Back to the Grind…Five for Friday 11.6

I've been through a roller coaster the last few months! I had my beautiful and super smiley little girl, Baby L. I love her to death and her older sister loves her as well. The transition has been pretty smooth for K actually. We have visitors for quite a bit of my maternity leave, but I'm very thankful to have had the help around. Just before I was to go back to school, my precious grandpa passed away. I have not had to deal with death in my side of the family and it was, and still is at times, very difficult. Because of that, I extended my leave for a week.

 The week I went back was a fabulous week *sarcasm* to go back. It was Halloween week, Red Ribbon Week with dress up days, full moon, and Parent/Teacher conferences. Let's just say I was exhausted by the time Friday came around.

This week I did my best to get the kids used to me and what our now normal routines are going to be.  I also wanted to put into practice some of the things I've thought about while I've been away.

My social studies topic for this quarter is explorers. I had planned on doing a different project that we did last year. We were to begin this the my extra week off, so I wasn't quite ready when I had to go take care of family things. My wonderful sub and I were able to quickly put together this and I'm loving it! I still need to tweak a few things, but I'm glad we did it.

I came up with a list of required facts the kids had to find and at least 3 extra facts of their choice. I also gave them the freedom to decide how they wanted to present their information. Most students did choose to make a poster, but a few ventured into making iMovies. Today we watched the iMovies using Reflector. Tomorrow we will do a gallery walk with the other posters. 

To help our staff become more comfortable with Kagan structures and not overwhelmed, we are doing a Kagan structure each month. In my intervention reading class, we used "Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up" to share their responses about things they collect. (We just started reading Donavan's Word Jar, and are using Mrs. Jones's book study.) They paired up three different times with someone who was not their neighbor, then sat back down. 

I pulled out some partner plays from Deb Hanson to practice fluency. They loved the fun little stories! They also rolled their eyes at me when they had to read whatever part they were handed. That meant that a few of the boys had to be "Mom." They got over it and had fun it.

Here they were reading the plays from her Fall/Halloween plays.

In math, we have ventured back into using Gaggle to watch my lesson videos. I can now include exit ticket questions directly in the Gaggle assignment! I'm excited to see how it works out when we get to a lesson that doesn't need drawings in the answer. However, my workshop for when they are finished with the video needs some work. To help with it, I decided to whip up a basic "Number of the Day" to review basic things. After more decimal lessons, we'll move into using Teaching to Inspire with Jennifer Findley's "Of the Day" resources 

Click to download my Free Number of the Day packet.

My sweet family at our school Halloween Safe Night Carnival

We have Rapunzel and a sweet strawberry.

My husband just wore his fire duty clothes, I was a last minute witch.

Linking up with Doodlebugs!

Thanks for stopping by! I will try to stop in myself a little more often with more things to share!

Keep Smiling!

*Steph*

Beginnings of 2015-16 *Five for Friday*

I have ventured into my room and began the setup process. I actually started a week or so ago, but only in furniture placement. I'm still figuring out what exactly I want since I got rid of old fixtures, acquired new, and moved existing. Today I started with some smaller things to try to get my brain to focus. I did a lot of brainstorming and note taking. It's easier to think about it when I'm actually in my room. 

I started jotting down the things I needed to make labels or signs for. I initially was going to make labels for my plastic drawers. Then I realized that I don't have cutesy fonts and clipart, I don't like laminating, and that I didn't want to scour TPT looking for editable labels either paid or free. 

(I had a minor panic attack during tax season this year…time to scale back on classroom purchases.)

Last year I had ended up writing on the drawers with dry erase marker. When I tried to clean it off the first time, it wasn't working. That's why I figured I'd just make labels and cover it. Then I thought, if I can use dry erase to get Sharpie off things, it should definitely get other dry erase off. Voila! It worked. (Silly and simple, yes…. overly excited preggo over here, yes)

It is a quick easy way to label drawers in a non-permament way. If I need to change what one of the drawers is for, I don't have to recreate a label. All I do is wipe it off and write what I need it to say.

The white drawers were the first attempt to erase the marker.

The black drawers show how cleanly the dry erase came off of the top drawer and how well the dry erase label actually help up throughout the year.

I moved my blank papers from the black drawers to the white drawers for this year. 

If it fades over the year, no big deal. 

I can simply rewrite it in a fun new color, of course.

Nothing fancy, but efficient and useful. 

I will be labeling some drawers and crates, but I'll share those when I stop being mad at my Mac and my incompetency with it. :) 

So I know I made a quip but classroom purchases, but I needed new chair covers for my room. My old ones were just a tad to small since moving from 4th grade chairs to 5th grade chairs and that was an annoyance all year. Lucky for me, JoAnn Fabrics had a great sale on bottomweight material when combined with their 25% total purchase! (valid through tomorrow 7/18) 

This material will wash better than the canvas I previously used and my kids don't have have textbooks so the covers shouldn't get too abused.

My mom and I are going to whip them out while she's up here and I'm on maternity leave. That means they won't be ready for the 1st day of school, but it'll be ok.

Target dollar spot! We made a "learning corner" in our hallway. 

Kasila really likes to find things that match, so I put up her name and her soon-to-be lil sis's name. 

She found the "x" all by herself. :)

I got my hair done! 

It's not really much different from what I normally do, but it's nice to know that my roots aren't down to my ears. I also had 3 inches taken off to make up for my lack of upkeep and overabundance of split ends.

Now I just need a nice pedi for my swollen feet.

My daughter and I went on a hike (more of a walk) with some of my coworkers. It was an overcast day but it was very pretty!

I may have pushed it a little too far being 37 weeks along as I felt like I was going to die the rest of the day and didn't move far from the couch. 

Yes, my daughter hikes in tutus. 

*Steph*

Five for Friday….June 26

This week was pretty family focused…which will probably be the case for the summer, but it's still fun to share!

Hope you all had a great week!

Happy Father's Day!!

I got a new phone…this was on the way home from the store.

Silagirl wanted an "Elsa braid." 

This was as good as it gets with her little hair.

She then proceeded to sing "Let it go! Let it go!" over and over again.

Daddy's little helper, whether he wants help or not. :)

They are clearing an area for our swing set to be moved and putting in some sand.

My hubby just left for a 4 week job up in the Bering Strait area with his summer job. I'm not super excited about it, but I know that it'll pass and that this is a great opportunity for him. The main part that concerns me is that he is scheduled to be home about 9 days before my due date. Let's hope our little girl decided to stay put until Daddy is home.

Us before he left out the door… our daughter wearing her "Rapunzel" hair.

Five for Friday...a day late 5.23

School's Out!

Here's a look at our last week and a half.

1. My math class started Course 2 Coding from Code.org. My district is implementing a coding/computer science scope and sequence for next year. I decided to give my kiddos a head start as the new implementation will start in elementary. They loved it, especially when they would finally beat/figure out a challenging level.

 2. We reviewed the how to use TumbleBooks so that students can continue to read over the summer. It is a great site if you haven't checked it out. 

 3. My math kiddos made "Fraction Flowers." They drew a fraction card and then had to write it as a decimal, percent, equivalent fraction, ratio, and an equivalent ratio. 

4. We had our 5th Grade Lock In. At midnight we held a talent show, and this sweetie busted out his break dance moves.

5. We played "4 Men On A Couch" as part of our last day of school. The kids ate it up! We played for almost 2 hours before even 1 student seemed to be done. It was amazing! I used to play with my cousins at family reunions.

How to play:

Students sit in a circle with one extra chair. The teams are formed just by sitting every other one (I used stickers so they could tell who was their team member) and you have 4 designated "couch" spots. Everyone's name goes into a bowl and then everyone draws for a new, secret name. The person to the left of the empty chair calls a name. Whoever drew that as their new name, moves to the empty chair. Play continues likewise. The point is to remember people's new name, and to get 4 people from your team into those designated spots.

*Bonus* 6. I had a 'high tea' with my friend and team member who is moving to Jackson, TN next week. As you can see, it was adorable! It was also super delicious! 

p.s. If you have any K-6 teaching contacts in that TN area, let me know and I'll pass it along! She's pretty amazing! :) 

{4.24} Five for Friday

We are lucky enough to have a fabulous half time art teacher! This wall used to have a different mural on it, that in my opinion wasn't very pleasing to look at. This year she decided to have students paint over it and break it into sections to represent the different animals & habitats in Alaska. These are some 5th graders working. I'm super excited about the final product!

I do not have any sons nor do I have to help my husband tie his tie. This young man asked me to help him with his this morning. Uh-oh. 

Luckily, we had a male sub in our grade level or else I would have sent him to our 1 male teacher in 3rd grade or our custodian.

How many males do you have working in your building?

April snow showers are common here… we ended up with this one for a a day and half. 

Hopefully we're done with it now. :)

We used Socrative again! I love it! 

I created a 10 question review for our last three lessons. Students worked this quiz at their pace and then moved right into the lesson video. I downloaded the report and I love how they color coordinate so that I can see right away which were answered correctly or not. I'm a little sad to see that much red, but at least I know what we need to go over again before our quiz.

I ended up with an unexpected doctor appointment yesterday afternoon for our coming baby girl. We had an assembly in the afternoon so it was fairly easy to adjust for a sub. Everything ended up being just fine and I was out of the office within an hour. That meant that I got to spend the majority of a wonderful sunny afternoon with my toddler. She loves her leaves, sticks and dirt!