Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent Teacher Conferences today - and I've been up since roughly 2:30 this morning. That makes for a lovely combination, doesn't it? More like a toxic one! 

So what's a gal to do when she can't sleep? How about a little personal Professional Development? 

This first one, I have no idea what I was looking at that gave me this idea. I think it was turning over of my mind from yesterday's Grade Level PLC where we talked about how to step up the rigor. My students have Reading Journals. I've tried, at the end of the week, to have them do some writing about our story from our anthology, or to complete a graphic organizer. Last night, I got to thinking, why don't I have them write every day - or at least more often? I was thinking that on Mondays, I could have them write a prediction on our story. Maybe on Wednesday, I could have them write a short bit about their favorite part, or something that would tie into our comprehension strategy for the week. I don't know for sure, it's a work in progress, but I like this idea. 

Second, I ended up at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits and she had a nice post about teaching phonics, which led me to different places on her blog, and in the midst of that, I saw some little books she had made. Each one of the little books focuses on one set of phonics skills - like Y says i {we just did this recently}. And I was thinking that this might be something that I could make into class books. My thought was I could do the first page, and student could do their own page. I might even make this a bit competitive - I have some little 8x8 photo albums. I don't know how many pages are in each one, but I could say that the best - say, 10 get in the book! I'd love to have my kids practice reading sentences that have phonics that we just learned. {OK, that's a terrible sentence!}

Now I've got to run so I won't be late for conferences! Happy Thursday. Hoping I can stay awake and alert all dang day!

Phonics Poems

Does anybody else feel like they are barely treading water this year? Oh, I am so there! And along with regular school stuff, and a new math curriculum, and mentoring a sweet new teacher.... I'm taking two classes to finish my ESOL endorsement. And then, I decided to lead a Bible study, ironically using Lysa TerKeurst's new book, "The Best Yes." 

Because nothing says overextending yourself like leading a Bible study about saying Yes to only the best! 

So my four little sweeties who are low readers - way low for 2nd grade, and low for 1st grade... well, I want to help them with phonics and sight words, and well, really everything. 

I wanted to have them read and practice some phonics poems. But the poems I pulled out last week, ummm, not going to happen. 

So what's a teacher to do? Write her own dorky little poems.  Something like this:

I put my nose

Down very close

To smell the rose.

It was no joke,

Mom gave me a poke

So I awoke!

 
Oh these are so corny. But together, we can look for rhyming words, and practice saying it together, and maybe read it to a partner. High hopes here my friends!

Consonant Blends

Here's a little something I put together right before Parent Teacher conferences - because you know nothing says "I'm a good teacher" like having cool stuff hanging in the hallway - ha! I didn't even think to share until I was getting ready to take them down. 

We had just finished studying consonant blends. So I wrote a whole bunch of blends on little pieces of paper and every kiddo picked a piece of paper. Then they made a poster with that blend on it. I only took one picture - but this is a good one. {Well, except for the now I see not really school appropriate "slap!"} 

And just now, I'm thinking I should have kept these after I took them down and made a book. Because that's what Tammy over at Forever in First would have done :)
OK, that's just being silly. But it does seem to be something that now that I'm thinking about it, I realize - that would be a cool class book, we could make that into a book - and so on. And the kids do really seem to enjoy their self created books. 

Anyway, a little easy thing to reinforce a phonics pattern we studied. 

Happy Monday! Last week!! 
{Not that anyone around here is SOOO ready for a break!}

Phonics Ideas and a call for Help!

I'm such a copy cat - I completely stole this idea from The First Grade Parade.

{OK, hers was like super duper way cuter.} I was blog stalking last night and saw this idea - and copied the idea - but our phonics pattern this week is double consonants and ck {personally, it's like they couldn't think of any place to have the ck, so they just tossed it in this week!} Anyway, for most of my kids it was pretty easy. If I do something similar, I'd try to put in some multi-syllable words. But really, when you only have 5 minutes before they come in from recess...well, the brain doesn't have time to think of all that!

Also - HELP! Two days in a row, I've been driving home and - shoot, forgot to tell my kids that! Both days it was what to wear tomorrow. Maybe that doesn't seem like such a biggie, but in 2nd grade world, that's important. We had different theme days for Red Ribbon week - today was sweats day. Since I forgot to tell them, it was me and about 3 boys - that always wear sweats. 

Anyway, anybody have any good tricks for remember to tell them stuff before they walk out the door. I Am ALWAYS Forgetting! {I even made that a "job," but the two people I've had in that position really should be fired - because they don't do their job.}

Tomorrow is a flurry for me - we are having our Autumn Celebration tomorrow - and I'm trying to get ready for a sub for 3 days. My hub-bub is having knee replacement surgery in the Big City on Halloween. Planning for one day of a sub is bad enough, but 3!!! 

Anyway, Happy Autumn Celebration to you - even if you aren't formally celebrating :)