Morning Meeting Binder

When I was teaching preschool, I learned about Kim Adsit and Shari Sloane's Student Calendar Notebook. I thought it was such a great way to get students more involved in the morning meeting. I couldn't use it in preschool, but was excited to get started once I was in 1st grade. Now you might remember that my 1st year in first grade was a little rough to start out. I got transferred from preschool to first grade on the first day of our 3-day teacher institute after which school started. So 3 days to get a 1st grade classroom ready did not include student calendar notebooks! A few months in, I decided to try it. I have been in love ever since!

The first year I did use some of Kim and Shari's ideas. However, they are all made in landscape which wasn't working with my binders on my kiddos' laps on the carpet. So I remade the binder pages. Since then I added Wild About Teaching's Numbers Galore Pages, monthly poetry, and this year morning work.

The first two years I used the binders, they were just used at the carpet. But this year I decided to add morning work to the back. So right away when the kids come into the classroom, they get their binders out and start working. This year I added some of Reagan Tunstall's Rise and Shine Binder.

The kids feel very proud to have their own binder to use. It was a pretty big investment and some are not treating them as well as I would like but it is what it is. I wanted to use them so I have to deal with the pitfalls.

I have a binder too that I fill out as the kids do to model.

Here are what each page looks like.
Cover:

Calendar: I don't usually fill in the numbers but I did on August. I fill in the 1st on each month so the kids get off to a good start on where to write the numbers. This page is on cardstock so it will last all month.

On the back of the calendar page: We make a tally mark and fill in a fingernail for each day of the month.

Weather: This page has one month on one side and the next month on the other side. It is also on cardstock.

I made up some number patterns. The helper picks a number pattern and tells me the missing numbers. I change these throughout the year to go with what we are working on in math. This page is on cardstock.

On the back are clocks. The helper sets the judy clock to a time on the hour and the students copy it into their binder page. I have a big one I write on to model.

We count the days of school and fill in the numbers on a 100s chart. At first they trace them and eventually write them themselves. 101+ is on the back.

Next are the Numbers Galore pages. We do the page that shows how many days of school we've had. Mine is in a page protector but their pages are just paper. Days 1-20, we just do the Numbers Galore page. Day 21 and after, I put DOL (It is really called Daily Language Review) on the back.

After this are poetry pages for the month. I wrote another post on my poetry. We do some echo reading and practice and eventually they read them aloud to the class.

Finally in the back of the binder is morning work. I have a morning work packet that I bought and use as well as practicing spelling words and sentences.


I do feel overwhelmed at the beginning of each month when I have to change the calendar and weather pages, add and remove number/DOL pages, poetry, and morning work. It is worth it to see the kids' reactions when they open up to find new pages. I did make the copies for the calendar, weather, number/DOL, and poetry in advance. So I just have to copy the morning work at the beginning of the month. I binder clipped the pages together thinking that the kids could change out the pages themselves, but it is just too hard for them and they end up making a mess with the pages which takes me longer to clean up than just doing it myself in the first place does. 

Sub Binder - How to plan for an Emergency Sub in first grade

I'm sure many people have a sub binder. It is not a new concept. There are many to purchase on TPT. I subbed for a while and it can be really hard, especially in the younger grades because the kids aren't very forgiving when things aren't done the way they are used to. I decided that the best way to keep things normal for them was to make a very descriptive daily schedule complete with pictures. I have gotten many compliments and kudos from subs.

Here's what it looks like:

In the front I also have a class list, a photo sheet of the students, emergency procedures, and special instructions for students like allergies or health concerns.

School Family Jobs - Student Helpers

In the past, I have had a job for each child in my class. They kept the job for the week. This year I decided to try having one helper each day who does all the jobs. WHY DID I NOT DO THIS BEFORE? It has made my life so much easier. The child really feels special when it is his or her turn. I don't have to remember who has each job. I get out of doing a lot of "grunt work"! And the kids love doing all these menial tasks! Here is a list of what the helper does in the morning (instead of morning work) and then what the helper does during morning meeting.

Other things that I have the helper do: pass out papers, take things to the office for copies, run errands like go to the copy machine or take something to another teacher, lead the line, pass out the snack napkins, turn on/off the lights, stuff mailboxes with graded papers. Since each student has a number, I just go in number order to decide who is the next helper.

How to Use Poetry to Improve Reading Fluency in 1st Grade

Do you use poetry? When I started teaching first again, it had been 12 years since I had taught it last. I had kind of forgotten about using poetry. One of my team members was getting her masters in reading and had to present an insevice to us. She talked about poetry being used for fluency and it all came back to me.

When I student taught, my cooperating teacher gave me a binder full of poems. Granted this was in 1999 but I'm still using some of them. I've also downloaded some from Teachers Pay Teachers and used some of my finger plays and songs from preschool to add to my collection. I write one in my lesson plans for each day. But sometimes we don't have time at the end of morning meeting or sometimes we have time for more than one.  By spring, they were signing up to read poems aloud to the class. Such good fluency practice! I did not make everyone sign up to read aloud but I don't think anybody didn't to do it and some wanted to do several. I try to pick shorter poems for this reason. 

I bought a karaoke machine on eBay for use this year. I'm calling it Open Mic time and they sit in the Readers Chair. There were several that spoke so softly, we couldn't hear which led to losing interest and rude behavior so I'm hoping the microphone will help with that. I did stress and will stress more that if you are going to sign up to read aloud, you have to practice it. I think I'll have them make a symbol for each time they read it to practice before they can read it to the class. What do you think? 5 times?

Some of my favorite poems are from Elizabeth Hall and Miss DeCarbo.

They are super cute and some have tunes to sing them too which the kids love even more. I'm a pretty good singer ;)

Getting closer - Summer room preparations in 1st grade

About two and a half weeks until I report back to school. I've been into my classroom whenever I've been kid-free. Thank goodness for my hubby and my mom and mother-in-law.

Here are some pics of the progress I've made. 

I made this word wall. Last year my word wall took up a whole bulletin board so this year I decided to combine my Saxon Phonics pictures with my word wall. My Saxon posters were getting pretty shabby so I made new ones. Same pictures just new images. I put them on these polka dot dessert plates. I think they are super cute!

On my other displays, I bought a rainbow chevron theme set. Very cute and a wide variety of things to use.

I'm not sure the dollar store ribbon I used is going to hold up but it's good for now. 

On the writing one I will put up strategies as I teach them. The reading one I will put up Deanna Jump's animals that have reading strategies on them. Math is for calendar time as well as math terms we will learn. The proud pandas board is the magnet board. I'm going to display student work there. Each classroom has an animal theme. Mine is the pandas. I have always loved pandas! I decided to go with a black and white with some primary accents for my theme. 

The shelf under the math board is for centers. The crates on the left are holding our morning meeting binders. I got ideas from Kim Adsit's Calander Notebook but made my own. We also do a poem each day which is also in the binder. Last year we kept the binders in our desks but I think this year we're going to keep them near the carpet.

Under these are metal shelves. The pocket charts and posters are hung with loose leaf rings and hide my junk pretty well. The blue and yellow one is for classroom jobs. The rainbow one I will put the phonics sound picture cards as we learn them. The black one is a lost tooth graph by month The red one is a who can tie your shoes board. The white one is a fiction vs. nonfiction T chart. The blue pocket chart is for center rotation. And finally on the end is a long 2 column chart. I had originally bought that for preschool for a question of the day but now I'm using it for reading levels of self-selected books.

This area is where my reading centers happen thus the pocket charts. The frog on the wall is my code toad. For each spelling list I made it in code so they can practice. I think I'm going to use a bucket shelf and use the spelling activities in it for early finishers and for extra time but I haven't gotten to know hat yet! My sons each have bucket shelves and I'm trying to decide which one to steal to take to school! My gecko, Charlie's cage is over there too because of the outlet. I sat the cage on an old piano bench that I painted black.

Before I went home, I wanted this counter cleaned off. I bought several new plants. Makes it look homey and replenishes our oxygen!

So it's ready for open house which is on the first day of institute--ugh! Under all those curtains I need to go through the shelves but I'm hoping for a little time between meetings during those 3 days. I told myself I'm not going back until the 12th. Still much to do for school at home though!

I'm diving head first into 1st Grade!

Hello! Welcome to Headfirst! I am a first grade teacher in a small town in Illinois. I am getting ready to start my 2nd year teaching first grade at my current school. I am an early childhood teacher and have worked mostly in preschool but also in kindergarten and first grade previously. I love the little ones! 

I am starting this blog to share my journey with others but also as a sort of teacher diary for myself! I find it so fun to look back at photos, lesson plans, and teaching memorabilia from my past. My plan is to chronicle things that I create and/or use in my classroom and my obsession with organization!

I am not a bragger, but I am the hardest working teacher I know. I think about school every day. It is July 3. We got out of school May 29 and I have worked on school every day since! I am certainly not complaining. I love teaching! My favorite quote is this: 

In my personal life, I am married to my high school sweetheart and have three sons. 

Being a mommy is awesome but challenging! Two of my children struggle with ADHD. As challenging as it is to be a mom of children with this condition, my experience with it has been so valuable when working with children who also struggle keeping their focus. I am very open to talking to families about my experiences as both a parent and a teacher. In addition to ADHD, my youngest son has some autistic-like tendencies. He was tested and at that time was not considered to be on the spectrum but he struggles with social skills much like high-functioning autistic children. He attended special education from preschool through first grade. In second grade, we moved them all to a small parochial school. What an awesome place! He is still struggling academically, but we are able to retain him (which I wanted to do from the beginning). So a second year in second grade we're hoping will help him. So now I'll have experience in retaining my own child. My middle son's birthday was right on the cutoff date so we sent him to preschool an additional year and started kindergarten a year late. What a great decision that was! All of these experiences have helped me so much when making decisions about kids and when helping parents make decisions about their children.

This last year, I moved from preschool to first grade three days before school started! One of the first grade teachers got a job closer to home which left an opening. I felt it was time for a change, so I jumped at the opportunity. Such a great decision! I have an awesome team of 4 other first grade teachers to work with. Two are veterans, two were second-year teachers this past year, and then there is me who has a total of 10 years of teaching experience. I won't deny, it was a really tough year for me. I really like to plan ahead, and instead of that, I was just trying to keep my head above water last year! I was so lucky to have the veterans to help me through it! I really did not like feeling like I was dragging them down (of course they never made me feel that way!). So I couldn't wait to get started this summer to get my act together! 

I like to plan out the whole year in advance. In preschool this was easy because you are constantly teaching the same things over and over, just with different themes. In first grade, it can be done to a certain extent. So my first order of business was getting my crates in order. Last year, I just threw stuff that we had done in a crate until it was full and then started a new one. I ended up with 10 crates that looked like this. Yikes!

So to get things organized, I ordered some extra capacity hanging file folders from Amazon and started putting them in the crates.

So then I had to get my year planned out. I started with a blank calendar in Microsoft Word and put in all the holidays and breaks. Then I numbered my weeks. I have a file folder for each week. Then I mapped out what themes we did last year for each week. My team plans together and really tries to stick together, especially in our phonics and math curricula. We all do the same themes but teach them the way we want to. Since this will only be my second year working with this team, I didn't want to put anything in stone in case they wanted to switch things up for the coming year. So I did it all in pencil! We are meeting periodically during the summer to do some planning so I'll make changes as I need to. I shared my calendar with my team and they were happy to use it as a starting place. Here are pictures of my calendar after we tweaked it as a team and added our phonics and math lessons and my lesson planning form.

After I made a rough draft plan for the year (mostly holidays and theme teaching), I started going through each of the crates, putting the materials in the appropriate week folder. That took me about two weeks--less time than I thought it would! Since then,  I have been making and laminating new materials (thank you teachers pay teachers) and putting them in the crates.

I'll leave it there for now. I have lots more to do this summer! 43 days left!