How I Teach Writing in First Grade with Wonders (Virtually)

 In the spring, one of the hardest parts of teaching online was teaching writing.  I knew I had to do better for my first graders this fall.  In the classroom, I felt like I had a grip on teaching first graders how to write a good paragraph.  But teaching online is a different story.  

We are just getting started with our second trimester and I can honestly say that writing has gone a lot smoother this fall.  In our district, we use Wonders for our Language Arts series.  While I like some of their writing prompts because they are responding to the stories we read, I feel like it's missing direct instruction on the three genres we need to teach: personal narrative, informational, and opinion.  

Here's how I've broken up my week to make sure I'm covering not only the response to literature (from Wonders), but also the 3 genres mentioned earlier.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, I use the prompt from the teachers edition.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I assign either a personal narrative or informational writing.  Partway through this trimester, we'll start learning about opinion writing. Fridays are for revisiting and editing our writing from the week.  

Since I'm a first grade teacher, I was able to convince my principal to allow us to pass our journals during the first few weeks of school.  The journals included pages for the writing prompts.  We also sent home about 20 writing pages for the genre writing.  We had a couple reasons for keeping the pages separate from the journals.  First, the journals would've been too thick to staple if we included both the writing prompts and the additional pages for genre writing.  Second, we wanted the students to know that the journals were in response to literature and the writing pages were for personal narratives, informational, and opinion.   

During our Language Arts block, we always start the writing together.  We discuss the writing prompt and decide on a good introductory sentence.  In first trimester, we did a lot of it together.  Now that we're in second trimester, we talk about ideas for the our supporting sentences and the conclusion, but the students write them individually.  Here are some examples of my first graders writing.  It's not the best picture since it was submitted from home.  This is Unit 2 Week 5 Day 1.  You can see he drew 3 places they went on their walk and then used the text to write about where they went.  

Here are some examples of personal narrative writing and informational writing.  At the beginning of the year, we only did personal narratives on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Around mid-October, they had mastered personal narratives, so we added informational writing.  

We usually reserve Fridays for editing.  Students are asked to reread all of their writings for the week and then to take one of their writing samples and improve it.  They can improve it by adding detail sentences, looking up words to see if they spelled them correctly, or just rewording sentences to make them more clear.  This has proven to be a really effective way of encouraging students to revisit their writing.  

For a free copy of our this writing paper, please visit my TPT store.  

Have a great week!

Kimberly

How to Host a Virtual Halloween Party in First Grade

 This is a late post, but I hope it helps some of you.  I started thinking about Halloween back in early September, but wasn't sure if we'd be allow to do a Halloween party or if we'd be allowed to pass out any supplies to make our Halloween party work.  Fortunately, we just found out we can do both! Yay!  

So within a very short amount of time, I planned a fun and easy virtual Halloween party.  One of the obstacles was that we couldn't ask parents to drop off donations at the school for distribution.  In order to get around this, I whipped up an Amazon Shopping List in which the parents could purchase items and they'd be sent directly to my house.  My parents were amazing and purchased almost all of the items.  

Here's a look at the whole bucket.

Keep reading for a description of all the activities.  We have 4 activities that we're going to do during our party.  Make Your Own Monster, Create a Halloween Scene, Popsicle Stick Mummies, and Lollipop Ghosts.  Here's what the projects look like.  

First we have the Make Your Own Monster Kit.  You can get the freebie by visiting The Simple Crafted Life's page.  

I had enough playdough containers to give each student 2 mini playdoughs.  I also added in different size googly eyes, 2-3 inch pipe cleaners, and a handful of small pom poms.  Here are the links to each of the items on Amazon.  

Pom Poms and Pipe Cleaners

Playdough

Googly Eyes

Next up are the sticker pages to create a Halloween Scene.  Again, we had enough to give each student two pages of stickers and I gave them 2 blank pieces of paper to put the stickers on. If I had access to my classroom, I would've given them black paper to put their stickers on.   Here's the Amazon link to the sticker pages.  

If you don't have access to a lot of supplies, the next two projects are projects that you may have the supplies laying around your house or in your classroom.

Popsicle Stick Mummies: To prepare these ahead of time, hot glue two popsicle sticks together and hot glue two eyes at the top.  Then cut a long piece of white string and put all the pieces in a baggie.  On the day of the party, students simple wrap the yarn around and around the popsicle sticks to make a mummy.  This project is great for fine motor skills.

 

The last project is the Lollipop Ghost.  All they need is a lollipop, tissue, and piece of ribbon or string.  

Students will put the tissue over the lollipop, and use the ribbon to tie it.  If they have access to a marker, they can draw on a face. Easy peasy.  

I also asked parents to donate some candy and some fun light-up rings and necklaces.  

Since we are virtual, we won't have a lot of time for our party.  If we still have time after our activities, we will play Freeze Dance, Would You Rather, and Charades.  I'm so excited to pass our their party buckets and to be able to do some fun activities with my first graders.  They deserve it!  

Let me know if you try any of these activities and if your students have fun.  

Happy Halloween!

If you're in school and looking for some educational ways to celebrate Halloween, here are some links to Language Arts and Math activities. 

How to Use PowerPoint to Teach First Grade Wonders

Do you use McGraw-Hill Wonders in your district?  Was it challenging to teach all those little mini-lessons during distance learning?  I found a system that works well in the classroom AND online.  Before I created these PowerPoints to go along with Wonders, I had to carry my TE around all morning while teaching mini-lessons and never quite felt like I had covered all the skills.  Well, I came up with a solution for first and second grade teachers.  

Download Unit 1 Week 1 for free and compare it to your teacher edition.

Each day starts with a slide for asking the Essential Question.  If you're in class, you can have students partner share the answer to the Essential Question.  If you are distance learning, you can share the screen and call on a few students to answer.  

  

The next two slides will have the Phonemic Awareness mini-lesson and introduction to the phonics skill for the week.  Instead of wasting time writing the words on the board, they're right here for you.  How many times have you had to pause a lesson while you went to find the sound card for the new phonics skill?  These slides keep everything in one place.  

Again, instead of having to put your TE on the Elmo to project the words, it's all right here.  When we're in class, I have my students get their hands ready and we read through each word sounding out the word and then blending it.  Once we've read the whole slide, I will have each row read one of the lines together.  This slide can also be printed and used in reading groups or as fluency practice during centers.  During distance learning I shared my screen and we practiced reading all the words and then I made a screen shot and assigned it in Google Classroom.  

At this point, students are usually tired of sitting, so we take a quick brain break and I send them to their desks to get their whiteboard and marker.  I tell them one word at a time and they write it on their whiteboard.  While they're writing, they hold up their whiteboards and I either tell them good job or they need to change beginning, middle, or ending sound.  Once everyone has written a word, I call on someone to spell it for me.  Words are displayed one at a time, so you can display the word so students can check their work.  We do the same thing online.  Some students may not have whiteboards, so I have them use a piece of paper or notebook. 

Next, we have slides to introduce the high frequency words and vocabulary words for the week.  We spend a few minutes discussing each word and using them in sentences.  There's also a slide to help practice these words.  Again, you can print the slide to use during guided reading groups or for students to practice independently during centers.  This is almost the same online, I introduce each word and call on a few students to read the word and use it in a sentence.  

Each day has a slide for writing.  At this point, students will go to their desks and take out their journals.  At the beginning of the year, it's all guided.  We brainstorm our answers and then we discuss what a good topic sentence would look like and they copy my writing from the board.  During online learning, we write one sentence at a time and they copy it down.  If you'd like to see the journal we use, click here.  For distance learning, we sent home the journals for them to work on at home.  

Last, but not least is the slide for introducing the Grammar Skill and also a practice slide.  During class, I call on students to go up to the board to help me correct the sentence.  For distance learning, I used the writing tool on PowerPoint and called on students to tell me what I needed to correct.  

Each day ended with the Daily Wrap up slide.  We used this to discuss what we learned during the day.  It's important for students to tell you they learned about spelling and high frequency words.  When they go home to their families, they need to be able to tell them what they learned.  During distance learning, I posted an Exit Ticket for the students to tell me one thing they learned that day or to answer the question.  In this case, they could tell me what they like to do at school OR what skills they learned today that will help them read.  

These PowerPoints have truly transformed the way I teach.  Gone are the days of carrying my TE around the classroom and consulting it every five minutes.  Now I can confidently say I have covered all the skills in Wonders.  

If you'd like to see the first grade year long version, click here.  

If you'd like to see the second grade year long version, click here.  

Comment below if you have any questions or comments.  I'd love to hear how they work for you!  

5 Things You Must Do the First Week of Distance Learning

Is anyone else out there scared to death to start a school year online?  I was, but now I feel ready to go.  I teach first grade and so many questions went through my head.  How long will it take for me to learn their names?  How will I connect with them?  Will I be effective online?  How can I make this a good experience for everyone?  The questions kept going.  Even though I still don't know what my district expectations will be for the upcoming year, I couldn't sit back and wait.  Here are the things you need to do to be ready to teach online.

1. Plan for your first live meeting.  How will you get to know your students?  What will you do to keep them involved and make them want to get to know their classmates online?  I will be doing a scavenger hunt with my kiddos.  It will be simple, maybe 5 things they can go find in their house, but then they will tell the class about their favorite item.  Keep it simple!  Parents don't want a huge pile of "stuff" left on their table after the meeting.  Here is the link to the scavenger hunt I plan to use.  To extend the lesson, I will assign a "virtual" scavenger hunt in which they will find our class website, explore Google Classroom, login to our math program.  

2. Create a place for parents to find out more information.  I created a Google Site that I will post in Google Classroom that parents can access at any time.  Within the site, I included information about how our class will run, a calendar that lists due dates, reading and math resources, and so much more.  This will cut down on all those repetitive questions (I hope...).  It's still a work in progress, but click here to see my site.

3. Survey your parents.  I created a Google Form that will get information from parents regarding what kind of technology they have, whether an adult will be there to help their child login and do classwork, what I can do to help make it a better experience for them.  These are all things I need to know in order to effectively teach their children.  If you prefer, call your parents up before school starts and discuss any concerns they have.  The important thing is to reach out and find out as much information about your families as possible, BEFORE the school year starts.  

4. Create your expectations for online learning, and teach these during the very first online session.  Expectations such as keeping your microphone muted unless called on, and sitting at a table or desk will help get the students ready for online learning.  Don't forget to review these expectations every time you meet for several days.  Students should become familiar with these expectations.  

5.  Give yourself a break!  This is the most important of any of them.  We were not trained in online teaching.  We are all learning and trying to navigate these strange waters.  We will not be perfect, but we will try our best for our students and families.  That is what is important.  

I hope you all have a great first week of school!  Comment below and let me know how it went.  I'd also love to hear any strategies you're using to get started.