Five for Friday!

I shared the image on the left on Instagram yesterday and one similar for my Wordless Wednesday post but I wanted to show the finished product.  On Wednesday, my students and I read through our mentor text for the week and discussed things that the main character thought, said, and did throughout the story.  We marked up our chart with post-its and worked together to find different key points throughout the story that would help us better describe the character’s traits and how they felt.  This chart helped us SO much at the end of our discussion to make inferences about the character’s emotions AND have evidence from the text to back up our opinions.  I continued to use this chart later on in the week in small groups and we had even more success.  It was so easy for students to replicate on their own on a post-it while reading independently as well.  I think this strategy is a keeper, thank you Teacher’s College as always!

I have been struggling for a meaningful way to help my firsties better understand where a clock’s hands are when telling time to the half hour.  Way too often my little guys were looking at a clock and saying that the time was 5:30 when it was only 4:30.  They were not understanding that when you are telling time to the half hour, the hour hand is halfway between two numbers.  Oh this first day of learning was a struggle so I was determined to find a way to visually support my littles’ understanding.  I found the idea of clock rooms online and for the life of me I can’t find the original post, I will keep looking though!  

I whipped up this quick anchor chart to show that a clock’s face, yes has 12 numbers on it, but those numbers all have their own “rooms.”  For example, if the time is 4:30 the minute hand is on the 6 to show half past the hour.  But, the hour hand will be in between 4 and 5.  Even though the hour hand is not directly on the 4, it is still in 4’s room!  It’s not in 5’s room yet so it can’t be 5:30, like so many of my little first graders wanted to say.

We did a lot of practice throughout the week building on mini Judy clocks.  First showing time to the hour and then noticing what happened to the hands as we moved to time to the half hour.  These clock rooms really helped our understanding of where the hands on the clock are for time to the half hour.

Yes, I am fully aware that April was National Poetry Month.  A little teacher truth here…we didn’t find the time to squeeze it in.  We were knee deep into our book review writing unit and the month just flew by and before I knew it April had come and gone.  We didn’t discuss poetry, we didn’t read poetry, we didn’t celebrate poetry month! Yikes, ah, terrible!

However, I’ve decided to not let this small teacher infraction deter me from exposing my students to the beauty and fun of poetry.   I created this Sweet Sweet Poetreat unit to inspire my little poets and encourage them to use their poet’s eyes and ears through plenty of different center activities!  Over the next few weeks we’ll be listening to poems on iPads and illustrating a picture of the poem that we make in our minds, creating poems to familiar tunes that we know like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, creating poems with our senses, and writing cinquains!  I can’t wait to get started and see my firsties take part in a different kind of writing.   If you’re interested in checking out this packet because you maybe missed the boat on National Poetry Month too or are hoping to snag it for next year, check it out in my TpT store here!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  If you need me, I’ll be here, with my toes in the sand and most likely a drink in hand!

Enjoy!