Hi friends! Just a quick post to share some pictures with you! We're having Red Ribbon Week this week and we made the cutest door display:
It is sooo cute! I adapted the template found here.
I love how they all came out so differently!
I had no idea Yoda was in my class!
We did my Batty Equations Activity and my kiddos LOVED it! For some reason they all started picking sides, either wanting True to win or False to win (have the most). So glad it was a tie lol!
I have come to understand that this group of kids loves to color! I mean, they will take 20 minutes coloring in borders and pictures before they even get to the meat of the work! We are working on getting the math done first and then coloring!
I sent home a Character Pumpkin homework assignment from Simply Kinder and got the cutest pumpkins back. Here are some of them:
I am a little bit afraid about going into school on Halloween tomorrow - hoping no one got into the candy early! I hope you all have a great day!
Hello friends! Fall Break was so much fun! I spent a lot of time loving on Sullivan and watching movies with the whole family!
Here's Sullivan during the break. Such a happy little man!
Here's Sullivan during the school week - he's not quite sure what he thinks of mama going to school every day! He's starting a new daycare on post on Monday, and I'm crossing my fingers that he adjusts well (its closer to home and will be easier for daddy to pick him up on days I have events after school, plus its military-run so you KNOW its spotless!)
Now that we are back in school, my kiddos are LOVING our Roll & Cover games. Seriously, they can't get enough of them! They are one of my activities for when they have finished their work and I keep small baggies with tokens and dice with the laminated games. Each day this week I ran out of game sets!
Thankfully, we also had Smilemaker's Blast Off Fact Family Chart to use too - its so funny to watch them "balst off" after they've completed the fact family equations!
I've created a new Fall Graphing pack that is going to see a lot of use in my room - some of the activities will be enrichment activities for early finishers, while some we will do whole class.
I'm also bringing out my "5 Little Bats" poem pack. I love doing a pocket chart poem or story each week. Speaking of bats, I made a "Batty True/False Equation Pack" and I'm offering it as a freebie! We're going to sort the cards in a pocket chart as a whole group and then my kiddos will complete the recording sheet as part of their independent practice. You can grab it from my TPT store by clicking the image below:
I'm off to feed Sullivan and finish lesson plans! Here's hoping that having Halloween on Thursday doesn't make your week too crazy!
Woohoo for Fall Break! 5 days of relaxation and playing with Sullivan! He is gearing up for Halloween:
I am gearing up for more parent/teacher conferences! I had 22 out of 28 scheduled, then 6 no shows so that means I have 12 more to do this week!
I'm also gearing up for decorating our classroom for the Fall - I'm going in on Monday to work on getting our tree ready and switching out our Ten Frame cards for these monsters from my Fall Holidays Ten Frames pack
Speaking of new decorations, I received a new Fact Family BLAST OFF pocket chart from Smilemakers and my students are LOVING it! So far we've been using it in whole group in the afternoon as a review, but my kiddos keep going over and checking it our like these little guys did during breakfast:
Each afternoon we put a new fact family card up and then figure out the addition and subtraction sentences we can make. Once we have the chart complete we crouch down, count backwards from 10 and then leap up shouting "Blast off!" The kids are enthralled the whole time and they are really starting to get the hang of fact families!
Smilemakers gave me the pocket chart to review and I have to tell you, I LOVE their site! So many cool items! I am eying a bunch of stickers as well as erasers and art supplies! The best part is being able to sort the site by occupation so I can see all the educator items easily!
I am getting a student teacher next week and I'm a bit nervous since I've only had my class back for 10 school days. We still haven't settled into a complete routine. One thing we're working on is work stations or centers. Since there are 28 of them, it has a tendency to get a bit noisy to say the least! This week I'm pulling out some fun Halloween things to give them an incentive to work quietly:
We're working on comparing numbers, missing addends and place value, these fun printables will be a hit for sure with my kiddos!
I made a Halloween Addition Search pack so my kiddos can have fun searching for addition sentences and solving them.
Missing addend clothespin activity.
Write the room for missing addends.
Addition & Subtraction Roll & Cover games.
A 120 chart and number lines to help with comparing numbers, addition and missing addends.
I haven't finalized plans for Literacy this week - off to watch Despicable Me 2 with the kiddos and then I will work on my ELA block! I hope you're having a great weekend!
This was my first full week back to school. We are getting into the swing of things, although mornings are still hectic - I haven't forgotten the bottles or pump any more though! Little Sullivan is showing so much personality, first thing in the morning and right when I get home from work are his active times where I can usually coax some smiles out of him - he saves his squeals for Daddy though! Here's the obligatory pic :)
I have finished assessing my kiddos in both reading and math and let me just say, I have my work cut out for me this year! I am very excited about this, because it means I'll be able to see huge growth! Last year's class was advanced, so its fun to have to start so much further back this year. I'm going to be doing a lot of sight word activities because only 7/28 kiddos knew their first 20 sight words. They're expected to know the first 100 by Christmas Break, so that's going to be a priority for me. We also have a ton of work to do in math - with comparing numbers, addition, missing addends and graphing, so I'll be working on making activities for those too.
The good news is that I'm getting a student teacher! She'll be my first one and I'm so excited! I'm a little apprehensive because we still haven't worked out all of our behavior issues and I'm hoping she has good classroom management skills because otherwise they'll eat her alive (last year's class was also much easier discipline-wise, I guess this is my year for challenges)! I set up my Class Dojo this week, mostly because we needed something for our hallway procedures and bathroom breaks. The Class Dojo app lets me use my iPhone, so there is immediate recognition for good behavior. I've tied the Class Dojo points into our clip chart so that that is still active in the classroom and I didn't want to have to set up new rewards and consequences. So far the kids are loving their little monsters and I love the random feature that picks a child for me to focus on. All of them are very conscious that it could be their turn to be recognized so they try to stay in procedure.
I'll have some pics and more news next week, I managed to forget my camera every day this week and my iPhone just doesn't take good pics! In the meantime, have you heard about the surprise sale at TPT?! Use the code "fb100k" to get 10% off, plus my store is on sale for an extra 20% off (which works out to 28% off total). Head over to my store to check out some of my seasonal items like:
Oh my goodness! I survived my first week back to school! I have my first cold of the school year and so does poor Sullivan, he snorts and sniffles every time I feed him poor guy. We were actually early to work every day this week which has to be a record for me - but unfortunately those early mornings came with a variety of mishaps:
One day I forgot the attachment for the breastpump and had to have hubby bring it to me at work (he was very sweet and understanding).
The next day I forgot the darn bottles for the breastpump and had to have hubby bring them to me at work (he was not as sweet and understanding).
The third day I managed to remember the pump and bottles, but then forgot my cooler of pumped bottles on a bench after work! I got all the way home and then had to turn around and go all the way back to school to get them!
The fourth day I managed to bring everything I needed to school, AND I brought everything home. Except for the tiny little blue valve without which the pump is a useless piece of plastic. I searched my bags, I searched my car, and then I drove all the way to Walmart to buy another pump just for the tiny little blue valve.
I found the darn thing under my desk at school the next morning.
Sigh...
So now I am keeping one pump at work and one at home. Hopefully that will cut down on the forgetfulness. Maybe. Hey at least I haven't forgotten Sullivan, right?
So, my class this year. Hmm how to describe them...chatty? talkative? verbose? loquacious? communicative? How about: won't-be-quiet-for-more-than-2-seconds! And, that's not my girls! Nope, the girls are quiet, the girls are pretty good at following procedures and paying attention. The boys? Not so much. In fact, this group of boys is more like a group of gossipy old women talking about the latest scandal in town. Meaning, while the girls are clipping up and earning rewards, the boys are too busy talking to even notice.
Now, I want to remind you that I am the mother of 4 boys. I love boys. I'm good with boys. Normally, I'm the teacher that prefers boys over girls. Rowdy boys are welcome in my class. They crack me up. We're active and up dancing and having brain breaks all the time. I can deal with the little boy wiggles.
But so far, these boys are a handful! They're pretty good at keeping their bodies still, just not their lips! We spent the week reviewing procedures and trying to get on track. Ideally, we'd so the same again next week. Unfortunately report cards are due on the 9th, so we're going to have to do a lot of assessments instead. Cross your fingers that I survive!
I am doing my lesson plans today. One of the things we are going to be working on is nursery rhymes. This is because our Literacy 1st Assessment changed formats on one of the skills. Before, the students had to produce a rhyme in response to a word. For example, if I said "pan" they would say "can". Now, they have to finish a couplet. "I spotted an eagle with my eye, he was soaring in the ___". Quite a different skill! I'm hoping that my Nursery Rhyme Pack will help us with that!
We're also starting blends and digraphs this week - first up is digraphs, which means I can show this video again:
Ha! Hilarious! Gotta love H!
I have the digraphs from my Blends & Digraph pack ready to go:
In math we're still working on place value and addition. I'm working on a few new things for that so keep an eye peeled for a flash freebie or giveaway here or on my Facebook page soon! Oh! And the winning commenter for my Blends & Digraph pack was Roxanne Sterling. I hope you enjoy the activities in the pack Roxanne!
I am so happy to be joining up with a bunch of fabulous bloggers for a Trick or Treat Halloween Blog Hop! You'll find some great October themed freebies AND you can enter to win a $35 Target giftcard!
We're going to start with my freebie, and I actually have two! The first freebie is pumpkin themed, for all of you who can't do Halloween in your classroom. You can grab this one by liking my Facebook page and clicking the fan freebie tab! Edit: While I'd love for you to come follow me on Facebook, I'm switching this to a forever freebie via this link - this way, even if I'm sharing a different freebie on Facebook, you can still grab it any time of year!
The second freebie is a fun graphing center, with addition and comparing numbers! Just click the picture to grab it!
Now that you have my freebies, head over to Nikki's blog, Melonheadz Illustrating, to continue the Blog Hop! I know she'll have something great in store for you!
