First Grade Gallery- Lessons for Little Learners

Hey, have you heard? Of course you have! It's the big two day sale we've all been waiting for at Teachers Pay Teachers! Check your wishlists and browse around a bit so you're ready to shop till you drop on Monday or Tuesday! 

I've just finished up some new story sequencing activity sets you may want to check out! This one is to be used with Laura Numeroff's Moose/Muffin book. 

Hello First Grade Gallery Friends! 
Last year, I blogged about all of the fun we had during reading month with our Laura Numeroff books and activities.This year, our grade level has chosen Eric Carle as our author to study during the month of March!

I just wanted to let you know that I have finished a fun little sequencing activity for the story every kid loves, The Very Hungry Caterpillar! The cards can be used at a literacy center or in a pocket chart for a whole-group activity. Even if you don't do an author study, it's a fun story to use in the spring with lessons on life cycles.





As always, when I share a new item, I will randomly choose three to get it free! Just leave me a comment if you'd like it and include your email! 

Some of our children, who are reading independently, have started participating in Literature Circles. Students read an assigned chapter and have guided discussions regarding what was read! These are my red group readers. All students will join a book club later in the year!

We have built stamina and have now added our fifth component of Daily Five! Students enjoyed our nonfiction story using our new wireless headphones!

Thank you PTO for our new comfy bean bag chair! This special seat is reserved for the Star Student of the Week!

During Daily Five, I meet with reading groups and individual students for testing or conferencing. The students enjoy using the glitter wands to track as they read!

In addition to leveled readers, our students participate in whole-group reading instruction. The purpose for this is to enjoy stories as a learning community and to focus mini-lessons for comprehension, fluency and word attack strategies on a story that everyone is familiar with. On Mondays, we begin by taking a picture walk and trying to get a sense for what the story is about. I read the story aloud to the students and they follow along. Next we talk about the story, including the story elements like character and setting, problem and solution. One student is selected to retell the story in their own words. On Tuesday, I read one sentence and the students echo read, modeling after my phrasing and expression. Students track using their glitter sticks. They love this! The next day, we practice our rate and fluency by doing a choral read in which all students, and myself, read aloud at the same time. Afterward, I use 'pick sticks' for turn-taking and one student at a time is chosen during 'popcorn read' to read aloud a portion of the text to the class. Thursday is buddy reading day. This is their favorite, of course!Also on Thursday, we bring the anthology home in our book bags to read the story with our parents. By this time, we know the story very well and the students are proud of their fine reading! Later in the year, all students will take an AR test on the story on Friday.