Reading Street Review Sheets + Freebies

It's almost that time!!!  My kiddos start back on Thursday.  Our reading series is Reading Street and the first grade curriculum starts with a review unit.  This seems pretty helpful for my firsties, but I do go through it much more quickly than they suggest.  This year, we will be doing the review stuff for the first 2-3 weeks.  Since I'm teaching a combo class this year (1st/2nd) I am planning on also doing a review unit with my second graders.  I'm hoping by easing into things it will give us a chance to learn our Daily 5 schedule and get into a bit of a routine.
I feel like I'm finally starting to be able to wrap my head around how I'm going to teach two grades at the same time.  I actually am getting really excited about it and I think it will be a great experience for my students.  I spent a good amount of time yesterday making some review worksheets that I think my first graders will be able to complete independently while I'm teaching 2nd grade.  I wanted to share them with you (for FREE, of course!).  These do go along with the Kindergarten Reading Street curriculum, but I think it could work for all first graders.  Here is a peak at what is included.

Click here to download them for FREE! Update:  I noticed that I had "circle the letter", when it should have said "circle the word".  I also added the rest of the alphabet letter.  

The downloadable file is corrected.  :)

I also have this powerpoint that I do with the kids during our kindergarten review.  There is a slide for each letter, along with links to websites for extra activities and practice.  I used this with my class last year and my kids loved it!  If you don't have the same fonts on your computer that I used, you might have to adjust things a little.  You should be able to download it here, if you have problems with it, just leave me your email address and I'd be happy to send it you.  

I'm hoping to get a version of this done for second grade, but I'm not sure it will get finished.  The good news is, I have all of my other powerpoint from last year, so I can use those if I have to.  I'm also going to have the kids use our iPad and iPods a lot to review- probably mostly with the SpellingCity app and Teach Me.
Are you ready to go back?  Do you review at the beginning of the year or just dive right in?Pin It

Bubble Gum Day and Double O Words

Our countdown to the end of the year is still going strong!  Friday was bubble gum day and it was so stinking cute.  

We used the printables from The Teacher Wife to make self-portraits and to write the steps needed to blow a bubble (which I somehow failed to get a picture of). 

Each student got piece of Double Bubble to learn or practice blowing a bubble.  Some students already knew how and they tried to help friends understand just how to hold their mouths to blow a great bubble. It was so cute to hear students yell, "Wow- look at that bubble!"  After about 20 minutes of attempting to blow bubbles, we graphed whether or not we were able to blow a bubble.  We ended up with 9 students that could blow a bubble and 6 that could not.  It was a really cute activity- thanks so much for sharing it, Lindsey!  

Some students trying a different technique.  ;)

We had a lot of fun- Monday is lunch in the classroom, so I am off to the store to get a few healthy items to add to our lunch! :)

Our reading curriculum is Scott Foresman Reading Street and this week our story was Dot and Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery.  The spelling words that went along with our story this week featured words with /oo/ like in book and moon.  For our Thursday review, I gave each student a blank copy of our spelling test page and told them we were going to take a practice test.  I asked them to tell me what our regular words had in common this week. (oo)  We talked about the two sounds we learned and how all 10 words had an oo in them.  Then I held up a box of Cheerios.  I asked students what letter a Cheerio looks like and, of course, they said an o.  I told them that when they were taking their practice test they could use Cheerios instead of writing the letter o in words.  

They thought this was really cool- and all 15 students spelling every word CORRECTLY!  

Wow!  It was a great review!!!  I let students eat their oo's when we were all finished.  Since we had so many Cheerios left, I also let them have a handful the next while we took our spelling test.  What is your favorite way to review for a spelling test?

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Space and Currently

Two weeks ago, we had a story in our Reading Street series that I hate very much dislike.  It's not that there is anything wrong with it, but I think it's boring and a little out there.  So,  the other first grade teacher in my building and I decided to come up with our own plan for the week.  We decided since The Lady in the Moon was about the moon, we would come up with something about the moon.  Well, our idea grew into teaching a mini-unit on space.  We still taught the skills from the book, but supplemented tons of other space ideas.  We did two days of center activities.  I planned 4 centers and so did she, then I taught my students at centers the first day, and hers the second day.  Clear as mud, right?  
The kiddos LOVED this unit and I am so glad we decided to change things up.  One of the centers we did was what I named Race Through Space.  It is a version of a dice game that we have done with students before, but with a space theme.  I have a couple of sets of big foam dice and students thought I was extra cool for letting them use them.  (It's the little things, right?)  You can see how they filled in the sheet in this picture.  

Would you like a copy?  Great- here you go.  Just click here to download a free copy.

We played another center that I named Words from Earth or Mars?  We talk about nonsense words when we do our Michael Heggerty Phonemic Awareness and AIMSWeb testing, so I want students to be able to tell the different between real and made-up words.  I wrote out a bunch of our sight words and nonsense words on sentence strips and had students sort them in a pocket chart.  I made students choose a job- we had a Secretary from Mars (to record Mars words), a Secretary from Earth (to record Earth words), and two Word Hunters (they had to take turns pulling words from the bucket).  All the students had to reach an agreement before the word was added to pocket chart and the correct secretary had to add the word to his/her list before the next word was pulled.  I was amazed at how smoothly this center ran- the students did an awesome job sorting words and getting along.  I would offer you the recording sheet, but I can't seem to find where I saved it.  If you want it, just leave a comment or send me a message and I will get it to you when I find it.  

Everyone's favorite center during this rotation, was the Alien Make-Over.  We printed each students' picture out and then he/she cut out the face.  They glued it down and then went to town creating an alien version of themselves.  The students loved using glitter glue, goggly eyes, and stickers. (Who wouldn't???)  They turned out so stinking cute!  We also had each student fill out a star with an "I wish..." phrase on it.  We also let the students decorate the mural and then put it in the hallway.  

Does anyone else have any cool space ideas for next year? 

 I'm definitely taking the boring suggested story out of my rotation again next year.  

I'm also Linking Up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade for this month's Currently.  

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