Five for Friday 9/19

Happy Friday all my bloggy friends!

Five Good Things that happened this week:

1 - Well, this is a little old - but I'm sharing anyway, because as I took them down yesterday, I just thought they were so cute - 

So, the background. At the beginning of the year, I read this delightful book,

 

And then we talked about how we all get T-shirts when we go visit someplace. I gave each child this T-shirt cut-out, and they drew a picture and added a sentence about something they did this summer. I thought they turned out pretty nice - and it was a fun back to school project.

2 - No pictures - boo hiss - I even wrote myself a note! We read about dragonflies, then wrote about them and drew pictures. Some kids even wrote "Dragonflies" really fancy. I hung them up to replace the T-Shirts. Oh, I hope I can remember to snap some pics next week! 

3 - I had one little friend that "forgot" the rule about not hitting other people at recess, and he spent the day in in-school suspension and the next day at home. When he came back, he body-slammed other students - the first time on accident, but then.... So another day in in-school suspension. Thursday, this little friend told me, "You guys sure did a lot while I was gone." Umm, yea, I think we did. 

4 - We are doing measuring in math right now - and the kids are loving it. Today we got to measure with yard sticks, so they were up and out of their seats - measuring book shelves, desks, books, chairs, etc. {A horrible aside - our district is using Engage NY and our supplies for this include rulers in inches on both sides, and  yard sticks. However, Engage NY is asking us to use centimeter rulers and meter sticks. How does that work???}

5 - I have four little friends that are low, low, low - So for our sight words, I made some cute, silly little stories using some clip art I had bought. {Now I know why the textbook companies get so much money - it's really hard to figure out sentences that low readers can read!}

I just clicked these pics off my computer; I need to print them and put them in these old, little photo albums I have. I'm sort of excited to see if my low kids will like these. 

Have a great weekend everybody!

Yes, I'm still here

This is how the month of August went:

Spend as much time with my soon-to-be-going-to-college girl.

Try to squeeze in some school prep time.

Actually HAVE to go to school because the district told me I had to report on August 12.

Three days of in-service - the first one just about made me wonder if I had made the right choice in staying with this job. So many "don'ts!" {The second two days were MUCH better!}

Spent two days furiously trying to get my room ready.

Start teaching, while trying to get my girl excited about packing {and hopefully cleaning her room! HA!}

Leave school early Thursday to start the trek up to college town.

Have a WONDERFUL experience moving that girl in - everything just fell into place. And we spent some time together before Hub Bub and I headed home.

Start a class to get my ESOL endorsement - read, read, read, and post on a discussion board. 

Have a get away weekend with Hub Bub - Denver Colorado was wonderful! 

OK, school wise - I have been working on building class community - how do we work together, how do we build each other up, how do we speak nicely to each other. And class rules and class procedures - probably everything everyone else is doing right now. 

I'm trying to practice, practice, practice until they can't stand it any more. And they are doing it in their sleep. Ha - today, they were at centers and one of the centers is a making words one - and they are supposed to use these letter tiles, like we've practiced at least 4 times! Did they? No! Did I even notice? No! {Dur, Mrs. S.!} Ack! At my last rotation, this sweet little girl asked me, "Aren't we supposed to use the letter tiles?" Umm, yeah. So I'm thinking we all still need some reminders. 

So that's sort of the crazy way my world is going right now. Trying to get enough sleep and sit down when I can so my tootsies don't hurt :) 

Have a great Wednesday {tomorrow} of our short week!

This Might Be The Year

I came downstairs to my desktop computer Saturday morning to write a blog post, only to find out we had no internet service at our house! Yikes! Imagine a house with a teenager and no internet. Really, that's almost unimaginable! And after two calls, we were told they could get to us on Wednesday. However, something wonderful happened, and the cable guy came today, and did one little thing {and was annoyed at the call center for not telling us to try it} and we're up and running! Yahoo!!

So my blog post was going to start like this -

This might be the year. The one that I've heard other teachers talk about. That kind of year, where everything aligns just right and I can call it a good year. 

First of all, this has never happened - I have 18 kids on my class list. But I'm pretty sure one isn't going to make it. So 17! What!?! I've never started a year with less than 20, usually more like 21 or 22. This makes me do a little happy dance.

Second, I don't know any of these kids. You know what I mean? None of them have a reputation - and that's good news. 

Third, {who else does this?} - I checked DRA scores online - WooHoo, everybody is at least in the double digits. Never happened before. Usually have 2 or 3 or 4 that are down in the singles. Not that I don't love 'em, but it just makes life easier. 

Fourth - first day of school today - yes, it's just half a day and yes, we're all on our best behavior - but it went great. They followed directions, they went along with all my ideas, they were just fun to be with.

So I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that this is that year that I can call Terrific!

Letting Things Go

It has been a long week around here. 

This parched area of the world finally got some rain last Sunday night. The rain helped us realize that one of our window wells filled up with water and that water emptied into our basement. That wasn't terrible - my daughter was downstairs, and consequently, we caught it pretty quickly. 

Two nights later, I had made a trip to the Big City, and it poured at home. We weren't as fortunate. My husband bailed water out of the window well for almost an hour, while my daughter tried to contain the flood in the basement. But we still had a good 2 inches of standing water under the window.

Last night, same thing - but on a smaller scale. {Yeah, I know - 3 nights with rain is just plain unheard of here!}

This has meant a basement that I can hardly walk through because furniture has been scooted here and there. And there are two industrial strength fans running and a humidifier. It is very noisy down here, which gives me a little headache. And all these machines running make it pretty warm in our normally cool basement. And this is where I do all my work for school when I'm at home.

I realized this morning, I have one week left until we start 3 days of in-services and 2 work days. If you saw a post I wrote earlier this summer, I like to have everything ready until at least Labor Day.  This year, I was hoping to go another week because we will be gone two of those weekends. Well, I have gotten 2 weeks of lesson plans done, instead of the 3 I wanted. I have very few of my materials ready. I haven't gone up to work on my room {good news, the janitors didn't move any of the big furniture :)} I'm afraid there might have been leaks at school, and I so don't want to deal with that. I wanted to take some pictures of insects {I'm doing a unit on that to start the school year}, and add some inspirational words to them, but it just isn't happening.  And I really, really, really, want to have a mom/daughter day with my girl before I start back and she heads off to college {two weeks later}. 

All of that has made me realize I need to let go of some things. I need to be happy with the 2 weeks of plans I do have done. I need to concentrate on what I need for that first week of school. I need to have things done in my room that will make me comfortable with starting the year. And I need to have that mom/daughter day! 

So what have I done that puts a smile on my face? Well, I DID get those 2 weeks of plans done. And they are very specific because I want to work hard at really teaching procedures this year. I've noted where I want to make anchor charts and how I want to teach a procedure and how I want to model things. Yeah, me! I did die-cut candles - the kids will decorate one and we'll put them up to show when birthdays are.

{sorta like this, but they are white so the kids can decorate them.} My sister has a Silhouette machine, and she cut out the letters to make a Welcome sign for me - and they look so nice! I bought some things to put in birthday bags - thank you, Target dollar section - stickers and these absolutely crazy erasers that I'm pretty sure they will all love. {still want to pick up some pads of paper and little bitty notebooks}

I was even thinking - and this is just really crazy talk here - I don't have to have everything perfect for that first day! What??? Gasp!!! I just want it to be nice - for our Open House and for that first day. I want it to be a room that children want to come into, and guess what? I think part of that will be the smiling face on this teacher, who is as excited to meet her new students, as they are to meet her! 

What about you? How are your Back To School plans coming? The way you want? Or have you hit some bumps in the road?

Back to School Planning {sort of}

 

Ack - I'm just a little bit addicted to these books - I'm now on the 3rd one {plus I was having trouble finding number 2, so I read some of her stand alone novels}. And I have the sweetest Hub-bub. Our local library didn't have the 2nd one, so he went to our local bookstore, and they had it in the used paperback section for like $3. {And obviously, he bought it for me, and made me very happy - I think that goes without saying, but you never know!}

I had sort of said to myself - No School Work until July 15. I've been doing a lot of blog stalking and picking up freebies and that certainly blurs the line a bit. 

First of all - I need to take care of this - I have all these things in a folder called "To Print." Yikes, there's a bunch! 

 Then, I have these on a folder called "Things for This School Year" that I need to print out or do something with, so I remember to actually do them this year {because sometimes that has been an itty-bitty problem for me.}

And I want to review some things from this book - particularly things I'm going to be teaching at the first of the year.

 And I want to think about things in this book - what do I want to implement, try, see if it will work for me.

And I placed an order with these guys and got an email today that it's been shipped -

 

{although, really, doesn't it seem like it takes ForEver for stuff to get to your house from them? I order from Zappos shoes, and they like me so much it comes the next day. That could have something to do with the quantity I order from them, but whatever.} Anyway, thanks to Tammy at Forever in First, I had quite a wishlist that I narrowed down to 3 books for me and 1 book for my class.

 

And finally, today - or maybe that should be - Today, I finally got started on this. 

Have I mentioned that I hate first days? {And last days, too, but I don't have to worry about that for a bit :)}

I also want something fun, engaging, easy {for me and for them!} and that makes the time go by Fast! If you have a great suggestion that fits that criteria, please leave a comment :)

Happy Thursday all! My hub-bub and daughter are having daddy-daughter time in Denver this weekend - that might mean I really will get a good start on lessons. 

So leave a comment - if you have a terrific first day activity {see above} or if you want to tell me what you're doing this weekend.

Picture Book Linky Party

Man, I'm late to the party - but I Love Books! So I'm still going to join in with First Grade and Fabulous.

Book linky parties are great - here's another one I did in February - and I liked some of those books so much, I'm highlighting them twice!

First, I have to say this - my hubby and I bought books all the time when our girl was little. And quite frankly, we did a darn good job. We picked lots of good ones. Sometimes I don't feel like I do such a good job with my class. 

Anyhoo - 

First, I bet more than one person put this on their list:

This is such a fun book. And I like that the teacher in this story is named Sarah Jane - just like me! {But without the H.}

Next:

I really enjoy this book. The kid in the story has to tell his class about how he spent his summer vacation. It starts out pretty true to life - he gets on a train to visit his aunt. But pretty soon, he's doing all kinds of fun things. I read this to my class and we talk about what probably really did happen, and what he imagined. Then I give them a piece of paper and they fold it in half. On one side they draw and write about something that really happened on their vacation. On the other side, they draw and write about something they would have liked to have happened.  Last year, I even made them tell the class about their drawing. 

Number 3:

In this story, a farm lady can't get her cow to quit flying and come down to earth. You can use this story to make predictions about what Miss Rosemary will do next. You can also talk about problem solving and persevering, because Miss Rosemary does both. She has to try several ideas before she finally solves her problem.

Number 4:

Another good story. Wodney Wat has a speech impediment and the other kids make fun of him because of it. But then a bully joins their class and Wodney is able to help the other students. This is a good book for talking about not making fun of other people, and for encouraging students that even though everyone is different, we all can help each other.

Last year, I also started the year with an ocean unit. I had several books I used with that. I write about it here, if you are interested. 

What about you - what are your favorite books for the beginning of the year?