Prep for next year!

So, two days into summer vacation, and what am I thinking about?  Common Core.  I feel like I am swimming in the ocean...alone...at night...in freezing cold tempertures.  Every time I feel like I understand it, I hear something that completely changes my idea.  So, here are some little tidbits I made expanding on some ideas I found on TPT.  Use if you like, I am happy to share, get it here and here too!  Next year I plan on focusing a lot on Thin Questions {simple questions like who, why, how , when, where} and transitioning to Thick Questions {deeper questions like what if, what might, how did, what do you think, why did, what would happen if, what is this mostly about, and what ideas support the main idea}. 

These questions could even be the purpose of show and tell.  I just right now, yes! just right now!  had the idea of using this as an extention to my Daily Dish.  You can find the concept of the Daily Dish {thanks Cara Carroll} in a past blog.  I am thinking I might do the daily dish then pull sticks to have the students ask a question that Thick Rick would like or {for my students who need some scaffolding} a question that Thin Jim would like.

Have a fun vacation, everyone!
Melissa

Mothers Day Craft Freebie!

Wowie, Wow, Wow!  The last 11 days of school are going to be NUTS!  I am so stressed out that when I get home at night I automatically look for some r
eality show trash {my guilty pleasure} to wash over me and help me decompress.  On the funner side, I wanted my kids to do something cute for their wonderful moms.  So, I trolled Pinterest and found a cute idea but had to spend a good amount of time prepping it. 

To help other people who also like this idea, I created a PDF file you can download and print all your little hearts desire, click here for the link to my TPT store!

I hope you Mommies have the wonderful day that you deserve!  Happy Mother's Day!
xoxo Melissa

Just call me "Miss New Room"

It has been a while since my last post but I have been busy busy busy.  Finally, Spring Break is here and my mind can focus on more important things selfish things, like Aubree's horseback riding lessons, getting decorations ready for Easter, and redecorating my classroom.  I am so excited to go back into my room with new boards and carpet.  It smells so good!  Our principal fondly refers to us as the Flood Victims of 2013, funny if it isn't you :)~  I found some really fun ideas on Cara Carroll's site at The First Grade Parade.  Here are some pics:

 

These boards are still a work in progress, but I loved the ideas.  I found the cutest doily boarder, but went with something a little less busy (and cheaper).

 

Also, I have often been annoyed spending valuable time passing out unifix cubes and the students dropping half of them trying to put them away, so I thought of this.  Maybe an old idea, but new to me...

 



 

Here I used a small pie tin.  Enough cubes fit for two students to share. 

 

 

Here I used the bottom part of a 2 liter bottle.  I simply cut it with scissors.



State of Matter...Liquid

If you were here looking for a lesson on matter, so sorry, this my Monday teachable moment.  I get to school at 7:30 to find out my room has been flooded along with 3 other rooms.  Somehow, I was strangely calm!  I have heard a few stories about what happened but it seems as though some hooligans broke the spouts off our water spigots and our drinking fountains.  Here is some of the damage done to my room.  I haven't done a thorough look at what my personal damage is. My sweetie coteachers kept asking what I needed and how they could help me, but my students and I just went with the flow.  My kids were so good, their ability to roll with the punches helped me be patient and calm.  They really are THE.BEST.!  In summary, it is ironic that today in Science we began our unit on the three states of Matter...one of which is Liquid...lots...and...lots of liquid

 

My strange sense of humor found it hysterical that the beach ball was lazily floating on the water...looks like a fun time!

Here are my sweet hearts making the best out of the situation...

What little hard workers they are...just love them!



A lil Bragging!

Aubree's Principal's Award.  Such a good girl!

Wakey Wakey, Eggs and Tofu-ey?!?

 

 

I don't know about you, but after Winter Break I felt so refreshed, revived and ready to be back at work! upset!  Our lil family spent the whole vacation sick, except for me of course, because as a friend has told me...mommy doesn't get the luxury of being sick.  So between the barf, presents, fever, stress (not necessarily in that order) I needed a break from my break!  I came back feeling less than enthused to be there but happy to see my lil squirts.  Even on my worst days, they bring a smile to my face and I have to thank God for letting me do what I do and letting me have them in my class...even if just for a brief moment. 

 

After checking out my favorite blogs, I found the awesome Cara Carroll posted a fun morning warm up activity.  I really thought this would be a great addition to what I already do in an attempt to wake their sleepy heads up.  O.M.Geez!  They love it.  I even venture to say it is their favorite part of the day.  I pull a stick and that student will give us the "Dish".  It can be about anything they would like to share.  So far, it has been about a new jacket, new shoes, where they were going after school...all kinds of fun stuff.  A couple even fold their hands in mock prayer to be chosen, so cute!  Who says there's no prayer in school, hehe. 

 

We count the number of words the student told us in their dish and I draw blanks.  They write their dish, with peer and teacher help, and then we do some skill building.  Examples of the skills would be counting up the vowels and consonants, finding odd and even words, words with CVCe patterns, all kinds of stuff!

 

I laminated mine so I wouldn't go through so much chart paper.

 

Do you wanna dish???

 

 

Fact Families...We Are Family!

Fact families are always fun to teach, but just to make the fun factor blast off the chart (for me anyway) I made an Anchor Chart for Fact Families.  I also saw a very cool idea from another teachers blog (I apologize...I can't remember which one) where you create a worksheet to represent 3 members of a family and how you manipulate the three numbers using the general rule P+P=W and W-P=P. 
HERE is an example of the worksheet!


When discussing fact families we had the obligatory discussion about how each number is a member of the family and they don't change, yada yada yada.  We then filled in the circle 'faces' with a number to represent the mom, dad and child.