Making some treasure out of Treasures!

I have had a couple of emails and questions on what I posted last time about how I split up activities across the week! I am a firm believer in making your reading series work for you and your students. I love having the guide there but I sometimes have to change a few things up! I do this because I find that there are just way too many things they want you to accomplish in there, and then on top of that I always have my activities that I want to complete also! So I made myself a schedule to keep me in check and to not overwhelm my babies.

Here it goes:

Monday is the day where I introduce everything! This is usually when we go over our spelling skill and comprehension skill for the week. I have now been making our anchor charts at this time, too. I find that I enjoy having them come up with what needs to be on the chart and it saves me time too! The chart below my students created on their own and I just wrote down what they told me to! I guided their thinking a little bit, but I can tell you know that they know what author's purpose is!

Tuesday is when we review the phonics and comprehension skill again and we learn our new spicy words (or vocabulary) I pick two words from the oral vocabulary story that is included in Treasures. They don't add vocabulary in the first grade book till unit 5?! I think this is soo late. I want my kids to build vocabulary early! So, we start with two words and eventually I will add on a few more. They get tested on these on Friday also.
Tuesday is also our poetry day. I introduce our poem of the week, and we choral read together. We also look for rhyming words and and popcorn (sight words) words. They then copy the poem in their poetry journals. I get the poems from various places. I look them up or I have been using the "Sight Word Poetry Pages" book from Scholastic. I also place this poem at the poetree!

The poetree! Also serves as the poetry workstation.

On Wednesday we read our main story (also if I don't like the story I pick something else) and then do our graphic organizer. I also usually make my own graphic organizer. I find that sometimes the ones that come in the practice book are too hard or don't make sense for a first grade brain.
We also write our popcorn words in sentences. I like doing this to just keep reinforcing sentence practice and structure.

On Thursday it is fix it up day! Like in the last post, I use the grammar practice book and copy those sentences on chart paper. We fix them together using post-it notes. I also will include the grammar skill. Like last week, we circled all the nouns in the sentences.

Friday is review day and then test day. We take a spelling test, the reading test from the assessment book, and vocabulary. I also pull them for their popcorn words.

Also, throughout the week my kiddos write the morning message everyday during morning work time. They copy it and then usually answer the question, if there is no question I add my own. 

I hope this explains how my week in Treasures turns out! Email me if you have anymore questions! thefirstgradejungle@gmail.com

Coming soon....running records, DRA.....what do you do and how do you get it done?!