MY CLASSROOM
Welcome to my home away from home, my classroom! Although, let's be honest, I probably spend more time here than my actual home. I am one of seven first grade teachers at Sunset Elementary School in Brentwood, TN. In this room, my days are spent with 21 of the most amazing 6-7 year olds I've ever met. Our grade level is extremely boy heavy this year- but our class is fairly even with 12 boys and 9 girls in my class. My school also has a large ESL (English as a Second Language) and Special Education population, but none of my students receive either of those services at this time. I do have one student in my class who receives speech services twice a week. Overall, I have a relatively high class, which has given us the exciting opportunity to dig deeper into our content areas. While my students teach me more than I could ever possibly teach them, some of the subjects we explore are Reading, Writing, Grammar, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Below you'll see pictures of our room. Please hover over or click the images to see descriptions.
Take a look at our classroom schedule to the right. As you can tell, we are busy bees in first grade!! One of my favorite parts of our schedule is our "Walk to RTI" time (RTI=Response to Intervention). During this time, students are assigned to different rooms to receive intervention instruction on their own personal level. Students are grouped with others who need the same level of reteaching or enrichment. Last quarter, I taught an enrichment group of 23 first graders. We worked on reading comprehension strategies such as nonfiction text features and making text to self connections. We also played various math games that required students to use quick, mental math strategies. This quarter, I will have a small group of 6 students. We will be focusing on blending words and reading with fluency. |
Here's a project we've been working on the past few weeks! The students used their best writing to make placemats to use at their Thanksgiving dinner. During reading rotations, students used graphic organizers to plan their writing. Then, they transferred the thoughts on their graphic organizers into sentences. My "approaching grade level" friends were asked to write an introduction sentence, three things they were thankful for, and a closing sentence. My "on level" friends were asked to do the same, but use transition words. My "above level" friends were asked to write a main idea, three supporting details or reasons, and a concluding sentence.