First Grade Book Talks

Do you have your kiddos partner reading yet?  We start off the first week of school learning how to read independently in our book nooks. We are learning how to care for books and to protect our reading time by staying focused on our stories, not walking around the room, and being very quiet.  The second week of school I introduce partner reading.  We learn to EEKK (Elbow to Elbow, Knee to Knee, Book in the Middle so we BOTH can see) read with our partners.  Along with partner reading we spend another couple of weeks really learning how to talk about books with our partners and the different things we can share with our partners.  The kiddos learn how to use stickies to track their thinking. After about the third day of this practice, I begin calling partners to my table to show me how they have been talking with each other.

This year I decided to record a few of their book talks. If you listen closely in the videos there are some good examples and some good non examples (where the partner is talking but not listening to what his partner is saying and others). I used these videos with them whole class to see if they could figure out what was going good and not so good in their book discussions.

By critiquing themselves and offering advice to each other it brought a whole new personal meaning to their learning.  I thought I would share these videos with you guys in case you wanted to use them also.  (Of course the personal meaning won't be there for your class but the examples/nonexamples will be there for them to find!)

Here are the links:
http://youtu.be/sjzFqdHVCBI
http://youtu.be/Ls2d-3OLxVw
http://youtu.be/XNdjE6rjWNY
http://youtu.be/G78mU4peMPI

I'm So Excited (FREEBIE!!!)

Ya'll I made my first TpT Milestone!!! Whoop! Whoop! 

In order to celebrate I am having a Sale (Sept 14-17), a Giveaway (Sept 14-17), and a Flash Freebie (free for 7 days Sept 14-21)!

Here are the prizes for the giveaway:
Force, Motion, And Gravity Science Unit
Star Light, Star Bright Science Unit
Earth's Surface and Natural Resources Science Unit
Water is All Around Us Science Unit
PLUS......
A $25 Gift Certificate to TPT!!

Combined it is a total of over 8 weeks of Science plans done FOR YOU in detail!!! You can click on the links above to check them out!!

Enter to win in the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for entering!  Now for the FLASH FREEBIE!!

For 7 Days only ( September 14 at 12am - September 21 at 12am)

Here is a great way to preview how my Science Units work.  This one is all about......you guessed it, the SUN!!

Quick grab you freebie by clicking:

Sun Fun Science Unit

Thanks so much for celebrating with me and good luck in the giveaway!!!

P/S What other type of Science Units would you like to see??

Math Charts

So for years I did whole group lessons on the floor and continually wrote and rewrote word problems on chart paper.  Last year I figured out that I didn't have to continue to do all that writing.  My quick tip for writing your math charts is to STOP rewriting word problems (or any problems for that matter) and save paper!! Here's all you have to do:

1. Write a problem.

2. Work through the problem together/with partners/etc.

3. Use repositional glue sticks to glue bright color paper onto the chart in order to model how to show your thinking or draw a quick pic.

4. Use post it notes to cover only the numbers in the problem.

5. Write new numbers on the post its.

6. Viola! A whole new math problem in seconds!!

While I am on the subject of math, here is a great product from my store. It is a set of 24 task cards with a Scoot Game, Mess Game, and a Game show option.  There is a choice of task cards with picture clues or without included in the download. I have sets for 2 CCSS so far with more on the way!
Click Math Task Cards for 1.OA.1 to get a set!

OR
Click Math Task Cards for 1.OA.2 to get this set!

I hope my quick tip can save you some teaching time during your math lessons! I would love to hear any tips you may have for math charts. Leave em if ya' got em below!