Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Summer Lovin'

Hey, friends! This is Crystal from Once Upon a Classroom: The Tale of Two Teachers! I'm so excited to be back for another blog post. Let's start with a little about what's going on in my life right now...

I just finished my MASTERS!! WAHOO! (insert Happy Dance!) I am scheduled to take my exams in June, and then will have my Reading Specialist endorsement.

Spring is in the air in Chicago, and I'm only 1 1/2 weeks away from running my first marathon! Wish me luck! (I will need it!)




I got some new glasses...


I moved all the furniture out from the walls and cleaned the floors! Crazy, right? However, with these wood floors, it HAD to be done! 


And finally, I'm about to end my first year teaching first grade with these lovelies! Here we are on a field trip at the Adler Planetarium! 


So many fun things are going on in our room. The first grade students at my school continue to amaze me on a daily basis. I always think I will stump them with certain math problems, or reading skills, yet they always come back with some awesome question or response. We are constantly growing and challenging each other. 

In the next three pictures, my students are taking part in a re-engagement lesson from a formative assessment we took. After the students take this, I analyze their responses and put a variety of them on the board. With their whiteboards, the students look at the problem again, and decide which answers are right and which are wrong. Then, they have to EXPLAIN their thinking. Not only does this allow them to analyze math to a deeper level, it creates wonderful, rich discussion about mathematical practices. 



In these two pictures, my students are paraphrasing text! While reading both fiction and nonfiction, we stop, think, and then paraphrase the text. This skill helped lead into our next unit of study on summarizing. It was really great to hear them thinking, asking questions, and then using the ideas of the text in their own words. 



Be sure to check out my new product! It's on sale until Sunday! Enjoy!


Crystal :)



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