Giveaway + Relfy Update + 4-Square Writing!

Hello! I have a super fabulous giveaway for you today, but first, a little update on Relfy, our Elf on the Shelf! Apparently Relfy is not aware that he is a Shelf Elf, because he hasn't been any where near a shelf in our classroom. Instead, on Friday we found him like this:

Yep, he took the left over rice we had from these:

(check out my guest blog over at PreK + K Sharing to see how I colored the rice and how we made our trees!)

and for some odd reason, buried himself in it. The kiddos were quite puzzled about it and even worried if he would be able to breathe! Luckily we realized that elves are magical and he would be able to breathe without issues if he wanted to. :P My firsties are utterly enchanted by our elf and he is the first thing they look for in the morning. Next week we are going to start getting into some writing about/with our Elf and Santa!

Speaking of writing, this week we started 4-Square Writing. Our 4th and 5th grade teachers asked us to start teaching it since if the students are already familiar with it by the time they get to 4th & 5th then they can concentrate on refining their writing rather than having to teach them the organization process. I decided to jump on board with it right away!

We started out by doing some picture sorts and did a couple of 4-Square writing prompts as a whole group. Once I felt they had the basic idea down, I let them lose on their own.

Some did amazingly well:

 She was the only one to talk about the different tastes of the food she chose. She had great organization, stayed on topic for the whole paragraph and did great with punctuation/capitalization.

Others struggled a bit but were ultimately pretty successful:

 He used "chr" instead of "tr" for the beginning sound in "triangle" :) But considering he did this 100% on his own, had proper capitalization AND remembered his punctuation in 2 out of 4 sentences, I was pretty impressed (not to mention I love the way he spelled "kind of")!

And some needed extensive help:

This little guy struggled to get 2 sentences done, even with a tutor sitting next to him and a picture dictionary. It says: Apples are sweet. I like ice cream on birthday

I have to point out that the first sample was from a Transitional First kiddo - that means she had an extra year between K and 1st. What a huge difference that year makes!  The second sample is from a child who had a super fabulous K teacher - I love her to death and she does an awesome job! The 3rd sample is from a child who did not have a successful K year due to ineffective teaching (teacher on cell phone all day, not having lesson plans, using worksheets for everything etc). I am planning on sharing these next week at our meeting. Maybe, seeing the difference laid out so clearly, we will stop considering K a "throw away grade" and start putting our best teachers in it rather than considering it a place where an ineffective teacher can "do the least harm". Sorry, got on my soapbox for a moment there, I'll try to refrain from preaching to the choir!

Another thing that went right on Friday? At our weekly whole-school assembly we had a drawing for students who had completed a track walking card. Each day from 8:30 to about 8:50 students can walk the track, as they complete a lap they get a hole punched in their card. Once their card is complete, it goes into the bucket for a drawing. Well, one of my students won and was sooo thrilled. I was so excited to see her win because she really needs as many postivie things in her life as possible. I pixelated her face for privacy, but I wanted you to see this grin:

Alright, time for this giveaway! I am super excited to announce that the nice people at Kohl's have given me a $50 gift card to give away! I blogged about them this Fall, when we visited the Witchita Falls store for some books, plush and hoodies for my boys! My boys absolutely love their hoodies and so far the weather has been so mild they haven't even needed coats since the hoodies are so warm!

Anyways, I contacted Kohl's about doing a giveaway since I really feel they have a lot to offer - both for teachers in the way of their toys, $5 books and plush, and just as a generally great place to shop for home/family too! You should check out their new toy page, where you can search by age or category! I am going to have this giveaway run from today through Saturday December 15th, and I will announce the winner on Sunday December 16th. Check out the rafflecopter to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway