There’s snow joke about it… our class is awesome! 

Ft. SymmeTREEs & Snowman Puns 

The puns flip open to reveal the answer with my students’ pictures inside. 

Reindeer cardboard cutouts were bought at Michael’s for about $2.00 for 25 of them. 

Found the symmeTREES on TeacherPayTeachers.  Link above. 

Daily Five Procedures/Centers Lowdown

My students have an attachment to Daily Five.  However, I do not do true “Daily Five” work in my classroom because I find that my students’ age and our curriculum would not bode well with the standard “read to self” or “read to someone” system.  That being said, choice is still very present in my classroom.  Every morning I list 4-5 activities on the white board using magnetic numbers.  Under each activity I place the objective.  (This is a school mandated procedure, but I do find that students are able to reiterate the reasoning behind each activity. Tedious? Yes, but worth it.) 

Students have a checklist for the week that allows them to check off each activity/station as they complete it.  This works wonders for some students because it has them taking responsibility throughout the entire morning.  I say entire morning because I do not just hold this Daily Five process to reading.  I also incorporate social studies and science into the mix.  Some students choose the tougher activities first to get them out of the way and others complete the breeze work and progress to the more challenging activities.  

On the Daily Five checklists I also post my students vocabulary words and spelling words for the week. This allows them to travel with them instead of constantly visiting our Lesson Wall.  

Some noteworthy features I add into the mix each week are: 

• Spelling Choice - Students may choose rainbow words (writing your spelling words in a variety of colors), word cloud (similar to world.com where students can create a word poster and get creative with their spelling words), or stamp station (students use my alphabet stamps to stamp words onto posters).  *They love this. 
• Vocabulary Pictures - This is homework and not Daily Five material but it does help build their skills.  Students have 10 vocabulary words from our story each week and are given a ten slotted piece of paper.  A vocal word is written in each and they must draw a picture or cut out a picture from a magazine (read: not print one off the internet) .  I was once told that if a child creates a picture for a word he or she will never forget it.  So far, so good! 
• Your Choice Activity - Students are given a sheet of three to four projects that they must choose from.  I try to incorporate activities for all of the different learning styles in my classroom.  For example, my writers are given a creative writing prompt that they must make connections to themselves and the world around them, my kinesthetics are given the opportunity to perform plays and move about the room, my visuals create art that represent the theme of our lesson, etc.

*PS That picture is the only one I have on hand right now.  The objectives are usually a little more detailed and concise.  May be a different one tomorrow!

So many uses for this Pumpkin Venn Diagram. 

Download it for free from Julie Faulkner’s TeachersPayTeachers 

Is it spelling pretest day? 

After your pretest, why not let your kids stamp the words out? 

Even though this looks like first grade, it was sure a big hit in fourth grade. 

They loved it.  Sometimes you have to remember they’re babies at heart. 

* Cheap ink pads and alphabet stamps at walmart in the craft section!