I Can Measure Anchor Charts (freebie)

Well, I seem to be on a roll lately with anchor charts.  I've been making charts left and right for something or another.  The visuals really do seem to help students as a reference point.  In case you missed out, earlier this month I posted my 2D and 3D Shapes Anchor Charts and my Good Learners freebie chart.

My class has been learning about measurement lately.  They're really good at telling me whether something is bigger or smaller but using measurement words (longer/shorter, heavier/lighter) has been a tougher challenge.  I created these charts to help my kiddos out.

If you're like me, you sometimes need to save on the color ink.  And while I love Surfin' Through Second Grade's Hand Drawn Rainbow papers, I had to print these off at school.  So I also included a set of papers with a white background.  They look like this.

Click {here} to get yours!

2D & 3D Shape Anchor Charts - Flash Freebie!

Today is an exciting day in our house!  We had a bad weekend with the car break-in.  :(  And that's going to be quite a nightmare to get all of my id's replaced, get new cards, fight the fraud charges, etc., etc.  But today this came!

All of our household goods have finally made their way across the ocean and are here!  Oh man, you don't realize how much you enjoy your own stuff until you've gone without it for a month and a half!  

So in honor of getting our stuff and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I'm having a flash freebie.  I've just posted my brand new 2D and 3D Shape Anchor Charts since we'll be starting a shape unit soon.  Hurry up and download them, because they'll be FREE for the next 3 hours.   

Now that I'm teaching Kindergarten resource, most of my stuff will be geared to lower students.  One of my students thought that we were going to be off on Monday for a snow day!  Very cute since we live in Hawaii.  I figured the kids might be a little confused about what a snow day really means.  So I whipped up this Snow Day! Beginning Reader Mini-Unit that has an emergent reader about a snow day and some activities that my students need to work on.  You can check it out by clicking on the pic below.

Now I better get back to unpacking and arranging furniture before my husband finds me on the internet!  ;)

Classroom Theme and Pictures of my Class

Surfin Through Second is having a Classroom Theme Linky Party.  It started a few days ago, but I'm considering myself fashionably late to this party.  :)

I've never shared pictures of my classroom on here, so I figure I might as well do that at the same time.  I do have some changes I want to make this year to make it more uniform.  My classroom has kinda been a hodgepodge of things I've found online on other great teacher blogs.  I've kinda had a running theme of blue, green, and pink.  This year I would like it more cohesive in a blue & green theme.  I don't want to get too crazy since we're moving to Hawaii in December though.  

So let's start the tour and discuss the things I want to change!  I did take these pics at the end of last school year though.

Here's the bulletin board in the hallway.  For some reason, we all have vertical boards which is really weird.  I left this up all year long because I loved it.   I need to come up with something else for this school year, but I haven't really thought about it yet.  Any ideas?

Here's what you see when you come in my door.  The frames are on the right and the cork board is on the left.

Then I have 3 bulletin boards and a whiteboard along the right hand wall.  I also use the whiteboard as a background for my document camera and projector.

1st I have a bunch of task cards hanging up.  Next year, I think I'm going to take these down and use this to display my schedule and the Common Core objectives I'm teaching.

Then I have my math board.  These were the anchor charts from our division unit.  If you're looking for  something like this for a division unit click {here} or a multiplication unit click {here}.

 This is where I put all of our vowel patterns as we learn them.  I got these {here} for free!  

Here's my "whole group" area.  I teach resource so I don't have a large group and this works.

I have these great windows.  But when the blinds are open, the light is right in your eyes.  So instead, I use them to hang anchor charts on.

Here's the room from the back.

Here's where I do almost all of my teaching and work.  I don't have a teacher desk because I use this area.

This is how I organize all my stuff!  The crate has individual folders with all their IEP and data stuff.  The piles of paper on the floor grow and grow throughout the week until I get around to doing something with it.

 Here's the other back wall.

I also have a storage room that is fairly large.  I shouldn't let you see it....but here it is.

YIKES!  Somebody needs to clean that room out!

And here is my 2nd oldest daughter.  Her middle school is right next to my school.  Middle school here doesn't start till 9:05!!!  Everyday, she would come to school with me and hang out.  She'd do her homework or help me or help one of my son's Kindergarten teacher.  In August, she's going to go to high school and no longer come to school with me.  I sure am going to miss her.  But I won't miss waiting on her to get out of school at 4:05 so I can finally go home!

 So to make my room more cohesive, I've made a new set of alphabet cards in blue and green.  I am working on making a set of Common Core I Can statements in blue and green.  Maybe I'll eventually get them done.  I've listed these in my TPT store.  Click on the picture to check them out.

So there you go!  That's my classroom and my mix-match of a theme.  Don't forget to link up by clicking {here}.

Compare and Contrast (and a fun freebie!)

This past week, we worked on Compare and Contrast.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found this super cute Compare and Contrast anchor chart from Teaching in High Heel's blog.  She has some other great anchor charts posted there so make sure you check her out! *Ok for some reason, I can't get a link to work to her blog showing you the original chart.  Errrr.  But if you google her blog, it comes up right away.

I added a little more info to the anchor chart that I made.  Since my 3rd graders will be taking FCAT next month (oh my!), I want them to be exposed to the types of questions and words that will let them know that this is a comparing or contrasting question.  Here are the charts that I made for my classroom:

I also use this AMAZING, FREE resource to help plan my reading comprehension lessons: Read Works.  If you haven't checked out their site, you should go there NOW!  There are lesson plans for grades K-5 for a ton of different comprehension skills.  There are also comprehension passages that go along with the skill that you can download for free.  It's seriously amazing, and I use it almost every week.

Mrs. H's Resource Room posted this super cute poem for special ed teachers today.  I LOVED it.  I made it into a PDF file, so I could share with all my favorite ESE teachers (that's what we're called) at my school.  Click on the picture to download your FREE copy!

I've also been working on some more games for my students to play.  Click on the pictures to get more details about each game.

Forest Friends - A CVC Game

Monkeying Around - A Long E game (ee, ea, -ey, and -y patterns)

Shoot for the Moon - A Short U & Long U Game (CVCe and CVVC oo patterns)

If you're a special education teacher who blogs, make sure you check out this {post} to make sure your blog is listed.

Graphics by: Scrappin Doodles, Digital Bake Shop, Jessica Weible Illustrations, Goodness and Fun, and KPM Doodles.

Author's Purpose - I'm PIE'd Out!

Boy have we spent some time in my classroom talking about author's purpose!  We spent 2 weeks talking about author's purpose.  We watched a song I found on Teacher Tube.  We've read books and discussed the purpose.  I've used a ton of resources from Read Works and the October Author's Purpose lesson from Polk County Schools.  I made 4 anchor charts that I constantly referred to.  Here's some pics to show you:

For some reason, I can't get them to all go together in one row......right now I'm too tired to try and fix it! So please forgive me!  I was pretty happy with my handmade charts, but I decided to make some cuter ones!  Plus, some people may not want to go through the hassle of making their own charts.  If you'd like to check out my charts, click on the picture below.

We also did a lot of group work practice with author's purpose.  I made these cute practice pages for my students to work on in pairs.  I was really surprised with some of the great conversations my students had while they tried to decide what the author's purpose was and what information/characteristics backed up their decision.  Click on the picture if you would like to check these out more.  There are 9 passages in total with 3 each for persuade, inform, and entertain.

And we also did this author purpose sort that I'm giving to you guys as a freebie!

Now can you see why I'm about PIE'd out!  It's been a WHOLE lot of author's purpose in my classroom.  This has been a really tough skill for my students.  I hope that they do well come FCAT time on it!  How do you teach author's purpose in your class?

Graphics from: Scrappin Doodles, Digital Bake Shop, and Erin Bradley Designs