Update, CVC Thanksgiving Freebie and Giveaway Winners!

Well, here's the update - students at my school may not use their fingers for math at all now. If they're adding 7+6 they can no longer put the bigger number in their head and count on, they have to count out 7 blocks and then another 6 blocks and then count all the blocks together. This is because the 2nd grade teacher doesn't want students using their fingers to add in 2nd grade, so now Kindergarten and 1st grade cannot allow it either. I'm not sure how the students are supposed to do their homework at home where they don't have unifix cubes. I'm also not sure how counting out cubes is better than counting fingers  - the 2nd grade teacher claims it takes too long for students to count on their fingers - counting cubes will take even longer! Not to mention that they won't have cubes during testing, so I guess they just won't have any strategies for adding unless they've memorized all the facts.

But, enough of that, I refuse to let it get me down -next week my pacing calendar says to teach the value of coins so that's what I'll do for my observation - no counting involved, just identifying coins and values.As to what goes on in the classroom when there's no observer and the door is closed, I guess I'll have to plead the 5th!

I am incredibly grateful for all the support I have received about this, thank you to everyone who wrote such kind comments!  I guess there are always going to be days/observations like this. It's the nature of the beast isn't it?

In other news, we are concentrating on learning our blends today. We were naming words that start with different blends after watching this youtube video:

and I decided that I should write down the words they came up with and try to make it into a story. Tomorrow we will be illustrating our "Blends Class book"! It was so much fun for them to try to come up with words starting with blends and fit it into a story. We got some practice with writing a complete sentence as well as sequencing events. I love doing activities like this with them!

Today I got our publishing kits for our Student Treasures book publishing endeavor. I really love this company. We did it for the first time last year, and despite some grousing from some intermediate teachers who left their projects until the last minute, the finished products were awesome! I shared about the class book we did based on Laura Numeroff's circle stories here but this year I am not sure what style of book to write. We have until March to complete the kits and mail them back, so I have some time, but if you have a great class book idea I'd love to hear it!

I've been disaggregating my data (that's the newest buzz word at school - doesn't that make me sound so smart?!) and decided that my low group needs more practice reading cvc words with short vowel sounds.  I made a quick Thanksgiving themed game for extra practice and I'll share it today -  I hope someone else can use it! Just click the picture to go to the download - and if it looks wonky don't worry, once you download the file it looks just fine :)

Okay, it's finally 10pm so I can do my drawing for the Donorschoose Gift Cards! Here are the winners:
For a $10 gift card each:

 And, just because I felt bad that not everyone could win, I chose 2 more numbers for a $5 gift card each:

 So that means that Tammy and Kelly will be getting $10 gift cards and Marlana and Meredith will be getting $5 gift cards! I will email them to you tomorrow, Tammy please send me your email so I can get you yours :)