Day 1 after Work Station Re-vamp!

Before you look at any picture please excuse the poor quality of my camera phone pictures! Ugh. Forgot my camera at home... and let's say the floor has become my phones best friend. Oh to remember when I first got her and she took clear pictures. Wamp wamp. 

Anyways, I tried to snap some shots of my littles in works stations today! I decided to circled the room today to make sure the students were on task and understanding what to do at their work stations. 

Pocket Chart Station with Silly Sentences… can I just say my kids LOVA LOVE this activity. The girls were creating sentences, reading sentences aloud, and then recording the sentence. They were trying to find the perfect word to make the sentences funny. *AND most importantly they were reading words I did not expect them to know! Whew… happy teacher day.*

 Writing Station: Completing their Sloppy Copy (Pre-Write) which is their must do activity. This week our topic is: How to Make a Penguin dance via Ms. Thomas at First Grade Jungle! This idea is brilliant! It really holds my kids accountable for their writing. 

ABC/ Word Study or Word Work Station: Making words with scrabble tiles. 

The tiles are a clip art from Scrappin' Doodles. 

Library Station: with the new organized system {which I organized a few weeks ago}.

Listening Station: New books WILL be added tomorrow! 

 Work on Words: Type it

Look at that focus… my boys were SO into this! Typing away their sight words! This was definitely a hit! *They would also get really excited when they saw a spelling word or sight word from the previous week/ this week, so cute!*

All in all I am very pleased with how our work stations went today. I love to see that look of excitement in my students eyes when they are having fun learning!

I am going to a Mardi Gras Ball for the weekend, so I will be back next week with more updates! 

Hope you have a great weekend,

Workstation Revamp! {& Silly Sentences}

It's about that time of year again where my students {and I} feel *blah* about workstations. Although the kiddos are still excited to go to workstations (duh), their attention span is minimal and some of them seem to forget the rules. 

What to do? 

 - Introduce some new and exciting things into the workstations.

- Review rules of workstations.

- And if it's not working... change or omit it.

Enter here Silly Sentences!

I always like to introduce these into the pocket chart when my students are independently reading! The kids go *bananas* for this work station! 

I keep all of the parts of the sentences in one container. {Now let me be honest, this took a while to cut and laminate, since its such a big packet. However, you could pick and choose which words you would like to add to your Silly Sentence Work Station*

My directions are hanging beside the pocket chart and, I place the colored numbers at the top for students to use to make their sentence! This makes it SUPER easy to follow the directions! Which is what my bambinos need!

Below you can see some pictures of the constructed sentences using the color coded strategy! 

So simple, yet TONS of fun! It's a great opportunity not only to construct the sentences, but to read as well! My students create the sentence, read the sentence and then record the sentence! The best part about this is their are SO many possibilities for sentences! 

If you would like to check it out at my TpT store click here!

I also finished up my new writing station re-do. There is now a must do sheet which you can learn more about at First Grade Jungle. Ms. Thomas shared these fill in the blank pre-writes with me which I LUSH! The Littles have been having the HARDEST time staying focused and producing quality work from this station. It was time for a change! 

via First Grade Jungle

 Monthly words for writing via Busy Teacher Cafe

 Do you have the writer's eye? via Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade

Now I have NO idea where those charts came from or the ones below! But whoever did them, THANKS I love them! If you know please let me know! They have been saved on my computer for a while (before pinterest)! 

*Update: these posters can be found here: 

http://mrsgilchristsclass.blogspot.com/2011/08/writing-center.html

Now I have more for my revamp of my ABC/ Word Study, Work Work, Word Wall Station…. check back for that tomorrow! But here is a sneak peak of one of my new Work Work Stations, found on pinterest! Hopefully this excited the littles! 

More Work Station Pictures...

Since I was pretty busy monitoring my students during their first round of Work Stations yesterday (some littles have problem with remember the "I Can" list, you know those kids). Like I promised in the post yesterday, I took some more pictures today! 

Word Wall Work Station

As of now students can either fill out their mini word walls or use the fancy pointer to point and read to words.  The mini word walls will go into a page protector and place in their work station folders. Students will be able to add to this as we add to the wall throughout the year. Eventually, students will have different activities to complete with the words on the wall.  

Students filling out their mini word walls. 

Poetry Station

Students can copy the large poem displayed, copy a poem from the poetry binder (which is not yet placed in the workstation), highlight rhyming words, illustrate the poem they copied, and read poems. I love to watch their Poetry Journals grow as the year goes on.  The students keep their Poetry Journals all together in a plastic basket, which I forgot to take a picture of. This makes it easy for the students to quickly get the journal and get to work, instead of having to get it from their desks. 

Another shot of my improved Library. I added another bookshelf and then moved the students' book bins to this spot.

 

Close up of the students' book bins.

In the picture below you can see one child picking a "just right fit" book, and another using the whisper phone to read. 

ABC/ Word Study

Listening Station

Pocket Chart Station

Finally put up the "I Can" list and added a hook for the sentence strips to hang. 

Debbie Diller's Rotation Chart... love this thing. Worth EVERY penny. *Or that's what I tell myself*

 Finally a shot of the Math Work Station Tubs... more to come on these later. 

In writing, our mini-lesson focus is on capitalization. I created a chart with my students in whole group about capitalization and then later went back and made it into an Anchor Chart later. 

Literacy Work Stations Launch...

I must have had amnesia from last year because I completely forgot how much effort goes into explaining the initial launch of workstations. We have spent the past five weeks of school going over all TEN of our work stations. Since my class grew in size I had to add more work stations. Although the initial explantations can be tiring on a teacher it is WELL worth it for the rest of the school year. For that reason, I do not like to rush the process! I truly wanted my students to know what their expectations are at each station, what they "can" do, and then have them be successful!

Today was our first day at our workstations. At the beginning of the year we only do one rotation a day (until the students are ready for two). Also, it is important to remember to monitor the students during the beginning! This is the time to correct those students who are still confused with what they should be doing at each workstation. Then, *hopefully* my small groups will be able to take place asap. 

Since I was busy monitoring... I apologize for the lack of pictures from today, but here is what I was able to snap...

1. Pocket Chart Station... Students are sorting class names in ABC order using either first or last names. In the younger grades, including the student pictures really helps! 

*I guess these littles decided to sort on the floor first*

Here is how it looks after they sort the names...

Below is the I can list I created for the Pocket Chart *This I Can list will grow and change as the activities at this workstation change*

2. Computer Workstation... they are currently using the website Starfall. 

3. Listening Workstation *Yes I moved it from it's original position in my room, I told you I have a problem with this, more to come on those changes in another post*

4. Handwriting Workstation... which will be transformed into a writing workstation as my students grow.

5. Buddy Reading... students put on their buddy reading visors (purchased at Hobby Lobby in a six pack), they sit in the EEKK position and then read!

Thanks to Ms. Thomas' suggestion, I put the buddy reading books in these bags (there is another below). She also created the directions to go in the front pocket of the bags. 

6. ABC/ Word Study... students sit by the Reading Focus Wall or the "Main Stage" and make their spelling words using magnetic letters. *This workstation will grow A LOT over the school year*

This is what the "Main Stage" looks like currently.

The I Can List I created for the students to use...

6. Big Book Station... Students use pointers to point to the words and read.

7. Classroom Library

Since I was unable to take pictures of all of the workstations I will try again and post tomorrow!