You may have already read about how personalized learning works during our writing workshop routine. I continue to refine personalized learning routines in my classroom. Up until recently, my students have been working as a class using a class developed writing checklist….
My first grade writers have been working to find small moment stories. We’ve had success using the watermelon analogy, when paired with our own story ideas. To introduce the concept, we took a walk in the woods. Our “big idea”…
I mailed my students their Remembering First Grade DVDs at the end of June. We start our end of year DVD project in the month of May. If you’ve read about our Personal Narratives DVD project, you’ll notice that there are some…
Our personal narratives unit is one of my favorites. During this unit, students listen to and read books, discuss books, brainstorm possible topics, write several personal narratives, select one personal narrative to develop into a digital story, share their stories, gather feedback…
My students are currently working with editing checklists. I find that they are holding themselves more accountable for the learning that’s taken place over the course of the year. Over the years I’ve created a few different editing checklists for…
We know that our students come to us with a variety of interests, skills, and learning styles. We do our very best to meet their needs through differentiation strategies and perhaps even some individualization. But what about personalized learning? What…
My students absolutely love the app Chatterpix. They create hilarious projects with it, from talking classroom stuffed animals to singing classmates. Recently we used the app to create Talking Animal Reports, during their Daily 5 sessions. Download the SMARTboard File…
We love our classroom iPads! I’ve been moving my students toward a more creation environment, rather than consumer environment when it comes to iPad technology. We have five iPads in our classroom and they get used A LOT. We love…
Having your students write letters to Santa can be a daunting task. I use this activity to teach letter writing skills, as well as the writing process. Creating large anchor charts has been a life saver for me because I…
First up -our “What do I do when I’m done?” chart. I’ve seen different versions of this chart and this is ours. When we created this, we sketched it on the SMARTboard. I then turned it into this. I used the…
