. Click the picture for a copy! While I don't love having to grade the test right away & deciding who gets which sort the next day, it is SO worth it. So far this year from 8\28-10\15 when I gave the LN assessment again, EVERY SINGLE STUDENT this includes my second time around friends, SPED friends, GT friends, bubble friends, ALL MY FRIENDS showed growth. Most moved up more than 3 stages, I had several move up more than 10 stages and one go from 0 to 13\25 and one from 0 to 17\25! What! Amazing! I can see my students READING and using the focus features, it is really is great! I hope this helps anyone new to the program! If I can elaborate on anything to help you, please comment & let me know! 

Literacy Calendar

I started this year off wanting to do a literacy calendar area, since I do not teach math, I thought it would be a great way to frame my daily literacy instruction. However, this is my first year in first grade, I didn't have a great frame of what firsties would need as a daily focus. Flash forward 12 weeks &  I was able to clearly see where the broken links were in my firstie's reading skills. Blends & vowel combinations! We also need a lot more focus on fluent reading! I started looking through blogs & Pintrest to see what was out there, I am SURE most teachers do something similar to this, but I just could not find anything on a daily literacy routine or calendar set up. So this is what I came up with! I think it is sort of a reading focus wall but also very interactive for the students to lead and learn while we go through each item!  

The first thing I have are my focus wall labels to identify each piece of learning. You can find them in my TPT shop! 

Sight Words:

We have our weekly sight words on the red chart that come from our reading series & go along with our story of the week, on Friday's we make a big todo about moving them over to the word wall & into long term memory! I just type them into text boxes & print! 

Sentence Stems:

The yellow chart displays sentence stems, we usually focus on the same ones for about two weeks, we read these aloud for fluency. The reason I teach sentence stems is help my students answer questions, orally and written, in full sentences. I have found the stems help them frame basic thoughts into a sentence! My partner teacher even noticed the full sentence switch over, WITHOUT me mentioning it! YAY! 

Genre: 

I have this genre poster displayed along with the genre poster for the genre our story of the week is focusing on! We review the characteristics of the week's genre and  make connections to other books we have recently read that are also in the same genre! 

Vowels: 

I have these super cute vowel posters up on my wall, the kids the pictures and chanting the sounds and pictures! The best part is that they are a FREEBIE from Christine Statzel! Click on her name to check out her awesome TPT store! :) 

Blends: 

I recently went on a search to update my blends posters and came across another great FREEBIE from Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files!  Stop by her blog to pick up these great posters! I love that the word examples are not the first thing that come to mind! Hello people..EXPANDING that vocabulary! 

Strategy & Skills: 

I have weekly strategy & skills mini-posters that I change out to coordinate with our weekly focus! These are in the works for TPT still! :) I feel a freebie coming on.. 

Story Map: 

I use this big green and black laminated poster to write down the map of the story that we are focusing on this week with visa v markers! The kids are dying to do this, but are starting it next week. Baby steps! 

Anchor Charts: 

I have two clothes pins with tacks hot glued to the back to hold up up new anchor charts that we are using/making for the current week! This way I can have two half charts or one large chart displayed each week. Also, since I do not have a white board in this area, I would like to note that since I teach two blocks of reading to the same level of students, I generally make my anchor chart frames and then laminate them, so I can do the same lesson while filling in/writing on the anchor chart with both groups! So if you were wondering where I am writing while teaching whole group, its on my laminated anchor charts! 

Letter Combinations:

We chant this chart each day! The kids love it and it is already helping them with unfamiliar words in their reading! The anchor chart idea came from Maria Mallon, you can see her original chart below, I changed very little on the copy I made!  ,  I have been letting my teacher's assistant, which rotates each week use a pointer to point at all of the words & charts as we read them, I just sit in my chair and observe! After all of this is done, we do HFW flash cards, about 50words/per day.
Weekly Fluency Poem:

Then we practice our fluency reading a poem each week, that either coordinates with the phonics focus skill, holiday, or social studies theme for the week! 
The whole routine takes about 18 minutes and a bit longer on Mondays!  I should also mention that I do not have a space for spelling words because I use Words Their Way as my spelling program and it is differentiated into 6 different tests/per week between my two reading blocks, two much to keep up with on display! One week in, we are all loving this new routine! I am loving the results I am already seeing with my kiddos! I am open to questions or comments with improvements or additions to the wall! 
-Katie