Five for Friday...April 4

1. We preformed surgery today in Room 105. Contraction Surgery! Dr. Apostrophe came to visit and helped us combine two words to make a contraction. 

2. 67 days till the Philippines!

3. We are studying plants next week and we are going to try to recreate these fun Science Writing activities about the life cycle of plants. 

4. I'm headed to ATL tomorrow for the cutest little niece's baptism. 

5. We started playing domino train this week in math for extra practice seeing number patterns. My kids are loving this fun addition to our math rotations. 

Currently April

Hey! Happy April 1st/April Fools Day!

Luckily my kids were great today and no big pranks! I'm linking up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade for my first 'Currently'! 

~Rachel

Listening: I love NEEDTOBREATHE, they are on my running mix!

Loving: We are having great weather this week with the temp in the 70s everyday. Longer recess ahead!

Thinking: Currently trying to find a great price for my flight to the Philippines in June to work with Kids International Ministries!

Wanting: someone who will do my grad school work! Any takers.....

Needing: Writing is so subjective to grade. We are working with Lucy Calkins Units of Study on Opinions, any tips would be appreciated.

Last Day: May 23, only about 8 weeks left!
Hours: My kids come into my room at 7:40, when I taught in Auburn they came at 7:15! I like to get there at least 20-30 minutes early to reflect on the calm before the first grade storm!

Why a Teacher? Linky

Thanks Mrs. Reed for this great linky party.

 

This week's questions:

1.  What made you decide to become a teacher?

I grew up in a family of teachers, professional development happened every night at my dinner table as we heard the latest development in my Momma's classroom. (FYI: Best teacher and Mom I know, Happy Mother's Day!) I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, just refer to my Kindergarten writing that said so; however, in high school I started to question it because when I told people I was going to be a teacher everyone would say "Oh because your mom and sister are" 

Now this is not a bad thing, my mom and sister are the best teachers I know, but I wanted to make sure that this was my choice. So after prayer and reflection I knew this was my path: to mold young minds everyday, teaching about Christ + some first grade standards. 

2. What has been your most rewarding experience as a teacher?

Getting to eat cupcakes on all the birthdays! (jk..well, I am a sweetaholic!)

Last year I had a little boy who came to me not knowing his sounds, needless to say being a first year teacher this made me extremely nervous but God led the way and my little L learned how to read and how to love school. This was a message he wrote me and our reading coach(Mrs. Planz). I still tear up every time I read it. This is why my (35 hour week) turns into 60, because being the best for each student and encouraging them is the reason God made me a teacher. 

 

3. If you were not a teacher, what would you be?

Not really sure, but here is a list of possibilities:

1. baker

2. missionary

3. interior design

4. children's book author/illustrator

5. stay at home mom (when I find prince charming ha)

6. photographer/crafter

Thanks for dropping in! 

9 more school days! 

24 days till I'm back to the Philippines!

~Rachel 

Let's Get Acquainted!

I found Mrs. Reed's great linky through a fellow blogger and knew I wanted to join this fun adventure. Today's topic is:

Topic: My Classroom

We spend so much time in our classrooms.  It can be like a second home.  We will get acquainted today by sharing three(3) of our favorite areas in our classrooms.

1. I love books! My book center is under my reading loft and this year it grew to another shelf on the side. I think it is pretty substantial for only two years or teaching. I started my collection my senior year of undergrad. I ventured and searched out every thrift store I drove by and stocked up on as many good, quality, books. I also reorganized them into book tubs at the beginning of the year. My book tub labels are in my TPT shop if you want to grab them!

2. I have quite the HOLLYWOOD theme going on in my classroom and it correlates with my behavior chart. I used the very popular Pinterest model of moving up and down a behavior chart. I love this part of my room because it has really challenged my kids to understand that we all can make mistakes but it is how we overcome them that really matters. Also, who doesn't want to make it to "Oscar worthy" performance. I borrowed the idea from Cara and made my own!

3. My word wall and student work board are some of my favorite sights to see during the day. I find that every time I look at it I see the growth my students are making. I have to give credit to the "Produced by" side to my sister who helped me with my theme. My word wall of fame grows throughout the year, although I have to admit that I did a more consistent job adding words last year. If you are a new follower and don't know, this has been a really tough year for me, but I can make it! 

Can't wait to see what next Sunday's topic will be!

~Rachel (Miss A)

Five for Friday 4.3

Good morning to all!

I am relaxing this morning from my lovely couch as our school is out today for our Weather Day! I skipped last week but I am back for a 2 week edition of FIVE FOR FRIDAY!! Thanks to Kacey for this great adventure.

 1. Last weekend my Sunday school class had a fun get together full of great food and fun games. While I stayed away from the ping pong tournament, we did end the night playing Apples to Apples and little ole me WON! It was a great way to end a long school week.

2 & 3. Last week was teacher appreciation week so I am loaded up on all of my favorite things. I will be eating candy for a while before this stash diminishes and my house now is home to about 4 bouquets of flowers. Seeing that I don't have a green thumb I am proud to announce that they are still blooming strong. Don't you wish every week was teacher appreciation week! It's like Christmas in the Spring.

4. Yesterday we took our first grade field trip. It was a beautiful day(unlike today's pouring rain) and we got to visit CiCi's pizza, the fire station, library and ended our day with lunch in the park. At Cici's we got to tour the restaurant and then make our own pizzas! It was a huge hit! The kids had a great time and I can't wait to see if they are still talking about it on Monday!

4.5 We ended our time unit and jumped right into graphing in math. We had a blast collecting data and then compiled it all into a big graphing poster. We used the long sheets of construction paper to display our data, tally charts, pictographs, and bar graphs. We called it 'bookless' math because we didn't open our book all week! In my opinion that is always the best math! 

We took our test this Monday and I loved seeing their Performance Task answers. They had to create 2 graphs and formulate a question. Who is your favorite singer was a popular one, which was surprising because we didn't use that one during the week! 'Talor' Swift was much more popular than Justin 'Beber' winning 9-1. My favorite was when I was a choice. I sing all the time in the classroom but I will be honest I am not good ha! However, to this precious one I could beat out Taylor Swift! Another one of mine listed 'uncle cracker' as an option. I really wanted to ask "How do you even know who he is??" 

5. I made a string art cross and few weeks back and decided to create some other fun things this past week. This time I made the state of Alabama with a heart over Auburn! War Eagle! The string is orange which is even more fitting. I can make any state with a heart over any place so check them out on my Etsy shop!

Happy Weekend!

Rachel 

Five for Friday 4.1

Happy Friday and Happy April!

Can you believe that we only have 33 days left of school?? It is crazy how the time flies!

I'm happy to be back from a restful Spring Break linking up with Kacey from

1. Last week, I took the week off to truly focus on relaxing during Spring Break. My mom and I did visit the teacher store but it was a blast and I was able to pick some things up for our time unit and some great books so we can start our author series.

 2. I was home for Easter and it was a great day to celebrate our RISEN SAVIOR and spend time with family. Here is the brother and me. We were missing the sister and bro-in-law but happy they got to celebrate with their church in ATL.

3.We finished up our flower unit with a fun craftivity, that I am sure I found on Pinterest at some point last year. It is a great labeling activity. We used cupcake liners for the petals, pipe cleaners, sunflower seeds and then colored the rest.

 4. We started our time unit this week and fell in love with this HUMAN CLOCK! All I had to do was draw up some numbers and the kids did all the rest. By the end of the week, they were begging to play and could even set up the game without my help. I gave them 'time cards' (which were just index cards) and had them write down at least 5 times using phrasing like 'half past 4:00 and 2 o'clock" and then they got to create their time. Their hands were the hour hand and their legs were the minute hands! Even though it's not a first grade standard, by the end of the week we were making time to the 5 and 15 minute marks.

5. My week has been non-stop this week because last week I started my Masters program! I have spent most of my free time reading these fun books. Who knew going back to school would be so hard! Happy Friday!

Rachel

              

Five for Friday 3.3

It's finally SPRING BREAK for this 1st grade teacher!

1. We are on chapter 9 of Go-Math which is all about Measurement and my kids have LOVED it. I made them each a measurement bag (10 cm cubes, 10 paperclips, 15 unifix cubes) that they use during the day and take home to complete homework. We measured everything in our room from the length of our desk to the height of our loft and the width of our room. Here are some friends using their tools. 

2. As mentioned last week, I went to Nashville over the weekend and had a great time with great friends celebrating St. Patty's day. 

 3. I LOVE 1st grade! I came back in on Tuesday only to find 20 amazing notes about how much I was missed. I felt like a celebrity when my kids came in as well because they acted like they had not seen me in years!

4. I forgot to mention this last week but if you remember my funny story about buying 6 boxes of Lucky Charms you will be happy to know that we used them! We graphed the marshmallows last Friday and then got to eat them during our Friday movie time! We loved "tasting the rainbow"

5. This week we studied flowers and so we watched how colored water moved through celery like it moves through flower stems and made these fun label projects. 

After Spring Break we are making "bunny contractions" and band-aids for our "ow" words. 

Well I am off to my long, much needed break! Happy Friday!

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 3.2

Welcome to the Weekend! It's time to recap the week!

 1. We reviewed our vowel teams this week, adding on this week's skill of 'ie' and 'igh'. However, the next day some sneaky little leprechaun feet found their way onto our chart. Lucky the Leprechaun later poured green glitter all over our desks and turn all of our chairs upside down. My kids spent most of their early finisher time 'thinking they heard him knocking on the loft floor' and searching the room for our wee little friend.  They were precious!

 2. We reviewed how to write a friendly letter; I will be out on Monday and they will be writing one so we made this fun anchor chart. I drew it out in black and white and then let my friends color it as a prize for having good behavior! 

 3. We have fallen in LOVE with Jack and Annie from the Magic Tree House series. Last week we made this story plot chart and then this week we are comparing it to "Leprechaun in late Winter." 

4. I have a little boy who came up to me twice this week and just sat there. I asked him what was going on and LN said "Nothing is going on, I just like you" (How precious!) and then gave me flowers he had picked outside. The next time he said " I just like you Miss A, I want to be on your team." I kept talking and found out that he wanted to be on my team for earning points. 

We use the Whole Brain Teaching incentive system where my class earns points when they do great things and then I earn points if we are talking too loud or not following directions. The one at the end of the day with the most wins. The class normally chooses extra center time or a movie and then I normally choose a writing activity if I win. We have a big talk before where I explain them that my activity will always be something that helps us grow smarter but may not always be as fun as a movie. 

Later in the day LN went and added his name "N" to the Miss A column. #firstiefunnies

 5. So this whole year I have been struggling with one little girl who has some behavioral/emotional issues. I've gone through it all but I don't want to go into that. I was encouraged this week by her journal though! She is listening to me!!! I tell her every time she acts up, that I love her and that is the reason that I care about her making better choices. 

"My favorite peopel(person) is Miss A because she is nice. She is a good drawer. I love Miss A because she loves me too. She is 24. She is a good teacher." 

5.1 We started our chapter on measurement this week and started by comparing length and ordering it using the terms longest and shortest. I took this picture mid project. After they cut the string and put them in order they labeled the longest one and the shortest one. Then they had to write a sentence such as "The brown string is the longest. or The tan string is longer than the pink string." They did very well and loved getting to cut their own string and decide its length. 

Happy Weekend, I'm off to Nashville for a much needed weekend with some friends. 

~Rachel 

 

Five for Friday 3.2

Welcome back and happy weekend!

It's Five for Friday time!

1. We spent the beginning of the week writing our first book report on our favorite Dr. Seuss book. They did pretty well and our computer teacher let us type them up and add pictures today! We ended our Dr. Seuss unit with making Thing 1 word families.

2. On Wednesday we got to pick any object in our room to describe using adjectives: size, shape, color, number, what kind. They were so cute while they observed their object. The loft was a HUGE hit!

3. We finished Chapter 8 in our math series and spent the last two days reviewing with this unit. Find it here. 

4. My mom and I are booking our flight back to Manila, PI this weekend! I am super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us this summer!

5. I tutor some of our ESL students two days after school and on Thursday I had a fabulous conversation with one of them about the Lord. I asked her if she needed to do her 20 minutes of reading, and she said that she does that at home when she reads the Bible. She was currently reading Psalms, Proverbs, & Luke. WOW! This young girl(5th grade) then told me about how her mother took them to church and how she loved it, but how they only could go to church on the weekends her father went away golfing. She told me that she heard her parents fight because her mother wanted the kids to know about the Lord. She was worried for her grandmothers too because "they believe Buddha" as she said. I told her that I would pray for her dad and family with a hope that they accept the Lord's love for them soon. Please pray with me for this sweet young girl's family. 

Happy Friday!

~Rachel 

Five for Friday 3.1

Thanks to Kacey for linking us up each week!

1. Our assistant principal sent this out us this week after our Accreditation team left town! Isn't Dr. Seuss the best! My kids absolutely LOVE him, we have been laughing all week long as we read. 

2. We have been writing about Dr. Seuss's books this week using our Cat in the Hat booklets. 

             

Their challenge this week was to read one of these books to me by themselves. If you haven't noticed Dr. S's books are rather long but my firsties were up to the challenge and even my slower readers were really pumped. They received 10 free computer minutes as a PRIZE!!

In other Dr. Seuss news, we wrote about the Cat in the Hat on Monday using adjectives(our monthly grammar skill) and my friend and I created this fun bulletin board with a little help from pinterest. 

We also did a tally/graphing exercise with the book One Fish, Two Fish... using colorful goldfish.

3. Today, the first grade teachers along with our Reading coaches did literacy rotations. My rotation was teaching the kids how to draw The Cat in the Hat! It was really fun and interesting to see some of their pictures! But fun was had by all!

4. This past weekend, some of the girls in my Sunday School class went to the lake for a girls' retreat. I made these delicious Oreo bars. Come back this weekend to get the recipe! They were a HUGE hit!

5. We read The Dot this week. What a fun story! I found a fun activity called Dot Duo. Each child created their own dot, then you cut them in half and switch your half with a partner. You glue the two halves together on a sheet of paper and create your masterpiece! 

I also have a freebie for you, we played these fun Connect 4 games with our weekly skills: 'ea' and inflected endings. I also created the games for next week: 'oa' and three letter blends. I put the boards in page protectors and we used dry erase markers to try and make 4 in a row. 

Here is the link!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss tomorrow!!