Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Big Blue Ox and more Reading Center Pics

Our reading story this week is The Big Blue Ox. I had never heard of this story until I started teaching with Scott Foresman Reading Street, so if you don't use this series, you might not be familiar with it either. It's about an ox that acts like a human and helps Mom and Pop go to town. Can you tell that our sound skill is short 'o' this week ??? :) Here's our Big Blue Oxen (sidenote: do not go into the plural form of 'ox'...wayyyy tooo difficult for a first grader to understand! :D)
I also did a new center today called Silly Pens Center. I found four pens at the Dollar Tree that had different color balls on the end and we used these to write spelling words at our word work center. I usually don't let my kids use pens, but I thought this would be a good motivator to write spelling words nice and neatly and it worked like a charm. I had some of the best handwriting today. Go figure! :)


Our comprehension skill this week is setting. My kids get that this is where and when the story takes place, but I'm having a hard time getting them to tell me where specifically. All of their answers are either outside or inside, so we created a helper chart (this is what I call anchor charts in my classroom) to help with this. It helped a ton at the reading center when they had to name the setting. 


4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much!! We also use Reading Street and it's so nice to see fresh ideas. We are still doing the Kindergarten Review. I will keep this in mind for when we start Unit 1.

    Thanks!

    Conchy

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  2. I love this post! I'll have to remember this when we get to The Big Blue Ox. I've been out since Monday....no power in our school because of the crazy weather this past weekend. :( We were supposed to start our reading series this week...go figure. Thanks for the great ideas!
    Ms. A

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  3. I love the silly pen idea! I want to go to the Dollar Store now to get some for my class! :)

    Amanda
    Frolicking Through First

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  4. Thanks so much! We made ox this past week and made a chart like yours. The kids loved making the ox. Can't wait to make the foxes this coming week.

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