Informational Text Themes for Reading Month

At my school, we've been busy planning for March is Reading month. 

We decided we wanted to focus on informational texts to increase the exposure our kids are getting to nonfiction books. I created the Information Highway for my staff to use. It is full of resources to use with students as they travel on the "information highway"!

The resources are geared toward 4 different themes (food, music, exercise and animals), 1 for each week in March. The Information Highway includes teachers planning pages, a family letter, an official passport, bulletin board/anchor chart pieces, two different reading logs for each weekly theme, writing activities (how to writing, poetry, opinion writing and research writing), class book covers, a sticky fact form, a vocabulary builder and two learning snapshot forms.

 
Stay tuned as my class travels on the Information Highway.  I'll be sure to post pictures throughout the month!

I'm still going to take my own class camping (during March) too!  We'll use the Camp Read  a Lot resources for that adventure.  There are lots of good informational texts about camping.  So, it will go well with our Information Highway theme. Last year, lots of teachers said they used my Camp Read a Lot unit at the end of the school year as well.

 Back to resting I go...
 

It's Almost Super Bowl Time!

If you think your students might enjoy some football themed activities to prepare for the Super Bowl, you might want to check out my newest product. 

If you're like me, you feel like you are constantly trying to hold onto the fun 

and still meet the standards.

That's why I created this product.

Hot off the press...

Funky Football Fan Fun

This product includes:

football themed making words activity

Everything You Need to Play Football

How to Play Football (graphic organizer & writing pages)

Football Poetry Challenge

The Best Football Team (graphic organizer & writing pages)

If you follow my Tpt store and leave a comment here with your email address, 

you'll have a chance to win a copy of this product.  

I will randomly choose a winner from the comments that are left 

before 8p.m. on Monday (1/20).

Camp Read a Lot - winners!

For everyone who entered the Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!) giveaway...

 

You're all winners! 

 I couldn't pick just one. 

Check your inbox. There should be a message from my yahoo account (titled From Funky First Grade Fun). Yahoo allows me to send the giant files that gmail doesn't like. :) 

 Happy Sunday and happy camping!
 

Camp Read a Lot (part 3) - S'more Vocabulary Please!

Three of my students told me that our classroom campout was the "best week of their life". I'm sure that might change the next time they go to Disney or when the local Dairy Queen opens, but for now I'm honored that they enjoyed it so much. 

 You can read my Camp Read a Lot part 1 post here. 

 You can read my Camp Read a Lot part 2 post here. 

 My campers made a few different camp souveniers to take home at the end of camp. One of their favorite souveneirs was the s'more vocabulary craftivity. At Camp Read a Lot, we had daily themes which you can read about in the part 1 post above. We did the s'more vocabulary craftivity on the day with theme S'more Reading Please. 

 Here is a picture of the s'more vocabulary craftivity. My campers were so excited to be able to make their very own little s'more. I let my campers use stamps to stamp camping themed pictures on the inside of the s'more (and they wrote the words). I just happened to have a set of old stamps that were camping themed. In my Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!) pack, I included a set of pictures (with lines for campers to write the words). The instructions and the cover are also included.

This is what the inside of one looked like.

Stop by my Tpt store if you'd like to check out the Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!)!

I will be contacting a winner (or maybe 2) for the giveaway soon.  It will probably be tomorrow, because today's schedule includes soccer pictures, a soccer game, baseball pictures, a baseball game, 2 dance recital performances and two very tired parents.  

Camp Read a Lot (part 2)

I've always wanted to have a classroom campout! This year I finally did it. It was honestly so much fun for my students (and me). I posted a bit about it earlier this week. You can read that part here (Camp Read a Lot part 1). 

Each day during our camp, we transformed our normal morning meeting into a "campfire meeting". One of my campers was chosen each day to use a rainstick to signal the start of our campfire meeting. The campers gathered around the campfire to sing the camp welcome song to start each campfire meeting. We made up the camp welcome song together (with a few suggestions from the camp director - me) on the first day of camp. Then we sang the camp welcome song each time visitor came to our classroom camp throughout the week. I think we sang to the reading intervention specialist 5 times that week and I'm pretty sure some teachers stopped by to chat just so the cute little campers could sing to them. 

Here is our campfire. 

One of the teachers across the hall also let me borrow her inflatable campfire. That made spontaneous campfire meetings quick and easy. You can purchase your own by clicking on the image below.

My Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!) pack is available in my Tpt store.  

More about the camper favorites in the next few days...

 

Bring on Spring Sale!

I love sales! I think you're supposed to clean in the spring...

but I decided to bring on spring in a different way.

I'm having a sale at my Tpt store!  If you've made purchases from my store in the past, please know that I truly appreciate it.  The money I earn in my Tpt store allows my two teacher family to give the college savings accounts for our children a big boost.  The Gillow family is grateful. Thank you!

Here are some of my best sellers...

Animal Research Book (can be used with any animal)

Informational Text Unit

Short Vowel Centers

Sight Word Stories for Beginning Readers

And here are some spring products 

that might be helpful...

A memory book for your students to complete and take home as a keepsake!

A Mother's Day book that your students can give as a gift 

(or you can use the individual pages).

Spring Math Journal Prompts (I have a fall and a winter set as well.)

My most recent additions...

Halloween Line Poems

My students wrote line poems about Halloween this week. I'm super proud of how their writing turned out. First, we talked about the fact that their line poem should begin and end with the word "Halloween". Then they added 10 words in between that reminded them of Halloween. 

We published their writing by turning their poem into a fancy bookmark. When the bookmarks were complete, we did a poetry reading for our publishing celebration. All of the children sat in a circle. I brought jack-o-lantern light up candle to put in the middle of the circle. All those little poets sitting in a circle reading their poems by the light of a festive candle was just about the cutest darn thing! 

 The paper we used is from my fall themed stationary pack.

Today, they will take home their published piece (on the bookmark), the draft in their own writing and the memory of their first poetry reading! 

Happy Friday!
 

Penguins and Poems

Since there are all kinds of great penguin stories and my kids love penguins...my class wrote penguin poems last week. First we read lots of penguin stories. We started with fiction and ended with nonfiction. We used the nonfiction to help us gather the information on the chart below.

The children used the information from the nonfiction books and the chart above to write their own penguin line poems. They also made a penguin craft. They turned out super cute! Their handwritten poems are on display with their penguin craft in the Gillow Gallery (which is really just the hallway outside my room).

Their poems also became published when we typed them and turned them into a cute little bookmark. I got the ribbon at Target in the dollar spot a few years ago. It came with 4 different colors/designs for $1. They were so proud to take their bookmarks home!

In a couple weeks, we will begin our big informational text unit and study nonfiction text features. I use my informational text packet, which you can find by clicking on the image below. It's in my Tpt store and my Teachers Notebook shop.

When we finish the informational text unit, we will start our animal research reports. My students will use the animal research report that I made last year. It is also in my Tpt store and Teachers Notebook shop.

I'm off to rack up some points for the Fun Fitness Challenge at my school.

Traveling Books and 5 Senses Poetry

My students make several traveling books each year. The students in my class take each traveling book (which are basically class books) home one at a time. I send a note with the traveling book that basically says the student should read the book to their family and return the book to school the very next day.

Since we've been working on writing poetry, we made a traveling book 

out of the poems the children wrote about Halloween. 

The poems they wrote are in the 5 senses format. We used one of the poetry forms from my Seasonal 5 Senses Poetry Forms pack to do the original writing and their poems became published pieces when we put them in our book. Next week, we will be using the Thanksgiving 5 senses form from the same pack. Throughout the year, we work on adding details and really making our poems sparkle with interesting adjectives.  My students become really familiar with the 5 senses format over time, which allows us to focus more on word choice.  I also keep a copy of each of the 5 senses poems each student wrote throughout the year.  At the end of the year, each student is given a book of the seasonal poems they wrote to take home.

You can click on the image below to see this item in my Tpt store.  It is also available at my Teachers Notebook shop.

5 Senses Poetry

My students have been working on writing 5 senses poems. We started with a poem about fall. After working our way through the writing process, my students had their fall 5 senses poems published to hang in the "Gillow Gallery" (which is really just the hallway where we display work outside of my classroom). Each child made a fall tree out of tissue paper to display with their poem. It was great for fine motor practice.  My students (even those who have a hard time with fine motor tasks) LOVED making the tissue paper tree.  The trunk is just random brown fabric that I cut using an old Ellison die cut. Oh, I mean....a parent used the machine to cut out all the trunks for me.   Super helpful parents = super lucky teacher!

Here is a sample of one of the poems and the tree together.

Last week, I posted a Halloween 5 sense poem freebie. You can find that post here.

At my Teachers Notebook and Tpt shops, you can find my Seasonal 5 Senses Poetry Forms for the whole year.  My students love writing poetry and using the 5 senses seems to give them an extra boost, so they can focus on word choice and creativity.

That's all for now!   Oh, how I love comments...

Halloween Writing Freebies

Can it really be the middle of October already?  I have to be honest, I don't love Halloween (at school).  My principal LOVES Halloween though...so we have a costume parade, parties in our rooms and even a storyteller. Several years ago, we started calling it Bookaween. The students are asked to dress up like a character from a book and they carry the book in the parade.

Here are a few of the quick and easy writing activities my students do the day after Bookaween. It's the day that every student wants to tell me about all the candy they got while trick-or-treating. So, I give them the candy list below and ask them to write down the candy names.  Click on the image to download the candy list form.

I also ask them to write a 5 senses poem about Halloween.  We write 5 senses poems throughout the year.   Click on the image to download the poetry form. 

This tired girl is off to bed!  

Whoooo's In First Grade?

I've been meaning to post about this (and a long list of other things) but things have been all kinds of crazy (good, but crazy). Since I don't believe in the "you're only allowed to post 1 time a day" rule... maybe I'll accomplish a few of those posts this weekend.

A couple weeks ago, I read The Little White Owl to my class. It is a fabulous book that relates to a variety of topics (friendship, appreciating differences, everyone has different strengths, discovering the good in everyone, having the courage to let your strengths shine).

I used this book during my writer's workshop time to go with the "All About Me" line poems my students were writing. Their line poems consisted of a list of words that would help the reader learn something about the student. Each poem had to start with the student's name and end with the student's name.

the name of the student is covered on the first line and the last line

You can click on the image below if you'd like to download the blank form.

After we finished the poems, each student made their own owl.  They LOVED making their own owl and they turned out so darn cute!  I'll definitely use this book and do this project again next year.

Here is an example of the whole project put together.  

The weather is beautiful in Michigan today!  I'm headin' out to enjoy it with my kids.  Happy Saturday!