Promises, promises (I made you)

Happy Sunday, friends! Thank you to everyone who commented about my Writing Workshop dilemma - I got some great (as expected) advice! I'm working on some ideas that I think will work for my little class and as soon as I have things up and running, I'll let you know how it goes.  Lori from Teaching with Love and Laughter shared an amazing idea called 'The Quiet 10'.  Basically, the kids cannot talk for the first ten minutes.  The Real OC Teachers reminded me that Daily 5 techniques can be transferred to Writing Workshop - such a great point! And Barbara from Grade ONEderful had a similar sentiment: model, model, model. A few of you just emailed me some ideas, and I appreciate that too! Thank you all! I can't wait to dig in and keep you posted. 

And... onward.

Last week, I promised some goodies for The Daily 5 and I'm excited to share them today.  

The first one is a writing craftivity for the Daily 5 lesson on 'Good-Fit Books'.  If you do the shoe lesson, you'll love this one. (Warning: I do not advise you to leave the shoes in your room for the weekend. STINKY!)

A lovely teammate shared this book with me last year, and it's become a staple of mine for this lesson. "Those Shoes" by Maribeth Boelts is about a boy who desperately wants a pair of fancy shoes - and the only pair he can find is too small.  It's FABULOUS for this lesson about picking a 'Good-Fit Book'. And it makes me tear up. Every. time.

(Click the picture to buy it at Amazon.)

After reading this story, you can have students share what books might be 'Good-Fit Books' for them.  I've made this shoe clip art (please be forgiving!) with writing lines on the back.  You can download the masters and the tracer here!  My students will decorate the front of the shoe with their INTERESTS using markers and then write about what kinds of books will be 'Good-Fit Books' for them on the back.  If I can get away with it, I'll hang these from my ceiling. 

 

This year, I am trying to save some wall space, so I made these I-Charts for The Daily Five.

I'm not finished teaching every Daily, so my wall is incomplete. 

 

 

You can grab all five anchor charts here (or by clicking the picture).  Print them on LEGAL size paper for best results. (Graphics courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles.)

Finally, here's a great little game for Word Study. I'm always inspired by Cara Carroll's adorable Word Work games, so I made one for my class!  We've been working on reviewing short vowels and digraphs.  

Students roll three dice made from cardstock (you can prep this ahead of time to save yourself more gray hair).  One has consonants, one has digraphs, and one has short vowels (I always code my short vowels with green).  Once they roll, they can move the blue dice around to make a word.

Students either make a 'real' word or a 'nonsense' word.  They write the word under the correct column on their recording sheet. 

We had a great time making 'words'!

Note: I did NOT use the consonant 't'.  I've fallen into THAT digraph trap one too many times!

PS: Look what I recreated from something I saw on Pinterest! The picture is blurry and pathetic - I know.  I need a camera that ISN'T a phone!

I'm not sure who made this original poster that I pinned:

but I LOVED it! If it's you, let me know!

Speaking of great anchor charts, what are YOUR staples??