Freebie Sight Word Games

It's been a while since I posted any type of freebie. It may be a little late in the year for these games to be much help to first grade, but maybe some kindergarten teachers can use them. I made them to send home with some of my low kids who needed extra practice. since I was wanting to actually use them, I asked the kids what character they liked best. Here are a few of them.
 

Cars Sight Word Game 

 Spiderman Sight Word Game 

 

If you like them and would like to see some more, please leave a comment so I'll know there is someone that can use them them. ; P Thanks! 

We had a Skype visit with Mr. Marc from Adventure to Fitness last Friday. the kids were super excited, especially when he showed his muscles. lol If you are interested in getting one for your class, like them on Facebook. They offer them frequently.

My Daughter and the Bully

This post is a little of a downer, but it DOES end on a positive note.

My daughter has had to deal with a bully before, but it didn't even compare to what happened to her this year in 4th grade. She didn't tell me about it for a long time, but finally one night she told me a 5th grade girl was calling her names, bad names. She was pushing her around, shoving her out of line when she would see her. She would make fun of what she was wearing, say things to her friends and get them to laugh too. One day Delaney was playing with the girl's cousin at recess. When the whistle was blown the girl came up to her and said, "If you ever played with Antwon again, I'll kill you." I reported all of the incidents to the principal and to her teachers. They were doing what they could, but this girl was very sneaky. She would catch Delaney in the hallway by herself and do something to her. She got suspended for 2 days for the killing remark. I hoped that might put an end to it. Wrong!

She continued saying and doing things to her. A lot of the things happened at the end of the day when they were released from class. The girl would slip into the girl's restroom and wait for Delaney to walk by to come to my room. She punched her in the stomach and even gave her a bloody nose one day. One of the biggest problems was Delaney wouldn't tell me any of it until we got home. When I first found out about it, she even begged me not to tell her teachers and she sure hadn't told any of her classmates. One evening she told me the girl had said something to her but she didn't know what it meant so she hadn't told me . She said the girl told her she was going to get her older brother to come up to school and rape her. I was shocked and very upset. I reported everything to the principal and to her teachers. I requested that she have a buddy walk with her when she left the classroom. I started standing out in the hallway at the end of the day to make sure she wasn't hiding out in the bathroom. That girl was very persistent, she found someplace else to bother her. She unzipped Delaney's backpack and pulled stuff out and threw it on the ground. My daughter was begging for me to let her go to our neighborhood school. I told her there could be bullies there to and I wouldn't be able to help her as much (not that I had been successful).When I would wake her up each morning and she wouldn't want to go to school.

I am not a very confrontational person, but finally I had all I could take. It was at the end of the day and I had a parent standing in my doorway with me. I saw the girl down the hall and I asked the mom to stay there so she could be a witness in case the girl tried to tell something that didn't happen. When she passed by, I told called her over and said, in the toughest voice I have,  "Leave my daughter alone. Don't talk to her, don't look at her, don't touch her. Leave her alone!" She said she hadn't done anything to her. I just repeated it all again and told her people were watching her.

The girl's teacher thought that would take care of it. The next day I kept running into her in the hallway. It made me fell uncomfortable because I knew she was probably calling me names to her friends as I walked by. So that afternoon, I called her over to me as she was walking out to go home. I told her that I am a nice person and if she would just leave Delaney alone, I'd be willing to help her in any way I could. So as it has turned out, she has been staying after school and taking AR tests in my room a couple of days a week. I think she is really trying to change for the better. She has apologized to Delaney and they will even play together after school. I'm hoping that this can be a positive experience for the girl that will help her in the future.

Good news for me this week, I won the Quietest Pencil Sharpener Ever from Kim @ The Very Busy First Graders. Thanks so much, Kim!

Five on Friday

I'm linking up with Kacey @ Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 for Friday.

Here are 5 random happenings from this week.

 

Number one: The best thing of the week... Barbara from Ruby Slippers Blog Design finished up my new blog design!!! She does excellent work and she really easy to work with. This is my first post with my new design, I just keep on looking at my blog because I like it sooo much! ; P

 

Number Two: I love seeing children learn and this year I have really enjoyed witnessing Isiah make his math observations. The problem was 6 + 5, Isiah says, " I know that 5 + 5 is 10 since six is one more than 5 then 6 + 5 must equal 11. YES!!!

 

Number Three: Peep Show This one has nothing to do with school , but it was too funny strange not to share. The other night I sent my daughter to get something out of the car. When she came back in, she had this horrified look on her face and she was saying, "PLEASE, PLEASE rip my eyeballs out!!!" over and over. When she went outside, she glanced at the neighbors window (which happens to be in the shower). She saw our elderly neighbor lady, well from neck to waist, in the shower! Delaney just kept saying, "She was really big and there were so many wrinkles. I'm going to have nightmares!" I'm too embarrassed for the lady to speak to her face to face to let her know that she needs to cover the window, but seriously who doesn't cover their shower windows when they have neighbors close by???? I've decided to write her a letter, how does that sound? And no,  I do not have a picture! Your welcome! ; P

 

Number Four: I have a student that keeps making scowling faces at people. I don't just mean kids in my class, he does to my daughter and even crazier, he does it to the teacher next door. Anyway, I asked him if he went around making faces at his mother and he said, "Yes." I said, "You do?" and he said, "I do it all the time behind her back." Too bad for him that I wrote it down and too bad for him today was parent conference day! His mother was very interested!

 

Number Five:  One more not related to school, but hopefully this will wipe out the lady in the shower for my daughter. My cousin took her to her first OKC Thunder game. She was beyond excited.

 

 

BTW for those who read my last post, I talked with my principal, she said the teachers were supposed to be tutoring small groups when they didn't have kids.

 

Have a great weekend!

Does This Seem Right?

I work at a very small school. we have a total of  13 teachers including our SPED teacher. All of the teachers have 2 days that have 2 specials, 2 days with one special and on Wednesday, no one has a special. 

Since moving into the new wing, we are using the art/music room as a makeshift cafeteria. Since it's not very big we have had to go with 5 different lunch periods. First grade goes last at 12:45.  The past several days when I would go to the lounge, my daughter's teacher was in there. They go to lunch at 11:15. I didn't think that much about it, I just figured her kids were at a special. Then on Wednesday, she was in there again, a day when no one has specials. So I really started to wonder what was going on.

She team teaches with our two fifth grade teachers. She has 26-28 kids. The fifth grade teachers have 15 each. Well, on the way home from school, I asked my daughter how the classes were rotating. She told me that the teachers had combined the 2 fifth grade classes and that each teacher gets a break when she doesn't have any kids.

I really like the teachers and I am hoping that there is some other explanation that my daughter is unaware of. If the extra teacher is tutoring or something like that, then it would be OK. None of the other teachers in the building get a break on Wednesday, surely they would see that this is totally unfair to the other teachers. Right?

On a brighter note, I'm really excited! I am getting a new design for my blog from Barbara @ Ruby Slippers Blog Design . She does beautiful work!  Now I just need to start blogging more. : )

My class is getting a Skype visit with Mr. Marc from Adventure to Fitness next week. If you would like one for your class like them on Facebook, they offer them frequently.

I just bought some Sketcher Go Walks and I have to say that they are Terrific! They are a little dressier than tennis shoes, but just as comfortable. Here's a picture of the two pairs I bought.

I think moving in the middle of the year, really took more out of me than I realized. I have been beat everyday when I get home. I decided that even though I was going to be moving back into the old building at the end of the year, I would take everything out of the boxes. I figured if I didn't I would always need something that was in one of the boxes. Then on top of everything else we got Saxon Phonics that we are supposed to start using in the middle of the year. Yikes!

I want to share this picture of my sister's grandson, it just brings a smile to my face every time I see it. And no he doesn't wear that hat. lol

MLK Jr.

Finally!

Here's the way my time has gone since winter break. Came to school on Friday the 4th, had a workshop Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the following week. Came to school Thursday, Friday, and Monday, had a workshop on Tuesday. Fortunately, I'm finished with workshop, at least for a while.

We have been crazy ever since coming back. It's kind of hard to get procedures going again when the teacher is gone AND we are in a new building with major schedule changes. Now that I have been back, some teachers have been gone and the principal has had to split up the class because there was no sub. We have had a terrible time finding subs this year, my principal said a lot of them are in long term positions because the job openings weren't filled. Anyway, I'm just glad I'm back!

We started Monday with a KWL chart about Martin Luther King. I really had to keep my composure while making the chart. I thought the kids would already know a little about him..not so much.

Know
gave speeches ( I had to guide the student to that answer)
did a good job
was president???
got shot because he wanted blacks and whites to be friends (YES!)

Want to Know
Where did he get his last name?
Where did he get his first name?
How did he become president?
How did he become king?
How many children did he have?
How did he help blacks and whites become friends?

It's going to be interesting to see what the KNOW is tomorrow. I really feel like they have learned a lot! We have learned 2 songs, read several books, watched a couple of short videos and made a book. I was wanting to do an art project I had seen from Nancy @  First Grade Wow (by the way, if you aren't following her, you really should, she has terrific ideas and LOTS of freebies). Anyway, I didn't have it with me, but I remembered that part of it had to do with the kids tracing their hand and arm and it had a heart on it. Well I have this one little boy who wore a snowflake headband to school and wore it all day. The headband gave me an idea of having 2 hands one white and one black clasped on a headband with a heart on it. I just had them write We love MLK! on it. Considering that I had no sample or patterns to use, I thought they turned out pretty cute! It's hard to see the white hands in the photos, but they are there. ;)

Well, I'm looking forward to my three day weekend! Just one more day.

Kelly

Tell Me Something Good & HELP!

I'm joining up with
Rowdy in First Grade
for her Tell Me Something Good linky




Something Good From School: I got moved into my new room and all of my boxes are unpacked. This temporary room I'm in (they are renovating our main building and I will be moving back at the end of the year.) is smaller than the room I was in, but I have jammed as much of my stuff in the room that I could to keep it from going to our district storage. We are still waiting on dry erase boards and tack strips to be installed. I'll post pictures of the new arrangement later.

 

Something Good From Home: I am refinancing my house. With the refinancing and an adjustment for a lower insurance premium, it will save me around $220 a month!!!! Yes, I'm excited, that's a lot of money to a single mom that gets no child support. : )

Help! When I am trying to upload a picture, nothing comes up for me to browse. Used to when I wanted to put a picture on my blog, I would click on the picture button, then click on upload and then browse. It does not come up for me to browse anymore. Can anyone help?

Kelly

Adventure to Fitness

I know most of you already know about Adventure to Fitness, but in case you don't know about it, it is a website that takes your children on a 30 minute adventure. they may be racing to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, participating in the Ancient Greek Olympics, throwing tea into the Boston Harbor during the American Revolution, etc...

 

It is a great way to give your children some activity on those days when you are stuck inside during recess. What makes it special is that the children are learning science, social studies, math and reading while they are moving.

It is easy to use and best of all it is free. Since most of you know about this site already, what I wanted to tell you if you didn't already know is they have a  Facebook and they are on Pinterest also.

I don't know if you are like me and some times have problems with your internet connection or out of the blue the district has blocked a program, etc... Well I haven't been able to get on Adv.to Fitness this whole school year. I was really excited when I saw on FB that they were releasing some DVD's for sale. They have 2 different DVD's available, each one has three episodes. I'm excited to introduce my class this year to Mr. Marc and the gang.
I plan on getting in shape while the children are getting up and moving! ; )  What a great way to start the new year!   Kelly