Grammar Instruction in the Primary Grades

Happy first day of February, 2016! 

Today, I am tackling a hot topic... grammar instruction.  Ahh yes, the age old question...to grammar, or not to grammar? What is a teacher supposed to do?

Click on the image below to go to Mrs. Rios Teaches and 1) read about what my 20 years of experience in the classroom has taught me about grammar instruction in the primary grades, and 2) pick up your copy of my most popular freebie (305,000+ downloads and counting!) that you can incorporate into your grammar lessons today!

Thanks for stopping by,

Nicole

Applefest Continues!

Happy Apple Week from Simply Skilled in Second and Fluttering Through First Grade! 


We are so excited to share some fun with you today!  
Thank you so much for stopping by to check out the Primary Chalkboard.

This week is all about.... APPLES!!!!  
We guess you can call it an Applefest :)

Hi Friends! It's Anna from Simply Skilled in Second! I wanted to share with you what I am planning to do during my Applefest!  Every year we tie in apples during our Fall Observation Week that is connected to our science unit.  We observe a tree in each of the different seasons, predict and record the temperature for the week, and record the sunrise and sunset time for each day during our observation week.  I read many different read-alouds throughout the week that have a focus on apples.  On Friday, we have our Applefest.  The children are engaged in many different types of activities with apples.  They weigh, measure, and describe apples.  We also have the parents come in a do a baking activity with the students where they get to use standard forms of measurement with baking.  

This year I have decided to add some additional stations into my Applefest Day.  Most of my Apple Stations revolve around math, however, this year I am going to add some ELA stations into the mix as well.  They are going to be making an Apple Flip-Flap Book when they arrive at each of the ELA stations.  At the first ELA station they will create the "A" and the "P" in their Apple Flip-Flap Book where they will complete an apple graphic organizer to describe an apple using their senses.  The next ELA station they will create the next letter "P" where they will color and label the parts of an apple tree.  Next, they will read through a short non-fiction text about apples and then label the parts of an apple and color it.  After that, they will complete the "E" page where they will label and color the life cycle of an apple.  Lastly, they will finish with the "S" page where they record the results of the class data on each students' favorite apple.  I am so excited that I added an ELA portion to my Apple Day.  Now I will have covered my math and ELA lessons for the whole day and we get a yummy baked treat at the end as our reward for our hard-work!  Take a look at some of the pictures below of the apple flip-flap book.

This is what the apple flip-flap book will look like when it is complete.

This is what each page of Apple Flip-Flap Book looks like!

If you are interested in trying this out with your students, click the image below to head on over to my TPT Shop to pick it up.

Howdy Apple Lovers! 

It's Christy & Tammy from Fluttering Through First Grade. 

Are you a Honey Crisp kinda person? 

Maybe more of a Gala Girl? 

Any Granny Smith Lovers? 

We're a Dipped in Chocolate or Caramel if at all Possible People ourselves...

It really is an Applefest!

Each fall, we bring real apples as well as apple chips into class to introduce adjectives to our first graders. We demonstrate the importance of "juicy" words when writing through food. It's our way of introducing adjectives without them knowing they are being introduced to adjectives. :)

As they are snacking, we ask them to describe their apples versus apple chips. They come up with words like dry, crunchy, yummy, and dull for the apple chips and words like juicy, crisp, delicious and yum-o for the apples. Yes, we know...Yum-o is not technically a word, but in Rachel Ray's world it is and we are dealing with food, so we took it as a child who was channeling their inner Food Network Star. 

As we chat, we discuss the importance of using describing words when we write because apple chips mean dry, boring details and juicy apples mean descriptive, detailed sentences.

And, P.S. This has absolutely nothing to do with Trader Joe's apple chips. We adore them and Joe. In fact, when the lesson is done we have at least 5 kids come ask where we got them from because they are so delicious. So technically, we are helping you Joe. 

You're welcome. 

We've created some Juicy Apple Adjectives activities and just added them to our TpT Shop. 

Plus, we are firm believers that all party guests Applefest attendees should leave with party favors...So, our Juicy Apple Adjectives activities are FREE! 

Enjoy!

Meet the Chalkies: From Beaches to Deserts, It's Corinna and Marie!

It's the best of both worlds. One of us lives in the dry, hotter than hot desert of Arizona....and the other escaped Arizona and moved to a tropical paradise in Hawaii. 

For those of you who don't know, Marie would be the one that lives in Arizona, where half the year is unbearable, but the other half makes it totally worth it! Corinna is the lucky lady who spends her days teaching and free time surfing!

We hope you'll stick around to get to know us both a little better below:

Meet Me (Marie)

 from    

1. What is your ACADEMIC STRENGTH? I am a passionate math teacher. I love teaching, but I absolutely ADORE teaching math to my Firsties. I did not have the strongest/best math teachers growing up, and I didn’t appreciate math until I took a college course on how to teach math to young children. Ever since then, I cannot get enough of learning new ways to teach math to kids!

2. What is an intangible that you have that makes your classroom environment special? I am known for being “warm and fuzzy”, and once had a student write an essay on her hero. I had this student in 2^nd grade, and in 3^rd grade her teacher asked her to write about her hero. She chose to write about me. One line in her essay that really hit home was this: “Mrs. Cote was always there for us when times were tough and she understood us.” I try my best to get to know each of my students enough that I can love on them and let them know I mean business at the same time.

3. Which of your products is your FAVORITE to use with your students? Oh, my BRAG BRACELETS, for sure! I love seeing the look on their face when I tell them they have earned a brag bracelet! 

       

       Click HERE to see the Brag Bracelets! 

4.What is your favorite freebie from your store? One of my favorite newer freebies in my store is this fun set of colorful backgrounds!

Aloha! I am so glad you are here and happy to be teaming up with my blogging buddy Marie.  I began my teaching career in 1993 in Mesa, Arizona.  20 years later I have ended up teaching 2nd grade here in Hawaii.

 When did you know you wanted to be a teacher?

School was always hard for me when I was young.  I wasn't super smart and I was very shy.  We were one of the only hispanic families in an all caucasian neighborhood in the 70's.  Needless to say I often didn't fit in and got picked on a lot.  In 5th and 6th grade I had the same teacher, Miss Bresnahan.  She was young and funny and pushed me to work hard.  She made me feel special and smart and I will never forget that.  She inspired me to want to become a teacher.  I love all my students, but I am always out to support the "underdogs" in my classroom.

 What is your academic strength?  

Although I really love teaching math and science, my teaching strength is Language Arts/Reading.  I love reading and sharing books and my library is jam packed full of them.  I have a pile in my living room that still need to be labeled and taken to school!  At school I read aloud to my kids EVERYDAY and share my favorite books from when I was a kid along with my latest purchases.  I love guided reading and I pride myself on taking even the lowest of my readers and making them excited about books and reading.  I love using the Daily 5 in my classroom and it has done wonders for getting my students to Read, Read, Read! Second grade is such a wonderful age to really see them grow and develop over the year.  

 What is your literacy routine?

Each morning my students come in and begin their Daily Morning Work.  On Mondays I give a pre-test for Spelling using my Differentiated Spelling program.  We then have our Surfer Of The Week share about themselves and we all write a letter to that person.

Tuesday through Friday we have our Daily 5 schedule.  I try to meet with the lowest groups 3 times per week and I usually have time for 3 rotations per day.  I also have Writer's Workshop 4 days per week.

I am so happy that you have stopped by! I have an exclusive freebie for you:

This is my Playful Pronoun Pack.  It is only free for those of you stopping by here.

Just click on the picture to grab this in Google Docs.

Please visit me anytime at my blog Surfin' Through Second

And you can visit Marie at The Hands On Teacher In First

Meet the Chalkies: Lisa and Faith

In marriage, they say opposites attract.  Well, apparently that's also the case with blogging friends.  We are opposites in so many ways from Lisa loving cheese curds to Faith loving boiled peanuts.  Lisa is a northerner and Faith is a a southerner.    However, we are also the same in so many ways.  We are both first grade teachers, lefties, and have birthdays in March.  We also adore each others accents, personalities, and LOVE football, although one of us is a Wisconsin Badger and the other one yells, "Go Dawgs!"

So, when the opportunity came to pair up we jumped at the chance because we are blogging buddies, but we are also real-life friends and who wouldn't want to write a blog or create a freebie with a friend?

Oh, and yes, we realize we already told you a few fun facts about us, but we figured that since this is a blog mostly about teaching, we should probably give you a few other fun facts about us.

Question 1: 
When did you know that you wanted to be a teacher?

Faith: I knew when I was in second grade.  I had an incredible teacher and remember thinking I wanted to grow up to be like my Mrs. Lash.  I liked her so much I didn't tell my parents that I had little spots popping up on me.  I ended up giving Chicken Pox to my entire class.

Lisa: Well…I started college with a plan to become an actuary. Three semesters of Calculus and Computer Science later…I knew it was NOT what I wanted to do. AT ALL! So…for a month or so, I had NO idea what I wanted to do. But I was dating my then boyfriend (who is now my husband) and having all kinds of fun. One morning I woke up and I just KNEW that’s what I wanted to do. Just in time, too…as the applications were due within a week! So, I applied nervously…it was hard to get in to the Elementary Ed program. My PPST score for math put me in automatically, though! Yay for math! I still love math but I certainly don’t use my calc background to teach firsties, hehehehe!


Question 2:
What is your academic teaching strength?

Faith: I love to teach writing!  My middle school English teacher taught me to love writing, so I try to pass that to my students.  I try to come up with as many creative ways as possible to make writing fun.  Just today, we were late to lunch because I lost track of time while we were writing our stories.

Lisa: I suppose my academic teaching strength could be math (see my #1 above...), but I am super duper passionate about growing readers and writers.


Question 3:
What is a bit of advice you wish someone had told YOU your first year of teaching?

Faith:  I'm not sure.  I know it sounds funny, but I had a wonderful first year.  Knowing my personality, I think I was told everything you should be told, but I have a tendency of testing things out and trying something even if I was warned.  I think the biggest thing that I've learned is sometimes it is best to do and not ask.  Unless it is something huge, you can typically ask forgiveness later.  Also, follow the chain of command.  Nothing makes people angry faster than jumping over their heads to someone over them.

Lisa: You will never ever never ever never ever be done! Never ever ever. So…do your best to complete a few things each day and then GO HOME and take care of yourself and your family!!!

Question 4:
What is your favorite freebie from your store?

Faith: I think my favorite freebie is my Math Robots Addition freebie.  I picked it because it doesn't have to fit a specific time of year.  It can be used anytime.

Lisa: Favorite freebie of mine??? I can’t decide between my Indoor Recess Activity Bag parent letter and my StudentSelf-Evaluation Form…the Indoor Recess Bags are lifesavers! And the self-evaluation form is so revealing!


Question 5:
What is your favorite freebie from another seller?

Faith:  Well, obviously I'm picking something from Lisa because friends, she is incredible and you don't want to miss out on her store.  She has a ton of freebies, but my favorite is her Wintry Fun Syllable Sort.  I know, I know.  We have awhile before we see snow, but this packet has sentimental value to me.  This packet is how Lisa and I became friends.

Lisa: Awww...Faith...you are a sweetheart! My favorite freebie from my pal Fabulous Faith! Gotta say my current favorite is her Popcorn Math (graphing)…Popcorn is my favorite snack and her freebie is just too fun!!!


Now that you have read all about us, we joined forces to create a little freebie.  Since football season is right around the corner and we know it is on the mind of every little boy in America, we thought we'd gear this packet towards our boys.  We did throw in a few cheerleaders so the girls don't feel left out.  We included a noun, verb, and adjective sort plus two cut and paste printables.  If you like it, click on any of the pictures and it will take you to our freebie.

If you'd like to check us out...

Faith blogs at...


Lisa blogs (and is currently co-hosting a giveaway) at...


Hope you enjoy!
Faith & Lisa