Polar Express Day!

Polar Express Day!

We have been M.I.A. Sorry...we have been prepping for the holidays and getting over the stomach flu...and well...this girl fell off the blogging train. Hopefully, we are back on track!

Today was Polar Express Day! Polar Express = Wearing Pajamas! Who doesn't love wearing pajamas on a Friday?!? These teachers do!

We read the book, watched the movie and did lots of fun activities including comparing the character from the beginning to the end of the story.To enter the room for the movie, students had to have a golden ticket punched. The students had a blast eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate while watching the movie. All in all, Polar Express Day was a success!

Halloween

I know, I know . . .we've been slacking (or should I say I have been because it's my turn to blog). It's been a CRAZY couple of weeks. We just finished parent-teacher conferences, phew! We have a busy week with Halloween on Friday (can we just take a second to appreciate this fact!!!!!).


Our kiddos have been having so much fun with our Halloween themed centers. We thought we would share some with you. I included a few freebies from TPT because who doesn't love a freebie :)

This is a favorite called Cupcake Facts. They match the math problem with the answer on these Halloween themed cupcakes. Super cute :) This is from The Bubbly Blonde on TPT and it's free!!!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cupcake-Addition-Facts-sums-2-17-155907

This is a fun roll and add game from Teacher Tom on TPT. They roll 2 (or 3) dice, add and then cover the ghost. The student who covers the most ghosts wins! This is also free from TPT :)

This is Spin a Spider from TPT. The students use a paper clip and spin both webs to create an addition sentence. They love using the "spinner". This came with a spider unit we bought.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spider-Week-352630

Hope we all make it through the week!

#HappyHalloween

Fall Is Here!

The weather has definitely changed! Rain, cold, wind...fall is here! Break out the Uggs and coats! We all know Melissa has been counting down the days to wear her pinned fall outfits! The leaves are changing, football is in high gear and bonfires are burning. Bring on hayrides and haunted houses! October is one of my favorite months!

We had the privilege of presenting at the Illinois Reading Conference again! We presented on how we engage our students using Pinterest with The Daily Five. We had an enthusiastic audience with some great questions. We may have had even more fun presenting this year than last. The hour always goes too fast! #lovepinterest #greataudience

Fun Tip Friday...

Whole class behavior management is important. A fun way to promote good classroom behavior is by filling in numbers on a hundred chart. Directions: (1) copy and laminate two hundred charts (2) cut apart each number on one of the hundred charts (3) reward positive behavior by picking a number(s) and color them on the hundred chart. Once an entire row or column is filled, the students receive a predetermined reward. We had our first reward last week with a fairytale movie since we have been reading fairytales. And...what is a movie without popcorn?!?

*Note...I may have slipped a little math into the behavior incentive! "Oh look, we just colored in 31, and we already have 41, and 51. Does anyone see a pattern?" or "I just drew the number 10 more than 78." #sneaky

#Friday

Fall is here . . . (or is it?)

Can you believe it is almost October? I am so ready for sweaters and Uggs but mother nature just isn't quite ready to get rid of summer yet. It's been in the high 80's all week :( She clearly doesn't understand the need I have to wear my new fall outfits that I have had pinned for weeks.

We just finished our 6th week of school! Feels like we've been back for months doesn't it? We are almost done teaching Daily 5 and plan to start October 7th. We can't wait!!!

We had an inservice today and actually got a lot done! Jenn and I are getting ready for our big presentation at the Illinois Reading Conference next week. So excited to be presenting on Daily 5 and Pinterest. Last year was our first year and we had over 100 teachers attend!!  Can't wait to present again (and hopefully wear one of my new fall pinned outfits). We will be sure to share our goodies with you - stay tuned!

FUN TIP FRIDAY!

Go Noodle!

Are you in need of a new brain breaks activity? Try www.gonoodle.com! Our kiddos love it! You just create an account and then you are set. It has so many fun activities for the kids to do and they take 2-3 minutes. Lots of movement and fun. It's a great way to get your little ones out of their seats and get those wiggles out.

#happyfriday

#fallishere

#almosthalloween

My favorite soccer player! Pic of me and my boy after his U12 team won their soccer tournament in STL, MO! Love watching him play :) Go SASA!!!!!

Fun With Pete The Cat!

One blue cat equals lots of firstie fun! Pete the Cat spent the week in our rooms. Our firsties LOVED him! We did so many fun activities around Pete with math, reading and writing. We even made our own Pete the Cats! #groovycat

Moving on to....

FUN TIP FRIDAY!

Who knew five little trash cans could help solve a huge problem?!? It seemed like our kiddos were constantly getting up and down to keep throwing away scraps while doing a project. Not anymore! We put a small trash/tidy tub on our tables so our sweet little firsties do not have to get out of their seats to throw away scraps. Easy Peasy! The best part is...those busy little workers can stay seated during their entire project! #itsallgood

FAB FRIDAY!!!

Hi Friends!

I blinked and it's Friday again. . . . 4 day weeks will do that :)

Just finished our third week of school and I. Am. Exhausted!!!! Seriously. My body has a hard time going from a raft in the pool to keeping up with 23 first graders all day.

We've been busy setting up our routines, especially Daily 5. Anyone else feel like this takes forever? We are still building stamina for Read To Self. We made it 9 minutes today and the kiddos were very excited!

FUN TIP FRIDAY!

This Friday we HAVE to share our line up number stickers. These are FAB and not sure how we lived without them!! We bought them from Really Good Stuff. Each child has a number and when we go to line up, they stand on their number. It's a life changer in our classrooms!! No more running and shoving to be first. . . ever again! It even has a sticker for line leader, caboose and door holder. Best buy this year so far. I may be more excited about this purchase than my new Seven Jeans :) Check them out below . . .

                                     
                             (sorry for the sideways pic, it's Friday and I'm too tired to fix it, lol)


#happyteaching
#readyfortheweekend

Darn It's Friday . . .Said No Teacher Ever!

It's FRIDAY!!!!!!

And it's a three day weeeknd, extra bonus!

We spent our day doing every teacher's favorite thing. . . backwards planning :) We made copies, finished planning up until November, created posters for our writing unit, made math username/ password cards and had a lunch that was a bit longer than 45 minutes. Holla! See how hard we are working . . . .

 (and no, that is not our classroom, lol . . .pictures to come of those fancy rooms later!)


Today we are starting our "Fun Tip Friday'. We would like to share some sort of easy teaching tip to help you throughout your school year. Today we will share with you POWER PELLETS (found from the blog "what the teacher wants"). You take any kind of plastic container (with a lid) and fill it with power pellets (aka, Skittles). Explain to your class that when they hear the words "Power Position" they stop what they are doing, fold their hands and sit or stand quietly. Students that do this quickly will earn a power pellet! So simple! This works wonders in our rooms!!! Give it a try :)

#happyteaching

First Day of School

Today was our first day of school, and we survived! We read Jitter Juice and talked about how we all felt on the first day of school. We thought of adjectives for jitter. Then, we made jitter juice, and when we drank it, the jitters disappeared! It's magic! Then, we graphed who liked jitter juice and who didn't. Both rooms had more people that liked it than didn't. Next, we wrote about jitter juice and how it made us feel. It was an exhausting day, but we are looking forward to tomorrow. I'm sure it will be an early night for the teachers. :) Here we are at the end of the day...