Lana Luna: Happy Learning

Showing posts with label Happy Learning. Show all posts

Labels: Happy Learning, SO, Valentine Writing Pack

My Sleeping Marathon...and 2 New Freebies!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful long weekend!

I had an away game that I coached on Friday and on Saturday morning I was up at 4:30am to get ready and head to our second cheer competition. Hold on. Let me repeat that. I was up at 4:30am -- on a Saturday. There should be rules against these kind of things. However, the girls did a great job and improved on their own score from last week. That night, we also had a home game that they had to cheer at. One word - exhaustion!

So, guess what I spent all of Sunday doing?

Sleeping. (And Weston joined me of course!) I'm not just talking "sleep in" a bit...I slept for 14 hours straight. My poor husband went to church by himself because he told me later he tried three times to wake me up. My body was screaming for sleep! I feel SO much better today. :)

Today I'm catching up on visiting all of your blogs, working on my Valentine's Writing Pack, and grading papers. I was really late on getting my January Word Builders Freebie Pack out for all of you, so I went ahead and posted January AND February for everyone! You can click on the pictures to jump to my TpT store and download them for your word work activities, literacy centers, or early finishers. :)

I also wanted to share a great giveaway that my friend Kristy is hosting over at The Phonics Phenomenon. You can win a $25.00 TpT Gift Certificate! I met Kristy at a workshop I was giving on teacher blogging this past summer. She is SO sweet and is so knowledgeable on intervention activities. Kristy hung out in my classroom with me for a day this fall and we had so much fun sharing ideas together! To enter her giveaway, click on the picture below.

Thanks for stopping by! :) I hope you enjoy the rest of your day off.

Happy Learning,

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Labels: CCSS, Close Reads, Comprehension Toolkit, Features Purpose, Google Docs, Happy Learning, National Geographic Explorer

You Can't Ignore...Nonfiction Text Features! & Freebie Chart

If you walked into my room this week during our whole group mini-lessons, this is what you would have heard:

Me: "We've been finding and studying nonfiction text features. What do we know about nonfiction text features?"
Kids: "You Can't Ignore!"
Me: "Why?!"
Kids: "They tell us more!"

:) ...I have nothing to say except that I fully admit I am nerdy and super cheesy when I teach! Sometimes I'm scared I suck all of the "coolness" out of my kids by the time they leave me in the spring. I worry I've turned them all into cheesy kids who will walk down the hallways of their corporate offices holding up the quiet sign as adults...

However, my kiddos can definitely tell me now that you can't ignore text features because they tell us so much more about the topic! They LOVE nonfiction books and it is my favorite genre to teach. Children are fascinated by the photographs, the facts, and their ability to bring some prior knowledge into books about animals, nature, and the world around them. Nonfiction books are natural motivators of reading to most children, and as teachers, we need to take every opportunity to tap into that motivation.

In our building, we use the Comprehension Toolkit a lot. Have you used this or seen this? If not, it is a true treasure! Click on the link to take you to the website and learn more. The pack comes with some amazing read alouds (which contain lots of stretched texts for us as we dig into the Common Core). In addition, it walks you through some great ways to get students engaged in text in the areas of monitoring, making connections, questioning, summarizing & synthesizing, visualizing, inferring, and determining the importance of text. Once you feel comfortable with the layout of the lessons, you can use the structure of them with any text that you feel is worthy of studying and digging into with your kids.

This week, we used an article on spiders, a National Geographic Explorer magazine, and a book about tornadoes to discover and learn about text features. We studied one to two features a day and had discussions about what the purpose of each feature is. We made this ~~really ugly~~ features/purpose chart as we were reading together.

Then, we searched through our nonfiction bookshelf baskets and found as many features of text as we could to share with our tables and friends. It was so fun to hear them calling out the names of the features and getting excited to discover a glossary or a caption.

While I'm talking about nonfiction text, I wanted to share the National Geographic Young Explorer website with you. Most of you probably already know about it, but I was surprised that I had not yet come across this great resource! It is filled with digital issues of all the magazine articles that you can access with your kids online. I'm going to use them as Close Reads for the CCSS, as I have had a hard time finding text that is appropriate for first grade Close Reads. You can access the articles by clicking the link below. They are so fun - and free! :)

http://ngexplorer.cengage.com/ngyoungexplorer/moreissues.html

And - before you go - I created this Features/Purpose chart for my kiddos to fill in this week as we studied each of the nonfiction text features. It was easier for them to record the purpose of each feature in boxes rather than a simple T-Chart. You could also turn this into an activity by giving them a nonfiction book and having them write down the page number they found each of the text features on. Grab it for free by clicking the picture below and downloading it from Google Docs. - Enjoy and thanks for stopping by! :)

Happy Learning,

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Labels: Happy Learning, Hope King, RTI

What We've Been Up To!

Have I really not blogged since Wednesday? That is really not like me. One word: cheerleading. The girls had their first competition this weekend, as well as two games and practices every night. One more month of craziness and then...well...then, I won't know what to do with myself except enjoy blogging more and feel like a normal teacher/person again. :)

Last week was our first week back from break and we were b-u-s-y in first grade! Here's what we've been up to!

We learned our new January math games for Math with Someone. (All of these games are freebies I found. Click the picture to take you to their TpT link!) My kiddos love them!

Snowman Cover Up by First Grade Garden - A great addition fluency game!

Slides & Ladders by Kathy Law - Addition Doubles! They also asked if we could sing the doubles rap while we learned it. So of course, we had to. I never pass up the chance to sing off tune with my firsties. :)

Bump! by Froggie Went a Teachin'

(This game is a staple in our room. My kids can't get enough of it. She has them for all the seasons, too!)

Then, we learned all of Hope King's winter math games. I use these for Math by Myself and it has worked out wonderfully this year! I have 8 tubs of her number cards and the kids simply grab a tub that has the cards, a dry erase marker/eraser, and a hundreds chart in it to help them, and head off with a game. It has made management so simple because I am not constantly teaching new games all year. The games gradually build on themselves and the kids are able to differentiate the games according to their own needs. They are fabulous! :)

This little girl made two digit numbers with her cards for a comparing numbers game. Some of my kiddos are making three digit numbers, while my Tier III kids are still comparing one digit numbers at their own pace.

We also worked on writing narratives. We used Jamie Rector's January Writing Activities: Aligned to Common Core Standards pack. We will be working our way through this pack all month as we practice narratives, opinion, explanatory, and shared research writing. This is happening during our RTI time, as we focus on writing interventions this month. Let me just say, this is an awesome resource! My kids are doing so well with it.

First, we brainstormed activities and things we like to do on a snow day. (Who doesn't like snow days?!)

Then, the kids planned their story by brainstorming and sequencing the order of their narrative.

Their stories turned out amazing! I had most of my kids write two full pages - which finally made sense and had detail. Yayy!

Our gingerbread unit is in full swing. We are reading the following versions during our unit. Each day, we compare and contrast two stories or characters within the texts. We also have a big class chart that we record the setting, characters, problem, and solution on each day. They are having so much fun and look forward to our new gingerbread stories every afternoon!

To end our week, we each made a hypothesis about what would happen if a gingerbread cookie really did swim across a river on his own. Then, we tested out our hypothesis! We each put a gingerbread cookie into a cup of water and observed our results. Gross! We figured out our conclusion: The gingerbread cookie would have gotten very soggy and probably would not have made it across the river! :) I wish I had more pictures of this to share but it was Friday afternoon....need I say more?

Thank you so much for catching up with us! :) I hope everyone has a great start to their week.

Happy Learning,

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Labels: BIG, Cynthia Cynthia, Happy Learning

Giveaway Winner & FLASH FREEBIE!

Drum roll please....!

I want to give a big congratulations to the winner of my Happy Birthday Bloggy Giveaway....

#57: Cynthia!

Cynthia has been sent my ENTIRE TpT store, along with products from all of the wonderful bloggers who donated! :) I'm very excited for her and hope her kiddos will have fun with all of their new projects and products.

I want to give a BIG thank you to everyone who participated and entered in the giveaway. You are all the reason that my little blog has made it through it's first year. I love sharing my classroom and life with all of you. Thank you for all of the adorable and supportive comments you all leave on my blog - they always bring a smile to my face! :)

To say Thank You for entering the giveaway, I'm having a FLASH FREEBIE on my Number Races for the Whole Year math pack! It will be available Free on TpT until ~~midnight tonight!~~ **Extended until Thursday, January 10th!** Grab it by clicking the picture below to take you to my store. :) I hope your kiddos enjoy it.

Thank you so much again for following Sugar and Spice! Stop by later this week. I've been taking loads of pictures of things we've been working on in my room. We've been so busy! :)

Happy Learning,

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Labels: Enjoy Don, Gingerbread Unit, Happy Learning

Antonyms, Antomins, and Alarm Clocks (And a Freebie for You!)

Today was my first day back after a wonderful two week vacation. It was hard to get up this morning. My poor alarm clock took a beating as I continued to hit the snooze button. I have a dear friend at school who will sometimes come into my room when she needs a "smiling face." I love when she says this but she would probably not recognize me if she saw me wake up. I am a grumpy teacher in the morning until I've had my coffee. My husband, knowing how hard I am to get up in the morning, bought me this little guy for my birthday last year:

His name is Clocky the Alarm Clock. I despise him. Really, I do. You see, Clocky has an obnoxious sound when he first begins to wake you up. The sound makes me have an anxiety attack in the middle of my deep sleep, and I immediately hit the snooze button. But Clocky does not stop there. If you hit the snooze button again, he will roll off your nightstand while he continues to make his obnoxious sound. This not only makes me fall out of bed and nearly hit my head on the dresser as I try to catch him at 5:45am but it inevitably makes me angry. I went through this morning routine with Clocky three times before we "broke up." He now resides in the bottom drawer of my nightstand where he will stay until the day I decide to throw him away....or set him to go off on a morning my husband decides to sleep in (He, on the other hand is a morning person.)

Back to "school talk," I loved seeing my little ones today after a long break. They were quiet all day long (which means they were tired!) and it took a few hours for some of them to get back into "school mode." We had a fun day as we started our Gingerbread Unit, learned our new winter math games, and learned about antonyms...or as many of my firsties called them...antomins.

We made this anchor chart together this morning and completed a cut-and-paste activity. We will continue to work on antonyms for the rest of the week. About 90% of the kids picked this skill up very quickly. Although, one little guy gave me the example "shoe and boot".....We're working on it. :)

I whipped up this little word search to share with you that I will add to my students' Friday morning work this week. It has a twist to it. The students must read the words in the word box and then find the antonym for each word in the word search. Click the picture to download it from Google docs. Enjoy! :)

Don't forget, my giveaway ends tomorrow night at midnight! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Learning,

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Labels: Bloggy Birthday Giveaway, Cricut Machine, Happy Learning, Jo Anne Fabrics

Currently...late to the linky!

I know I'm late to the Currently linky but I have been crazy-busy with all things cheerleading this week. On Thursday night I supervised and planned our annual "lock-in" team-building sleepover for the girls. This should really be re-named "Our coach stays up til 3:30am with us, sleeps on her classroom floor, and needs the next week to re-coup because she's getting too old for this kind-of-thing." :) Let's just say I'm T.I.R.E.D this weekend!

Here's my January Currently! Head over to Farley's blog to link up with her!

For Christmas, my mom gave me this:

It's a Cricut Machine. However, I have no idea what it really does. I heard I can do things with fonts and shapes, so I mentioned it to my mom around Thanksgiving time. At Christmas she told me "You can use it for your teacher-business-online-thing." (Also known as TpT... haha...you would love my mom. She's my best friend and first supporter but technology is not hers. When I was in college she called me and was needing to write a letter to someone on a word document (aka: Word). Mom: "What website do I need to go to if I want to type a letter Christina?" Me: "Open up Word and type it in there." Mom: "I don't have time for this. Tell me what to go to after I type w, w, w, dot.") :) I love her.

But back to my Cricut Machine, I'm pretty clueless. I stood in Jo-Anne Fabrics the other day staring at all of the cartridges but decided I'd better do some research before buying anything. Does anyone have any tips or certain accessories you think I need to use this? As you can see, it remains in the box, unopened. I have on my to-do list: "Figure out how to use the Cricut."

As for my OLW: Reflect. This year, I want to make sure I am reflecting more on what I do in the classroom. Blogging really helps me reflect on my instructional practice and beliefs. However, I'd really like to spend more conscious time reflecting on data and my guided reading groups. That is my big goal for the remainder of the school year. I will be tackling the Take One! National Board process next school year, and I know that being more reflective now will help me with that when the time comes.

Thanks for letting my share my Currently with you! :) Don't forget to enter my Bloggy Birthday Giveaway to win my entire store and lots of goodies from some top TpT sellers and awesome bloggers! Click {HERE} to enter or click on the picture below. The giveaway ends January 8th at midnight.

Happy Learning,

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Labels: EST, FUN, Happy Learning, HTML, HUGE, TWO

HUGE Happy Birthday GIVEAWAY!

Happy Birthday to...Sugar and Spice! My blog is 1 year old! I cannot believe a year has passed since I sat at my computer last Christmas break and clicked Publish for the first time. At that point, I sat at my desk for hours Googling what a linky was. I jumped up and down in my bedroom the day my little blog reached 5 followers. I searched the web to find out why everyone's post had the same "Currently" title one week until I figured out that Currently was a linky. I watched a You Tube video on how to install a gadget into my template and almost erased my entire HTML code a few times before I almost gave up. It has been a crazy but FUN ride this year! :)

If I think back and reflect on the kind of blog Sugar and Spice turned out to be, it's name seems to fit it perfectly. It reminds me of a recipe that is never completely finalized, adding in a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I love having the freedom to share teaching ideas, resources, and products with all of you, but I also love blogging because of the sense of community that is shared with one another. It is a great feeling to know I can flip on my computer and have instant access to a wonderful circle of educators and people who are passionate about students, teaching, and improving our profession.

To celebrate my bloggy birthday, I'm hosting a HUGE giveaway!! I've asked some very special bloggers to contribute and they generously agreed! These ladies have been an inspiration to me during the past year of blogging. For some of them, I followed ~~stalked~~ their blog before I gathered the courage to start my own. For others, we became friends through TpT, Facebook, and blogging comments. I feel very blessed they are helping me celebrate this week!