Five For Friday and A New Product!

YAY!!! I'm so happy to be linking back up with Doodle Bugs for Five For Friday. I've missed blog hopping and reading about all the week's happenings of some of my favorite bloggers. So, here we go....

1. I started school this week. I blogged about it here in my previous post. I do have a tough group this year.... it's actually just a tough group across the board. In fact, we second grade teachers have had our eyes on this group 2 yrs ago when they were just wee little kindergarteners. Oh boy, the were tough back then and we prayed... we PRAYED that the kinder teachers would work some magic. Well, they tried but this group resisted. Then we prayed for our first grade teachers to work THEIR magic. But to no avail, this group of kids still struggled in every way. And seriously... I honestly think that we have the BEST kinder and first grade teachers around! I mean, if they couldn't even turn them around then we knew that we had our work cut out for us this year. Just thinking out loud here... but WHAT the heck was in the water 6-7 years ago???!!! I'm just sayin'. Well, tonight I just got an email from my team teacher that these past 2 days (Thurs and Fri) were TOUGH! In the first week of school, we really spent A LOT of time going over procedures like CRAZY and they were still not getting it.  Kids not lining up, getting out of their seats, talking, etc.  My poor partner said that she felt like crying! Oh no! I wonder what would happen if I just didn't show up got sick on Monday? I'm thinking that Monday will require some extra coffee with 10 shots of espresso and some extra EXTRA practice of procedures.

2. Since we started school on Wednesday and I work Mon-Wed, I only worked one glorious day this week. :) We did have a good first day. We did some fun activities that I already blogged about but will give you the short version here. My favorite thing that we did on the first day of school was my time capsule activity. Here are some pictures from it.

They filled out their favorites at the beginning of the year and will fill it out again at the end. Last year, it was so fun to hear my students compare their choices from the first day to the last day of school!

 I went around and measured each student with a piece of yarn and then put each student's yarn in a ziplock with their name on it and tucked it away in an envelope until the end of the year. Btw, YES...... I am wearing my fuzzy black slippers. My poor feet were not used to wearing heels all day because of summer.  

At the end of the year, students measure their yarn and write down how many inches tall they were and then measure their current height. I attach the ziplock on this page. 

You can read more about this activity on my post here.

3. Our church was a host site for the Global Leadership Conference. I served at it and then got to go for FREE... and you know that free is ALWAYS the right price! This is the second year that I've gone and I always walk away feeling inspired. It's not just Christian leaders speaking, but all kinds of high level leaders. Here are some..

 This is Mark Burnett. He is the executive producer of The Voice, Survivor, The Bible Mini Series, Shark Tank, and many others. He totally impressed me! 

Colin Powell was AWESOME!!! Loved listening to his take on leadership!

4. Last Sunday, my Roman's Project group met for dinner. This group is basically made up of 11 ladies who some have never met each other before. What we do have in common is our journey through memorizing chapters of the bible together. We are spending this year memorizing Romans Chapter 1,8, and 12. We just finished chapter 1 and went to dinner to celebrate this big accomplishment! 

5. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate my mother in laws birthday at my old workplace. I was a rollerskating waitress at a 50's diner before I began teaching. It was so fun and I have not been back for years! I'm excited to go back and bring my kids there. I think that there might still be pictures of little ole' me in my 50's carhop outfit hanging on the walls. We shall see tomorrow.  You can check out the cute little restaurant here.

Now for my new product!

I'm finally done with another one of my TPT units!  YIPPEEE!!!! This is a reading comprehension unit with thinking maps and Daily 5 activities. There are TONS of activities in this unit that I've used in my class for years but finally got around to making it cutesy. Some of these files are editable so that you can adjust them to the needs of your classroom. There is even a Daily 5 Suggestion page filled with activities from my unit. If you have never heard of Daily 5 or are thinking about implementing it in your class.... you really need to just DO IT! I LOVE it and so do my students! 

Worksheets are common core aligned and standards are written on the appropriate pages. There are some card games that are also editable. I encourage you to download the preview and see this great resource (ok, I *may* be a little biased) that can be used in your classroom!

Reading Comprehension Unit

One of my six original comprehension strategy chant posters

This is an ADORABLE activity that helps students work with what a sentence is. 

They feed these dragons sentences and sentence fragments. So fun!

If you would like to see more previews you can visit my TPT store here.

That's my week, friends.  Can't wait to blog hop and see what the other teachers have been up to. Thanks for reading!

Blessings,

First Day... Hooray?

Weeeeellll.... not quite. I mean, yes and no. Don't get me wrong, I DO love teaching... but I love my summer breaks, too. :) Today was the first day of school and I realized that the first day of school is always the hardest for me. Not only is it the longest day until summer break (lol) but it's the newness of it all in the tiring sense. Yes, I love decorating my room, I love meeting new students, I LOVE seeing my coworkers that I've missed all summer long BUT I don't like starting ALLLLL over again. Teachers, you know what I'm talking about here. Going over procedures and school/class rules, and sit down, no.. raise your hand BEFORE you speak, and this is how we line up, and no, you can't just walk up to me when I'm giving instructions, and don't forget to put your name on your paper, and this is how you pass out papers, and wait, who's picking you up today? ... wow! I'm tired!

Although it was a full day of me talking and creating guidelines for our class, there were some fun things that we did throughout our day. I had students work on their time capsule activity that can be found here or here. It's from my end of the school year Memory Book unit. There are activities in the beginning of the memory book that are to be done in the beginning of the year to show growth. Our little friends drew and answered questions about themselves as I measured each of them with a piece of yarn.  Here are some shots from today:





This is the "Favorites" page that they will revisit at the end of the year. They are always amazed after a full year has gone by, saying, "I liked THAT song??" or "Oh yeah... I remember when I used to like....."  So neat to reflect!

 Love the lashes here!

Cute button nose....

AHHH!!!! This one concerns me a bit. At first I thought it looked like those monster school girl dolls ( I don't know the actual name), then I thought it was a black eye.. THEN I realized maybe it was her bangs?? I don't know, but those teeth look scary. I did commend her for her details though. :)

This is one that I added to my unit at the end of last year. Kids trace or stamp their hands with a black crayon/ink at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year we trace the hand over the smaller hand with a red crayon. My kids loved doing this last year. They were amazed at how much bigger their hands had grown.

This is me going around to each table and measuring them with black yarn. THEY will do this again at the end of the year (since they will know how to measure by then) with a different color yarn.

I then put their yarn in a ziplock with their names and number on it and stick it in a large manila envelope and tuck it away until that one glorious day that tells me the end is near. (Isn't that sad?? I'm already thinking about next summer. Ha!) Kids don't do the bottom part of the page until the end of the year (on the next picture). I don't have them measure their yarn simply because... well.... I haven't taught them how to measure yet. 

At the end of the year after THEY finish measuring each other, then take their new piece of yarn and lay them side by side and measure them. Then they will go back and fill in how many inches tall they were in the beginning of the year and how tall they are now. **Important note: make sure that you measure them correctly at the beginning of the year or you may have kids thinking that they did not grow at all or worse.....that they are shrinking (dum-dum- dummmmmm). This *may* have happened to me.  Poor kid. It's ok. He's fine ... now that he got some counseling. :)    

Here are some pictures of my students doing it from LAST year's class. Oh,  how I LOVE them! 

Miss his sweet face!

LOVE that they were working together, even comparing their beginning of the year yarn with each other. Awwwww....my sweet but rowdy boys. :)

Last year I had them stamp their hands on construction paper in the beginning of the year and I tucked it away. Now I've added a page for this in my unit.

  

This is the new added page with the handprints...

This really is a neat and fun activity for the kids. I'm always so happy when I pull these out at the end of the year and the kids look through their time capsules, laughing and comparing. We are the same way. We all love reflecting! We do it while we look through old pictures or find things from years past. It causes us to sit, slow down, and enjoy the times we have since they go by too quickly.

I love having my kiddos look back and reflect about their school year and then show what they know.

If you are interested in my time capsule activity in my Remembering the School Year Memory Book you can check it out in my TPT store. If you get the End of the Year Bundle, it comes with the memory book (Cover is editable) and A to Z learning. Annnnd if you purchase the bundle that includes the two units together you are saving almost half the cost of just the A-Z Learning packet alone! The A-Z  unit is good for grades 1-3. I include different grade level covers with the ability to edit the school year.

Thanks for stopping by, friends! Hope you are squuueeeezing out the last of your summer vacation days if you haven't started yet. And for those who have started back at school, hope that your school year runs smoothly and that you join me in counting down to the glorious days of summer again. :)

Blessings,

August Currently

YAY!!!! I'm finally back on the Currently wagon! I've missed doing these link ups these past couple of months. This summer has been a busy one and I'm excited to hopefully get back into the swing of things and get back to blogging more.

 Listening to Jason Mraz on Pandora. LOVING Pandora!!!

Loving my girl time.  My hubby took my boys camping and so right now I am having a Shutterfly night with my friends. While my friends are working on their photo books, I am working on my next TPT unit... which is sickly relaxing for me. :) My computer is the one with the huge binders next to them.. 

 Thinking of work tomorrow. I am one of the Thinking Maps trainers for my school and am presenting it to to my staff tomorrow. I love Thinking Maps and all that you can do with them! Anybody else do Thinking Maps???

Wanting a haircut. I NEED a haircut!!! My hair is long... but getting scraggly. I'm long overdue for a trim.

Needing to finish my classroom. We begin school next week and I'm still finishing up my class. There is still SO much that I want to do. 

 BTs Must Haves -

1. I LOVE my 31 bag! It holds EVERYTHING!! If you've never been to a 31 bag party, you gotta go and check out these bags. I'm really not a bag party type of gal, but I really love and believe in these bags.

2. Bright Classroom Decor - I've had the same classroom decor for years now and it's time to switch it up. I've  seen so many  REALLY cute bright classroom decor on TPT and I'm super excited to make over my classroom.

3. I've been downloading many things from TPT and printing them. I just realized that I put copier... but I really meant printer. I've seen some teachers printing and laminating things on their own. I am SO thankful that our school provides this for the teachers. 

That's my August Currently friends! School is starting soon so I'm sure that I will be posting more about my busy days. :)

Blessings,

NOOOOOOO!!!! You Can't Make Me Go Back!!

Ok, sooooo... my title may be a bit "dramatic" about going back to school. Juuuusta bit. FINE! There are *some* that may say that I am dramatic (WHHAAATTT??!!! Meeeee??).  I like to call it.... "expressive". There was that one time when I was at the grocery store all stressed out trying to buy last minute food for a party and the bag boy told my best friend that I was, quote, fun to watch, unquote. Allllrighty little boy, just stick to bagging the groceries, mmmmkaaay?

 But I'm serious. I'm not even ready to go back.

I'm seeing all these happy posters at Target and Walmart and to be honest.... I ain't NEVER seen a kid smile like that while thinking of going back to school! The image I have is of parents skipping down the store back to school aisles while their kids follow sadly behind.  Don't know if you've seen this old Staples commercial but I absolutely LOVE it!

I'm looking on Instagram and all these teaching blogs...and man, am I the ONLY one who feels like I am not ready to go back?? These AWESOME teachers have their rooms all cutesyfied and colorful and mine? Well... my school begins in 2 weeks and so, maybe I haven't gone to school at all. Just maybe. Don't freak out though. I'm going in on Monday. I'm just trying the squeeeeeeze all the summer out of these next 2 weeks. Ya see, I used to be like this parent in this commercial, but ever since my kids got a bit older.. they are just plain FUN to have around! AND to top it all off, their school doesn't even start for another month!!! Not only do I have to find places for them, but I have to miss out on all the fun of watching them explore and play and grow and relax without running on the hamster wheel of "Hurry! Hurry! Do homework, go to practice, eat dinner... faster, faster, FASTER! Get dressed...lunches? Backpacks? Sign WHAT?? Due WHEN??!!" I hate this rushing life. Right about now is when homeschooling looks REAL good to me. Just sayin'.  Don't get me wrong, I DO love my job! I feel that I am called to teach and this job is perfect for who I am. I am excited to try new things and implement the common core this year (NO State Testing for 2nd grade!!!! Wooohoooo!!). I'm excited about organizing my classroom (before the kids come in and mess it up. KIIIIDDING. Kidding.). I'm looking forward to seeing my coworkers (I LOVE my friends!) and meeting my new kids and seeing my old ones. Man, I do miss them! BUT I am allowed to not wish away summer so quickly. Just trying to find a happy balance here.

I'm setting up my class next week and I've been getting MANY wonderful ideas from teacher blogs and Pinterest. We'll see how much I get done before I rush home to play with the kiddos. :)


Blessings,