Sunday, January 26, 2014

A Peek at My Week and Winter Reader Pack

A new week! Hopefully a full week, or at least full as full can be.  I'm linking up with Deedee over at Mrs. Will's Kindergarten for a Peek at my Week!

We have a teacher work day on Friday for grading and our team is taking a planning day on Wednesday to map out the 3rd Quarter.  BUT I'm just hoping for no snow days or 2 hour delays so the week still feels full :-)

This week we will FINALLY welcome our new para (classroom aid)! It has been quite the experience trying to find someone and actually hire them BUT it's finally done and I am hoping it works out great (fingers crossed!)

I put together this Winter Reader Pack to use with my kiddos during guided reading.  


There are 3 different levels to differentiate for your young learners.  You can pick it up HERE on sale through Tuesday night!  If you download the preview you will get the emergent reader for free! All my other winter items are also 20% off through Tuesday night as well!

We are continuing Tacky the Penguin this week! My kiddos absolutely LOVED the first book- especially when it tells how he marches.  All those random numbers, then 2 1/2 and 0! HAHA!  This week we are going to read Tacky and the Winter Games and Happy Birthday Tacky! 

 Here are my plans:





You can get the PDF version HERE and of course the word document with the links (annoying, I know... no progress has been made on figuring out my link issue) by clicking HERE.

Have a wonderful week! Stay warm! It's looking like a full week of indoor recess here- AHHHHHHH!!!!!! Head over to Mrs. Will's Kindergarten to peek at more weeks!

Friday, January 24, 2014

Five for Friday- super short week

Happy Friday!  I'm doing the usual Friday thing and linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my Five for Friday!
 One of my coworkers showed me this at lunch and I just had to share it!! One of her little ones was trying to label the "eyes" and, well, check out what they wrote instead:

 2 is the number of snow days we had this week, the number of days of school we had this week, AND the number of hours school was delayed on Thursday morning!  Here is what the snow looked like in DC:



 With a lack of students (my people tend not to show up when we have a 2 hour delay, or when it's super cold...) my plans got all messed up.  But today we jumped into our math centers.  We did a nonstandard measuring center to review last week.  they really love these things:



 We worked on telling addition stories using some cutie cute cute winter pictures!!


Here are some pictures of the new apartment!! The snow days really helped me organize, but not quite ready for real pics, so these are from before moving in :-)


LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Happy weekend everyone! Head back over to Doodle Bugs Teaching for more Five for Friday fun!!

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Peek at my Week- Tacky the Penguin!

Writing a quick post so you can peek at my week! Linking up with Deedee over at Mrs. Will's Kindergarten!
Super short and sweet because I've been moving all weekend and will be finishing tomorrow and am SUPER tired.  I actually forgot that today is Sunday!! OOPS! So glad there's no work tomorrow.  I also start my next grad class this week, UGH!!

This week is penguin week!! I heard about Tacky the Penguin last winter from the blog community and I am so excited to be reading the books this year!  We are talking about characters and how they react to events so these books will be perfect!  And check out Deanna Jump's Interactive Reading Response Journal papers- perfect for writing in response to this!  

Here are the plans:




You can grab the plans HERE and the file with the links HERE.

OMG!! I almost forgot!! My paraprofessional starts this week!!! We have been working with a sub in the room all year.  She is fantastic and we are going to miss her SOOOOO much, but I am excited to meet someone new and official :-)  That is why the plans are a little different on Thursday and Friday- don't want to overwhelm her!!

Jump back over to Mrs. Will's Kindergarten to check out more plans!  Have a great week!

Friday, January 17, 2014

Five for Friday- Already?

Soooooo, I kinda don't want to it to be Friday yet because that means I have a LONG 3 day weekend of moving ahead of me... At least there is an elevator involved at our new place!! BUT Friday also means linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday, which is always fun!


 We did some nonstandard measuring this week!  I always love teaching this!  I think it's fun and the kids find it fascinating that you can measure the same item but get different numbers!

 
 My little scientists started exploring with the concepts of sink and float!  They love being called scientists and I have very strict rules for experimentation time and they all do a great job with it! More of this next week :-)
 
 We turned our fact book about water into an All About Water book!  They all did a wonderful job of using their fact book to write things in their all about book!!  I can't wait to do more of these in the next couple of weeks.



 Total score at the Target $1 Spot yesterday!!  We are doing addition and subtraction over the next 2 weeks so these will be a center!  They are dry erase compatible :-D






 This is the view from our new place!!!  (that's the capitol dome and in the 2nd picture the Washington Monument!!!)  So excited!

Happy Friday everyone! Wish me luck during the move- I have a pinched nerve in my back that has been getting better but I'm afraid this is going to bother it :-(  Jump back to Doodle Bugs for more Friday fun!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

What?! Wednesday- She did what?

Happy Wednesday!!  I just realized today that I haven't done What?! Wednesday since October! YIKES!! I must have gotten VERY busy...  If you don't know, What?! Wednesday is a comment party (maybe a linky party one day! If you are interested in linking up with your own post let me know!).  You can see my October edition HERE.  

Here is the idea: you know we all LOVE those funny or ridiculous stories about our wonderful students that make you and your partners in crime coworkers say "What?!"  (or "EWWW" or "You gotta be kidding me!" You get the idea...) Well, I think it's time to start sharing with each other so we can all have a good laugh!




So my story today is unfortunately about an adult... I just have to share this one.  There is a particular sub who is at our building a lot who is a delightful person and I have always enjoyed her. (that's all I can say so as not to give too many clues to my team!)  Well, I was coming in and out of the room testing one day and she was walking around the room flossing her teeth (ok, fine, whatever... floss away.  Healthy gums and all that).  But the kicker was that she was SPITTING it on the FLOOR!! WHAT?!?! Are you kidding me?!


GROSS!!!


THEN when I sat down at my desk at lunch time (deep breath... I'm reliving it right now) I realized that she also did it while sitting at my table and there were particles ALL OVER IT! I'm talking on the table, the papers, everything!!!  WHO DOES THAT!! I was so grossed out yall.  Disgusting!  

Hopefully you weren't eating while reading that...  Now it's your turn to share!  Leave a comment to share your funny/cute/gross stories about the little ones we work with! (or the big ones in this case)  Can't wait to hear!

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Peek at My Week- Continuing Winter

Another Sunday, another lesson plan day!  Linking up with Deedee at Mrs. Will's Kindergarten to share the plans!
 We are continuing our winter theme this week and will be working with nonstandard measurement, which is perfect because Deedee has the perfect winter themed nonstandard measurement activity as part of her Baby It's Cold Outside Literacy and Math Stations.
Baby It's Cold Outside-Winter Literacy and Math Stations-CC

In writing we are making an All About Water book!  It will be the first All About book we do.  Last week we learned all about water and wrote facts and now we will use that book to write our All About book.  I love this unit of writing.  Should be fun!  We are also doing some sink and float experiments to close out our water learning, which the kiddos always love.  I'll share some pics on Friday.

Here are the plans.  On Tuesday we have the ever dreaded wonderful winter concert! (I was in band in elementary school- I know we were terrible... I just don't know how my parents sat through the concerts!)  And on Wednesday I'll be out for mid-year PALS testing.




 If you'd like a copy you can get it HERE.  And you can get the Word document with the links HERE.  (if you follow me you know that I am struggling with my PDFs having clickable picture with links... Ugh)

Hope you all have a good week!  Jump back over to Mrs. Will's Kindergarten to see more lesson plans!