Fast Finishers!

"TEACHER!  I'm done!" 

Those words, to me, are the equivalent of someone scraping their nails down a chalkboard!  AAAGH!  Can't stand it!

 

Hey Y'all!  I'm Karen from An Apple a Day in First Grade.  I'm here to show you how to fix that problem using "Fast Finishers."  I know that this isn't anything new to most of you, but for me it was something that I finally had to try.  And boy am I glad I did.  So today, I'm here to share with you this Back 2 School trick.

 

 

When I got serious and started thinking about the whole Fast Finisher idea, I knew first of all that I needed something that would be easy to put together and something that would definitely be easy for the children to manage on their own.  I started by looking around my room and thinking about what my kids liked to do.  Things like drawing, writing, free reading time, and working with their whiteboards came to mind.  I also took into consideration some things that we did weekly in class that could easily be added into the Fast Finisher menu.  Things like reading the words on their word ring, reading their fluency folder, working on their number scrolls, and reading from one of their textbooks.  These ideas were a great place to start and I knew they were all manageable for me and my kiddos.

 

I wanted to post these options for my kids to see visually, so I created a space on our whiteboard to display the choices.  I don't have a "theme" in my class.  I use the Dots on Turquoise pattern by Creative Teaching Press.  I love the colors in this set so that's what I have gone with the past couple of years.  I found some really cute graphics by Ashley Hughes that had all of the colors that I needed to create our "Fast Finisher" menu with and set to work to create something that would be functional and easy to use.  I printed, laminated, and posted the new menu.  It caught my kids attention quickly and they were all very interested in what this whole "Fast Finisher" thing was all about.

(FYI-This is a mock up of what my board looked like.  I couldn't find any pictures of it from this past year.)
During our morning meeting time, I began the task of teaching my students how and when to use the menu.  I explained the choices that I had on the board, showed them where to find the materials (most of which were in their own desk!), and then how to go about completing their menu choice.  I did this just about every day the first week that I implemented the menu.  Friends, in order for this to work, you have to MODEL, MODEL, MODEL, and then MODEL some more.  Within no time, my students were pros at using the menu and I no longer had to hear those dreaded words.  In fact, I told my class that I absolutely, positively DID NOT want to hear those words spoken in our class anymore. 

 

Here's a little bit of advice:  to begin with, I would only offer a few choices.  As the year progresses, you can then add more as you see fit.  You know your class and what works best for them.  You may even want to take a class vote to see what they would like to have as Fast Finisher Choices!  This year I have a new menu choice that I am going to offer up to my kiddos once we have gotten into the swing of things.  I have a fabulous product that I created last year called Grab a Book and Take a Look! 

 

 

This product is full of response sheets that match a variety of CCSS. 

 

 

 

I really want my students to be active readers and writers this year.  I really want them connecting with fiction and nonfiction text.  I want them to do just what the title of the product says, "Grab a Book and Take a Look" inside.  And that's exactly why I plan on using this as a menu choice.  Managing this will be easy.  My plan is to pick a few response sheet choices to start with and then change them out as my student's needs change.

 

Setting this up:

1.  Pick a few response sheets that match standards we have worked with in class.

2. Make multiple copies of each sheet.

3.  Place each set of response sheets in page protectors.

4.  Place the page protectors in a binder with the cover of the product in front.

5.  House the binder in an area of the room that the students will be able to access without disrupting others around them.

 

 

Easy enough. 

 

 Again, I plan on modeling the expectation for this menu choice.  I'm going to hold my students accountable for completing the response sheets by having them turn them in to me.  I won't grade them, but I do want to see their "thinking."

 

To help you get thinking about using a "Fast Finisher" menu in your own class, I have put together an editable file for you.  Everyone has their own color schemes in their room so I kept this file black and white.  You can print it on whatever color cardstock matches your own room.  I included some of the  choices that I use in my own room. And, I also included several pages that are editable so that you can add your own.  You will need the font KG Lego House installed on your computer for this product.  You can find it here.   I of course included a choice for Grab a Book and Take a Look!  You can grab that freebie here.

 

 

Would you like a chance to win my packet?! 

Enter the rafflecopter below and you may walk away with this fabulous packet that you can use with your class this year! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 Need more tricks for B2S?  Check out all of the other posts in this series that started on August 1.  You can click here to head to the very first one.  You don't want to miss out on all of the great ideas my fellow bloggers have shared!  And, come back tomorrow for another chance to win some FABULOUS clipart sets by the wonderful Krista Walden of Creative Clips!!!!!!

 

Hope you have a great start to your new school year and that your bag is full of tricks to make it the best one yet!

 

 

Measuring Up Some Fun!

Hey Ya'll!  It's Karen from An Apple a Day in First Grade.  I'm really enjoying my summer. Are you?  I can't help thinking about this time last week though.  The family and I were on a cruise in the Bahamas.  It was beautiful!  And we were spoiled greatly.  Didn't have to cook, clean, pick up dirty towels.  A true vacation indeed.  There was a coffee shop on board our cruise ship that sold Starbucks.  Yes, Starbucks!  We purchased 2 beverage packages to share and Starbucks was included in it.  Ya'll, I got my fix every single day, several times a day!  My oldest daughter got in on the deal as well.  Do you know how hard it is to go from that to absolutely NOTHING?!  Cruel.  Unfair.  Disappointing.  Back to Reality.

 

Back to reality indeed.  I finally mustered the courage to look at the calendar to see how many weeks I had left till I had to go back.  3.  Three little weeks left.  And we all know how fast they will go by!  So in thinking about this fresh new year, I want to share with you a quick, easy to prepare, and engaging math activity that your kiddos will absolutely love.  This past year we introduced measurement at the end of the year.  Measurement is one of those skills that you've just got to roll your sleeves up and dig in with.  It's truly hands on.  Now I don't know how your students were at the end of the year, but mine were squirmy indeed.  The less sitting and more moving we did was better for ALL of us!

 

After a quick review of some essential vocabulary (same size as, bigger than, smaller than), I gave each student a popsicle stick and a recording sheet.  Their job was simply to find and record things they found around the room that were the same size as, bigger than, and smaller than their popsicle stick.  Easy enough.  There was lots of buzzing going on amidst the group as they searched high and low.  After a sufficient amount of time, we met back on the carpet and shared our results and clarified any questions anybody may have had.  See, I told you it was easy peasy!

 

So when you sit down and start thinking about planning for next year, keep in mind this measuring activity.  Click here to download the recording sheet.

 

 

How are you spending your last few weeks of summer vacation?  I had my first bad dream about school last week  while on the cruise.  Do you have those?  I dreamt one of my teammates decided not to teach first grade and go work at the bowling alley instead.  Hmm, maybe that's not such a bad idea.

 

source

 

 

Reading Buddies

Hey ya'll!  Are you loving summer as much as I am?!  Let me just tell you.  I had big plans for what I was going to accomplish this summer back on June 3 when my vacation officially started.  Have I touched those plans?  NO.  Not.   At.  All.   My mind is telling me to start, but my body is enjoying these lazy days of summer!  Part of me wants to feel guilty for not starting my long list of things to do, but the other part is telling me to enjoy every last minute and just relax a little.  So that's what I have done.  And, I'm lovin' it!!!!!!

 

I do want to take a minute away from my book and lounge chair to share with you how I use reading buddies in my classroom.  A couple of years ago I had to do an action research project for one of my Master's classes.  For this project,  I focused my attention on a small group of students in my class who had scored in the red zone for oral reading fluency (ORF).  I wanted to see if this group of students scores would increase if specific interventions were put into place for them.  I tracked their progress using their ORF progress monitoring scores over a 3 month period.  At the end of the project, I was pleased to see that their scores had improved.  I attribute some of this improvement to one specific intervention that I implemented, reading buddies.

 

I conferenced with the parents of each of the students in my study group.  I didn't meet with them to discuss my study.  I met with them to discuss their child's scores and what those scores meant for that time of the year.  This was a conference I would have had regardless of the study.  During that conference I explained to the parents how important it was for our first graders to become fluent readers.  I also explained to them that I would be sending home specific passages each week for their child to work on to help build that fluency and accuracy.  Now as much as we would like to think that all parents will follow through with our request to complete homework and such at home, I knew that this was not likely going to happen for the majority of the kiddos in this group.  So I enlisted the help of a few "friends." 

 

These "friends" happened to be other first graders from another class in my building.  A teammate of  mine let me "borrow" a few of her "top" readers every morning.  These students were well behaved, way above grade level in reading, and were great role models for my students.  I had them do the same thing that I had asked the parents of my students to do.  If they weren't getting it home, I KNEW for certain they were getting the extra help every day with their reading buddy.  It was a win-win situation for all of the students.  My students got the extra help that they needed and their buddies got to feel "all special" and stuff for getting to leave their class and come to mine.  As I  mentioned earlier, my students scores did increase over the 3 month period that I conducted the project.  Having that extra "focused" help each day made a big difference with their scores and their confidence.

 

Since then, I have continued to use reading buddies each year.  Only those reading buddies have been 2nd graders.  I teach at a K2 school, so obviously that's as high as I could go.  After our winter benchmarking, I look at my class scores and determine which students would benefit from having a buddy.  Then I contact a 2nd grade teacher to find out if they are willing to participate.  I leave it up to the teacher to decide who they are going to choose as reading buddies.  The ones that are chosen are the ones who are reading way above grade level and can be trusted to take the job seriously.  I have not had any issues whatsoever using reading buddies in my class.  The 2nd graders that I have had have worked very hard and have done exactly what I have asked them to do. 

 

To get started, here is what I typically do.  First, I hold an orientation with my reading buddies.  I explain to them what I want them to do and how I want them to do it.  I go over my expectations for them and their "friend" they will be working with.  I want them to know that this is serious business, no time for playing around.  If they are having a problem with their friend, then they need to let me know immediately.  I then show them the basket where I keep the materials that they will be using.  I take gallon size ziplock bags and label them with the names of the students that have reading buddies.  In the bag I  place wordlists, fast phrases, and decodable text that I want my students to work on during the week.  Each bag could contain different materials depending on the needs of that particular student and I change the materials out weekly. Typically I have my reading buddies come in first thing in the morning.  When they come in, they get the bag and I assign a place for them to go work.  Easy enough.  As I'm checking folders and monitoring morning work, I can keep an eye out on the reading buddies.  I have to tell you that so far I haven't had any issues with my  buddies at all.  They come in and they get started.  It melts my heart to see them working with my kiddos and really taking an interest in helping them out.  Not to mention that my kiddos get to see what 2nd graders are like and what the expectation for them will be as 2nd graders themselves. 

 

 

When they are finished working, they meet with me and let me know how things went.  I ask them a few standard questions and then send them back to class.  I work at a PBIS school, so I pay them a pelican buck each day for their service!  This past year I had several boys as buddies. This worked out perfect because I had several boys who needed that extra help with reading.  My boys responded so well and really did make great improvements with their reading.  Now I will also tell you, that the girls I had this year were pretty fabulous too.  They took their job seriously and would let me know if their friend wasn't working up to par!  They were definitely little teachers in the making!

 

I love using reading buddies in my class for so many reasons.  It's easy to manage and I get to monitor how the buddies are working together.  If you've got some kiddos that need some extra support, consider giving it a  try yourself.  Whether you use students from your own class or students from another grade, you will find that it's such a big boost of confidence and responsibility for all that are involved!

 

Now, back to my book and lounge chair!

 

Happy Summer Y'all!

 

 

 

"Groupboard" Scoreboard

Hey ya'll!  This is Karen from An Apple a Day in First Grade.  Last week was spring break and I tell ya, I'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things.  By mid morning, I was just plain exhausted!  That week off was much needed, but it was just a teaser for what is to come in 30 days!  This will be the first summer that I haven't had to take classes for my Master's and I am so excited about having absolutely nothing to do! 

 

source via Pinterest

 

In the meantime, it's crunch time in first grade.  So much still to do, with so little time to accomplish it.  Add summer fever, after school sports, and just plain "over it" attitudes (I'm speaking of the children!) and you get some "not so great" behavior.  I've got a sweet class and have been blessed with very few behavior issues.  But sometimes, we just have a bad day.  And sometimes those bad days turn into bad weeks.  Before spring break, my sweet little class started to have some "issues" that were becoming "habits."  I'm not in the mood to spend the last few weeks dealing with these "habits," so I had to do some serious thinking about our behavior management system. 

 

Do you know about Whole Brain Teaching?  Love it.  Love the idea behind it.  Love how simple it is to use.  Love how engaging it is for students.  Did I mention that I love it?!  If you haven't heard about it, you can find out more about by checking out the site at www.wholebrainteaching.com .  You can also find the book about Whole Brain Teaching on Amazon.  I have it and it is a great resource to have.  It would make a great summer read too!

 

 

If you are familiar with WBT, then you know about the scoreboard.  I have used the scoreboard in class for several years now.  It has worked and we have all celebrated by cheering our mighty "Oh Yeahs" and hung our heads in disappointment with the groan "boo hoo!"  I started the year using the scoreboard and it worked fairly decent.  But after Christmas, I started noticing that my kids just weren't getting in to it like they were.  Like all good educators do, I reflected!  Was it not working because of me?  Or were my kids just not as engaged like they once were.  I continued to use the scoreboard for a couple more weeks, trying my best to really make it work.  It didn't.  Boo hoo.

 

I have my students desks arranged in groups.  I have 3 groups and 1 island (yes, I have one student who works better when he is on his own island).  As we were struggling one day with the scoreboard, I had an idea pop into my head.  Instead of the scoreboard, why not a "group board?"  Hmm, maybe it would work.  You say, what's so different about groups earning points?  Well, that's what is different about my group board.  The goal each day for my students is NOT to earn points on the scoreboard.  Those once coveted "oh yeah" points are now dangerous!  All it takes is a few positive praises, with a negative thrown in, to get my kiddos to check themselves.  "I like the way group 2 is working hard to get their work done."  "Wow!  Look at group 1 rock it with their quiet voices."   "Oh my, group 3 needs to check themselves.  It's looking like they might get a boo hoo mark on the group board."  At the end of the first day using the new group board, my class had earned "0" points!!!!  Yes ma'am!  Zero points.  Score!!!!!!  Now, in all honesty, we have had days when we have racked some points up (like today).  But overall, it has worked very nicely.  The groups are working together and reminding each other about what they need to be doing.  At the end of the day, if the scoreboard is at zero for ALL of the groups, I allow our helper of the day to choose a "special activity" from a bucket.  These are simple activities such as:  smarties, extra recess, sit anywhere on the carpet during group time, brain breaks, extra reading time, stinky feet days, bring a buddy to school, etc..  Just a quick and simple acknowledgement of their hard work for the day.

 

If you would like this chart, click the picture above.

 

 

Will this continue to work for the next 30 days?  I sure hope so.  I'm to pooped at this point to try something else. But if necessary, to keep my sanity, I will try anything to maintain a sense of peace and calmness in my classroom until the end!

 

 

How about you?  How are you surviving the end of the year craziness?  Do you have something special in your toolbox that you only bring out for this time of the year?  We would love to know!  Leave us a comment and share! 

 

 

Saturdays in Spring - Week 2

Happy Saturday!

We are back with our second week of, "Saturdays in Spring!" Thank you so much for all your kind comments left from last week. The contributors of "Collaboration Connection," love sharing with you all and learning from one another.

With that being said, we are here to provide you with another round of great freebies! We hope that you are able to find these tools valuable within your classroom. Please share our blog, Instagram, and Facebook with your other teacher buddies so they can get in on the freebies too!

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone!

Here are this week's freebies:

Serena from Magic Mistakes & Mayhem is sharing Funky Flower Clip Art - bright flowers with crazy patterns and colors are perfect for spring.

Alyssa from Just A Primary Girl is sharing Riddle Me This & That Sample - a great unit of sight word riddles for reading review.

Carrie from Table Talk with C & C is sharing Spin Me Round - a fun double digit addition game perfect for small groups, math centers, or independent practice.

Karen from An Apple A Day in First Grade is sharing a Fluency Poster -  this would be a good addition to any classroom.

Jessica from Covered in Glitter and Glue is sharing Glitter Girl Font - this cute font would be perfect for any creation.

Crystal from Once Upon A Classroom: The Tale of Two Teachers is sharing As A Matter of Fact - this unit has some wonderful activities for teaching solids, liquids, and gases. 

Emily from I Love My Classroom is sharing End of Year Student-Made Brochures - 

Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd is sharing a Reading Response Freebie - a flip flap book that would be fantastic for any guided reading group or independent practice.

*Click on the pictures or titles above to download your freebies!

We hope you enjoy these fabulous freebies and be sure to check back next Saturday for more!!

Go Fly a Kite!

Hey Y'all!  Hope you are enjoying this fabulous first weekend of Spring!  I'm so thrilled that winter is behind us.  I can't wait to get out in my yard and start beautifying it!  Once the weather is consistent and I know for sure we won't have anymore "freezing" nights, I will be headed out to shop for plants. I'm looking forward to sitting on the front porch swing enjoying the daylight of our longer evenings.

 

Have you had spring break yet?  I still have 3 weeks to go!  3 long, hard weeks.  The only good thing about having a spring break this late is that when we go back, we won't have that many weeks left.  I've just got to get that mindset though!  In the meantime, we have been working hard really hard in first grade learning everything we need to learn to head to 2nd.  I tell my kiddos that this is "crunch time."  "First Grade Seriousness" is our motto these days.  

 

In math we have been reviewing place value to get ourselves ready for some double digit addition and subtraction AND regrouping.  Yikes!  We are going to definitely need some first grade seriousness for that!  So to prepare for these skills, we spent some time working with the number grid to get our mental math skills on.  I primarily teach math in a whole group setting and it can kinda get boring for me and my kiddos.  We don't have a lot of time for fun craft activities with the unit plans we are required to teach for Math and ELA.  So as I was going through some files one day,  I found a cute kite activity that I had cut out of a book many years ago.   I liked the idea behind it and decided that we were going to break out the scissors and glue for math.  I recreated the kite activity to fit the skills that we were working on.  My kids were thrilled when I told them that we were going to be making kites during math time.  It's the little things!

 

To get started, the kids had to roll 1 die to create a 2 digit number.  I let them decide which place to put each number they rolled.  Then they had to use their number to fill in the parts of the kite.  They had to write the number, draw the number, expand the number, and show the number with numbers and words.  For the tail of the kite, the students had to find the numbers that were 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, and 10 less of their number.

 

 

If you would like to Go Fly a Kite with your class, you can find this FREEBIE in my TpT store.

 

Hope your first weekend of Spring is Fabulous!

 

Hey y'alll! I'm Karen!

Hey y'all!  My name is Karen and I am a first grade teacher from the Palmetto State!  You can find me at my blog An Apple a Day in First Grade.

I have taught Special Ed, Child Development, and Kindergarten.  I have a total of 18 years under my belt!  But I have to tell you, first grade is where my heart is!  There's nothing like getting those kiddos at the beginning of the year and watching those lights turn on as the year progresses!

I am married to my wonderful husband and  we have 2 awesome daughters.  We also have a very spoiled  Boykin Spaniel who thinks she is human!  Family is very important to me.  Both my husband and I come from real close families.  Lots of relatives!!!  Our Christian faith is extremely important and we are doing our best to raise our girls up following that faith. 

Me and Mr. M on a cruise celebrating our 15th anniversary!

My Family!

My beautiful girls!

Bella

I became a blog stalker several years ago.  It was so exciting to me to see what other teachers were doing and creating in their classrooms.  I think it is just awesome that our profession has reached out in the way that it has and developed such a tight-knit connection.  I wanted to be a part of this fabulous community of professional educators, so I decided to become a blogger myself!  I am a bit overwhelmed, and intimidated, by some of you "big time bloggers."  But I am excited to have taken this step! It is my hope that my own blog, and this brand new collaborative blog, will allow me the opportunity to grow professionally and connect with other educators across our country! 

This past summer I took the plunge and opened a TpT and TN store.  I did this while finishing my Master's degree.  Was I crazy or what?!  I would like to say that things have calmed down since then, but they really haven't!  However, I am loving the impact TpT and TN are having on my classroom instruction.  I'm both a buyer and a seller.  I love knowing that I have a immediate source of information to access when I need activities for my class.  Sometimes I just don't have the time, or the thought process, to sit down and crank out something for a skill my kiddos are working on.  It's nice to know that I can put in a few select words and immediately find a wealth of info to choose to from. Blogging offers those opportunities for sharing as well.  I have learned so much through this network of fabulous teachers.  I love that we keep it real too.  I don't know about you, but I don't teach in a picture perfect classroom.  Hearing about other teachers struggles with instruction, curriculum, administration, and students is a great comfort in this wide world of education!

To celebrate my first post on this fabulous collaborative blog, I'm sharing with you a fun sight word game that your kiddos will love playing.  It's called "Caught You!" and it's perfect for St. Patrick's Day!  All you need to do to prep this game is print, cut, and shuffle.  To play, kids sit in a circle and take turns choosing a word from the stack.  If they can read the word, they keep the word.  If they can't, it goes to the bottom of the stack.  If they pick one of the "Caught You!" cards, then they have to put all of their cards back!  I have taught my class how to play these games in small groups.  I usually pick a game leader to moderate the game.  This game leader is in charge of making sure the group is playing the right way and that everybody is on task.  This gives me the freedom to pull kiddos to read one on one without worrying about being interrupted ten thousand times with questions or complaints!

Click here to download this freebie!

This card game is actually a part of a bigger set of games.  The bigger pack has 2 games each (sight words and decodable words) for Christmas, Winter, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day. You can check it out in either one of my stores.  TpT or TN

Thanks for stopping by and getting to know me a little bit better! 

Before you leave, don't forget to enter our giveaway!  Click here!