faulker099

Hello Everyone! I know! It has been a long time since my last post.  I have had so much family stuff going on that I have been absolutely crazy tired by the end of the day.  I think things are settling in now, so I finally had a second to sit down and present a quick post.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.  I am so excited about how our poetry unit is coming along.  We have one more week and then I'll be ready to share some of my little poets' work!  They have been loving it!! Until then, I wanted to share a new unit that we started incorporating into our math curriculum. Personal Finance.  Yes! You read that correctly. I don't know if you have that in your objectives, but in Texas we try to cover saving, spending, and sharing. Our adopted curriculum (Pearson) does a good job of supporting the objectives with technology based lessons, but if you know me, you know I have to have some things to accompany the curriculum in my math tubs.  I create...

Hello Everyone!! Happy April and Happy Poetry Month!!  Poetry is one of the parts of our writing curriculum that I look forward to so much!  We read, discuss, analyze, and even memorize poetry every week...poems that help to bring our curriculum to life.  Kids love poetry.  The tongue twisting words, the alliteration, the onomatopoeia, the fun language, the rhyme, the rhythm, and so much more.  Teaching a social studies or science concept using fun poetry is the best!  The kids keep all their poems in a poetry folder.  They can take their folders home to review the poems and earn extra incentives for memorizing them.   But now it's time for the kids to learn about some of the types of poetry and write their own!! I have shared my poetry writing unit before, but I have ramped it up big time!!  It is now about 73 pages of mini posters including many types of poetry, mentor poems, templates for kids to begin writing their own, some poetry anthol...

Hello Everyone! Happy Spring!!! Some of you are still in the grip of winter with snow and ice!  Here in Texas, the temps are warming up, the trees are budding, and there are flowers everywhere! I am such a warm weather girl, I can't wait to put coats and sweaters away! Springtime in first grade is just as exciting.   The kids are really becoming independent learners and so into researching things they want to know about.  In writing we are working our way through a writing to teach unit.  Kids love to share what they know.  T hey are experts at so many things!  Our first chapter book is based on what kids know most about...themselves!!!  We are using most of what Lucy Calkins suggests in her Units of Study. The first chapter books turned out pretty well. Here are a few pages of the published books. The kids were so proud to share them!!! I have shared the templates and information for this written expression project before, but I have added a couple of...