Sunday, April 14, 2013

I'm back.....

Whew....it's been quite a year.  I've had a wonderful year in first grade.  I'm definitely loving the age and have requested staying in first grade again next year.  Now that I don't feel like I'm a zombie each weekend I have begun to create some of my own materials to use in my room.

This weekend I created a sports writing center for my students to use this week.


It includes 12 word wall cards with corresponding picture of the word.  I have also included 2 pages that are black and white to be printed out and placed in the student binder.  (I'll explain that more in a minute!!)  Lastly, I have included 3 writing prompts and one blank prompt complete with illustration box at the top and lines on the bottom as well as a page of just lines for the back of the page.  

As the year goes by I begin to think of my plans for next year and how to make my classroom better for the students I teach.  This year I have struggled in teaching writing to my kids so that is my focus for next year.  I plan to start the year by giving each child one three-prong folder that is going to become their dictionary.  Each week we will have a different theme in our writing center and for each theme, they will receive one sheet front and back of words that go with our theme.  Hopefully, this will not only broaden their vocabulary but it will help their spelling and writing skills as well.  

Since testing is over and the end of the year is here, I decided to see how well this theory works in a real classroom so I will be trying it out for the rest of the year in my room.  I hope to work out all of the kinks during this school year so that it works perfectly next year!!  A girl can hope can't she??  

Here's two preview pics of the kit on TeachersPayTeachers....



You can find the kit here for $1.50 until Friday, April 19. After Friday, it will be $2.50.

As a bonus to any reader who may find my blog, I'll give a free Sports Writing Center kit to the first three people who comment on this blog post!  Have a great week!  I'll check in later this week to show pics of our  sports writing pages!