Teaching First Grade Tips!

Hi friends, it's SEPTEMBER! School is back in session!

I saw an awesome post from Mary at Sharing Kindergarten about Kindergarten tips and I thought {and asked her permission} I could use it to start a "First Grade Teacher Tips" blog. So here are my 3 tips for a successful first grade classroom!

First graders have the attention span of a gnat {pretty sure I do too...}. This means you only have about 6 minutes to get your point across and MOVE ON. Thankfully, I'm a bit ADD myself, so if things are taking too long, I get bored {sometimes I have to entertain myself}. The rule of thumb is, kids have the attention in minutes as their age {example, if a student is 5 years old, he/she has a 5 minute attention span}. 

This does not mean you have to change subjects EVERY 6 minutes. BUT you as the teacher should not be talking solo for over that amount of time. Introduce concepts in small, understandable chunks. Once you've hit your time limit, get some practice in with activities or small groups {I know this doesn't work for EVERY lesson, sometimes you have to plow through ;)}.

I learned from the great Rick Morris {the king of classroom management}, one option is to set a timer, when it goes off, switch your activity. 

Small groups are wonderful. Their attention span tends to expand when they are working independently on what THEY want {or at least what they THINK they want to be doing, we teachers are great at making kids think they are choosing ;)}.

Catherine from The Brown Bag Teacher is the queen of small group Daily 5. You should most definitely check her posts out!

Set high-measurable expectations. Your students WILL meet them! If you only expect them to write one sentence, that's all they will write. How should they act in the classroom, how should they respond when they are upset, what does finished work look like, what does my teacher expect me to do during this time? Push your students, they need you to expect much from them! We all know you believe in your students! Expect much of them, and they will exceed your expectations.

{disclaimer: I know there are some outliers in our first grade classrooms, but some of them will not test your boundaries if you set your expectations early and strong}

This is likely a no-brainer, but entertain, entertain, ENTERTAIN. I am the silliest of silly teachers. Not all first grade teachers are and that is perfectly fine! For me though, sometimes I just have to sing a song, talk in an accent, or dance-because some things I teach are BORING and I just can't make them exciting. Thankfully Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher Bloggers have made it a little easier to think of those crazy entertaining ideas. Ya'll, we are competing with cartoons, iPhones, etc! Step up your game ;)

Here are a couple examples of making everything engaging for FREE {and it doesn't take much effort either}:

{this is a great pinning image ;)}

Do you have some simple {& easy to implement} tips for teaching first grade? Leave them in the comments :)

Happy first days of school!

Classroom Set-Up!

Happy Tipster Thursday!

This is Jen from Positively Learning

My tip today is all about 

I spent a LONG time deciding on my classroom set-up and even now, 

a few school years later, I'm SO thankful I did!

My main priority was making my teaching space feel welcoming to students and families, including having all materials accessible. I want my firsties to feel confident and grow in independence!

I also had to keep in mind some other key details:

I teach Special Education in a OLD city school building. There's already enough chaos in the environment and I definitely don't want to bring anymore! 

I chose these clear bins with lids (3 sizes) from Ikea. They are stored on plastic shelving I found at major hardware supply stores, like The Home Depot. The clear look provides a neutral background to match any classroom decor!

It's tough to see...this picture is from last school year. 

I'll be sure to update when I go back to school (in two weeks!).

Another big factor in choosing these supplies was that they are considered "staple" items. I've been using these bins for several years and have been able to go back and pick up additional supplies when needed.

My Budget :) My budget is in the negative...we are already spending so much on basic supplies, yet I know if my classroom was "working" for both my students and I, then we can spend more time on learning. The bins from Ikea were the most cost-effective and I priced them ALL (or at least it sure felt like I did!). 

I ♥ looking at other teachers' classrooms! 

If you would like to see more of mine...please hop over to my blog for more! 

Thanks for reading! Jen

13 Ways to Celebrate the End of the Year

Hey friends!

Jen from Sparkling in Second here!

It's almost the time again...SUMMER TIME!

Every year I like to do some sort of "Countdown to the End of the Year" type thing. This tends to keep the kids on good behavior {because you can bribe them a bit if they aren't doing their best} and keeps them entertained as the school year winds down.

Here are some fun ideas to make the end of your year great {and keep your kids in check, because we know they get a little out of hand at this point...}

This year I did a balloon display. We'd pop one at the end of each day and learn what we'd get to do tomorrow!

My balloons defaulted at some point during the countdown, so we made a quick switch to stickies on the board.

Here are some of the things we LOVED doing in our class {not all are "educational", but most could be changed to be if you needed to}.

{ONE}

Paper Airplane Contest

Here's a cute video that teaches the kids how to make a dart paper airplane. 

Here's the link!

After, race em and see who wins :)

{TWO}

Write with a Pen Day

What child doesn't LOVE to write in pen!? They just DIE over this. 

{THREE}

SOUND DAY

Exploring sound is a great way to end the year, since it's usually noisy ;)

{Click here, here, or here to learn more}

{FOUR}

Bubble Day

Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish...

We use Babbling Abby's Busy Bodies Unit for this.

You'll need different types of gum and bubbles too!

We got to blow bubbles with gum, taste gum, blow bubbles with a wand, and tons more like graphing and writing.

{FIVE}

Art Day

Kids love art time! You can do just about any type of art you'd like for this day. You can have it accompany anything you are learning as well. 

In my class, we've been a bit obsessed with tissue paper art {Click here to hear more}.

It's a quiet and time consuming art piece that the kids love!

{SIX}

Bring a Stuff Animal to School

We invited some pals into the classroom. I had the kiddos bring in their favorite stuff animal {or action figure}. We taught them all day long and even took them to our Daily 5 stations.

{SEVEN}

Chalk Day

Free for all chalking! Or you can have them draw shapes, find parallel lines or right angles, or even draw a picture of something you are studying. As long as they have chalk, they'll do anything you want ;)

{EIGHT}

Measurement Olympics

The creator of Measurement Olympics, Mrs. Amy Lemons, is brilliant! Check out what she did here. We had a little pom pom fuzzy to kick, flick, blow, and so much more. We started at some cones, did the event, then measured up! I made a quick little events sheet so the kids could record their data, but they can always just jot it down in a notebook. What a hit it was!

{NINE}

Glow Sticks

These little babies come in handy {thank you Dollar Tree}! We used these to "read in the dark" and watch a movie!

Just be careful, the cheapy ones tend to burst open, yuck!

{TEN}

Summer Birthdays Party

Those poor babies who have summer birthdays...never get celebrated at school {like me :(}! This year, I decided to throw one big party for all those summer birthdays! I had the parents bring in what they'd want to donate for their child's birthday and we had a big bash of cupcakes, cookies, chips, drinks, ice cream, and more! We even played games! I think this birthday party was better than any other one we'd celebrated throughout the year. It makes those summer babies feel loved.

{ELEVEN}

Beach Ball Autographs

Have parents donate beach balls {or stock up at the end of the summer at Target or Michael's when they are on sale for under 50 cents}. Write their name in a cute way, have the kids blow them up, give em all a sharpie, and let em go!

Hint: some kids can't blow up beach balls ;)

{TWELVE}

Red Carpet Awards

Love love love this idea! I've seen it a million places now, but originally I think Reagan from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits thought of it {here}.

We do Honor Roll awards in an assembly all together, but this is a way you can do the fun/silly awards with just your class. I use Gladys from Teaching in High Heels' awards, but I've seen some super fun candy awards which I'm sure the kids would love.

helpful hint: make them feel even more special by making those easy graduation caps! I saw them from Kristen at Easy Teaching Tools and fell in love. They were pretty easy to make. All you need are some sentence strips and card stock or construction paper. You may want a glue gun too, it makes it go much faster.

{THIRTEEN}

Popcorn/Slumber Party

This year, on our very last school day, we had a "Popcorn Bar" and a slumber party! Parents donated the pre popped popcorn baggies and some "toppings" like M&Ms, sour patch kids, and skittles. We mixed it in our bags and snuggled around the room watching movies :)

How do you celebrate the end of the year with you littles?