Responsibility in the Classroom

Running a responsible classroom is something we've worked hard to accomplish each year for over 20 years. It seems as time has gone by, there is a greater need to teach these small humans to care, share, and be aware of themselves, others, their surroundings, and their belongings. Truth be told, these lessons (on being responsible) were once presumed to be home parenting lessons. Truth be told, they are not always assumed to be home parenting lessons nowadays. So we do what we do best...We teach...Reading, writing, math, science, social studies, art, PE, music, and responsibility. That's a lot of responsibility for all of us! 

As we work our way through another school year,  hop on over to see a few successful ways we integrate opportunities to practice responsibility in our classroom.

Click the link below to head over to read more at
Fluttering Through First Grade:
Raising Responsible Learners

Getting Kids to Listen in the Classroom!

Hey there Blog Hoppers! It's Christy and Tammy from Fluttering Through First Grade! Getting our class to listen consistently can be one of our bigger challenges in today's classroom. Kids today just have a lot to say! So, we've made it our lesson plan mission to get our kids actively listening and participating in their learning every day, in every way. 

Here are a few of our favorite tips and tricks for getting kids to listen in the classroom!

Providing expectations for listening in our classroom sets the stage for success. We love keeping visual reminders for all sorts of things in our class, and listening is no exception. This Listen reminder hangs front and center in our classroom to remind students how they should be listening from head to toe. 

Sometimes, you've just got to sing the listening into them! When things get chatty, we get chiming. All it takes is a few of our future The Voice contestants to join our melody and before we know it they're all singing along about listening and not talking anymore. Score! 

You can download our Visual Reminders for Listening and Are You Listening? song poster from our blog.

One of the best things we've created for our classroom to support their developing listening skills are our Listen Up Auditory Activities. They help focus our students' attention first thing in the morning, after recess, before lunch, at the end of the day, in centers, whole group, with parent volunteers, with a substitute teacher...Pretty much anytime of day!

Holding students accountable for their listening is a huge part of our Listen Up program. We ask them to reflect so we can better understand their understanding (informal assessment) and we use the reflection slips as an opportunity to conference individually with students for various reasons. 

Data tracking their Listen Up skills helps us intervene as necessary as well as conference efficiently with parents!

You can try our Listen Up activities by downloading them for free from our TpT Shop.

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Ice Breakers for the Elementary Classroom

Hey Blog Hoppers! It's Christy and Tammy from Fluttering Through First Grade. The first days of school are chock full of everything from backpacks to bathroom breaks. But, somewhere in between the controlled classroom chaos, it is imperative we find ways to build a classroom community. We want all of our students to feel comfortable in their own time, but we find providing our class with activities that allow them to get to know one another in the beginning of the school year are a must!

Truth be told...

But when it comes to our students, ice breakers in the classroom are the COOLEST! 

Here are a few of our favorite easy Ice Breakers for the Elementary Classroom. 

Circle Up ~ Split your class into 2 equal groups. If you have an odd number of students, no worries. Either join the fun to even it up or put the extra student in one of the circles and have them make a group of 3 as they move around. One group forms an outer circle facing in and the other group forms and inner circle facing out, so the circles are face to face. Like this...

Stop and take some time to explain directions and take a few practice runs with the little ones on how to move around the circle before you actually play. The inner circle "cements their feet to the floor." The outer circle, "Moves one click of the clock", which means one person. With our first graders, it takes about 3 practice moves and then they've got it! Once they move one person, they stop and chat. We give them get to know you topics like, "Tell each other what you like about school?" or "What is your most favorite dessert?". We also created this Class Conversations poster to help us think of ideas fast! 

You can download it for free here. Keep having students move around the circle as time allows. To keep things fair, we switch movers and foot cementers part way through. :) It's a quick and easy way to get your class chatting, so Circle Up!

Name Swap ~ You'll need a class set of name cards for this one. We usually either write each student's name on a sentence strip or type them up. We keep the set handy all year. When the kids are at recess, drop another student's name on their desk, chair, floor spot or hand them out as they walk back in the door. They will giggle because, "THIS is not their name, Teacher!" Tell them you messed up and ask them to help you by finding the rightful owner. Once they do, have them stop and talk for a few using the class conversations poster above. 

Back to Back ~ Put students in pairs and have them stand with the front person's back to their partner's front who should be behind them (like they are standing in line). Give the class questions that can be answered with numbers only. 

How many people are in your family?

How many pets do you have?

What time do you go to bed?

What time do you get up in the morning?

How many sisters do you have?

How many brothers do you have?

How many times have you been to the Zoo?

The student standing behind writes their number on their partner's back with their finger. The partner turns around and tells them the number they think they wrote on their back. The writer confirms or clarifies and tells their partner a little more about their answer. 

Gummy Bear Share ~ Grab a big bag of gummy bears (We used Haribo brand.) and give 1-5 to each student, depending upon time allowed and the age of your class. Assign each colored bear they choose a certain conversation topic or use our cheat sheet free Gummy Bear Share download here. Either sit whole class, partner up, or make small groups to share your gummy bears. Then of course the best part, gobble up the gummies!

  

Meet Me ~ One of our favorite getting to know you activities are our Back to School Meet Me activities. They give our students more in depth opportunities to meet and greet their new class while practicing their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

Find a Friend is always a hit. For our first graders, we have to break it down row by row and spread it out over a week's time. We do one row a day for five days. It's a perfect daily activity that they get the hang of quickly.

Our first homework assignment helps us get to know our new class and allows our students to shine. They each take home a Meet Me Mystery Bag on the first day of school to fill with specific items for sharing. We spend 5 days sharing a few bags a day and allowing students to get to know their new classmates. Then as a culminating activity, we write about our mystery bag items and create a class Meet Me bulletin board. 

You can take a closer peek at this back to school resource by clicking the image below. 

Looking for a few more tips for back to school? Head on over to our blog for our 

Top 10 Tips for Your Best Year Ever! 

How do you help your students break the ice? We'd love to know!

Summer Reading Logs & End of School Activities

Hey Blog Hoppers...It's Christy and Tammy from Fluttering Through First Grade!

Summer is right around the corner! But before we hit the beach, we always get asked a lot of questions from parents about summer learning. 

What can I do to help my child over the summer? 

How can we keep all this learning intact until school starts again? 

We're so glad they ask! 

We like to send our students off with a few summer resources that are easy to understand, quick to complete, and motivating to use. We like to keep it fun because it is summer after all!

We all know that one of the easiest ways kids can keep their reading skills fresh all summer long is to read, read, read...and then, read some more! Reading just 20 minutes a day will keep their skills strong and their confidence high. Right? To keep them motivated and reading, we provide our students with these summer reading logs. 

We've included 2 choices with tips for parents to help them support their reader at home. One is for emerging readers who need phonemic awareness and phonics support and the other is for more fluent readers who are working to strengthen their comprehension skills. Sometimes we send both!

We encourage them to work at their own pace, but to please find time each and every day to pick up a book. We even bribe them with a special treat if they bring them back to us at the start of next school year. Whatever works! 

Students can track their summer reading and keep a list of some of their favorite summer reads. 

You can download a free copy of our Summer Reading Log.

We also give each of our students this Sliding Through Summer booklet to work through each day of the week. You can read more about it {here}

Are you counting down the school days until summer? Stop by our blog to see how we wrap up our school year with a few of our favorite end of school activities!

Valentine's Day in the Classroom

Hey Blog Hoppers! It's Christy and Tammy from Fluttering Through First Grade. We love celebrating Valentine's Day in our classroom. Here are a few of our favorite ways to celebrate Love Day with the Littles...

We throw a red party every Valentine's Day. From red foods to wearing red, we embrace the color of love all day long. We try to keep it somewhat healthy with bagels, strawberry cream cheese, and red fruits.

We sneak in a little reading and writing by creating Friendship Bingo mats using our class names and other Valentine's Day vocabulary.  

We give them conversation hearts as markers. They love being the "callers" when we play!

You can download our Red Party and Friendship Bingo templates {here}.

 

Our class loves making bookmarks. These are nothing fancy, but given a simple piece of red posterboard, foam stickers, yarn, and...wait for it...MARKERS, they love crafting these to declare their love for reading!

 

Hot Spot Relay races are a fun challenge that gets them moving and practicing teamwork too. We simply cut 2 large construction paper hearts out for each team (cut a few extras in case there is an accidental rip). Split the class in half and send them walking their way on the hot spots. The goal is to move each heart as you step, not stepping on the ground (AKA "hot lava") below. It's tricky, but they get the hang of it. For younger kids, don't have them take as many steps. Once they reach the end, they pick up their hot spots and run back to the start to tag the next person.

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Back in class, we race to stack 10 conversation hearts. You can adjust the number depending upon the age of the kids.

 

Of all the activities we do on Valentine's Day, our favorite is giving our students an opportunity to spread kindness. We spread some love around our school by creating and posting kindness messages throughout the halls.

We also spend a lot of time teaching and giving compliments. It is one of our most powerful lessons all year and carries us through the months beyond Valentine's Day. Here's our original post about using Compli-mats in the classroom. We've updated our templates and added several more for use beyond Valentine's Day.  

 You can download our Compli-mats templates for free!

Are you ready to celebrate Valentine's Day in your classroom? What's your favorite way to spend Love Day?