I Heart Literacy Workstations!!

 I posted this a while ago, but with Mrs. Patton's Linky party going on I thought I would re-post it!!
Check out Mrs. Patton!

This past summer, my teacher BFF and I traveled to Houston for a conference to see our idol....Debbie Diller! She is the writer of Literacy Workstations, and a bunch of other AMAZING books. Y'all we sat a table away from her on the lunch break and you would of thought we saw Justin Bieber. 

Anyway, she is just great and her workstations are so amazing. I LOVE that I don't have to switch stuff around all the time. I mean really who has time for that? Here are some pics of my kids in them:

computer workstation

word wall workstation

abc/ word work

handwriting

pocket chart

buddy reading

more pocket chart

word wall

listening

 My kids just love them, and it makes meeting with small groups much easier!

A key part to Debbie Diller's awesomeness is that she makes an "I Can" list at each station. It is list of all the things they can do while there. I recently just had small papers up with only words that we listed the first few weeks. BUT, I just made beautiful posters (if I do say so myself!) that have pictures and words! They are on TPT, so go and check them out! All you gotta do is print, post, and model! 

I CAN!

Ms. Thomas :)

My Birthday and a Special Thank you!

Yesterday was my birthday! I won't say how old I am but I do hear that now my car insurance will go down! Woohoo!

First grade birthdays are the best! They make you feel so special. I got all sorts of fabulous drawings and cards from them!
And my first grade teacher bestie brought me special cupcakes that were gluten free! I heart her! They were yummy! She also is feeding my JCrew addiction. :) Thanks Ms. Simoneaux!

I also wanted to thank ALL of you that bought my Moon unit! It means so much to me! If you can, send me some photos of your class doing the activities! We are about to start watching the moon next week!

Math Day is also today at our school...pictures coming!

Happy Friday!

-Ms. Thomas :)

More Anchor Charts!

Whew! What a week! The first week back after a short one is always crazy! But, it was okay because we were reading "Olivia" by Ian Falconer this week in Reading! (I teach from Treasures, and it can be boring :( so this was exciting!) Thanks to Leslie Ann over at Life in First Grade, I bought her Olivia unit and used the pattern to make those adorable Olivia pigs!

Our skill this week was fantasy vs. reality, so we attached our graphic organizer. Click here for the organizer:

Olivia: Fantasy and Reality

I also have two anchor charts to share! I made one for long o (oa, ow) and one for fantasy and reality. By the way, I copied the pictures out of a book. I promise I am not that good of an artist! :)

Enjoy! Happy Friday!

-Ms. Thomas

Shoot for the Moon!

I have just FINALLY finished this moon unit I have been working on! I decided when I heard we were covering the moon last in Science, that making a little mini-unit to go along with it would be perfect. 

It has literature activities to your favorite moon books, a memory game to help the kids remember the different phases, and how to match the phases to fractions in math! Go and check it out at TPT!

Shoot for the Moon!

Happy Saturday!

Ms. Thomas :)

I feel a little bit like Sheila Rae today...

We started our new author study the other day, which I am really excited about because it is KEVIN HENKES! Love his books, and how they are funny and teach great lessons. 

It is a review week in Reading, so I decided to take the skill that was the most difficult for my kids. Compare and contrast was the difficult one, so I connected our author study to it.

Sheila Rae the Brave and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Then, we did a venn diagram to compare and contrast. The kids came up with great ideas! 

Here is the venn diagram I made to go with it!

Compare and Contrast with Lilly and Sheila

Ms. Thomas :)

Dr. Seuss meet Mardi Gras!

Thankfully, I was able to get my Dr. Seuss activities done! I have been out today and will be tomorrow because my beautiful friend Shannon is getting married and I am a bridesmaid! 

I posted the other day my idea about combining Dr. Seuss and Mardi Gras and it worked wonderfully! The kids loved it! They wrote all about what the cat in the hat would do at a Mardi Gras parade. They were hilarious! Then, we made the cat with a mask on!

To add to it, we watched the brain pop jr. movie on Dr. Seuss and the kids learned about pen names. So, I let them make up a pen name for their writing. They were hilarious! I had Willow Smith (whip my hair!), Dr. Moby, and Mr. JB (Justin Bieber of course!)

We also made a schema poster and added our new learning on Dr. Seuss:

And last but not least Ms. Simoneaux (my teacher BFF) and I decided what other perfect costume could we have other than........ THING 1 and THING 2!

We practically are anyway!

Where ever you may be, happy Mardi Gras!!

Ms. Thomas :)

Did I mention I tend to be random?

So where ever you may be, you may not understand BUT it is almost MARDI GRAS!!! 

Seriously y'all I am so excited! I am going to ball this year and I can hardly wait! 

In prep, we have been talking about the holiday and whatnot and then I realized that Dr. Seuss's birthday is the same week before! So, I had to get creative and I came up with an activity to tie it all together. Here is what I got:

What if the cat in the hat went to a Mardi Gras parade?

My kids loved it! 

We read the book first, and then did brainstorming about what he could get up to. They said jump on a float, catch beads, join the marching band, etc. Then, we took all of our ideas and did a writing web. We finished our sloppy copy today and will be putting our final draft on this tomorrow:

The cat at Mardi Gras!

We also are making the cat out of construction paper and putting him in a Mardi Gras mask! Pictures will come tomorrow. I cannot wait to see how it turns out! I know not everyone can do this since Mardi Gras is usually celebrated hardcore only down here, but it could be a fun way to incorporate celebrations around the world. A little Social Studies never hurt anyone right?! :)

Also, since I am random I also made this yesterday. It is a quick reference guide for my students with money. I had them color the coins, and fill in the blanks. They cut and I stapled it together in little book. This way they always have it with them. They have been bringing it to small math groups!

Money Fact Book

Enjoy! Thanks for letting me be random!!

Ms. Thomas :)