Community Unit

 I think the universal unit that pretty much everyone does at some point in the year is a communities unit. I remember when I was teaching first grade, I wanted to do activities that were meaningful and went beyond just community helpers. I created a communities unit a few years ago for this reason. Today I've updated this unit with some new ideas I had. I wanted to align it more with the Common Core so I added some opinion writing and some research writing activities. There are lots of different activities in this unit to pick and choose from. The activities in this unit is appropriate for 1st-3rd grade.

Here are a few pictures I have from a few years ago:

We did a little research about the history of our community. StreetThen, we completed this Venn Diagram. 

This is one of my favorites. We brainstormed activities that we do in our community for each season. One of my students told us about pumpkin boat racing that goes on every fall. I love that picture! 

Here is a preview of what is included in this unit:

 This research part is new:

I also added these opinion writing activities: 

To read more about this, come visit my blog:

Or you can pick this unit up here:

I'll put it on sale for today. 

Aaannnd, I'd love to give away a copy right here! If you'd like to win this, leave me a comment with your email below. I'll pick a winner soon!

Reading Workshop

This is it my friends! Back to school time for me. Tomorrow is my first teacher work day. This summer went by way too fast! This year I'll be doing the reading thing again. I loved focusing on reading all day with the different age age groups. Even though I love my new job, I still miss the classroom. It's just not the same in September. When I taught 1st grade for all those years, my favorite part of the day was my beloved Reading Workshop time. It took me the first couple years to figure out what works for me. Once I did, it was SO nice! I tried to do just centers. Then I tried to do just Daily 5. I loved both... so that's what I decided to do- both! 

Today I'm going to show you how I set up my reading block. 

My reading workshop time is divided into three parts: Guided Reading, Daily 5, and literacy centers.

This is the chart I've used in the past to let students know where they are supposed to be during reading workshop:

On my blog, I have a picture of what four rotations would look like.

To read in more detail about how what my Reading Workshop looked like when I taught first grade, head on over my blog:

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