The Adventures of a First Grade Teacher

What's the MATTER??

2012-02-10T22:07:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago we learned all about the states of matter (solids, liquids and gases). I created a unit for TpT and Teacher's Notebook including all the activities you will see in this post. Please check out my stores if you are interested in this unit! :)

We started out talking about the definitions of the states of matter and coming up with examples of each. My students recorded our ideas in their science journals using a chart:

The next day we chose different examples of solids, liquids and gases and talked about their properties. They drew examples in their science journals and listed the properties next to their drawings:

The week before, we went on a study trip to Culver's (a hamburger restaurant) to learn about how frozen custard is made. When we returned to school, the kids recorded how the custard starts as a liquid and is changed into a solid. We also talked about if you wait to long, the custard turns back into a liquid after it melts.

At the end of the week, we did an experiment to see how liquids can change. We poured orange juice into some cups and put them in the freezer. We predicted what state of matter it would be the next day. When we observed what happened the following day, they drew their observations in their science journal and then wrote about the experiment. The kids LOVED getting to eat their popsicles! :)

We also did a sorting activity and a Matter book where the kids got to categorize objects by their state of matter.

Hope you enjoyed my unit! If you are interested in buying it, please click on the picture below! :)

What I Love (Linky Party)

2012-02-04T21:33:00.003-06:00

I joined a linky party from Funky First Grade Fun in honor of Valentine's Day! Go by her site to link up! This is what I love...

Have a "Beary" Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-03T14:23:00.005-06:00

Just finished a few literacy activities for Valentine's Day! Click on the picture to check it out! :) Click on download preview for a freebie!

All About Presidents Unit!

2012-01-28T12:37:00.005-06:00

Just finished my newest unit - All About Presidents! Finished in plenty of time for Presidents' Day! :) I'm very proud of this one...it may be my favorite unit yet! Click on the picture if you are interested! Hope you enjoy!

Also, here is a freebie if you want a preview! :) Just click on download preview and its' all yours! :)

Needs, Wants, Goods and Services!

2012-01-21T13:35:00.009-06:00

After our New Year's unit, we jumped right into Economics! In first grade, the kids are learning about the difference between needs and wants along with goods and services. I used my own Economics unit for the week. We talked about how a need is something you must have to live and a want is something you would like to have. We brainstormed ideas for our webs and the kids filled in their ideas.

The next day, we talked about the difference between goods and services. We learned that a good is something you can consume or use while a service is something that someone does for you. The kids did a goods and service sort and then illustrated their own ideas.

Along with economics, in math we were reviewing coins and their values along with introducing how to add money. Here is an example of a word problem we did during the week. (Each week my awesome teammate Samantha writes our problems...she is awesome!)

We also talked about how when we spend money, we have to make choices. To also review adding money, the kids did an activity where they were given 85 cents and they could buy any toys they want without going over. We also talked about how it's important to buy our basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) before we buy things we want.

We talked about saving money and why it's important to save. It was awesome to hear what the kids wanted to save for! :)

We ended the week by reviewing what the kids wanted to be when they grow up and what life skills they will need to use in order to do a great job.

If you are interested in the unit, please check out my Tpt store or Teacher's Notebook shop! :)

Number Patterns Freebie

2012-01-16T22:05:00.005-06:00

We are working on number patterns this week so I made this cute winter activity for skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's! Click on the picture to get it!

New Year's Unit

2012-01-10T19:50:00.007-06:00

We began the year 2012 by talking about New Year's! We used my own New Year's unit and we had tons of fun!

We started by talking about traditions we do at New Year's and the kids enjoyed telling me all about what they did that night. Many of them were proud to tell me they stayed up until midnight! :) We also talked about counting down from ten, watching the ball drop in NYC, shooting off fireworks and going to a party.

We then filled out and illustrated a New Year's book:

My unit also includes some math problems with a New Year's theme. I took out the numbers in the problems and added blanks to include more number sets to increase the challenge.

The next day we talked about what a resolution is (a goal we want to achieve in the new year) and what resolutions we would make for school. It was funny to see what they wanted to work on. A few kids who are always quiet and do what they are told put I want to work on being quiet....seriously?? :)

We also talked about memories from last year and what we hope to do this year.

On Friday we chose a resolution that could be either about anything we want to do. The kids wrote down their resolution and decorated a face to look like themselves. (I just used a circle and triangle for the face and hat). It made an adorable bulletin board!

The kids wrote about their resolutions on a paper from The First Grade Parade's free new year's unit! (I love Cara Carroll!!)

I'm so proud of what all my kids have done this year so far....and I know they have a lot more to achieve! :)

If you are interested in my New Year's unit, check it out on TpT and Teacher's Notebook.

Thank you again! :)

2012-01-09T17:53:00.000-06:00

Thank you so much Traci for awarding me the Versatile blogger award!

{The Rules}
1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.
Thanks again Traci...go check out her blog! It is great - lots of awesome ideas!

2. Tell 7 things about yourself.
- I am a first grade teacher and this is my fourth year of teaching.
- I have a younger brother who will graduate from Oklahoma State in May! :)
- I am currently working on getting my master's in education at the University of Texas.

- Chocolate is my weakness. : ]

- My favorite thing to do is read and I love it even more since I have my kindle!

- I enjoy TV comedies including Parks and Rec, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother and the Big Bang Theory

- I am blessed with wonderful friends and families!

3. Pass this on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know they received the award. Here are a few adorable sites that would love for you to pop by and follow them. :)

1st Grade Learning Stars

Buzzing about Second Grade

1st Grade with Miss Snowden

A Little Kinder Told Me So...

Confessions From a First Year Teacher

Fun with Numbers Unit!

2012-01-08T10:40:00.004-06:00

I FINALLY finished my unit on Fun with Numbers - I've been working on this for weeks now! It is up on TpT and Teachers' Notebook! It has lots of games and activities for addition/subtraction, comparing numbers (greater than/less than) and place value. Click on the picture below to go check it out!

Here is a freebie game from the unit. I hope you enjoy!

Happy New Year - TpT Sale!! :)

2012-01-02T18:54:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year's Everyone!! I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season...I sure have! I can't believe it's time to head back to school! I can't wait to see my kids, but I am NOT looking forward to getting up early! AHHH! :)

In honor of the new year, I am throwing a sale at both my TpT and Teacher's Notebook sites. Go check out my New Year's unit by clicking on the picture below!

Thank you! Thank you!

2011-12-22T09:22:00.004-06:00

THANK YOU Deb and Sallie for nominating me! This award is for newbies, and its goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. If awarded, you must:

♥ Copy and paste the award on your blog

♥ Thank the giver and link back to them

♥ Reveal YOUR top five picks and leave a comment letting them know

Here are my picks :

Learning with a Happy Heart

Buggy for Second Grade

Asprec's Apple - A First Grade Blog

Me and My Third Grade Gang

A Cupcake for the Teacher

Check out these fantastic blogs and follow them! :)

Currently...

2011-12-17T19:31:00.003-06:00

Couldn't resist doing this linky party! I am so thankful for Christmas break and can't wait to see my family tomorrow! :)

Learning with a Happy Heart is my fabulous teammate's blog. I love how much she shares with the blog world...and of course, our team!

Holiday Fun!

2011-12-16T21:30:00.000-06:00

We had tons of fun for the last two weeks of school before Christmas Break! We did penguin, gingerbread, grinch and polar express activities! :) The kids had tons of fun! I got most of my ideas from the wonderful Deanna Jump!

First up, we learned all about penguins. We started out with Deanna Jump's penguin book and her poem about penguins.

We did several other activities, but I forgot to take pictures. :( My favorite was an All About Penguin book where the kids did several graphic organizers to record the facts they learned about penguins. They turned out so cute!

Next we did fun gingerbread activities, once again using a fun unit from Deanna Jump! We were learning about syllables so we made a flip book sorting pictures by how many syllables they have.

Next we read Deanna Jump's gingerbread book that ends with all the gingerbread people being caught in a jar. I had the kids create their own gingerbread people and write about how they would catch them in a jar.

We read many different versions of the Gingerbread man (there are so many out there!). After reading The Gingerbread Girl we wrote about its story elements.

After gingerbread fun, we had a Grinch Day! I used several activities from Deanna Jump and after we watched the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course, I started the day by reading the book. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.

After reading the book, the kids did several reading response sheets on their connections with the story. They write about how the Grinch changed, and also what makes them grumpy and happy.

I love that my one student is happy when she gets to come to school. :)

We also read Deanna's grinch poem and illustrated it in our poetry folders. My kids are great artists, but this one student did an amazing job. He is such a wonderful artist! I want to write a children's book just so he can illustrate it. :)

My favorite activity was making the grinch faces. The kids made their grinning grinch face and then wrote about how they would make the grinch grin inside his mouth. They turned out ADORABLE!

The last week and a half before Winter Break, we talked a lot about Holiday traditions. I used several activities from my own holiday unit where students had to brainstorm what traditions they do at home and write about their favorite one.

The day before our party day at school, we had a Polar Express day of fun! Once again, Deanna Jump has a wonderful unit on this great book.

We wrote about the story elements of the book (characters, setting, problem and solution) and connections we made with the story.

I love that one of my students would want a karaoke machine as her first gift of Christmas. I told her that's what I would choose also! :)

Along with writing activities, Deanna had adorable crafts that we didn't have time to get to. I can't wait to do them with my class next year! (There is never enough time!!)

After lunch, the whole first grade team had our classes watch the movie Polar Express. We also made it pajama day in honor of the movie and of course, me and my awesome team dressed up! We are so cute!

After the movie the kids got hot chocolate! YUM YUM!

Another activity I used as a center activity I got from What the Teacher Wants. The kids got to imagine they lived in a snow globe and then they illustrated it in a snow globe craft. They turned out adorable and were perfect decorations for our Holiday Party.

Hope you enjoyed our fun activities. I am officially off for Winter Break so I'm going to take a little blog break. I'll see you all in 2012! Have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!

Holiday Units

2011-12-05T17:12:00.007-06:00

Need some holiday ideas? Go check out my winter holiday unit on TpT! Click the picture below!

2012 is just around the corner! I also have a New Year's unit with tons of fun activities to use when you return to school in January!

Immigration Unit

2011-12-03T20:24:00.000-06:00

Before our Thanksgiving unit, we did a short unit on Immigration and studying different cultures. The kids had a great time! First, I sent home a sheet for my students to fill out with their parents about where their families come from. I got it from this Immigration Unit from TpT.

Here are a few examples:

The kids brought their interview sheets back on Friday of that week and presented it to the class. I had them decorate a little person and I taped it to one of the countries their families come from. We found that we come from all over! :)

We also did a modified activity from that unit where students come up with three things they would bring in their suitcase if they were immigrating to America. They drew their items and wrote about why they would bring them. (I love that one of my students would bring a picture of me so she wouldn't be lonely AND a makeup bag in case there is a party!)

To wrap up the unit we watched An American Tail! LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie! We started the week off watching a few clips to learn about what an immigrant is and why someone would move to another country. The kids LOVED the song "No Cats in America" and we sang it over and over!

The week and a half before Thanksgiving Break, the kids did one final project where they created a poster on a country of their choice (either one they come from or one they are interested in). The day before break, we had all four first grade classes set up their posters in the gym and invited all the parents to come see them. The kids did a wonderful job! I was so proud!

Here are a few examples (sorry they are sideways...blogger is being annoying)

The kids also brought in clothes, games or food from their country. Three of my students brought food (tamales from Mexico, fruit salad from Ghana and cream puffs from France...the cream puffs are not pictured because I was too busy eating them to take a picture!)

Our immigration unit was a great segue into talking about the First Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims journey to America. We learned all about the Mayflower and talked about what the pilgrims went through on the boat. I got the idea for the graphic organizer from Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving unit. I created the Mayflower in front of the kids and they helped me fill in the information of who was on the Mayflower, why they were on it and what it was like. We did this activity after reading several nonfiction books on the First Thanksgiving.

Check out my post on activities from my own Thanksgiving unit for more ideas!

Christmas Tree Fact Families!

2011-12-01T14:03:00.007-06:00

Happy First Day of December! To celebrate I thought I'd share a freebie! We are studying fact families next week so I made a little Christmas tree game to practice fact families. It is free so click on the picture to download it! :)

TpT Sale!

2011-11-26T20:34:00.004-06:00

I'm Thankful for...

2011-11-20T22:37:00.004-06:00

One of my favorite blogs, What the Teacher Wants, (see number 3!) is putting on a linky party about what you are thankful for so I decided to join the fun!

1. What are you most thankful for in your classroom?

I am so thankful for my students, parent volunteers and my school, but I am the MOST thankful for my wonderful teammates. Not only are they fabulous teachers, but I consider them my close friends. They constantly support me and provide me with awesome ideas for my classroom.

2. What person are you most thankful for?

I can't pick just one! Too hard! I am so thankful for my wonderful family and friends, but if I had to narrow it down, I would choose my two best friends from college, Sarah and Allison. They have been with me through ups and downs and they have seen me at my lowest (and they STILL love me unconditionally). We laugh together, pray together and play together! I am so thankful they both live in Austin (well, Sarah lives in Round Rock, but I choose to ignore that haha) right now so we can hang out every once in a while. I love them both so much!

3. What three blogs are you most thankful for?

Once again...a hard question! There are so many wonderful blogs out there and I am CONSTANTLY getting new ideas for my classroom. My top three would have to be these three ladies (Rachelle, Deanna and Abby) because I visit their sites most frequently and have purchased most of their units on TpT! Thank you ladies for inspiring me!

4. What guilty pleasure are you thankful for?

Fantasy books! I love books that transport you to another world. Especially those involving vampires....yes, I admit, I love me some Twilight! I am greatly looking forward to the next movie, which I will be seeing with my teammates RIGHT after school gets out on Tuesday. It looks wonderfully bad! The only thing I like more than watching/reading Twilight is making fun of it! :)

{source}

5. What are you most thankful for?

I get to wake up every morning to a job that I adore! I have friends and family that love me unconditionally! AND I live in a country that gives me the freedom to achieve my dreams and worship my God. I am most thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ who has blessed me with all this.

If you want to join the linky party fun, click the picture below!

Inventors!

2011-11-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm a little behind in my posting of units, but I'm just about caught up!

After our Halloween unit, we jumped right into inventors and inventions! We first talked about what inventions are and made a T-chart of inventors we already knew and some we learned about using an inventor puzzle game.

We dug deeper into Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's lives by reading books about them and watching United Streaming videos about their discoveries. My wonderful teammate Sam made a Venn diagram with facts about each inventor.

We also talked about Benjamin Franklin and his many inventions by reading this wonderful book! I learned a lot from it too!

Finally, I had the kids draw their favorite inventions we had learned about that week.

The second week of the unit focused more on them as inventors. We talked about how inventors invent things in order to solve a problem or make life easier or better. We used several activities from One Extra Degree's Inventor Unit. We talked about patents and why they are important. I posed several problems from the unit and asked the kids to draw in their science journals inventions that would solve that problem.

Our final project was creating their own invention. The kids brought in items from home to create something with and on Friday I just let them loose!

It was hilarious to watch them work and talk to each other. We had some very interesting creations when time was up. I had them fill out a sheet from the unit where they drew and labeled their invention with the materials they used. I then displayed them on my reading table (first time all year its been cleared off! hah!) for a little project show. The kids got to walk around the table and look at each other's creations.

Here are a couple examples up close!

Toy UFO

Cloud Sucker : for when you want a sunny day with no clouds

Chin rest: you can rest your chin in the cup when you get tired of holding your head up

And my all-time favorite: The Laugh-n-shine! Whenever your friend is sad, just swing this in front of them and the smiley face will cheer them right up!

Hope you enjoyed my kiddos fun inventions! The next units I will post about will be immigration/cultures and of course, Thanksgiving! Check out my previous post to see examples of my kids' work from my own Thanksgiving unit!

Thanksgiving Unit - on sale!

2011-11-17T18:37:00.007-06:00

Since there is one week (YES! ONE WEEK) until Thanksgiving, I put my new unit on sale. Please click on the picture below to check it out!

My kids did the activities today and I wanted to show you how they turned out! :) SO CUTE!

Thanksgiving Unit on TpT!

2011-11-15T19:42:00.004-06:00

Just posted my second unit on TpT just in time for Thanksgiving! It has several writing activities centered around what we are thankful for. I also included a few activities about why the Pilgrims were thankful and how the Native Americans helped them. Click on the picture below to go check it out!

I was inspired by the amazing clip art of KPM Doodles. To quote my happy heart teacher/blogger friend Sam....LOVE IT!

Don't forget to get my freebie Thanksgiving activity also! Where would you hide on Thanksgiving if you were a turkey?? :) Click on the picture below to download it.

If I was a Turkey....

2011-11-13T22:23:00.006-06:00

Still working on my holiday unit, but I posted another free activity on TpT! This one is for Thanksgiving so you can use it this week! :)

Click here for my Free Activity!

I'm on TpT! :)

2011-11-12T16:09:00.005-06:00

I'm officially a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers! Right now I just have one free download, but I'm working on a holiday unit that I will put up soon! :) Please check out my store by clicking my button or the link below!

Pumpkins and Halloween!

2011-11-10T17:24:00.010-06:00

The week before Halloween was all about pumpkins! :) We went to a Pumpkin Patch for a study trip, and the kids had a blast! The kids got to pick out a pumpkin to take home so we used that pumpkin for fun measurement with their book buddies. They weighed it, measured its circumference and counted the lines on it.

We started off talking about pumpkins by coming up with words to describe them (reviewing adjectives. I used a few activities from Deanna Jump's Halloween unit for this. We made a web of adjectives to describe pumpkins and then we used these adjectives to make our own pumpkin poems.

We also did a cute class book from Deanna's unit about what we will be for Halloween. It turned out ADORABLE! :)

We did a fun pumpkin writing activity where the kids got to create their own pumpkin characters and write about what they would do. I got it from Made For First Grade's Pumpkin unit.

In math, we did a simple pumpkin seed book activity, but added in number sentences to show how many pumpkin seeds were in the pumpkin. (Honestly can't remember who I downloaded this from so if it is your book, let me know so I can credit you. I follow too many blogs!! )

Since we were working on addition and subtraction, we also did a fun Halloween Doubles book to practice our doubles facts. (Once again, forgot who I downloaded this from. Let me know if it's yours! The kids loved it!!)

We also did fun pumpkin and halloween word problems. Here are a few examples:

We read a lot of fun pumpkin books including Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins by Diane Ochiltree and my all-time favorite The Ugly Pumpkin by Dave Horowitz. We then wrote about the book in our reading journals focusing on the problem and solution in the story. The Inspired Apple blog has a post on other fun activities to do with this great book! :)

On Halloween (I think Halloween on a Monday should be illegal by the way! haha) we did lots of fun Halloween activities, most of which I got from Rachelle's Halloween unit.

From her unit we read her adorable, Green Witch Green Witch book and the kids got to color and fill in their own book. They also did a Halloween word search, solved secret Halloween messages and drew themselves trick-or-treating.

We also did several fun art projects. The kids got to paint pumpkins and then use black construction paper to create the face. They turned out ADORABLE! :)

We did a writing/art project where we read Where's My Mummy? and wrote about what our moms do for us when we are scared. The kids also made their own mummy masks out of paper plates. SO ADORABLE! :)

Our final art project was also from Rachelle's unit. We made skeletons out of q-tips!

Hope you enjoyed our Halloween fun! Coming soon...Inventors! :)

Bats and Spiders

2011-11-03T19:33:00.010-05:00

In the weeks prior to Halloween, our class did units on Bats and Spiders. The kids loved learning about these creepy crawlies! And that was the theme of our class bulletin board. The kids got to pick if they wanted to make a bat or a spider and we called our board Cavett's Creepy Crawlies! They decorated the bats with glitter and the kids made the spiders with black paint handprints. They finished them off with googily eyes!

Here is our finished product! It is by FAR my favorite bulletin board :)

We started our two week unit with bats. We started by learning a fun bat song sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it."

We did our customary KWL chart about bats and we read the book Stellaluna. I love seeing what my kids already know about units, but my favorite part is hearing their questions. They had some great questions including How do bats have babies? Where do they sleep? What do they eat? But my favorite was How do bats make friends?

We learned more about bats by watching Magic School Bus video on Bats and reading our Time for Kids magazine on bats.

I also used an activity from Made for First Grade's Nocturnal Animals unit. The kids unscrambled bat fact sentences and copied them in their own bat book. They then illustrated the facts.

At the end of the week, the kids wrote a short paragraph on what they learned about bats this week. Here are a few examples:

We started off the week on spiders by starting to read Charlotte's Web . We are still reading it now and the kids love to listen. I love how engaged they are even though there are very few pictures. They also like to ask questions about the new vocabulary they don't know.

A fun experiment from Deanna Jump we did taught us how spiders kill and eat their prey. The kids got a sugar cube and and a straw. The dripped some water on the cube and then sucked the cube up the straw once it was melted. We talked about how spiders use venom (water) to paralyze their prey (sugar cube). They then "drink" their prey.

We also did some spider problems during math time:

Instead of a KWL chart, we did a fact web! Get it? Yeah, the kids didn't laugh either. :) I got this spider activity from Rachelle's Halloween unit. After reading about spiders (and once again, watching Magic School Bus on spiders) we wrote down the different facts we learned about spiders. On the back the kids wrote a short paragraph on what they know about spiders.

Coming Soon: Pumpkins and Halloween!

Jobs Unit

2011-10-12T20:37:00.012-05:00

Well, we had Fall Break over the past two weeks so I've been extremely lazy. :) The kids came back yesterday so I'm finally getting back into the groove of being productive.

The two weeks before Fall Break we learned all about Jobs! This was def my favorite unit so far! I got most of my activities from Kinderglynn's unit on Community Helpers. It's adorable! We started out reading the ABC of Jobs by Roger Priddy.

I then had the kids complete an "are, can, have" activity about one of the jobs we read in the book.

Next I had students draw what they wanted to be when they grew up. We had a variety of careers including rock star, teacher, marine biologist, firefighter and hair dresser.

Our second study trip of the year was to a police station. We got to tour the station and ask questions of the police officer who gave us the tour. The kids had a fantastic time! After we got back to school, I had them write about what they learned. Most kids wrote about the "kid jail" since we got to go inside a holding cell. Oh geez. :)

They also learned that police officers go to school and they save animals. :)

These two remembered that there was a "jail" for kids, but also a playroom for kids when their parents volunteer at the station. :)

Kinderglynn's unit had cute paper books on both police officers and fire fighters. The kids colored the books and wrote about what they learned about the community helpers on the last page.

Toward the end of our unit I had the kids write about what they want to be when they grow up and why. They did a great job!

When I grow up I want to be a marine biologist because I love the ocean.

When I grow up I am going to be a race car driver because it is so awesome!

When I grow up I want to be a baker because I like to make cupcakes and cakes for people's birthday and like it. It is fun.

For a shared reading activity we read a poem called "In My Community." The kids circled sight words they knew and illustrated their poems.

My FAVORITE activity was having the kids illustrate a cartoon version of their future career. Then I printed out a picture of their heads and glued it on top of the picture. We made a "When I Grow Up..." bulletin board and the kids thought it was hilarious! They said they looked like bobble-heads. :)

A fun writing activity was having the kids fill out a "job interview." (Created by my awesome teammate Sam!) It was really funny to see how much they thought they should be paid. :)

To wrap up our unit, I had the kids do a take-home project where they had to interview a family member about their job. Here's a few examples:

On the Friday before break they could invite their family member to come to school and talk to the class. We had 7 parents come on Friday and the kids had a great time! We got to hear from a network engineer, an electrical engineer, an accountant, a repairman, a team lead manager at an OBGYN office, a builder, and a security guard.

Hope you enjoyed our Jobs unit! We just started our Halloween Unit (bats, spiders and pumpkins, oh my!) so stay tuned for that!

Family Unit

2011-09-22T22:40:00.009-05:00

I passed out on the couch after school and took a 3 and a half hour nap and I feel rejuvenated and wide-awake...so it's blogging time! :)

A few weeks ago we did one of my favorite units: all about families! We talked about our families and discussed how families are made up of people who love us and all families are different. Of course there are MANY great children's books on families out there, and I wanted to share a few that I read. One of my favorite authors is Laura Numeroff (author of Give a Mouse a Cookie) and she also has several books about families. We read What Mommies Do Best (What Daddies Do Best) and What Sisters Do Best (What Brothers Do Best). She also has ones on Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunts and Uncles. Each book is two books in one! :)

We started out the first week sharing who was in our family and drawing a picture of our families. We also wrote stories about what we do with our families but I forgot to take pictures of those. :(

We also did a class book that I made called "We Like Our Families" about why we like our families. The kids had such cute responses!

I like my family because they feed me.

I like my family because they take care of me and they love me and they give me food, water and air. They help me when I get hurt.

I like my family because they kiss me on the cheek.

I like my family because they love me so much.

During the second week, our weekly poem for shared reading was called "Families." It was a cute finger play and the kids loved it ! I made matching fingers to put on the poetry pocket chart (you add one finger each time you talk about a family member) and my teammate pointed out that the mother line hand looks like the loser sign. OOPS! The kids never noticed though. :) In their poetry folders they drew their families and circled sight words.

In math we made family addition sentences by writing down how many girls and boys were in our families.

Our final project was making family trees! I had everyone make trees with construction paper and cut out triangles for the girls in their family and rectangles for the boys.

We are just about to finish up our Jobs unit so I will be sharing that next! Our Fall Break starts after tomorrow and we get two weeks off! (A HUGE perk of year-round schools) :)

Apple Unit

2011-09-13T18:51:00.000-05:00

Along with our plant unit we did a short apple unit. Since I was doing plants during science, I mainly used these apple activities during reading and math. I got many of my activities from Deanna Jump's apple unit. First I read her book, Who took the Apples from the Apple Tree? The kids absolutely LOVED it! We then made our own class book and it is by far the most popular class book. The kids loved my drawing at the end....I love to hear them giggling as they read it in the library center.

We also read an apple poem that goes to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot. I found it here along with several other cute apple poems and fingerplays.

After decorating the front, a few of my kids drew some adorable pictures on the back.

We also did several word problems that were apple-themed. When I have students do word problems, I do not tell them how to solve the problem, but instead let them come up with their own strategies. At the end of math, I let a few kids share their ideas so the rest of the class can learn from each other. As a way to differentiate, I leave blanks in my questions so kids can insert higher and higher numbers.

First problem: Student 1 ate 2 apples and Student 2 ate some apples. They ate 4 apples altogether. How many apples did Student 1 eat?

Second problem: Student 1 has 6 apples. She wants to share with Student 2. If she and Student 2 get the same amount of apples, how many apples will each girl get?

My favorite activity was also from Deanna's unit. She had a short apple poem craft that went from eating an apple to planting the seeds that grow into a tree.

Coming Soon: Family Unit!

Map Activity

2011-09-08T18:58:00.004-05:00

Here's a short activity I did with my kids to talk about different kinds of maps during our map unit. I also wanted to review different vocabulary words that they often mix up (like city and state). I made a fill-in-the blank book using word and images from google. I had the kids fill in the name for the continent, country, state and state we live in, and color the map.

On the last page I had the kids draw where they lived and fill in the blank with either house or apartment.

We did this at the end of our unit after talking about map keys, symbols and the compass rose and completing several activities creating and reading maps. I wish I could tell you ALL of my kids are geography experts now, but they still tend to answer "TEXAS!" when I ask what country we live in or "AUSTIN!" when I ask what state we live in.

Oh well...close enough, right? :)

Plants Mania! :)

2011-08-30T19:50:00.009-05:00

After weather we dove right into plants. In first grade, the kids need to learn the parts of the plant and be able to describe the life cycle of a plant. Our first activity was a super fun craft project from a plant unit by Made for First Grade. The students had to make a flower and add the things a plant needs to live (sun, air, water, soil). They also labeled the plants and needs and its parts. Here's my example:

On the first day I showed the kids my example and had them cut and glue the parts to make the flower.

The next day I let them cut out the labels and glue them on their picture.

Here are a couple of their finished projects! :)

Everybody's flowers made our room look even brighter! :)

We also read four books from the plants part series by Vijaya Bodach: Seeds, Roots, Leaves, and Flowers. These books are perfect for 1st grade but also share a lot of great information along with providing beautiful, close-up pictures.

Later in the week we took a plant walk outside around our school. We used our sense of sight to see how many different kinds of plants we could find. Our school has a wonderful graden surrounding our portables so we found many different kinds of plants. We filled in a plant hunt checklist and found all the plants except for a cactus.

At the end of the unit I had the kids draw their own flower and label the parts. I also had them draw the life cycle of a plant in their science journals

As an extension activity, I had my kids write their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Instead of Jack, they got to be the main character. They came up with their own story of what would happen if they grew a giant beanstalk and climbed to the top.

I was really impressed with how much my kids wrote. They really enjoyed coming up with their own ideas for a story. Lots of kids climbed up to find a castles and a giant like Jack did. One kid found a house made of candy while another found Santa Clause! :)

A few of my kids even wrote about the life cycle of their beanstalk, starting with the planting of the beans.

Hope you enjoyed our plant unit! Coming soon...Apples Unit and a fun mapping activity! :)

Teacher Talk - Advice for New Teachers

2011-08-23T19:18:00.002-05:00

Today's linky party from Blog Hopper is advice for new teachers. It wasn't long ago that I was a brand new teacher! I had a very,rough first year so I have PLENTY of advice to share. I narrowed it down though and here are my top 5 pieces of advice:

5. Find a venting buddy who is NOT a teacher (or at least not a teacher at your school). My best friend (and roommate at the time) had to listen to me cry and moan about how MISERABLE I was and she was a life-saver. It always helps to talk it out.

4. Ask for help! Don't be embarrassed to ask for advice from others. Teachers LOVE to share ideas and help each other out (well, MOST teachers haha) and collaboration with others is one of the best aspects of our careers. Also remember to share your ideas....and ask for others' to share theirs. Don't try to re-invent the wheel! (Teaching blogs are AWESOME ways to find new ideas for your classroom)

3. Have fun! Kids are hilarious...even high school kids. :) Remember to have fun with your students! Teaching is hard work, but make sure to work hard at having fun too!

2. Remind yourself that it gets better. Your first year might be horrible, but remember it DOES get better. Trust me, it does! Every year has been better for me and I'm only on my fourth!

1. Be creative! Teaching is such an incredible job especially because it is NEVER boring (if you're doing it right that is!) and you have the chance to be "an artist" in the classroom. One of my favorite parts of teaching is that I get to come up with fun and new ways to teach. Of course, I definitely use others' ideas often (see number 4!!) but I always feel so incredible when I plan a unique lesson that goes well. It's so incredible to have a job you love!

To all you new teachers out there, have a wonderful year!

Meet the Teacher!

2011-08-22T18:03:00.005-05:00

I decided to join the Teacher Week linky party from Blog Hoppin'! Day 1 is meet the teacher so I thought I'd share a little about myself. Hope you enjoy!

Tell us a little something about you...

I'm Kim, a 25-year old 1st grade teacher from Austin. I work at a charter school and LOVE IT! I am about to start (IN ONE WEEK!) a masters program at the University of Texas (Hook 'em!) in curriculum and instruction with a focus on language and literacy. I went to undergrad at Southwestern University in Georgetown,TX. (I went from the smallest school of all time to the biggest!)

I'm originally from Ponca City, Oklahoma but I have also lived in Houston/Katy,TX and Lake Charles,LA. My parents are currently living the sweet retired life in Katy. :) My (not so much anymore) little brother goes to college at Oklahoma State where he is rocking it as a senior chemical engineer major (following in the footsteps of our dad).

My family :)

Me and my two best friends

How long have you been teaching?

This is my fourth year teaching. My first year I taught a multi-age kindergarten/1st grade class. My second year I taught 1st grade and last year I taught kindergarten. This year I am back to 1st grade and with my same students from my third year. I love having my students for two years. It's incredible to see them grow so much and it saves so much time at the beginning of the year.

You might not know...

I have wanted to be a teacher since I was 4. My grandmother was a teacher for over thirty years and she was my major inspiration for wanting to become an educator. She passed away in 2010, but I was so thankful she lived long enough to see me become a teacher.

Granny and her grandkids

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

All the growth my kids are going to make! I already see it and we have only been in school a month. 1st grade is a HUGE reading year and I know we have a long way to go, but my kids are such hard workers I know they will get there!

I'm also looking forward to working with my team (as always). This is our third year to work together and I am continually BLOWN AWAY with their awesomeness. Not only are they amazing teachers, but they are amazing friends! I love to hang out with them during and out of school. :)

What do you need to improve?

My main focus this year is on language arts (reading/writing). I wanted my focus in grad school to be in literacy mainly because I feel like its the area I need the most improvement in. I love teaching math and science. They are fun and easy to plan for. I also love reading and writing but I struggle with planning for all my kids individual needs. I started using the Daily 5 in my classroom and it has been fantastic! :) I can already see growth in my kids in their ability to read to themselves, work on their writing independently and read with each other. It's exciting to see them grow as readers and writers.

What teaching supplies can you not live without?

My computer. :) I love making spreadsheets, looking at teacher blogs and publishing my kids' work. My computer can do so many wonderful things!

My doc cam...it has made my life SO much easier. My kids are so much more focused when they have my example displayed where they can easily see it.

Sharpies and labels and binders and post-its....I love school supplies, especially ones that help you organize!

My plan book...I have started typing my plans on the computer, but I still use my plan book faithfully because I just don't feel prepared without it. HOWEVER there are always those weeks when my plan book is empty on Monday morning. ;-)

BOOKS! I have hundreds and hundreds of childrens' books and I don't plan on stopping the collection any time soon. I love to read and I want my students to love it just as much as me! I want them to be surrounded by books so I have been collecting books since I started college. Many of them are very worn-out and falling apart, but that just means they are being loved. :)

Weather Unit

2011-08-20T19:38:00.007-05:00

At our school, we are blessed to be able to come up with our own scope and sequence for the year. My team really tries to integrate our social studies and science units throughout all subjects. Our first science unit this year was weather. We touch on weather everyday in math during calendar time. We talk about what the weather is that day and the kids record the weather in their monthly weather graph. At the end of the month we will tally up the totals and find out which has the most, least and which ones are equal. I have a FEELING that sunny/hot will be the most in August, but I'm just guessing. ;-)

The main part of our unit took place during our science time. We started out reviewing the four seasons and talking about what the weather is like in each season. In their science journals, the kids drew the weather and wrote weather words that went with each season.

We also talked about the water cycle and how water turns to water vapor, clouds form and then rain falls back to the earth. I even introduced the words condensation, evaporation and precipitation. Big words for 6 year olds. :) The kids recorded the cycle in their science journal and a few even wrote the big words down!

During shared reading, we read a poem called Who Has See the Wind? We read the poem together and talked about how we know the wind is there. The kids then got to decorate their poem and circle the sight words they knew.

We decided that we can't see the wind, but we know it's there because we see what it does. On the back of the poem, they wrote about what effects the wind has on different objects.

The wind blows the trees and the leaves away

The wind is really fast. I don't like it.

During a read-aloud I read Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed and had the kids make a graphic organizer showing what the seed was doing during each season. Our next unit was on plants, so this was a great segue into the parts of the plants and what a plant needs. This book goes through the seasons so we talked about the different kinds of weather in each season.

During writing, the kids worked on a weather book all week. They wrote and drew pictures about activities they would do in different kinds of weather (sunny, windy, rainy, snowy, etc.) I forgot to take pictures of these, but believe me, they were adorable. :)

Our big end of unit project was a Season brochure. The kids got to choose their favorite season and write all about it.

In the brochure they wrote about activities they do in that season, what they would wear and special holidays. They also wrote down the months that occur in that season.

Up Next....Plants Unit!! :)

First Week of School

2011-08-13T10:16:00.011-05:00

I can hardly believe we are in the fourth week of school! Since I had most of my kids last year in kindergarten, on the first day of school we jumped right back to where we left off last year. This is the time of the year when looping is awesome! :)

Even though we have been in school for almost a month, I wanted to share a few of the things I used for the first week of school. Most of the ideas came from the fabulous Fun with Firsties unit from Babbling Abby.

We started out by reading the book First Grade Jitters and reading a poem called Jitter Juice. We talked about how sometimes we feel nervous coming to school, and how to get rid of those "jitters." I had the kiddos circle all the sight words they knew and draw themselves drinking jitter juice. We then made jitter juice by using the recipe in the Fun with Firsties unit. It's basically sprite, sherbert and some lemonade powder. The kids loved it! :)

We did a lot of all about me activities. Even though I have my kids from last year, my class size went up from 16 to 18 so we had a couple new students. I did several of the activities from Deanna Jump's back to school unit.

The kids drew themselves on the first day of school, and of course, I had them draw me. :) I also included an assessment (phonics and math) in the packet to show parents at beginning of the year conferences.

My favorite activity of the week was making our paper mini-me's. Here's mine!

The kids had a blast decorating them. I left them go to town on the face and hair and BOY did they turn out adorable.

The kids also decorated an all about me book and we stapled it to their mini-me.

For reading, we dove straight into launching the Daily 5 . If you have not read the Daiy 5 or CAFE books, you should check them out! I have absolutely LOVED implementing it in my classroom. Basically, the Daily 5 fosters independence in young students during the literacy block. Each day the kids get to choose from read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, word work and work on writing as their literacy centers. During the first week of school we worked on building our stamina in read to self. We started out doing 3 minutes of reading and have worked our way up to 20 minutes. We have also started work on writing and reading to someone. Next week we will add word work and finally listen to reading.

For math we started our calendar binders and worked on an all about number packets that showed many different ways to make the numbers 1 through 10 (tallies, number sentences, time, ordinal numbers, etc.)

For writing, I had the kids write about what they did over the summer. I always model writing before I send the kids off so I wrote about my fun day at Sea World with my teacher friend Katie.

Here is a couple examples from the kids:

(First story: This summer I went to New York. In New York I went to the beach. I loved it. I had a great day. The end. Second story: I went to Sea World. I saw a killer whale. It was good and they got water on me.)

At the end of the week we worked on a my first week in first grade book from the Fun with Firsties unit. Here's a few examples from the kids:

(It was my birthday during the first week of school and the kids spoiled me rotten.)

(translations: hand print fish - the kids LOVED making the hand print fish for our ocean bulletin board)

(translations: warm and fuzzies - i have a jar I fill up with little "warm and fuzzies" when the kids do something awesome. if they fill it up, they get a prize. this girl put worms instead of warm...haha)

Hope you enjoyed our first week of school! Stay tuned for posts on our weather unit and plants unit!

Under the Sea

2011-08-09T23:29:00.008-05:00

I have been SO bad about blogging this year. It is already the third week of school and I wanted to get in the habit of posting once a week! Oh well, better late than never I suppose. I have a lot to catch up on, but I suppose I will start with my sea themed room!

I had never done a theme before in my classroom so I was excited to try one this year. I have several students who love ocean life (one boy in particular is OBSESSED with squids! haha) so I decided to make an under the sea classroom!

First I tackled my student work display board, which I decided to name Star Students and decorate with starfish. I will print out pictures of the kids and glue them to the clothes pins. I love having the kids work all over my room!

My own creative idea was to make seaweed hanging from the ceiling. I stapled DJ inkers sea life to the sea weed to make it more "ocean-y"

I added more DJ inkers sea life to our door.

Our classroom library looks very beachy, especially with the chicka chicka boom boom tree. :) I love the crab pillow from Target's dollar spot. The cute beach mats from Target didn't last long (what did I expect since they were only a dollar). We got our new rug from DonorsChoose so we don't need the mats anyway! :)

I added some ocean fun to our calendar wall. I used an ocean theme from Littlest Learners.

My favorite part of the room has to be the bulletin board we made! I got the idea for the craft on pinterest! We basically used our hand prints to make sea animals. First we painted our hands and placed a hand print on paper. I let them choose between a fish or a jellyfish (they used two hands for that):

After it dried, I had them decorate it by adding eyes, a mouth and gills:

I put them all up on our board and added a snazzy title! :)

Will be posting more soon! :) Stay tuned for first week of school activities!

Summer is over!

2011-07-14T20:06:00.003-05:00

Well, all the teachers headed back to work today! :-/ This is the time of year when I'm not a fan of year-round teaching. My summer goes by so fast! Of course, I'll be living it up in September/October with my two week fall break so it's all worth it.

I'm getting really excited to see my kiddos next week! I hope they come to Meet the Teacher Night even though most of them have already "met" me. ;-) I have so much to do before then....fortunately my classroom is pretty much done. I just have a few small things to do. I will be posting pictures soon of my classroom when I finish decorating. I have decided to go with an ocean theme this year! I've never done a theme before so it's pretty exciting. If you have any ideas for cute ocean decorations let me know. I've been braninstorming a few (crepe paper "seaweed" hung from the ceiling and blue saran wrap on the windows for waves) and found a couple ideas on pinterest.com BUT I'm always up for hearing more!

Hope you are all enjoying your summer!

School Countdown: 11 days until the first day of school!

10 Things to Know About Me

2011-07-06T22:54:00.003-05:00

I decided to join a linky party that Mrs. Owens put on about 10 Things to Know About Me.

So here we go....

10 Things to Know About Me

10. I'm from Oklahoma, but I love Texas! (and Oklahoma haha)

9. I went to Southwestern University in Georgetown,TX....the best college of all time!

8. I swam throughout high school and for two years in college. My stroke was backstroke (but it caused me to get tennis elbow in both arms so I quit)

7. I have way too many must-see TV shows each week(Glee, Parks and Rec, SYTYCD, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, 30 Rock......yikes!)

6. I'm addicted to sweets.....especially anything with chocolate and/or peanut butter.

5. I'm a dog person...even though I'm allergic to them.

4. I love London...I want to go back and travel throughout Europe.

3. I'm going to grad school in the fall part-time at UT in Austin. I'm super excited/nervous!

2. I love my job...it has been my dream to be a teacher since I was 4, and I still can't believe I get to do what I love every day.

1. Jesus is my Savior and I'm so thankful for the relationship I have with Him.

Well, that's me in a nutshell! :) Click the links above if you want to join the party!

To Do List....

2011-06-22T21:20:00.003-05:00

Since my school is a year-round school, our summer break is shorter than most schools. The first day of school is July 26th (2 days before my 25th birthday woo hoo!) and teachers come back on July 14th! I actually have a leadership retreat on July 12th so summer's end is approaching rapidly. I have to admit though that I am super excited about the new year. NERD ALERT! :) I miss my kids, I miss my team and I am PUMPED to be teaching 1st grade again. However, there is SO much work to be done in my classroom....I've already been working in my room a few days this summer and I feel like I have just made a bigger mess.

I love making to-do lists so here goes...

1. Plan Daily 5 Lessons for the first few weeks
2. Read the Cafe Book (related to Daily 5)
3. Meet with team to discuss Daily 5 (to be done BEFORE number 1 hehe)
4. Finish organizing resource binders
5. Put stickers and sort rest of picture books
6. Organize teacher desk and filing cabinets
7. Decorate classroom (name plates, bulletin boards, etc.)
8. Re-vamp my teacher website and include blog on it

I'm sure there is more, but that's PLENTY for now. :)

Kindergarten Memory Book

2011-06-05T22:08:00.007-05:00

I meant to post this last week, but the laziness of summer has gotten in the way. :) Over the school year I had my kids do one craft each month to collect and make a memory book for the last day of school. For May, we did a writing project where we wrote about our favorite memories from the year. Here is an example from each month from my students! :)

July - On the first day of school, I had my students write their name and draw a picture of themselves. It's a VERY telling assessment on where a kindergarten student is on the first day....and it's amazing to view them at the end of the year and see how far they have come! :)

August - The start of school is mainly focused on getting to know each other and the procedures of the classroom. We talked a lot about each other's names (after reading the book Chrysanthemum) and for homework one night I had the parents fill out a sheet on why they chose their child's name. I then had the kids color a flower and I placed a picture of them in the middle.

September - Since Fall was coming, (hadn't quite reached Texas yet... hah!) in September I had the kids decorate leaves with small pieces of paper. They then got to create their own Fall scene with their leaves.

October - For October, in honor of Halloween, my kids made their own pumpkin person. I asked them to think about what they would look like if they were a human jack-o-lantern, and they thought it was pretty funny.

November - In November we talked about Native Americans and Pilgrims around Thanksgiving. We talked about the lives of Native Americans including the crops they introduced to the Pilgrims including maize. We decorated our own maize with paint!

December - In December we talked about many different winter holidays including Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Since everyone in my class celebrated Christmas we all made our own Christmas trees for the December craft.

January - In January we decorated our own snowman. I drew three circles on each child's paper and they painted over the circles. They then got to draw eyes, mouth, arms and buttons along with adding a hat, nose and scarf.

February - In honor of Valentine's Day we made a multi-colored heart craft. The kids traced hearts of different sizes and colors and glued them together.

March - In March, Spring was coming and the flowers were blooming! We talked about how much we had learned that year and I had each student choose one thing they were really good at and illustrate it on a tulip. This student cracked me up because she is great at SO many things, but she chose, "I am good at being quiet." :)

April - In April, we began our animal unit study and learning about life-cycles. Since the kids were so excited about Easter egg hunts, I let them decorate their own Easter egg after we learned about oviparous animals (animals that lay eggs).

May - As the year was winding down, I had my students write about their year and some of their favorite memories. It was really interesting to see what they liked about school and it was great to see them so excited about what they have learned.

What a wonderful year! I still can't believe it's over....BUT lucky for me, I loop with my kids so I will see them again in a few months. :) 1st grade....here I come!

My class needs a new rug!

2011-05-31T09:49:00.002-05:00

I have been wanting a classroom rug for a while now that would fit all my students. The one I have is too small plus it's starting to unravel and come apart from too much "love." I found a rug I loved at Lakeshore Learning, but it was WAY too expensive for me to get by myself. My teammate Sam told me about Donorschoose.org where you can post a project you want funded and your friends, family and even strangers can donate. I posted our rug a little over a month ago and we are already SUPER close to finishing! We only need $80 now!

I want to thank all the people who have already donated: Sam, Jessica, Keri, J's aunt, Liz, cousin Jessica, Allison, Dad, Kitty, Brianna, Brenda and Justin. Thank you SO much for your generosity! My kids are going to LOVE this rug.

We do still need a little more money so if you would like to donate please click HERE! I would really appreciate it!

ABC Countdown Part 3: Q-Z

2011-05-27T20:43:00.005-05:00

It is SUMMER! I can hardly believe this year is over. It went by so fast! Our last day of school was yesterday, but I still had to go into school for a few hours this morning to clean up my classroom. After I finished I jumped in the car and went to visit my parents in Katy. What is the first thing I did when I arrived there? Took a long nap! :)

I wanted to share with you the rest of our ABC countdown because I KNOW you have been waiting in anticipation. :)

Q - Q was Quiet quilt day. I let the kids bring in a blanket and a book or two from home. Everyone spread out their blankets during reading time and read their books on the floor.

R- R day was all about rocks! Another one of my amazing teammates, Amanda, lent me a box of cool rocks to share with my kids. Each of my students got two rocks and their job was to draw and describe their rocks. Then they used a balance to decide which rock was heavier.

S- S day was supposed to be all about spiders, but I thought it was silly song day so we sang a lot of songs! (We did sing the itsy bitsy spider though so it all worked out haha!) The last Friday of school we had a Kindergarten Brunch program for the parents. We had each kindergarten class sing a song for their parents. My class did Deep in the Heart of Texas so we practiced it a lot on this day. I was so proud of them when they performed for their parents. The kids really enjoyed learning the song and they continued to sing it until the last day of school. :) Speaking of Texas...

T- T day was all about our great state of Texas! The week before we had done a whole unit on Texas. We also went on a fun study trip to Little Buckaroo Ranch where we learned all about taking care of ranch animals. The kids got to see the horses being fed, get "fish kisses", pet a rooster, feed some goats, groom a miniature horse and watch the mini horse do tricks. To end the trip we all got to roast marshmallows. The kids had a blast! Here are couple cute pics from the day!

The theme of our kindergarten brunch was rodeo so I had my kids make some centerpiece decorations for our tables. I found an adorable Texas flag craft in a Texas unit by April Larramore. I painted the kids hands to look like a Texas flag and they pressed their hand onto paper. They turned out really cute!

U- U day was our un-birthday party! I brought in cupcakes and drinks to celebrate everyone's birthday! We also sang happy birthday to our three summer birthday friends since we would not be with them on their birthday.

V- V Day was Very Vegetarian Day.....dropped the ball on this one and didn't do anything. No matter how hard you plan, everything doesn't always get done! But life goes on! ;-)

W- W Day was Wizard of Oz day! We talked about if anyone had seen the movie and what they knew about the story. We then read a picture book of the Wizard of Oz and the kids wrote about their favorite part. Here are few examples:

My favorite part of the Wizard of Oz was when Dorothy crushed the witch.

My favorite part of the Wizard of Oz was when the tornado swept the house.

My favorite part of the Wizard of Oz was when the nice witch helped the girl!

X- X Day was X-changing autographs day. My students created a memory book for the end of the year and the last page was an autograph page. I will write more about the memory book in another post! :)

Y- Y Day was Yoga day...and I have to admit I forgot to do yoga that day. We did do yoga back on healthy heart day and the kids loved it!

Z - Z Day was Zoom through the year day! We finished up our memory books and the kids got to take them home. I also had them write about their favorite part of the year. Here are a few:

My favorite field trip was all of them because they were fun.

It was a sunny day, perfect to go on a field trip. We went to the donut shop. My mom was there.

My favorite part of the time of school was Valentine's Day. I was with my parents. I was happy. I liked it.

I loved the jumpy house. I felt happy. I was with ______.

I loved Krispy Kreme because it had sprinkles. I love Krispy Kreme everyday and it is yummy.

Last week of school!

2011-05-24T21:32:00.007-05:00

Well, it's the last week of school. I can hardly believe it. This year has flown by! My little kinder babies are ready for 1st grade! I am so lucky to be able to have them for another year as my school does looping (teachers stay with the same class for 2 years). I have really enjoyed kinder this year, but I am SO excited to be teaching 1st grade again! WOO!

Now, I have to be honest - I was not the most prepared teacher this week as my summer-brain has kicked in. I have pretty much been wingin' it since Monday. :) Don't worry, there is still a lot of learning going on...just a lot more relaaaaaxed learning. It is nice to get away from the routine and we have been doing a lot of fun writing these past couple of weeks!

One of the things I love to ask my kids is what they want to be when they grow up. I have wanted to be a teacher since before I was their age! So I'm always interested to hear what they want to be! I was happy to hear from a few kiddos that they too want to be teachers along with MANY other fabulous choices! Today in writing they got to draw and write about their future careers. I thought I would share a few so ENJOY!

I was a firefighter. I will put water on a house.

When I grow up I want to be a dentist and a teacher too because I like to do people's teeth and work. (quite a combo I think! haha)

I will be a doctor. I want to help people so they can get better.

When I grow up I want to be a cowgirl.

I want to be when I grow up is a doctor.

I would like to be a ballerina.

And probably my favorite...

SPIDERMAN! :)

ABC Countdown Part 2: I-P

2011-05-11T19:44:00.000-05:00

Let the Countdown continue!

I - I day was Incredible Ice Cream day! We talked about the different states of matter (liquid, solid, gas) as we made homemade ice cream. First we mixed all the ingredients together and observed that it was a liquid. I gave them each a small bag of the mix and placed it in a larger bag of ice and salt. They then shook the bag for a few minutes (it got water EVERYWHERE! haha):

After a few minutes, there was some delicious homemade vanilla ice cream! We also saw that it was now a solid! Science is delicious!

J- J day was Jolly Joke day. I took this day off (personal fun day!) and I was lame and didn't plan anything for it. We joke around pretty much 24/7 in my classroom so really EVERY day is Jolly Joke Day! :)

K- K day was Kid Kindness day. Also too this day off (more fun!) BUT I actually do try to incorporate kindness into our everyday classroom culture. I did have my sub read the book How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. It's a story about a young boy learning how his actions affect others' feelings. Super cute book! :) Also, at least once a week, during our community circle time, I have my students share appreciations for each other (ex. I appreciate ______ because she helped me when I got hurt. I appreciate _______ because he shared his markers with me in the art center). We talk about how these appreciations make us feel and how we should give them to each other often.

L - L day is Letters at Lunch Day, and it was supposed to be a time to write a letter to a classmate and deliver the note to them at lunch, BUT I bought this cute end of year writing book from Mrs. Lochridge on TpT (teachers pay teachers) and it had an adorable page to write to your teacher. I was selfish and had them write to me! :) Here are a few of them:

You are the best teachers because you let us use pretty stickers. Because you are also the best teacher. (I like how she had to emphasize that I am the BEST!)

You are the best teacher in the world. You be nice to us. You are sweet to me. I like Kindergarten. (umm...can you say AWWW???)

I like you. You are my favorite teacher. I want to spend time with you. My friends like you. (My goodness....I love my kids! hehe)

And finally, this kid gets right to the point....

I like you. :)

M - M Day was Marvelous Mother's Day. We had been working on mother's day stuff all week! (actually all year!) My kids made cookbooks (filled with recipes we used all year for ABC cooking) for the moms and decorated the cover with a picture of them cooking with their mom. They also drew a picture of their mom and decorated a frame with stickers.

N - N Day was Nifty Numbers Day. I had math centers all about numbers that day: making numbers using wiki sticks, tracing numbers with white erase markers and writing numbers to 100. Not too exciting, but HEY, I still need to teach number recognition right? :)

O - O Day was Outstanding Student Day. I gave the kids awards in the morning (ex. Awesome Author award, Math Monster award, Great Helper award, etc.) and they were so excited! It was so cute to see them come up to accept the award and have everyone else clap for them. :)

P - Popular Popcorn Words Day. After an exhausting (BUT FUN) field trip today, I took my kids to my (once again) fabulous teammate Samantha's room to pop some popcorn and use them to build sight words. The kids were much more interested in eating the popcorn than spelling words, but oh well! They had a good time!

Well, you are all caught up with us...only a few letters left and you know what that means....SUMMER! :) Stay tuned!

ABC Countdown Part 1: A-H

2011-05-09T16:27:00.007-05:00

To count down to the end of the year, my teammate (the fabulous Samantha!) created an ABC countdown calendar. Each day until the next to last day of school (the last day is party day!) is a letter of the alphabet with a theme that starts with that letter. Today was letter N so we are over halfway to the end! :)

I wanted to share with you what we have done so far! I have been out a few days over the past few weeks so I don't have pictures for everything.

A - A day was Amazing Animals Day! You have seen more than enough animal fun already! :) I also let the kids bring their favorite stuffed animal and they got to share it with the class.

B- B day was Buoyant Boat Day! The kids got to create their own boat out of foil and see how many bears it could hold before sinking.

C- C Day was Creating Colors day! We used paints (red, yellow, blue) to create new colors (orange, green, purple). After we made new colors, I let the kids do a free-for-all paint session. It was pretty awesome. :)

D- D day (no we did not learn about WWII) was Daring Dinosaur Day! In my previous post you saw the cute dinosaur glyphs and dinosaur stories we did.

E- E day was Exciting Earth Day! We talked a lot about recycling, reusing and reducing and what examples of each of these would be. We also watched some SWEET Curious George videos on helping the earth. I love that monkey! :) I also had my kids draw a picture of the earth...check out how one of my students (on the left) views Texas as its own continent. :)

F- F day was Family Fun Day! The kids were able to bring family photos and I had them draw a picture of their families. Here are a couple examples:

G- G Day was Glorious Graphing Day was all about graphing. We did several graphs throughout the day (our favorite animals, shapes graph, etc) and talked about what was chosen the most, least if any were equal.

H- H Day was Heart Healthy Day. We all got to wear exercise clothes and we did lots of active things throughout the day. We talked about how important it is to exercise in order to stay healthy. We started the day with yoga (I have a Kids' yoga CD and cards with kid poses) and I wish I could show you pictures. The kids were awesome! :) We played games outside with our Book Buddies (a 2nd grade class we read with each Friday). We also had a nice long recess. :)

More to come! Stay Tuned!

Amazing Animals Part 2: Oviparous Animals

2011-05-03T23:17:00.005-05:00

I have quite a few personal days left so I decided to take today and tomorrow off AND next monday. :) It's been wonderful BUT I do miss my kiddos. Here is some more of their wonderful work about animals.

The second week of our animal unit, we talked all about oviparous animals! We learned that oviparous animals are animals that lay eggs. Last Monday was also Dinosaur Day (part of our ABC countdown, which I will blog about soon!) so we began the week learning all about dinosaurs. We learned the difference between a herbivore and carnivore. I had my students do a revised version of Deanna Jump's dinosaur glyph activity from her Dinosaur unit. My students got choose if they liked herbivores are carnivores better to get their dinosaur. We read a non-fiction and a fiction book about dinosaurs, and they put stripes on their dinosaur if they liked the non-fiction and spots if they liked the fiction book. Finally, they made their dinosaur have a silly face if they thought they were cool and a mad face if they thought they were creepy. Here are a couple examples:

In writing we thought about what it would be like if dinosaurs lived now with us. I had my class write a story about a family who had a dinosaur as a pet. Here is one student's story:

Translation: They will take it back to the zoo. And it will lay eggs. It will eat the house up and it will sit and they will run and walk on the sidewalk. (She had great details! haha)

The rest of the week we talked about other oviparous animals like reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish. We also compared and contrasted mammals with oviparous animals. At the end of the week I had my class do an activity (that I revised for Kinder) I found on The First Grade Parade blog. Each students got to choose an oviparous animal and draw it hatching out of a cracked egg. Here are a few examples:

Stay tuned for pictures and info about our ABC countdown to summer!

Amazing Animals Part 1: Mammals

2011-04-28T19:02:00.010-05:00

Well, we just wrapped up our two-week Animal Unit....and BOY, did we have fun! We started out in week one learning about what a mammal is and their important characteristics (fur or hair, live babies, breathe with lungs, etc.) Once again, I used an AWESOME unit from Deanna Jump about zoo animals. We started off the unit talking about adjectives to describe animals. We read her zoo animal book and then created our own class book. Here are a couple pages from it!

Each students got to pick two adjectives to describe animals and they had to draw an animal for each adjective. These students chose big/little and soft/furry.

We also did four of the seven animal crafts she created throughout the week.

First we did the adorable giraffes and the kids INSISTED that the "baby" giraffes be put up by our "mama" growth chart giraffe. :)

Next up we did lions, zebras and finally monkeys! (At this point I was crafted OUT so we just did the monkey head)

The monkey heads were super fun especially because I had the kids write what they would do if they were a monkey. I said I would have a party in the tress so of course, almost EVERYONE wanted to have a monkey party also. Here are some of my favorites:

If I was a monkey I would make a party with my friends and eat bananas too.

If I was a monkey I would eat a banana and hang on a tree with my friends. I would party up in the tree.

If I was a monkey I would jump up a tree and I would have a party.

After our craft extravaganza we read two books (one on zebras and one on giraffes) and then created a Venn diagram to compare and contrast zebras and giraffes. Our star facts were things we learned about all mammals. I just HAD to decorate the diagram with their cute crafts!

In math we did several animal math problems. My favorite was ordering animals because the kids drew such cute pictures.

I also asked my students to draw 3 mammals in their science journal and to label them. I absolutely LOVE their animal drawings!

This week was all about oviparous animals (animals that lay eggs) but I will blog about that in a few days....I know you can't wait! :)

Fairy Tale Fever!

2011-04-18T19:23:00.005-05:00

Well, last week in addition to insects, we were also studying fairy tales during reading. We had a literacy night a few weeks ago with the theme "Fairy Tale Fever" so I wanted to make sure my kids were exposed to different fairy tales and their elements. We read Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast...and many more! We found that the books I had were VERY different from the Disney versions. :) Especially the Little Mermaid....she was blonde (NOT a red-head) and named Melody (NOT Ariel) although she had a red-haired sister (to which my kids screamed OH! THERE'S ARIEL!) Also the ending was extremely lame....basically the sea witch was like umm..."Here's your voice back. No one is scared of me with your sweet princess voice." And they all lived happily ever after. Wow. A;-)

I used most of my activities from the Happily Ever After Unit from Primary Perspective . One of the first activities I did with the kids was have them write what they would wish for if they had a magic wand. Sadly I sent home their artwork before I could take pictures, but I thought I'd share a few of their wishes with you:

"I would wish for all the girls to be princesses and all the boys to be princes."

"I would wish to be turned into a squid." (This kid is OBSESSED with squids)

"I would turn myself into a fairy and fly with my friends."

"I would turn into a T-Rex and chase everyone."

I love how pretty much everyone wanted to turn into something else. It is absolutely HILARIOUS to watch them play in our pretend play center. They LOVE pretending to be doctors, cooks, moms, dads, kids, puppies, fire fighters, waiters, salesmen...or anything you can think of. I have a few future academy award winners on my hands.... :)

We also did a fairy tale journal everyday last week. We are still finishing them up this week. I wanted to share with you some of their art work though. It is SO precious.

We talked a lot about vocabulary that described different fairy tale characters especially when we discussed the difference between "good" and "bad" characters and how sometimes a character could do "good" and "bad" things. For this activity, my students got to pick a fairy tale character and draw them inside the frame. Around their drawing they copied words from a list to describe that character. The first drawing is Little Red Riding Hood and she was described as anxious, joyful, calm and playful. Red went through a roller coaster of emotions! The second drawing is Cinderella's fairy godmother. She was described as playful, joyful, calm and sweet.

After reading Beauty and the Beast, we talked about how most fairy tales start with a similar beginning of "Once upon a time..." I LOVED these two drawings. The one on the right is done by my little artist...he is SO talented. I mean check out those details! Is he really in kinder??

The kids loved my voices in the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Especially my troll voice. It was very scary. :) Hah! For this fairy tale we talked about how there are "good" characters and "bad characters". We also talked about how many fairy tales use the numbers 7 or 3. (7 dwarves, 3 pigs, 3 bears, etc.) I love this kid's drawing of the goats. Apparently these goats were multi-colored!

Here is a couple pages on the Little Mermaid. We talked about how fairy tales usually have wishes in them and the kids wrote that Melody wished to have legs. We also talked about how fairy tales often have royal characters. The kids wrote that Melody was a princess.

Hope you enjoyed seeing more of my kids work! We have just started our animal unit so There will be plenty more to share soon! Stay tuned!

We're going buggy!

2011-04-16T08:36:00.007-05:00

I am really wanting to try and keep this blog updated more. I also want to start showing more of my students' work! It's so adorable I can't help but share it! :)

These past 2 weeks we have been studying insects and life cycles in science. We have done a lot of adorable insect crafts from Deanna Jump's Insect Unit.

Here are our awesome butterflies! :)

Next we did fireflies! :)

Here's some of my cuties getting their praying mantis crafts ready!

Here are the finished insects! :)

And here's a peek into a couple science journals...I asked them to draw a life cycle and label it. I love their spelling! :)

Coming soon....Fairy Tales! :)

Ten Things I Have Learned from Teaching

2011-04-09T21:31:00.003-05:00

I've been OBSESSED with teacher websites lately and a lot of them have been posting 10 things they have learned from teaching so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon....

10. You are ALWAYS hungry for dinner before 5 (because you eat before 11 AM) and you are ALWAYS tired on Friday nights.

9. A teacher's job is NOT over at 3:30 when the kids leave. In fact, it is never over.

8. Sharing is a life-saver....don't re-invent the wheel! Borrow from your colleagues and other teachers you know! Don't forget to use google....so many ideas and free stuff out there! USE IT!

7. Always over-plan and be flexible. The activities you think will take a long time never do and the ones you need to finish up quickly seem to take the longest.

6. There will be kids and parents who don't like you (maybe even HATE you)....but there are WAY, WAY more who LOVE you so just let it go. :)

5. You will make mistakes. Daily. Learn from them and grow!

4. Never walk into a teacher supply store expecting to only pick up one or two things....that never happens.

3. The kids ARE learning....even if you think they aren't.

2. Kids DO say the darndest things!

1. Your first year will be HELL, but you will learn more in that year than any other.

After surviving that, you can do anything! :)

And the winners are.....

2011-03-01T16:59:00.003-06:00

For Best Picture:
1. Never Say Never
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel
3. Chihuahua 2
4. TRON
5. Avatar

For Best Male Performance
1. Gnomeo (from Gnomeo and Juliet)
2. Justin Bieber (from Never Say Never)
3. Iron Man (from Iron Man)
4. Alvin (from Alvin and the Chipmunks)
5. Clue (from TRON)

Fir Best Female Performance
1. Hannah Montana (from Hanna Montana: The Movie)
2. Barbie (from some Barbie movie haha)
3. Ariel (from The Little Mermaid)
4. Rapunzel (from Tangled)
5. Juliet (from Gnomeo and Juliet)

For Best Animated Movie
1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
2. Spongebob: The Movie
3. Tangled
4. Toy Story 3
5. How to Train your Dragon

For Best Song in a Movie
1. Never Say Never - Justin Bieber
2. We Belong Together - Toy Story 3
3. I Saw the Light - Tangled
4. Best of Both Worlds - Hannah Montana
5. Single Ladies - The Chippettes (from Alvin and the Chipmunks)

What an upset! haha Poor Justin Bieber....not one single award...and on his birthday. ;-)

Oscar Nominees!

2011-02-28T15:49:00.003-06:00

Since the Oscars were yesterday I thought it would be fun to do our own little "Oscars" in my class. Today I had the kids nominate movies and actors, and tomorrow we will vote! Here are the nominees!! Enjoy, it's pretty hilarious!

Best Picture:
1. Never Say Never
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel
3. Chihuahua 2
4. TRON
5. Avatar

Best Male Performance
1. Gnomeo (from Gnomeo and Juliet)
2. Justin Bieber (from Never Say Never)
3. Iron Man (from Iron Man)
4. Alvin (from Alvin and the Chipmunks)
5. Clue (from TRON)

Best Female Performance
1. Hannah Montana (from Hanna Montana: The Movie)
2. Barbie (from some Barbie movie haha)
3. Ariel (from The Little Mermaid)
4. Rapunzel (from Tangled)
5. Juliet (from Gnomeo and Juliet)

Best Animated Movie
1. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
2. Spongebob: The Movie
3. Tangled
4. Toy Story 3
5. How to Train your Dragon

Best Song in a Movie
1. Never Say Never - Justin Bieber
2. We Belong Together - Toy Story 3
3. I Saw the Light - Tangled
4. Best of Both Worlds - Hannah Montana
5. Single Ladies - The Chippettes (from Alvin and the Chipmunks)

Martin Luther King Jr.

2011-01-14T21:58:00.004-06:00

Man, I am not doing well at the whole "updating this more often" thing. I will try better in 2011! :)

I was reminded of both the innocence and compassion of my students as we have been discussing the reason for celebrating martin luther king jr. day on Monday. Today we talked about how boys and girls in the past had to go to different schools based on the color of their skin. They looked absolutely shocked. My class is very diverse and half of my students are ESL (english is their second language). I asked them how they would feel if our class could not be together and if I could not teach all of them. Everyone said they would be very sad. It was a very somber moment. We talked about how happy we were to be in a class together and how each one of us is different and special. We even said it would be SO boring if we were all the same! :)

One little boy asked me, "Well, why did those other people not want everyone to be together?" I wasn't sure how to answer this one - but I honestly replied, "I don't really know. I don't understand why it was that way." I reminded them that we celebrate MLK day to remember how things have changed and honor those who fought for fair laws.

My students amaze me at their ability to love others. I hope to follow in their footsteps. I am so proud to be their teacher.

Only 2 more days....

2010-10-09T01:12:00.002-05:00

Can't sleep so I felt like changing up my blog. Nice, huh? :) This makes me miss my kids...and reminds me why I don't let them use glue bottles.

Only 2 more days until back to work....yuck. Fall break has been heavenly. And rejuvenating. :)

Goodnight!

i miss being a student

2010-09-20T20:10:00.003-05:00

I have been wanting to get my masters, but not sure what should I do. Should I go back to school? Stop teaching? Keep teaching? Online? In school? Well, I have been thinking (and PRAYING) about this for awhile and I think I've made my decision. I want to go back to school....at UT! :) (Sorry, A&M and OU cousins...tee hee)

Now, my biggest uncertainty in going back to school was whether to stop teaching or not. My first year, I was ready to quit teaching altogether. :) Now, I can't imagine doing anything else. I want to keep teaching, but I do want to go back and learn more as an educator. I have talked to a professor at UT and she said a lot of students getting their masters are also full-time teachers. So I have decided to try school and teaching at the same time. I know it will be CRAZY...but I feel like I can handle it. I have never felt more confident in my teaching so I figured now is the time to go for it, right? :)

My plan is for Fall 2011. Here goes nothing!!! :)

Teachers are awesome

2010-09-05T21:50:00.003-05:00

I have a question for all you teachers out there...

Why are teachers so hard on themselves?

From talking to and observing many of my fellow teacher friends, I have noticed how critical we are of how we are teaching and how are students are learning. I especially noticed this in myself as a first year teacher. I worried all the time about if they were learning and if I was failing as a teacher. I even thought I had chosen the wrong profession. I had a rough class behavior wise, but almost half of them were quite low also. I felt like I was not reaching them. I was crying almost every day and feeling just...miserable. Looking back now I am glad I had a rough first year. It has really put everything in perspective. I was able to make it through the year AND even though at the time I thought I was talking to the wall...they learned. They grew. I grew.

I have grown a lot these past 2 years and I have felt a huge change in my view of myself as a teacher. I still feel inadequate at times, but I also know that I am doing the best I can and that each day I am becoming a better teacher. I still sometimes feel if my class has a bad day or if they aren't learning something as fast as other classes that it is all my fault. However I am slowly realizing that I am only human. I can't make my students do anything...I can only show them the way. I feel like I'm learning to do this better each day. I also feel myself growing as a leader in my school community. It's a good feeling to serve your school and your class.

I just wanted to say a word of encouragement to all you first year teachers (and veteran teachers). You are awesome. You are doing one of the hardest jobs out there. Thank you for all you do....keep trying. And if you need to cry, cry. :) This will pass. Your kids are learning...and so are you.

If you aren't a teacher, and you know one...give them a hug and say THANK YOU! Trust me, they deserve it. :)

Back to School - been there, DONE that

2010-08-22T21:42:00.002-05:00

It's weird to me that everyone is going back to school tomorrow when I have already been teaching for a month. I really like it though. :) Even though I have to start earlier and suffer through more heat....knowing that my 2 week fall break is only 5 weeks away makes it all worth it.

I have enjoyed the "beginning of the year" but I am ready for school to get into full swing. I'm tired of assessments....but still have a couple more weeks of that.

I just want to give a shout out to all my friends starting school tomorrow, students and teachers! :) I hope this year is the best one yet for all of you!

Yay for school!

and so it begins....

2010-08-10T22:26:00.002-05:00

Already into week 3 and I have not updated. Whoops! This is most likely due to the extreme exhaustion I have been feeling with trying to keep up with 16 5-year olds. My goodness, they are energy drainers! Thank goodness for nap time!! (for the kids...not me unfortunately haha)

Despite the extreme tired-ness....I love my class. They are definitely in need of lots and lots of training, but they are great. I honestly feel like I am more "at home" with 1st grade, but kindergarten will definitely be fun.

Here are my goals for this year....

1. PATIENCE....i need more of this. LOTS MORE!

2. Not go up on weekends....already failed at this. Will try harder! :)

3. Positivity....at all times. It's so easy to whine and complain, but it accomplishes NOTHING! I have so much to be thankful for...no need to dwell on the negative.

I'm ready for a great year! LET'S DO THIS! :)

TOMORROW! :)

2010-07-26T21:07:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is the first day of school! I took a picture of my classroom to show you before it is ransacked by crazy cute 5-year olds! :) Wish me luck!

Meet the Teacher

2010-07-22T21:14:00.002-05:00

Meet the Teacher Night was a success!

I have an adorable class! It's kind of ridiculous! I'm very excited about the year and I can't wait for the first day oh school. I definitely have my work cut out for me though....definitely some strong personalities coming my way. But that isn't a bad thing. :)

Have to share a cute story (there are about 500 cute moments but this one was my favorite)

I have a little boy from Guatemala in my class and his parents don't speak very much english. I heard his dad talking to him and I could pick out the words maestra and bonita....suddenly, the adorable little boy looks up at me and says, "You're pretty."

Man, who needs a boyfriend when cute little children adore you? :)

I'm glad tonight went so well....but I am still nervous. Be thinking about me on Tuesday.....gonna be a crazy fun day!

Summer? Where did you go?

2010-07-19T23:22:00.001-05:00

Thursday is meet the teacher night.

Next Tuesday is the first day of school.

Oh my.

Kindergarten, here I come!

KINDERGARTEN!!!

2010-06-16T22:58:00.004-05:00

I just went to a 2- day kindergarten teacher conference and since that is school related - BAM, teacher blog is back in business! :)

I had so much fun at the conference. I learned so much and I am just so EXCITED about this year. It is going to be challenging but I feel like my teaching is going to grow and I am going to feel so much more confident. I also realized that I think kindergarten is my calling as a teacher. :) I just love it. I'm excited to work with the little ones and watch them grow. And the amazing thing is that I get to spend 2 years with these kids. I loved seeing my last batch of kids grow over 2 years and I can't believe I get to experience it again. Looping is awesome! (looping is when a teacher stays with the same class for multiple years)

Another reason the conference was so fun was simply because of my awesome team. I am so blessed to have 3 wonderful ladies on my team who are not only AWESOME teachers but AWESOME people too (that is NOT always the case haha). I just have so much fun with them that work often feels like play. :) I look forward to another year with the DREAM TEAM!

BUT I am enjoying my summer...oh, how glorious it is!

last day

2010-05-25T22:34:00.002-05:00

Last day tomorrow. I can't believe. I'm excited and relieved and sad and....so many emotions. I will miss those kids a lot.

my little authors

2010-05-04T21:21:00.002-05:00

Wow. I've been really bad at this. :)

The last quarter has been amazing...only a few weeks left and then summer! I am almost finished with the end of year testing and I am very happy with where my kids are. They have worked hard and it shows! I am currently grading writing and I wanted to share a few parts of their stories. They are so funny. :) I want to leave in their spelling because it makes me smile. ENJOY!

This is a part from a story called "The Dead Snake"-

you know when I said that it coud be a dead sancke? I asked they said Yes we looked...and it was ahhhhhhhhh we scremed it was yellow it looked like a wire. it was useing camaflage (camouflage) we are still thinking about it but it is fixed

This is a story called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" - if you can read it, you should be a 1st grader teacher!

I Red dIARY OF a WimPy kid dog days and it was fney and I Laft and it was yeLOW it sed Hlo Yuor ded and it was a fun day. (translation - I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days and it was funny and I laughed and it was yellow. It said "Hello. You're dead." and it was a fun day.)

This story is called "Budderflys"

When it was fall break I ordered some baby catcpillers. I had to grow them-up. A few days later I saw them as pupas. There were five of them. I was surpridzed! I said "WOW" Then me and my dad put them in a budderfly tree house. A few weeks later all of them were hached! I fed them suguer water. Soon I let them go. I was sad. I said "aw man.

My favorite (well, they are all my favorite, but this one has ME in it) is called "Meeting my new teacher" - oh, and notice the spelling....AMAZING! Yes, she is a 1st grader.

First my mom said "we are going to meet your teacher." I jumped up and down because meeting a new teacher is very exiting. getting to know exactly everybody. When I asked "who is it mommy?" she said "it's a suprise." I wondered who it could be just then she said "were there." We got out of the car and we went up to the portable. We went inside. I saw that the teacher was Ms. Cavett. She had taught kindergartener to me. I was happy even though I didn't meet a new teacher. I got a good one though.

enjoying my break :)

2010-03-22T10:20:00.003-05:00

Not gonna lie....I love spring break. :) Especially the sleeping in part. Man, it just feels so good to not have any responsibilities. I am so thankful to have a job with built in vacation....just when I think I can't do it anymore BAM! two week break!

I am looking forward to going back to school though. Only 9 weeks left!!! I cannot believe how fast my second year has gone. Unbelievable!

one more day!!!!!

2010-03-12T06:27:00.003-06:00

Spring Break. It is finally here. All I have to do is survive ONE HALF DAY and I will have completed 3/4 of my 2nd year of teaching. Incredible.I'm feeling a lot better about life the last couple of days...I know part of the reason is I know I will be going to be with my family for the next week. But I am thankful that my mood is better.

Last night was McTeacher Night where all the teachers go to McDonald's and work while parents and kids come to eat and part of the money they spend goes to our school. I took the last shift and I was dreading it, but I ended up having a great time. Teachers are fun peopled. :) Plus, I met a really nice mom who has a son going to kindergarten next year. Fingers crossed I get him! haha

I also got several nice compliments about my teaching. One mom knew the family of a boy I had last year in kindergarten. He moved during the summer and his mom told her he was way ahead of everyone in 1st grade. She said that his mom gave me the credit. I have to be honest, the kid was very bright and I didn't have to help him much...but it still feels good to know I helped a kid. :) Also, my principal told me several people have requested their child be put in my class next year. Pretty sweet to know my reputation precedes me. haha

Now, I'll try not to have this swell my head. I know I have a gift for teaching...especially for the tiny ones. :) But I also know that I still have A LONG WAY TO GO. There are so many things I could be better at....patience, not yelling as much, reading group instruction, behavior managment.....but its good to know I have been doing something right so far.

HAPPY SPRING BREAK EVERYBODY! :)

Snow

2010-02-23T17:21:00.001-06:00

Snow today. Crazy day, but it was great to see how happy the kids were.

feeling important to someone

2010-02-22T21:03:00.004-06:00

I think I'm starting to understand why my moods lift so much at work. I feel needed there. I feel valued and loved. I feel important to someone. Now, don't misunderstand me....I know my family and friends love me. But honestly, when I'm alone by myself for 12+ hours....I don't believe it. sometimes i think no one even cares if I exist. I feel cast aside and forgotten and it hurts. My kids this year are so wonderful and love to learn and they just enjoy our class, it's contagious. And they love to make me laugh. I feel very loved. I just feel kind of....pathetic when I'm home and alone. Even when I'm with other people. I feel like I don't have a life outside of my work. I'm trying...but I feel so fake and useless. No one tells you how hard life after college is...or at least they don't paint a good picture. And no one told me how miserable single life about college is. I hate it.

Sorry to vent here, but I need this. I am tired of feeling like this. I really am.

frustrated

2010-02-21T21:39:00.003-06:00

i am absolutely feeling miserable right now. :(

i'm sad and lonely and bored. i dread the weekends. is that even normal? but not leaping for joy about going back to work tomorrow. i'm just in a funk. a horrible funk. and i got a stupid email from a parent that has me annoyed and angry. just another thing i shouldn't have to deal with. plus a stupid meeting after school over health insurance. UGH!

wow. i'm such a pleasure to be around right now. sometimes i wish i could just get away from myself.

feeling low

2010-02-17T21:52:00.001-06:00

I'm feeling very down today. I have been off and on for the past few months. I am very thankful, though that my job has been an escape for me. A place to rejuvenate and feel valuable. That is something I never would have dreamed of last year. Thank God for my kids and teaching.

I just wish I could feel good out of school. :(

Kids say the darndest things

2010-02-10T20:30:00.002-06:00

Picture this-

I'm teaching my kids about 2-D shapes. We are learning the names, playing a fun game with a catchy song. It all seems great. That is until one of my ESL kids gets hexagon and I ask him, "What is this shape?" He replies -

SEXAGON!

Now, how would you respond to this?

A. Laughter

B. Complete horror and shock

C. Straight face and reply with "No dear, it's HEXagon!"

D. All of the above.

I did D.

What made it worse was one of my other kids shouts to him, "No its not SEXagon...there's no S! Not SEXAGON!"

Thank God they are all six and not one of them laughed or got it. My biggest fear was one of them would go home and say "Hey Mom, Ms. Cavett taught me about this 6-sided shape...the sexagon!" Haha

I love my kids.

the important thing...

2010-01-20T14:10:00.002-06:00

Today in writing my kids wrote poems with lots of details based on the book "The Important Book." They could choose a topic they heard in a book we read earlier or they could choose their own. It turned out so cute I wanted to share a few with you. Each poem follows the pattern: "The important thing about ________ is that________." at the beginning and "But the important thing about ________ is that _________."

Enjoy!

"The important thing about fishing is that the pond has to have fish in it. We can catch fish and eat lunch and we can ride in a boat. But the important thing about fishing is that the pond has to have fish in it."

"The important thing about running is that we have energy. We can run fast. We can have fun. But the important thing about running is that we have energy."

"The most important thing about reading is that you learn. You read books. You learn new words. You learn stories. But the important thing about reading is you learn."

"The important thing about fireworks is that it is pretty. You can light it easily and you can see it explode into the sky. You can see it in different colors, in different shapes and ways. But the important thing about fireworks is that it is pretty."

all over the place

2010-01-18T20:39:00.002-06:00

I have been so bad at this. I don't want to stop blogging...just need to get more motivation to do it.

This year has been a complete change from last year. My class is well-behaved, I feel so much more organized and with it....I look forward to teaching! Sure, I still have many days where I wish I wasn't at school...but overall I love what I'm doing.

Right now my family is going through a hard time. My grandmother is in hospice and it could be any day now that she passes. I'm so thankful for my school and the caring staff. I am surrounded by support. I am also so thankful I don't have to worry about my class. I can focus on my family and not have my job stressing me out. What a blessing.

Hopefully I will post more soon. I enjoy having this and I especially enjoy reading past entries from last year. I want to document more of the good times so if I have another rough class, I can remember it wasn't always this way. :)

sorry blog readers (if you are still out there)

2009-11-08T23:38:00.002-06:00

i have not been the best blogger.

its interesting though, reading through old posts, this blog was such a great outlet for me. i felt like i was drowning last year, and this blog really gave me something to hold on to. it helped me voice my despair.

this year is so different. i feel so much more in control, more prepared, more "with it", more in tune with my self as a teacher. i am even team leader this year and i feel like that in itself has give me an extra push of confidence. and the kids....my kids this year are absolutely wonderful. a joy. a pure joy.

now, don't get me wrong - things aren't perfect. i still have so much to learn and so much to grow in. especially with my patience/attitude. i feel at times i'm very snappy and rude to my students - yell too much, get frustrated too much. sometimes for behavior but other times when they aren't learning at the rate i think they should be. i want to have more patience in giving them time. they will get it. just saying the same things LOUDER isn't going to help anything. :)

finally, a somewhat unrelated topic - the GRE. i take it on saturday and i'm very frightened to be honest. the practice tests i have been taking have not been good....i don't know why it bothers me so much. if i don't do great, i can take it again. it isn't like i'm going to grad school next year. i guess i just have this complex where i have to do the best the FIRST time and if i don't have the greatest score i'll look like a failure. i have to remember that God is in control of my future and if grad school is where he wants me to go...HE will get me there. not me.

unfortunately this worry is keeping me up. i'm going to let it go. i need rest in order to be a patient, loving teacher in the morning. :)

God, give me peace and patience.

oh yes :)

2009-09-21T23:41:00.002-05:00

I enjoy re-reading my blog posts from last year and realizing how far I have truly come.

Feels good. Real good.