Monday, January 23, 2012

It's Literacy Week, Florida and a little SupER gIRl


Guess what? It's Florida's Literacy Week this week. At my school, we are doing a few activities to celebrate this event along with other schools around the state.

Although, I think this event is kind of silly because it's ALWAYS Literacy Week at school. I mean, I probably read at least 7-9 stories to my class a day. And the kids have their own 20 minutes of reading to self, listening to reading, and reading to someone a day.

The other Core Subjects should be protesting with all of the reading we do in a single day!
I think STEM is on its way and picking up some speed, but it's just not as glitzy as READING.

One activity my school is participating in is the Million Minute Marathon. Every student in our classes will read an additional 20 minutes on top of the reading we do daily and submit the minutes to hopefully add up to a million minutes read in the state of Florida.


Another activity we are doing is to decorate our doors in honor of our favorite book covers. For my door, I wanted to include some kid's work in addition to the book cover. I found the perfect activity on fabulous Brooke Perry's blog, Primary Perspective. Last year, she wrote a blog post about a super cute writing craftivity her kiddos did based on the book, A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon. I was already planning on using this book the week we discussed Dr. MLK Jr, so this worked out just right!

I created just about the same pill covers as Brooke did, however, I made mine half the size to fit them on my door. I got as many as I could to fit on my door and the rest went on my windows. At least I tried! 

My school is one level with an open design plan. For the most part, this works out great because our sunny Florida weather is typically beautiful and it's so nice to get fresh air during our transitions. Unfortunately, this also means that all of our classroom doors are exposed to the elements. Last night, I was so afraid that some punk neer-do-well would vandalize my door! 



Luckily, it has escaped any wild rumpus ride.

Here are just a few of my kid's pill bottles. As a class, we discussed what ailments they could create their pill for, but most of them have a cold right now and it never left their minds as they wrote.





Now, for some of my favorite class doors:






I'll provide the writing page I used with my kids if you'd like to do this activity with your class.

BadCase of Stripes Writing

In addition to all of this hoopla, last week our reading series, StoryTown, covered the R-Controlled Vowels {er, ir, ur}. Tiffany from The Lemonade Stand has created a really cute packet of activities to go with this skill. {You can get her activity set HERE} I taught some of the activities during my guided reading time and I'm saving a few of the others for our review week. Then, I used one of her posters as a guide to help make a larger anchor chart for our wall. Super Girl Gertie and her Super Bird needed to be labeled with {er,ir,ur} words. I used Abby's idea from her Learning AR with Pirate Mark pack and hid four words a day around the classroom to add to the chart. My kids go GONZO for hide-and-seek. They are getting really good at it. I had to be really sneaky when I hid these words to make it more of a challenge for them!

One of my boys says "Hi!" to Super Girl Gertie everyday. What a nut! He must get it from his teacher!

On Monday, without labels.

On Thursday, with labels!
That's all folks! Thanks for reading my long post.

10 comments:

  1. Great looking doors. It rained today so my door needs a re-do.

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  2. Makes me wish I had a door :( Super cute!!!

    Jodi
    Fun In First

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  3. WOW!!! Your door looks FABULOUS!!!! I love the pill idea! So clever!!!!

    -Rachelle
    whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com

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  4. Love your super girl! So cute! Thanks for the shout out!

    Tiffany

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  5. I love the activity with the Bad Case of Stripes. I did it last year with my class and it was too cute! And I love Super Girl and her Super Bird! Too fracken cute!

    Ashley
    Live2Learn

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  6. Your doors are SO cute!! And I love Super Girl! "Captain Capital" visits my class every year and the kids love him. I'm totally adding Super Girl to the mix! You have been pinned and I'm a new follower : )

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  7. I sure miss decorating my door! I used to do it all the time when I taught in Ohio. I think I need to get back to it! I am your newest follower!
    ☮Monica
    The Schroeder Page

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  8. WOW! A brilliant idea i'm sure my kids definitely love it. Entering his room with favorite cartoon character. And kon

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  9. What cute activities! Is there another way to download the prescription writing page other than scrib? I don't really want to join for one document. Thanks for sharing!
    Hope

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