Ordinal Owls!

Some of my firsties are still having some trouble with ordinal numbers! For some reason whenever I assess some of them and say "Circle the 4th balloon." they just look at the page and circle whichever one they think is 4th without actually counting! I've gone over it countless ways - having them line up in a certain order, using manipulatives, coloring pictures in order etc. Still, when it comes to testing time, all of that flies out the window lol! So, in order to give them a bit more practice, and since we're doing owls next week, I made an owl ordinal number activity that can  be used as a small group lesson or individual work station. It's even good for those who already know ordinal #s because they can start to match up the word to the numeral. I've included a recording sheet in case you want them to write the words/numerals, but you could also just have them line up the owls/trees in order for a quick, no-paper assessment (we got the "Reduce the amount of copy paper you are using." speech at school today!).

Ordinal Number Owls

Tonight I am doing report cards - hilarious how the first quarter report card does not match our pacing calendar at all. I finished Literacy 1st testing today, so tomorrow I will start fluency testing - which should be enlightening. I have one little guy who reads at a 4th or 5th grade level, so I know it's going to take forever to test him. Some of my other ones are non readers, so those should go quickly at least! I also have to schedule all of my conferences and send the notes home tomorrow. I sent home a form asking parents to write down their top three time slots so I could try to accommodate everyone's schedules, but I only got a handful back. At least I did not get notes back like this one our 2nd grade teacher received: "I am unavailable for Tuesday or Wednesday or a phone conference." Nothing like knocking all of the options out all at once! But, the prize goes to our Transitional 1st grade teacher for a parent reply that reads: "Can't make it. Thanks!" No attempt to work out a different date/time, just a short, sweet negative response.

Oh! My! Goodness! Our book is turning out too darn cute for words! We practiced our illustrations today and my firsties loved it! They were so thrilled, one of them said "This is the best activity I have ever done in my life!" I cannot wait until it is finished and I can share it!

In family news, I keep finding little love notes from my middle child. He left one on my desk at home last night, taped one to my computer at work this morning and tucked one in my purse as well! Simple little "I love you Mama. From Tommy" notes, but I thought it was so sweet. I should have suspected an ulterior motive however, because I just received this note:

 Gotta love his inventive spelling! It reads: "I really love you a lot. I keep giving you the love notes because I want a G.I. Joe."  Well, at least he tried to butter me up for 2 days before he made his request!