I'm so excited! This is the week of Halloween! I love it! I have said it many a time but I really do! I am so glad to have my own class this week as I get to enjoy this time with them. We have our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch tomorrow and then the rest of the week is dedicated to the holiday I love! This week, our focus skill is retelling (RL 1.2 Retell stories including key details, and demonstrate understanding of the central message)! Retelling is one of those hit or miss skills for first graders. Sometimes they can tell you the beginning or the end of the story and completely miss the middle; some could tell bits and pieces but not with sequential flow; and some will just stare at you as if you have 2 heads!! I usually start out with posting some anchor charts for this skill: Here are some I found! I tried to link you back to the original author but sometimes on Pinterest, it is hard to follow that trail. If I make a mistake and that anchor chart is yours, please let me know so I can give you proper credit for your hard work! From Jen Jones at Hello Literacy These next two resources are from First Grade WOW! And that blog is a really WOW site! Please click on the bottom picture to take you to Nancy's post about re-telling ropes! (Click on pic to take you to post on how to make one!) In our county, we do have a curriculum that does guide our instruction. We have a basal reader that I use but the majority of my lessons come from trade books and I intermingle the theme and focus skill into my lessons every week. I feel very fortunate to do that as I know some counties are more strict that others. This week, I will be using: and Two of my all time favourite books! The re-telling writing that my kiddos will be doing this week is a re-telling flip book: Just something cute I whipped up to help them retell and even sequence the events in the story. If you'd like to use this in your class, click on the picture of "The Little Old Lady Who was Not Afraid of Anything" book above to grab yours! It is a lot of cutting and the making the flip book can be cumbersome, but I think it's a great tool for them to remember how to retell. The only thing is that I doubled up on the "gloves and hat" on one page as those events happened together. You could choose to separate it and if you did, you'd have more pages. Also, I wouldn't normally use coloured paper but it was a visual to show the different steps in the book. It's your class, your book-- you decide! As for Room on My Broom, I will be using Life in First Grade's Book Companion Pack! It is so cute! There is a great re-telling craftivity in there that we will be using this week as well! Click on the link to take you to her store! I am also excited to finally be doing my Pumpkin Investigations this week. The pumpkin patch we go to always gives our class a pumpkin so I wait until this week to do it. I can't wait to discover pumpkins with my class! I will be using the anchor charts and student book from my pack: It is student friendly and the kids love it! It includes topics such as estimation, weight, height, circumference, and counting as well as sink and float! You can still pick it up! I will be putting it on sale this week along with my other Halloween units so grab it! Again, click on the pic! Wow! That's a lot so to leave you with some love, I have a new freebie that I posted just in time for this week: A great little activity to remind our littles to be safe and to come back to us tired as all tired on Friday!!! LOL! Not so much! You know what to do to grab it! Click the picture! And... I just finished up my turkey pack! I must say I am pretty proud of it! I will be starting my unit on turkeys after this week. I am giving away 2 copies. Just go onto my FB page, leave me your e-mail, and tell me what your favourite part of Thanksgiving dinner is. I will pick 2 entries Monday night! Click my button to direct you to my FB page. Take care and have a great week!