Goodbye August!

Where on earth did August go?! That month just always seems to slip right past me. There is just TOO much going on! The new year is off to a great start, and we are rocking and rolling right through first quarter. With progress reports just around the corner, I guess I should get busy telling you what we have been up to since school started.
The month of August is really all about learning the rules and procedures in our classroom, and building classroom community. After talking about the importance of rules and procedures, we made a class promise. The students came up with a list of things they promise to do as students, and then they helped me list of things that a good teacher should do:) We also read one of my favorite books, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?". The idea is that everyone walks around with an imaginary bucket that is filled and emptied by the words and actions of others. It talks about how we can make others feel good by saying nice things, acts of kindness, and encouragement. This is called "filling someone's bucket". Then it discusses how we "dip into a bucket" by hurtful words and actions. I highly encourage checking out this book for home as well. We will enforce the "bucket filler" attitude throughout the year (and hopefully beyond) through our "community circle" in which we share our feelings and experiences with having our buckets filled and emptied. We will also begin writing regular "bucket filler" notes each week during Daily 5. These notes will be shared on Fridays in community circle, and it's always one of my favorite times of the week.
Another community building activity I love is the "band aid" lesson. This is a great way to teach students about differentiation, and it's the perfect way to explain one of my favorite quotes, "Fair doesn't mean everyone gets the same thing, it means everyone gets what they need in order to be successful." In our classroom we have students with different strengths and weaknesses, different learning styles, and different needs. It's important that students understand why some students may get things that they do not, whether it's time with the teacher one-on-one, time in another classroom, different work, a special seat, etc. During this lesson students talk about times when they have gotten hurt, and regardless of where they said their injury was, they all received a band aid on their wrist. We discussed how different injuries need different sized band aids, and band aids in different places. This was the perfect way to present differentiation to first graders, and it was really cool to see it "click". Now when I am working with a small group, they know not to rip the band aid off by interrupting:)
In reading we have been building "stamina" in Daily 5. Daily 5 is a method for building fluency in reading and writing by daily independent practice and small group instruction. Students work independently on writing, independent reading, reading with a buddy, reading on the computer with "Reading Eggs" program, word work, and working with the teacher on reading fluency and phonics. At this time, students are still working on being able to work independently for up to 15 minutes at a time. Once students are ready for more responsibility and independence, I will allow them to choose the order in which they complete the daily requirements and they will be graded weekly on their performance through a Daily 5 rubric. This is always one of my favorite times of day. I love seeing kids lounging around enjoying a good book!
In math we have been working on implementing our brand new math program "Investigations". This program incorporates game based learning in mathematics, as well as learning math through calendar time. After our Number of the Day and calendar routine, students rotate daily between math with the teacher, independent math, and math with a buddy (games). It's been a challenge, but I think we are finally getting into the swing of it!
As we move into the fall, I hope to blog more regularly. This week we are learning about keeping a journal or diary. We read Diary of a Worm, and I explained to students that a blog is like a diary. I will share this blog with them later this week as an example, and eventually I would love to move into having some regular "student bloggers" for our blog! Stay tuned! Also, if you are new to our blog, don't forget to "follow" by clicking the link in the sidebar.

Welcome Back!!!

It looks like I'm going to have to change the blog title...the fun has moved to room 304! I have spent the last couple of weeks making our new room feel like "home". I can honestly say this is my favorite classroom set up I have ever had. It's going to be a great year. For those of you who are new to this blog, let me fill you in. This will be the second year of my classroom blog, and you can check out last year's adventures by clicking on previous posts. But soon enough you will also find the regular happenings in first grade posted here. I like to think of it as a "window" into our classroom. Parents and family members can get a peek into what goes on in our room on a daily basis. In addition to providing a closer look into first grade, my eventual goal is to get the students blogging as well! I struggled to make it happen last year, but this is the year! I can feel it! I have been blogging on a personal level for six years as a way to keep a record of my own personal family memories as well as share them with my family across the country. I really enjoy blogging, and I think a classroom blog is a fantastic way to get students excited about writing. I can't wait to share our blog with you! Make sure you sign up as a "follower" to receive updates. Also, feel free to leave your comments. For now, check out some pictures of how the new room is coming along...

Winding Down...

I can't believe we are almost at the end of the year. I feel like I have failed miserably at getting pictures the last few weeks:( We enjoyed Spirit Week and the Spring Carnival last week, finished our plant unit before that, enjoyed our field trip to the zoo, and now we are getting ready to start working on our animal reports. Phew! On top of all the normal end of the year business I also learned that I am moving classrooms, so I anticipate a lot of packing in the last few weeks. I feel like our year has been a success, and I have learned just as much as the students! In my first year here, and my first year in first grade, I am so thankful for the welcome support I have had from my fabulous new coworkers and my amazingly patient group of firsties.

APEX Fun Run!

These past couple of weeks we have been working hard to get pledges for the Apex Fun Run. This is a new fundraiser this year, and let me tell you, it was a hit! Not only did we raise a lot of money for our school and classroom, the students had a great time hanging out with the Apex athletes who can to our room daily to do character/leadership lessons. They were a lot of fun! I personally loved that all the kids got to participate and feel involved, regardless of how many pledges they got. I also think it gave the kids more ownership in raising the money. Besides that, the run was a BLAST and great exercise! I ran with the kids, and let me tell you I was sore the next day! I am already looking forward to next year's run!

We Have Been Busy!

Well, can you believe it's almost March? I can't! The past two months have kept us busy with 100th day, Young Author's, and Valentine's Day. I also found an app for blogger that allows me to update from my phone directly, so maybe that will mean I can actually post more frequently, or that's my goal anyways.
We shared some fantastic 100 day collections and had a lot of fun playing games and doing activities with the number 100 on the 100th day of school.
We also enjoyed our Valentine's Day celebration, complete with a delicious friendship mix. In the midst of all the fun. we also completed our Young Author's book, which is a collection of acrostic poems using our names, and heart map illustrations. I can't wait to see the final product! Next week we will enjoy the book fair, and wind down the 3rd quarter with assessments before heading out for a relaxing spring break.

January, The Magical Month (whoops!!!)

Well, some how this post never actually got posted. I had it all typed up and ready to go, and must not have hit the submit button. Whoops! Poor January post. Well anyways, here it is...


January is often known as the "magical month" for teachers. When students return from winter break, often they are suddenly more mature, smarter, and the things you have been working on every. single. day. have finally "clicked". We are two days in, and I have already seen some light bulbs come on! This is promising, considering we are trying to get back into a routine after two weeks off, and they are more than happy to see their friends (which translates to CHATTY). Despite battling a massive head cold, I am happy to be back with my kiddos:) We are hard at work this week, and I am soooooo thankful that the holiday madness is over. Let's just say it's exhausting as a teacher. We are pumping up Daily 5, and I am now working on Read Naturally with three of my reading groups (great for fluency building). I have added some new word work (including the new favorite: make your own word search), we are going to be adding writing rubrics to work on writing and starting our Young Author's books, and soon I will be introducing the other component to Daily 5, CAFE! This is a great way to work on reading comprehension. Now that we are becoming more fluent readers, it's time to start focusing more on comprehending what we read. We are going to be BUSY!
We are still trucking along with Whole Brain teaching, and soon we will be adding number towers to our number walls to work on place value. I have two students that have reached level 5 on the Super Improver wall, which is BIG! Our scoreboard has also morphed into a happy snowman/sad snowman for winter (or maybe they are sandmen...that might be more appropriate for Arizona), and we are working on earning a new class reward, but this time it's a mystery!
Another exciting thing I am testing out (yes, I am crazy trying to juggle all of these things, but I LOVE technology and I HAD to implement this right away) is called Class Dojo. It's an awesome app that works perfectly with my classroom management system and allows me to track behaviors (positive and negative) using an app on my iphone or macbook. It will also provide detailed parent reports with graphs and charts (another favorite thing of mine). It also provides instant feedback to students doing a great job, and those that need a reminder to do the right thing or stay on task. Students will also be able to view and track their own behavior and reflect on where they struggle. I am super excited to try it, and so are the kids. I let them choose their monster "avatar" today. Fun times.

Finally, I have to throw in a leftover goodies from December:

A Special Visitor

Last week we welcomed the month of December with a very special visitor all the way from the North Pole!!! On Wednesday, we returned from PE to discover a box wrapped in gift wrap and tied with a bow sitting in front of our classroom door. We were all very anxious and excited to find out what exactly was inside that box!

When we opened the package, we found a tiny little Elf, a book, and a class set of "Elf Journals".

                          Student #21 wrote a cute little bit about wanting to name him Mark.
Hmmmmm...we were intrigued. We read the book and discovered that our Elf visitor was sent to us directly from the North Pole!!! He was a spy for Santa watching to make sure we were behaving and making good choices! We also learned that we had to choose a name for him, and write about his visit in our special Elf journals. After much deliberation, we voted on "Ethan the Elf" as his name. We also found that he doesn't speak, and we must not touch him or we could risk him losing his "magic". He spent his first day in our classroom hanging out on the book shelf.
The next day we found him sleeping in our tissue box...

 

We figured he must have been tired after his long journey from the North Pole. The next day he was hanging out on top of the lollipop tree enjoying a lollipop! He didn't even throw away the wrapper! What a naughty elf!

The following day he left us a message with the magnetic letters...

He also had an unfortunate accident and toppled off one of the boxes he was sitting on. We were really worried about him, but thankfully the next day he seemed to be okay, just a little banged up. Looks like he found my bandaids in the drawer though!

This morning he wrote our whole class a letter and thanked everyone for the nice notes and bucket fillers they have been leaving him. But he also warned us that he has been taking pictures of our classroom at the end of the day and sending them to Santa, and it has been very messy!!! Uh oh. 

Wonder what kind of shenanigans he will be up to tomorrow...