Five for Friday

I'm joining up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her linky party Five for Friday.

1. My first one has nothing to do with school. Last Saturday, one of the older ladies at  church, invited a lot of people (ladies and girls only) for a tea party. She has a backyard that takes you to another world. I thought I would share some pictures.

Here are a few pictures of the spread she had out for the girls. The adults had twice as much food!

Here is a picture of the girls with Mae. She crocheted all of the hats that the girls are wearing. She told me it took two weeks in her spare time to make each hat.

2.We are working on writing descriptive sentences. I decided since our story this week is about pets, we would write about a lost pet. I wrote on a piece on a piece of paper. "I lost my pet. Please call 587-8600 if you find him." Then I asked the kids if there was anything wrong with it. I guess we had been working on punctuation so much that everyone kept saying, "You forgot your period." Haha, at least they were trying. After a while one of the kids asked what kind of pet it was, whew, finally. So I wrote it again, "I lost my dog. Please call 587-8600 if you find him." So I kept questioning them, what else is missing, they came up with color and it's name. I was trying to lead them to size so I told the kids that thing I was thinking of something you would notice across a field. One student raised her hand and said whether the dog was wearing a collar and another said what color his eyes were. Were they listening to me? I said you could see it across a field. With much coaxing, I got them to size. Yes! We finally got all of our important information and they worked on brainstorming for their own Lost Pet page.

2. Scholastic Book Fair is coming to our school next week. There has been a competition to see which class can bring in the most money to donate to buy books for the school. It's cute to watch the kids putting their money in the makeshift bank I made. We have on of the biggest classes in the building, but the older kids just seem to be better at begging and pleading to their parents. lol

3.Why would Treasures introduce possessive nouns this early in the year? I did everything I could think of to explain it to them. I told them that they actually already use possessive nouns, now we would learn how to write them. I made an anchor chart with them and had them all write a possessive noun on a post-it. Then we looked at all of the post-its and then went over it all again. I had them write another possessive noun on a post-it nouns book

4. I know it rather late, but we just got started with our journal writing. I'm very excited about the writing I am getting at this point in the year. Most of them aren't writing things like I see a cat. I see a dog. etc... I started the first day writing back to anyone who wanted me to read their journal. It is a little time consuming but I think it is worth it. 1) It shows them that I can read what they are writing. 2) I get the chance to show them correct spelling of a word they used when i use it in my sentence. 3) They are very motivated to read what I wrote to them.  Today, they wanted me to read the journals out loud, so I put them up on the Smartboard and read what they wrote and my response. They were very excited to get their journal and write again after that. Here are a few of my favorite entries.

5. Pumpkin Update: I was just about to give up on our pumpkin. The shell was getting soft, but there were no signs of growth. Yesterday afternoon, I saw just a hint of green starting to break through. Here is how it looked this evening.

I'm really glad it is Friday, these pictures don't tell the true story of my week, I'll share that later. Have a restful weekend!

One Long, Short Week (and a freebie)

Why is it, that the weeks that we are off on Monday or Friday seem the longest? This week we were off Monday and there was no school Friday because we had Parent Conferences. I worked every evening having conferences until 7 on Tues, Wed and Thurs. My principal had told us we could do that and then not come in on Friday. I was all set to have Friday off and then I guess she found out that we weren't really supposed to be doing that, this was after I had been up at school late for three days. Most of my conferences went well, but I had 8 no shows. So I called them all and told them I would be up Friday morning. I got 3 more in today and I had 2 reschedule 3 for next week. It's tough getting them all in with 27 students.

We had to teachers to resign this week. It makes me sad to see them go, but I think there are a lot of teachers in our district that would resign if they could afford it financially. They just keep piling more and more things on us that we are supposed to do. When I add up the times of what I am supposed to be doing and teaching time each day, I have 10 minutes left over for transitions, bathroom break, etc... I'd like to say I have no wasted time in my class, but so far, I haven't been able to get through a full day's lesson plans and we have already been in school almost 5 weeks. We are making progress, but it is slow going.

It's not all bad, I have some really sweet kids. when I look at each one individually I can never figure out who is sooo loud when the talking starts, it just becomes a dull roar in my room. I bought a music box to try Teeny Tiny Teacher's idea. We ran out of music probably 2 hours before school was out. They liked the idea so I will be using it some more, I'm sure eventually they will earn some extra recess.

I am also excited about the future of this class, I think they will be a group of great readers and great writers! Here are a couple of sample of their writing from this week.  I got this pack from DeAnne at First Grade and Fabulous. I couldn't find it in her store, she may be updating it. It was made using kdg sight words, to extend the lesson, I had my students write at least one more sentence to go with the first one. We did a group edit checking for capitalization and punctuation using the Smartboard. It was great, when I would put one up they would say, it is missing a period or it doesn't have a capital. I'm hoping after doing that as a group, they'll remember on their on page next time.

I can see it. I see something that's red and it's juicy. It is an apple.

Here are a few pictures I took while the kids were doing free exploration/free centers while I was giving tests. This first one cracks me up, this little girl is the smallest and sweetest girl in the room. 

"Don't mess with Seme Corley."

I love it!

Here are a couple of kids using the lawn chairs I bought for reading. 

Working on a pattern block puzzle. 

Working puzzles. 

So while I was trying to test, it got extremely noisy. I was sitting there wishing I had a dool so I could try out Teacher Tipster's "Shhh the Baby's sleeping" tip. Well I didn't have a doll, but I did have this. 

 Meet Valentine.

Since I didn't have a doll I thought I would try Valentine. (BTW: he is wearing the tank top so he won't get so dirty. ;P) So I picked him up and walked around the room. I said in a quiet voice, "Boys and girls, Valentine didn't get any sleep last night because the roosters were crowing all night long (Our school is has a farm with a bunch of roosters right behind it). He said he needs a ten minute nap, please be quiet for ten minutes. He said he would choose the quietest group to join when he gets up. Here he is laying down.

 So it actually worked for about 8 1/2 minutes. so I picked up Valentine and took him to the quietest group. After a while I pick him up and he told me which other group he thought was being quiet and then he went to join them. Later it got really noisy so I went  and picked up Valentine. He told me my class was so loud his ears were hurting. There was only one thing left to do.

My kids were sad to see him go. I told them he wasn't used to loud noises because he had been living with Delaney and I for the past 2 years and we just aren't that noisy. I'm hoping next time I bring him out they will be quieter for even longer. ;P

I don't know what kind of tests you have to give at the beginning of the year, we used to give the DIBELS, now we have changed to the easyCBM. It is similar to DIBELS, but instead of naming letters, the boys and girls give the letter sound. They also have a Whole Word Reading test instead of the Nonsense Word Test on DIBELS. I made some pages so the parents could work with their kids at home. If it is something you can use, pick up a copy. I would appreciate a comment if you do ;) You can find it HERE.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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....