A New Year, a New Challenge...

Happy Saturday!

I am so thrilled with the progress my class has made this year in reading. Everyone has put forth so much effort and their hard work is really paying off. I wanted to continue to accelerate their momentum by giving them a challenge. They were so good about picking out and reading their "good fit" picture books, but I wanted to see them use their stamina toward reading "good fit" chapter books.

During our first week back to school, I challenged them to think about how many chapter books they would like to read by the end of the year. We had discussions of attainable goal setting and how to chose "good fit" chapter books. Thus our class' chapter book challenge was born. Each child in my class has set a personal goal which they think they will be able to attain by the end of the year.
Yesterday during our teacher work day, I was able to put the finishing touches on the bulletin board that we are using to keep track. It's located outside of my classroom. They are actually tracking their books on a reading log inside the classroom and at the end of the day, I write the name of their book on a star a put it under their picture. As you can see, I have three eager kiddos who devour books. They are loving it, and I think they secretly love the competition. As you can also see, I have a few kids who need some extra encouragement to get moving.

I think I am going to add something their pictures which tells what their goals are. Maybe speech bubbles? We'll see. For now I am happy that they are so excited about this challenge. I know they'll all rise up to it. =)

One more thing... I'm not a huge fan of A.R., but we're required to do it. Before my kids write their books down on their logs, they have to take a test first. It's like killing two birds with one stone. =)

There's only a little over 4 hours left to enter our 300 follower giveaway! I wonder who the winners will be??

Have a great night!! -Jackie-

Mid-Year Assessments

Hi Friends!
It's that lovely time of the year again... mid-year assessments. Over the years I've heard lots of moaning and groaning about this topic, but it's actually something I really enjoy. It must be the teacher geek in me! I like it because it's the time where I can see all of the work we've put in over the past 5 months finally paying off. Don't get me wrong,  I see the growth in snippets each week from progress monitoring, weekly assessments, or when I read with my kids for a minute or two during guided reading each day, but when I do my mid year assessments I see tons of growth in comparison to where they started! I also like it because it's 1 on 1... a time to connect with my kids in a quiet setting.

I do three different assessments. First, I do the DRA  assessment. I only have a K-3 kit, so for most of my students this is a great assessment. It's not helpful for those kits who tested out of the kit at the beginning of the year. I wish we had the higher level DRA assessment on our campus, but we don't. Today I was so excited {and relieved} when I tested one of my kiddos (who came to me a little over a half of year behind ) and he tested exactly where 2nd graders should be right now. That means he made a whole years growth in just 5 months!! I was so proud of him!! It tells me that what I'm doing with him works!! :-)

The next assessment I do is with our FRY sight words. Up until now, our 2nd graders were supposed to have the 1st 500 words mastered. While we teach and practice many of those words in class, many of the words have to be learned on their own at home. My students did really well on this assessment. It's a reflection of their hard work {and their parents} at home.







Finally, the assessment I leave for last is our FAIR {Florida Assessment In Reading}. About four or five years ago it took the place of DIBELS in Florida schools. I haven't started to FAIR test my students yet. I'm going to begin as soon as all of my DRA tests are done. My thoughts are mixed as far as FAIR goes. I've seen some discrepancies in the reading passages. There are a few passages on the 1st and 2nd grade test which are clearly way higher than they are supposed to be. I'm also not thrilled that students are given a probability of reading success strictly based off of how many words they can read in 45 seconds{list is in the picture above}. Other than that, it's pretty good information, but I don't use it strictly in isolation. DRA is an excellent supplement for it.

The thing I struggled with up until a few years ago was classroom management during my tests. I had a hard time figuring out what to do with my other kids while was testing. I used to have busy work packets and tons of interruptions, lots of clips moving down. My poor former kids!  For the past 3 years, I've been doing Daily 5. I absolutely love doing the Daily 5 in my class because my kids are completely independent, they know exactly what is expected of them, and they do it. Plus, it's benefiting them and they're not bored with busy work! If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it!!

So that's my mid-year assessment routine. What's yours? What do you love& what could you live without? I'd love to know!

Happy Monday!
-Jackie-

If you haven't stopped by our giveaway post, check it out. There are tons of prizes to be won!!!!

Classroom Jobs Linky Party!

Ok... so we're slightly obsessed with linky parties. They're so much fun, and we are able to connect with other AMAZING teachers! Mrs. Dillard and her blog "Oh The Places We'll GO" is having a linky party about classroom jobs. Please check it out and "link up"!!

Classroom jobs are a big part of our classrooms. They teach responsibility, they build a classroom community/family, and it takes a LOT of extra stress off our plates!! Our wonderful custodian also LOVES our rooms because they're so well maintained.

Last year we made job cards and name cards with the student's picture. We had them laminated, and we use this space saving pocket chart to hold all of the cards.

Every Monday we rotate the name cards down and around at the same time keeping the jobs in place. If we forget to rotate our cards around, our students have NO problem reminding us to do it. :-) There are quite a few jobs that are doubles or even triples. We did that so one person is not always bogged down with an overwhelming job.

The jobs are:
Door Holder (lines up 1st in line)
Line Leader (lines up 2nd in line)
Light Helper (lines up last in line)
Library Helper (3 students are in charge of 10 baskets each)
Supplies Monitor (2 students are in charge of making sure our supplies are neat and orderly and that we have sharpened pencils)
Floor checker (at the end of the day, 2 students double check the floor and politely remind their classmates to clean up their personal areas and shared areas)
Technology Helper (2 students turn the computers on in the A.M. and off in the P.M.)
Calendar Helper (this student runs our calendar time)
Messenger (2 students bring the attendance and lunch count up to the office, and they also accompany students to the office that are signed in or out of school)
Clinic Helper (2 students accompany kids to clinic "nurse" when they're sick or hurt)

***there are some jobs we would like to add for next year**
Substitute (this student would take the job of another student if they're sick)
sanitizer helper (in both of our classes kids would RACE to get the sanitizer to pass it out to the line, we couldn't stand that, so this would remedy that situation)
Pillow Helper (this person will be in charge of making sure the pillows are put away.


We've got to figure out how to attach our documents. Once we do, we'll attach the job cards that we made.

We love classroom jobs!!

Happy Blogging!!
-Jackie and Danielle-

Our first linky party!

Becca over at Simply 2nd Resources is hosting a linky party dedicated to classroom daily schedules.


Since I am looping to 2nd grade next year, I am not quite sure what our schedule will be like. I'm also used to our school master schedule changing yearly, so I won't even work on my schedule for next year until I am 100% sure what the master schedule will be. But, I can blog about my 1st grade schedule from last year. :-)

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
8:35-9:00- students come in, unpack, get ready for the day, and begin journal writing.
8:50-8:55- School wide announcements
8:55-9:05- complete journal
9:05-9:25- Mini-lesson 1 (phonics, sight words, vocabulary)
9:25-9:55- Daily 5 round 1
9:55-10:20- Mini-lesson 2 (reading skills/strategies)
10:20-10:45- Daily 5 round 2
10:45- clean up and get ready for specials
10:50-11:25- Specials (we do a 6 day rotation)
11:30-11:45- Mini-lesson 3 (writing)
11:45-12:05- Daily 5 round 3
12:05-12:09- clean up and go to lunch
12:09-12:34- lunch
12:34-12:54- recess
12:55-2:00- Envision Math
2:00-2:35- Science/Social studies
2:35-2:45- clean up/pack up/stack up
2:45-3:00 dismissal

Wednesday
8:35-9:00- students come in, unpack, get ready for the day, and begin journal writing.
8:50-8:55- School wide announcements
8:55-9:05- complete journal
9:05-9:25- Mini-lesson 1 (phonics, sight words, vocabulary)
9:25-9:55- Daily 5 round 1
9:55-10:20- Mini-lesson 2 (reading skills/strategies)
10:20- clean up and get ready for specials
10:25-10:50- Specials (we do a 6 day rotation)
10:55-11:30- Daily 5 round 2
11:30-11:45- Mini-lesson 3 (writing)
11:45-12:05- Daily 5 round 3
12:05-12:09- clean up and go to lunch
12:09-12:34- lunch
12:35-1:35- Envision Math
1:35-1:45- clean up/pack up/stack up
1:45-2:00 dismissal
**2:00-3:30- staff meetings/staff development/teacher planning

Happy Blogging!!
-Jackie-