Schools out for summer...!

 Wow so much has happened since my last post. The school year finished up very nicely. It was hard to believe it was the end of my third year in the classroom. Things were a bit hectic finishing up because on top of trying to keep my kids busy until the very end, I was packing my classroom because.... I'm moving to KINDER! I'm really excited! I got everything moved into my new room and pretty much just piled it on the back counter and in the cabinets in time to get everything squared away to turn my keys in. I'll get it all organized and set up in August. Even though I'm not working I'm still busy busy with a lot of fun things!

Two projects- This weekend I painted the $7 Goodwill kitchen that I bought when I found out I was moving to kinder. The next picture is my recovered dining chairs. I love how they turned out!

At the end of school we found out that our sweet speech teacher would be having a Zumbatomic class at her Zumba studio in the summer. She did an AR party for some kids who worked so hard and these two had so much fun that I decided to sign them up for the summer class. Last Wednesday was the first class and we all had so much fun. I wish all 16 of my kids could come!

And I can't post without an update on this crazy girl! As I type this she is growling at her reflection in the sliding glass door. She has always been a mama's girl but me being home from work has been her dream come true. She follows me all day long. She got a little ice cream after a trip to the vet last week. Love that sweet girl!

It's been fun catching up and I hope I can stay up to date and link up with some of the things I'm using to get ready for kindergarten and some of the fun that's going on this summer.

Update in iPhone Pics

It's been over a month since I've posted because the beautiful weather has kept me so busy. In the evenings I'm either running errands, playing with the puppy or just sitting outside reading and it's been so nice.
First grade has done some exciting things too! In March we headed out for an afternoon at the high school ag barn.We saw cows, horses, chicks, sheep, tractors, trucks, and all other exciting farm things. This guy was my favorite. I have bragged several times on how much we loved this trip and how prepared and engaging the students presenting were.

We also celebrated Texas Public School Week. I love teaching about Texas and doing the fun activities. We read books, wrote about Texas, wore cowboy boots and made this cute bulletin board.

Dr. Seuss also had a birthday and we enjoyed green eggs and ham. My kids ate it up! They loved it so much that I told them that we may just have to have a breakfast party for our end of the year celebration. They were excited so I guess I need to find a way to pull that off. 

In life outside of school I have been busy busy! I love shopping for spring and I've been doing quite a bit of it. These sandals are my favorite finds. They're from Wal-Mart and I wore a similar pair smooth out last summer so I figured for $10 a piece I would splurge again. They are comfy and cute. I've worn them to school constantly since I've had them. 

This girl is growing big and is being the sweetest thing! She has been working hard every morning and evening on catching her frisbee. I need a video or some pics but it's hard when I'm the one throwing it.This Rangers toy came in the mail last week. We're excited for baseball season! 

My little front porch is all ready for spring. I planted a few things this weekend and may get a few more things for my patio. I have been reading out here in the evenings while Sadie plays. I will be sad when it's 112 and the mosquitoes are carrying us away. 

And last... This has been on my computer almost every spare minute for the past week. I am hooked! If you're looking for some drama circa 1912 you have to check it out! I'm in love!

  I have some posts in mind to work on this week so hopefully it won't be another six weeks before I'm back. Have a great short week!

What we've been up to plus a random survey

Good afternoon! I wanted to write a quick post of a few fun things we've done or are doing soon in first grade. We had a fun Valentines even though it totally slipped up on me and I didn't do a few things I had hoped to. Here are a few links for you this week...

I haven't purchased this yet but it's happening soon. It will be great to start the year with in the fall.

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Lauren on Pinterest

I sent a few of these to the copy center earlier this week and we used them today. You can never have enough handwriting paper and my kids handwriting is so much nicer on when they use it.

Source: do2learn.com via Lauren on Pinterest

We just finished coins and these little saying and the touch points were so fun to use. I've added these to my little basket of random things that I pull during calendar for review.

Source: classroomfreebies.com via Lauren on Pinterest

And just for fun I pulled this little survey from a blog I read. It takes me back to high school to fill out online surveys.

1. What time did you get up this morning? Alarm went off at 6:00 and I was out of bed at 6:30

2. How do you like your steak? medium at restaurants if I eat steak but my favorite steak is my dad's and I would say he cooks it medium well and it's the best!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema: Beauty and the Beast

4. What is your favorite TV show? Modern Family, Teen Mom (don't judge!), a lot of shows on HGTV and Bravo

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? On a pretty beach or lake but still close to home

6. What did you have for breakfast? Frozen sausage biscuit and tea from the Keurig

7. What is your favorite food? Pasta, pizza, hamburgers and Mexican

8. Foods you dislike? raw onions and olives

9. Favorite place to eat? There aren't many places I dislike. Some favs are Whataburger, Newks, Tokyo, Pizza Hut, Sams Seafood

10. Favorite dressing? Ranch

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Mazda CX-7

12. What are your favorite clothes? comfortable dress, sandals, swimsuit

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Italy

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? It really just depends on the situation. If I take the time to think things through it's half full

15. Where would you want to retire? a cute quaint little town with a lot of activities for seniors haha

16. Favorite time of day? recess and coming home to my sweet puppy

17. Where were you born? Shreveport, LA

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? college football and Rangers baseball

19. What is your favorite fragrance? I don't really have a perfume that I wear daily but like food scents for my Scentsy and candles

20. What is your favorite face cream? I use a Wal-Mart knock off of some kind of Dove something or another

21. Favorite baby/kids products? Two of the sweet kiddies that I've kept since they were little bitty had/have blankies from Little Giraffe.

I love those sweet babies and those soft blankies! 

22. People watcher? The best part of being in public!

23. Are you a morning or night person? Night... I will stay up reading blogs and watching TV way too late.

24. Do you have any pets? My sweet Sadie dog

25. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? Ummm not really...

26. What did you want to be when you were little? Always a teacher except for a short time in middle school when I said I wanted to do something with computers because I thought being a teacher wasn't very cool.

27. What is your favorite memory?   Times with my grandparents that have passed away, hanging out with my family and fun times with friends in college

28. Are you a cat or dog person? Dogs all the way.

29. Are you married?  No... I have a new student who has asked me numerous times this week "Why will nobody marry you?"

30. Always wear your seat belt? Yes because my car beeps like crazy. I used to be bad about not wearing it around town.

31. Been in a car accident? A few that were all minor. Well one that the state of North Carolina considered major but that's another story. 

32. Any pet peeves? Interrupting conversations, asking stupid questions that everyone knows you know the answer to... I have others. I tend to not be very tolerant  of  people so I have a lot.

33. Favorite pizza toppings? any meat, onions, mushrooms

34. Favorite flower? Peony

35. Favorite ice cream? Blue Bell White Chocolate Almond

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Whataburger or Chick-fil-a

37. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? none.

38. From whom did you get your last email? The last email on my phone is from Petsmart. The last one at work was from our counselor about a training.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?  francesca's collections or Dillards

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? Decided on a Thursday night several weeks ago to go to Dallas after work the next day. Not that spontaneous but that's all I've got right now.

41. Like your job? My class keeps me going!

42. Broccoli? yes … this recipe

43. What was your favorite vacation? Jamaica, San Antonio, Austin

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Sit down at the restaurant was with my friend Matt. I ate dinner with the Roth kids this week but it was take out that we ate at home.

45. What are you listening to right now? Dianne Sawyer on ABC World News Tonight

46. What is your favorite color? red

47. How many tattoos do you have? one... it's not visible and is from my freshman year in college

48. Coffee drinker? Yes but don't have to have it. I also drink tea or juice in the morning. 

Will Work for Popcorn

Happy Monday! For a Monday, it was a great one on our hall! Early this morning we noticed that we were super close to meeting our "100 100's on AR tests" goal for first grade. The reward was a popcorn and movie party and we knew it would be coming this afternoon. It was just what we all needed. Kids having a good time together, me planning and working and it all happening because they were motivated to make 100s on their tests. This was their chart this afternoon after the 100th 100 was scored!

We thought we had set the goal pretty lofty but this didn't take long at all. We're shooting for 200 100's for the next go around. By the time we left this afternoon, we were already well on the way! Yes, I do see that we need to change that to "two hundred."

Another incentive we've started in first grade is "Popcorn Words." Our kids are working at their own pace learning the Fry Phrase lists and earning a small popcorn snack after each time they complete a list without help, without making mistakes and reading it in under 1 minute. Most of their practice is being done at home and each day in small groups, they have the opportunity to read their list for me and try to move up to the next list and earn popcorn.

My kids are super motivated and they're holding me accountable to make sure they have the chance to read to me when I tend to want to get carried away with something else. Last week I put together these little flashcards/practice books of each list. I take that back, I got everything together and our attendance clerk did the labor intensive part and the assembly. I put these near the word work station and had a lot of interest in them today.

 Daily 5 is going really well and today was the start of our third week. Listening is the most popular and it's difficult because we do listening on the computer and I only have two student computers. Not everyone gets to listening every day but we work it out. Ultimately, everyone is engaged and happy and that's all I ask!

Have a great week!

The Hungry Teacher

Considering I was out all day testing, I don't have a lot to post tonight but I wanted to share a little recipe that I made tonight that turned out so yummy! It was inspired by this Paula Deen casserole that I made with my mom and sister over Christmas.

Source: pauladeen.com via Lee Ann on Pinterest

First I thawed about two cups of shredded frozen hash browns in the microwave and made sure there was no excess water. I then melted about a teaspoon and a half of butter in my baking dish and added the hash browns and spread them around to make a crust. I baked this for about 15 minutes.

While the potato crust was baking I mixed my eggs, milk, salt, pepper, tomato, and cheese. You could add anything here. Mine was kind of skimpy because I just used what I had, which wasn't much.

When the crust comes out pour your egg mixture in and use your whisk or a spoon to make sure everything is kind of spread out.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until the center is firm and edges are a little brown. Let cool for a few minutes before cutting.

Yummy!!
Have a good three day weekend!


Hash Brown Egg Casserole
2 Cups frozen shredded hash browns (enough to cover the bottom of a small baking dish)
1-2 teaspoons butter
6 eggs
1/3 cup milk
Sprinkle of salt, pepper, oregano and any other herbs or spices you like
1 cup of shredded cheese (I used a little cheddar and a little parmesan)
1 medium tomato diced

Melt butter in baking dish and mix with thawed hash browns. Spread on the bottom of the dish to form a crust. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until slightly brown.
Mix egg, milk, seasonings, cheese, tomato and any other vegetables or meat.
Pout into baked hash brown crust. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until the center is firm.

Fall Semester iPhone Dump

I try to keep my camera with me at school if we're doing something that I want to document but it's not always practical. I always have my phone though and snap pics of my kids and their work all the time. I wanted to do a quick post with some of my favorite activities from the first half of this year just for the sake of remembering.
Back to school-
I got this idea from Pottery Barn and seriously considered purchasing their whole Hungry Caterpillar line for any of my future children.

This is the original. I think mine turned out pretty good!

Source: potterybarnkids.com via Lee Ann on Pinterest

One of our first math units is place value with tens and ones. We use these tens/ones mats throughout the unit but one day we changed it up a little bit with pretzels and cereal. I gave them a number and they recreated it on their mat.

Fall-
We always do a pumpkin patch bulletin board but this is my favorite ever! The kids loved posing for the picture like they were popping out of the pumpkin and it just turned out cute. 

"Pumpkin pumpkin fat and wide. Open the top and _______s inside"
We got this idea from this pin

Source: fpcrr.com via Lee Ann on Pinterest

and this pin

Source: mrsstewartsclass.com via Lee Ann on Pinterest

These were our entries in the school pumpkin decorating contest. Each pumpkin represents a table color and they used scrapbook paper strips and diluted school glue and worked together to cover the pumpkin.

This was one of my favorite fall stations. In one of our pumpkin books we read that pumpkins can be many different colors and that sparked a lot of conversation for the rest of our pumpkin activities. Some friends colored every pumpkin blue for the rest of the unit. I think I have a sentence building station for every season and they are some of my favorites.

 

This is a shot of the first annual first and second grade Thanksgiving feast. We rolled white butcher paper down the hall and each friend snacked on popcorn and no bake pumpkin pies. They also wore traditional head wear and brought a few crayons to decorate their place. This was so loud and fun! 

Christmas-
A lot of my Christmas pictures have student's faces up close so I'm not going to post them but we had fun with a gingerbread man unit, a Grinch unit and a Polar Express unit. We got most of our resources from TPT and pinterest of course. My favorite day was when we finished our Grinch unit and watched the video and drank Grinch Punch. We mixed lime sherbert and lemon-lime soda in a big green bowl and served it during the show. It was a hit and definitely a new tradition.

This is our Grinch that hung on the board with our Grinch survey and Grinch story map for the week. I got the pattern and activities here.

In case you're interested here are a few links to just a few of my favorite downloads from this year so far-
Gingerbread Man Math and Literacy  
Polar Express writing packet
Fall Noun sort
Santa on Vacation Math game

Daily 5- Day 1 and 2

It's a rainy dreary week so far but we've been so productive. Last week I worked to get my room and plans ready for us to start Daily 5 today with our reading time. I found Daily 5 at the beginning of the school year while browsing some other teacher blogs and was curious as to what it was and started reading up on it. I liked the choice aspect and the development of productive independence so I got the book on my kindle over Christmas break and started getting us ready to start.

Source: google.com via ali on Pinterest

I've always struggled with stations. I've always had stations but dreaded changing them out and was always worried that they weren't meaningful. Sometimes I knew they weren't productive because my kids would either finish way too fast or just generally be off task. I've gone through several different ways of organizing stations. I've used tubs, bags, etc. I've done mixed ability groups as well as same ability groups. I've done it all. The worst part was that when my kids weren't engaged neither was I. If I'm correcting behavior or explaining the directions for a stations for the sixth time then I'm not pulling small groups and then I just get lazy. It was a terrible cycle in my room.
I'm excited about Daily 5 for a lot of reasons and so far it's gone great!

Here are some pictures of our first day. I didn't pull out the camera today but it was just more of the same.
The book talks a lot about using a meeting place. We meet on the carpet. Everyone has a spot or I'll tell them to sit in a circle depending on what we're doing.

This is our writing table. Although they don't have to stay here to write, this is where I keep their writing folders, blank paper, and some extra crayons and supplies. There is also an alphabet chart and synonym page laminated and taped down to the table. On one of my boards (sorry no pic!) I have a big work on writing reference chart that I found here and love. She uses a trifold display board but I just hung mine up. 

This is the quick Daily 5 poster I made. Remember I prepared pretty quickly so it's not very fancy. I do plan to made a better more permanent poster. I took this picture early Monday but since then we have gone through and added some guidelines and things to remember under each choice.

This is one of our book bags. I made book bags by leveling my books into three groups. Green for higher reader, yellow for on level, and red for below level. Next, I wrote each name on a zipper top bag in the color of the level I was putting that friend in. They have no idea this is the way they are divided but it made it easier on me when I was stuffing the bags and will be easy to switch books in and out. If I think a friend needs a different level I'll just grab a new bag.

After everyone had a full bag, I sorted them by table and put them into these boxes. When they need them they just go to their table box and find their bag. In the past we've kept these in desks but my books don't seem to hold up as well for some reason when they are stuffed in the back of a desk :)

 Here are some friends doing read to someone. We talked about Eekk (Elbow to elbow, knee to knee) and they loved saying the rhyme and making sure their elbows and knees were touching the whole time. This is my favorite of the Daily 5 choices. They are just so sweet sitting next to each other giggling at the story or helping each other with words.

Here are some friends doing word work. Their options for word work are flash cards, phonics games, or a selection of paper/pencil practice.

Monday afternoon we did Work on Writing. I would say out of the four we've done, this was the hardest to get them going in the right direction on. Here is a little bit of our work on writing.

 Some may say I'm crazy for starting everything (all but listen to reading and that's coming tomorrow) in two days and that I'm doing it all wrong, and maybe I am. I know my kids though and they catch on fast. At this point in the year I really can't afford to spend weeks training and they don't need weeks anyway. My goal has been to engage them in Daily 5 and get them excited, get the basic expectations down and then correct mistakes as we go and so far it's worked.