My Teacher Always Says...

I'm linking up with Tammy @ Forever in First for her linky party, "My teacher always says...

When I read this, I thought, "Hmmm what do I always say?" My mind went blank. I know I say some of the same things over and over and over again, but seriously my mind was blank.

I thought back to before I started teaching. I was working as an assistant with a wonderful teacher. She had all kinds of things she would say. The students would say the same things. One of the things she would say was "Wagabootchie" (I'm totally guessing how you would spell it). One day she asked one of her students to bring a stack of books to her. I was sitting by the desk where the books were, I about cracked up when she said in a very strained voice, "Wagabootchie". 

Then I thought about my daughter and how she impersonates her teachers, she picks up their mannerisms, tone of their voice and things they say. If she is doing that, then I'm sure my students could tell me exactly what I say.

I thought that maybe if I started writing, some things would come to my mind. I know I haven't ever and won't ever say the "S" word...shut-up. When my niece was in first grade, I read "Ramona the Pest" to her on the phone. There's a place where Ramona yells, "Shut-up Pizzaface!" After I read it, my niece said, "Aunt Kelly you are not supposed to say shut-up, you should say be quiet." I guess she told me.

OK, I finally thought of one and I couldn't get Tammy's cute graphic on here.

"I'm not looking at HOW you draw, I'm looking at IF you draw.

I always have those students who are reluctant to draw, so I always let them know I'm not judging their art work. I like to read the book "Ish" by Peter A Reynolds to the kids early on in the year so I can remind the to just make an "ish" drawing. A lot of times they have surprised themselves when they take their time and look at what they are wanting t draw.

One thing I started saying towards the end of the year was "I'm taking children who are ready to recess." I know it doesn't sound like much, but it worked. I got the idea from  Teaching With Love and Logic. It said to stop saying I like the way ____ is lined up nicely. They were right, it wasn't very successful. I was really surprised how well the phrase worked.

I know there are some things that I say probably over and over again, but I guess with it being summer, part of my brain went on break! lol

5 for Friday

I'm linking up with  Doodle Bugs Teaching  for her weekly linky party 5 for Friday. It's easy you just share 5 things you did this week.

1. My dad turned 80 on Saturday, we had a surprise party for him. Here are a few pictures.

2. After working for almost a week, I finally got my room packed up to be moved. I actually got to move a few things myself. Is it just me or are there others out there worry about their things being destroyed by careless movers. I told my principal that when I moved into my house, people from church who care about me helped me move. some of my furniture got some nicks and scratches, if people who love me did  that (not on purpose) then what are a bunch of movers who don't know me at all going to do. My main issue was I took my baskets of books and dropped them into the moving boxes with the books still in them. I was worried that some of the heavier stuff would end up on top of them crushing the books and breaking the baskets. So I was very happy to move all of my books to my new room and know that they were in good shape.

3. Here are some pictures of my new room which is actually my old room renovated. It looks really nice, but my one complaint is the cabinets are very deep, luckily I have a big cabinet that will come back to my room that will hold large items.

Since my computer crashed, I don't have access to any photos of my old room, but here's some pictures of the new old room. 

There's not very many shelves, the other classrooms have 8 sections instead of 4. 

They tried to make up for it by giving me more purple and green cabinets.

I will eventually have a Smartboard in the space between the white boards. Yes! I have real white boards, I used to have OLD shower board that was worn out.

4. We got a little closer to living in the 21st century. Since I re-financed the house, I got cable, WIFI  and caller ID. Delaney was thrilled to be able to watch the Disney channel. I may have to watch her so she doesn't become a big couch potato this summer. We really needed WIFI because I got her a Kindle last year and she couldn't upload anything on it unless we went to McDonalds or someones house.

5. One of my favorite things that happened this week, is.... wait for it.... I got a second trash dumpster. Isn't that terrific? I am really excited about it, seriously! I have a small yard, but there are several trees in it so that means lots of leaves and branches. The city won't pick up any bags, but fortunately the extra dumpster only costs $5.00. I only got it yesterday and I have already filled it up. I love doing yard work but ever since I moved here, the leaves and branches have always been a problem. I'm hoping now that I've got another can, I will get out and do more yard work which hopefully will lead to losing a lot some weight.

The trees are nice because they shade the swing set almost all day, but they do create a lot of work.

As you can see from this picture of Rascal, the leaves killed a bunch of our grass.

I've still got a lot of work ahead of me as you can see.

Smarter than a Box of Rocks - A Sight Word Game with a Freebie

I wanted to share a little sight word game at I came up last week with it while I was cleaning and packing up my classroom for the movers. I haven't tried it with my kids, but I am going to use it this week when I start tutoring. 

While I was going through my "stuff" I found some polished black stones I got from Dollar Tree. I had written a sight word on each rock with a silver Sharpie.

I had seen the idea to play a sight word game using the rocks. I always have the kids turn them over so they can't see the words. If they can read it, it goes in their pile. I came up with a slight variation that I think the kids will love. If they can read the sight word, they put it on their side of a balance scale. who ever has the heaviest words wins. Just a new twist to an old game. NOTE: After looking at the rocks, I am going to go back and spray the rocks with polyurethane to keep the letters from rubbing off.

I made up a little recording sheet for the kids to write down the words they read. Grab a copy if you want.

Smarter Than a Box of Rocks!

School Goals for Summer

Last summer I got my craft on and participated in Monday Made It several times. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed all of the crafting, but this past year several changes were made in our lesson plans and curriculum so I ended up feeling like I was playing "catch up" all year long. So this summer, I want to try to get ahead a little bit. here are a few goals I have set for things I want to get done for school.

 

1. I want to redo all of my homework pages so they are ready to go before school starts.

 

2. We are supposed to have word walls up to go with our Core Knowledge units, so I have already started making word cards. I've got a ways to go, I've only done the first unit.

 

3. I want to work on my lesson plans and do as much as I can ahead of time that I can. I'm really bad about putting off them off until the last minute and then I'm up all hours of the night trying to get them finished.

 

4. I plan to go through all of my AR books and make sure they are in the correct baskets then color code them by reading level. (I started this one today. It's time consuming, but I think it will pay off next year. I think it will help the students to put the books back in the right place.) 

 

5. I hope to do a little creating of games, units, etc....

 

6. I desperately need to look at the Everyday Math curriculum. Last year was our first year to use it and I really need to get more comfortable with it. I usually like teaching math, but this year, I dreaded it each day. I'm hoping if I study it more, maybe I will like it. This year I hated it, it just seemed to jump all over the place without letting  the kids get the skills down before it went to something else.

 

I'm sure there is a whole bunch more I should be doing, but my main goal is to simplify my life after school starts.

 

 

The Last Day

My last day of school was Thursday. Since our building is still under construction, we did something a little different with our awards programs. Each of us had our awards program in our classroom. When the principal told us that was what we were going to do, I thought it was going to be rather lame. I decided I would have the kids sit on the carpet and then I pushed back the desks and placed 28 chairs around the carpet for the guests. I think I had between 20 and 25 people show up. It ended up  being one of my favorites. The parents were cheering for all of the kids which was nice since some didn't have a parent there. I was able to share small anecdotes about each child which made it more personal.

I have no pictures, but the rest of the day we played some minute to win it games, made a necklace and puppet, took an extra long recess and their favorite part was cleaning the desks with shaving cream. I think they all made some good memories.

I have been absolutely terrible about posting the last several months. I hope to do much better this summer. My "mom" is gone and I got a new computer. I got tired of fighting with it every night trying to get it to come on.

I am having to pack my whole room up again because I am moving back to my old room now that it has been renovated. I'm glad to get back to the old room, but I don't look forward to packing up for the second time this year. I'll take pictures of the building once they have gotten the landscaping finished. It looks totally different. They did a great job combining the old with the new.

Wish me luck purging!

Prayers for Moore, Oklahoma

The town has been devastated by a huge tornado this afternoon. Two elementary schools were flattened. At least 7 children have lost their lives in one of the schools. They are still looking for up to 30 children. Wonderful, brave teachers  at these schools laid on top of children to protect them. Prayers go out to all affected. So Sad!

 

What's Been Goin' On? and a Freebie

      Wow, it's been a while since I have posted. where has the time gone? I hope all of you mothers have had a wonderful Mother's Day! I started mine early by going to a Scholastic Warehouse Book sale with Delaney and a good friend and her daughter.

 

      I used one of Kathy @ First Grade a la Carte   Color by Codes as a filler for early finishers.(The kids love them!)  It was a picture of a ladybug. As I have said before my class can be a handful, so after recess I thought I would wear them out a little more, so we stayed out and collected ladybugs. I only had 3 bug boxes and I must say they did a great job staying on task and working together. When we came back in I had them write about their experience. It was fun reading the different thoughts they had. My favorite came from Breonna. One of the things she said was "Two ladybugs were playing piggyback." oops!
       We used Skittles to worked on fractions and graphing. They of course thought this was the best day ever! Here is a link to the page I made, if you need one. I put a few lines at the bottom and had them write about their experience. I made the graph small because I always have kids who do not want to color them in so this way there isn't much to color.
Skittles Math Freebie

       We were also working on symmetry. I had the kids fold a piece of paper in half, cut it, color the one side and then open it up and color the other side. After a couple of botched attempts (cutting the fold off), we ended up with some nice work.

Love the seahorses! They took some careful cutting.

For all the Angry Bird fans.

      We also made symmetrical butterflies using finger paints. the kids had a great time doing it. I thought they turned out so cute, I decided to use another one of Kathy @ First Grade a la Carte color by codes. We used the MOM one to make the cover of their cards and then they each wrote their own message to their moms. It was another good chance to go through the editing process.

 

 

 

This student is Hispanic and her mom doesn't speak English. I used one of those translating sites so she could write her message in Spanish also. I sure hope it makes sense.

        On a personal note, our district has a track meet every spring for 4th and 5th grade. My daughter Delaney decided she wanted to try out for it. She was all bummed because she said she was one of the slowest runners in her class. I told her they also had the long jump as an event, so she started practicing. When they had their "tryouts" and she made the team. She is so excited. I'm really happy for her. I am taking a much needed mental health personal day Tuesday to go to the track meet with her.
      My "mom" is still in my class every day, pretty much all day. I guess I am just a slow learner. I finally realized that I need to keep her busy so she can't sit and watch every little thing that is happening in my room. She keeps jumping in and sorting out problems instead of letting the kids do it themselves. I actually think the behavior has been worse since she has been in there. If I tell the kids to line up and it is not in any particular order, she gets on to them for taking cuts. My thought is if the other student doesn't care, why should she? Even worse, I don't think she is helping her son. She sits by him and prompts him all day to keep doing his work. The minute she is not in there, he does something. The other day, I was griping at, talking with the kids about their behavior in the cafeteria. He wrote a note and brought it to me that said, "I don't like you, I wish you were dead."
Another day he came in the room and turned on the Smartboard and DVD player and sat down to watch a movie because the breakfast line was long. When I told her about it, she said I just don't think he understands since you sometimes will watch a DVD at the end of the day. I told her he is smarter than that and he knew that wasn't right. Later, I thought I should have told her, "He is so smart, he has you and your mother sitting right beside him everyday giving him one on one attention. Now that's a smart kid! I'm hoping my plan to keep her extra busy will work. If it doesn't, I can make it through the next 13 days, I can make it through the next 13 days, I can make it through the next 13 days....