[So Grateful]

It's been a whirlwind of a day. . .but I couldn't go to bed without a big shout-out to a few friends for their help today!

Sammy, Chantel, Sky, Joanne, Kylee, and Blake - THANK YOU for tackling not only my to do list, but my "I think this is what I want to do" list!!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE how my room looks now and am so very grateful for your help!

Tonight I spent the evening at Willow Valley registration.

Willow Valley.

Where Kenton SHOULD be attending 7th grade.  :(

So many of his friends were there in their TEAM KENTON shirts!

His sweet friend Mady had the great idea of a TEAM KENTON day.  LOVE THAT!!

So many more of his friends purchased shirts and reminder bands.

Lots of his teachers stopped to talk to me (yesterday and today).

He's going to be missed by many many people this school year.

From what I'm learning from other moms of kiddos with cancer, the support we're receiving from Willow Valley is so totally different than their experiences with their schools.  How grateful to have the Willow Valley Staff on our side, willing to work with us and do whatever it takes to help Kenton not only "get through" this year, but be ready to move on with his buddies next year!  So grateful for an amazing school!

The support we have from this community is AMAZING!

I've cried many many tears this week.

Mostly tears of joy and gratitude.

So grateful for the continued prayers and support!

Thank you, sweet friends.

Couldn't do this without ALL of you!!

Have a great week!

Thanks for giving us reasons to be grateful.

[Adding Astronauts] addition match game FREE TODAY ONLY!

Today only you can pick up this super cute FREE addition match game.

After today, it will be added to the "Rocketing to Addition" game pack.

I created this game using some scaffolding for success.

The "answer" cards should be printed with the astronaut with the flag on the back.

The "question" cards should be printed with the astronaut in the rocket on the back.

That way, my littles will know to choose one of each to try and make a match.

This game will be played in early September when addition is an incredibly new concept for most of them.  I want the focus more on the addition and less on the actual memory game.

This first pack contains ONLY sums that equal 10 or less

AND the doubles facts up through 10+10.

Doubles facts are easy to memorize and can be a useful strategy when adding neighbor numbers.  Plus, it made the number of cards come out evenly.  lol.

No reciprocal facts (ie: 1+3 does not appear on another card as 3+1).

Why?  Because there are already enough cards in the deck for beginner players.

No need to muddy the waters just yet.  ;)

Other packs will be added so the challenge level of the game may be increased.

That's my reasoning.  It makes sense to me, which may or may not be saying much. . .

2 more days of math class.

There was a killer problem on the homework last night that I *hope* I solved correctly.

If Susan invested $12,000 in two different accounts (a CD account that earns 7.25% interest and a money market account that earns 5.4% interest) and earned $730 in interest over the course of the year, how much did she initially invest in the money market account?

Um, I don't know?

Just kidding.  I did figure it out, and mathematically the answers are all reasonable, but it took me for.e.ver. and a LOT of paper because I kept trying different strategies and equations to get to the end result.  I only hope it's correct.  Guess I'll find out in a few short hours. . .

I know, why don't YOU figure this one out, leave your answer in the comments (along with HOW you solved the problem and an e-mail address) and if you're correct, I'll send you something fun!!  Then YOU can suffer right along with me.  Although you can probably figure it out in 12 seconds with 1/4 sheet of paper. . .

And, then, what a non-joyous start to the morning - the boy was getting ready to eat breakfast and head off with the scouts to put flags up for flag day when he grabbed the garbage can and threw up.  A lot.  :(

That means no helping with the flags and no baseball for him tonight.

He's sad.  I'm sad for him.

Besides, the whole throwing up thing just doesn't sit well with me.

That's Luke's job.

And he's at work.  Waaaahhhhhh!!!

Happy THURSDAY!
May your day be filled with sunshine and fun (and not barf).

[3.5 days] and FRY 81-100 game

Feeling a little melancholy this morning.

3.5 days left with these littles.

3.5 days left with their parents.

I know you understand.

With the level of excitement comes a level of sadness.

Anyway. . .here's the FRY 81-100 game.

This completes the first grade list.

I'll be working on the 2nd grade list soon.

Image is linked.

A favor? 

Our Aunt Bobbie is very sick.

She's been in the hospital for a week.

She meets with an oncologist today.  They're pretty certain she has stage 4 cancer stemming from her uterus that has gone into her stomach.

If you're the praying type, please send up some prayers for Aunt Bobbie.

We're praying for comfort for her, peace for the family, and for the doctors to have the guidance and light they need to best treat whatever it is they are dealing with.

Prayers are so powerful.

Thank you.

[FRY 61-80] gameboard_cards_FREE

Yesterday was a rough day.

At least we didn't have to call the Sheriff.

That was the bright side.

I feel so bad for my 20 littles that are being so awesome.

They (and I) are dealing with the choices of one student being less than awesome.

It's emotionally draining.

Whatevs.

We'll survive.

I hope.

Here's the Fry Words 61-80 set.

Don't know if anyone even is interested in these.

I'll be using them with some of my new littles next fall.

They'll be especially useful with a few of them that are struggling with reading.

Thursday (today). Friday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. 1/2 day Friday.

We will survive.

On a funny note, the boy has to run 2 miles today at school.

It's required.

He's not a runner.

It's called the 2 Mile Fun Run.

To quote the boy, "Seriously?!  The words '2 MILE' and 'FUN RUN' should NEVER be combined in the same sentence!"

Ha, ha, ha, I agree, son, I agree.

Tonight the boy has a baseball game.

At 6:45.

In the next town over.

Games last a minimum of 1 hour 20 minutes.

Another late night.

Sooooooooo grateful for the boy's coach.

He's amazing.

So calm.

I should take lessons.

Or at least buy him a treat.

I'd probably be more successful at buying him a treat.

5.5 days.

I think I miscounted yesterday.

It's been quite the year.

[drumroll please] the voting has begun

Voting for the 2012 Fascination Blog Award has begun.

Click on the badge to head to the accelerated degree website to vote.

Voting is randomized each time the website is accessed.

There are so many incredible blogs on that list!

I'm honored to be included with the likes of so many amazing teacher bloggers!

Voting continues through May 21 at 11:59 pm.

Thanks so much for supporting my little bloggity blog!

[MIM strategy, Facebook, Upcoming Sale]

We're working a lot on addition and subtraction strategies.

Still. Forever.  LOL.

Some of my littles are struggling to figure out exactly how to solve an equation that looks like this:  9 = ____ -6.

Many of them simply write 3 as the answer without really thinking about it.

Yesterday we spent a good 15 minutes talking about why this is NOT reasonable.

I handed one of my littles 3 Skittles and said, "Okay, give me 6 of them back, and with your 3 and my 6, we should have 9 altogether."

Much laughter.  "Mrs. Reynolds!  I CAN'T give you 6. . .I only have 3!!"

"WHAT?!" But that's what you wrote as your answer - that 3 take away 6 = 9!!"

Ohhhhh!!  Lightbulb! (for my Despicable Me fans, please say that in the appropriate voice)

At least for some.  Others still had that totally blank look.

We talked about WHAT the answer SHOULD be and how they solved that equation.

And we tried again.

4 = ____ -5.

This time I heard a fairly even mix of "1" and "9".

Broke out the Skittles. Again. Candy makes everything easier, right?!  ;)

Handed one of my littles that swore up and down that "1" was the correct answer 1 Skittle and said, "Okay, you have 1.  The equation says 'take away 5,' so give me 5, and with your 1 and my 5, we should have 4."

I think we did this about 5 times.

There were more lightbulbs than blank stares at the end.

I hope the lightbulbs stay lit!!

One of my littles came up with the following strategy:
"Let's call it the MIM strategy - when "M" is in the middle, we add the outside numbers and get the correct answer!"

(We say the sound "m" for any blank in our equations)

Hmmmm. . .higher order thinking going on right there!  YAY!!!

So. . .we wrote the strategy and tested it.

And tested it.

And tested it.

And guess what?!  It worked EVERY.SINGLE.TIME!

There might have been much cheering.

Definitely a happy moment.

Continuing randomness - I now have a Facebook Page for My Little Classity Class.

Please stop by and "LIKE" me.  ;)

I'll figure out one of these days how to put a facebook badge/button/thingie on the sidebar.  Maybe.

And last random note for the day - I'm having a 25% off everything sale at Teacher's Notebook for Teacher Appreciation Week, so if you've had your eye on something in my shop, wait till Saturday.

Teacher's Notebook is having a HUGE teacher appreciation bash with awesome prizes and sales.  I'll post more info tomorrow.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this really long and random post.

Happy THURSDAY!!!

[Mathematics Brain Busters] v6 [5 pack!]

Our EOL assessment is rapidly approaching.

I'm bumping up the Brain Busters Challenges from 3 a week to 5.

I usually run these with a math fact fluency timing on the back (either from Otter Creek, Dad's Worksheets, or Math-Drills).

We start our day with our Reading and Handwriting Fluency sheets

 (these are making a HUGE difference!!) and go right into the math fact drill, then straight to reading groups.  After reading groups, it's Brain Buster Challenge time!  While I quickly score and tally the Brain Buster results, my littles are working on the Daily Review/Spelling Review sheets.

That takes us through 10:30.  We go right into our math lesson and work on math until 11:30.  At 11:30 we work on our writing projects/lessons and head to lunch at 11:50.  Our mornings go really fast and are really structured. 

Are you loving the Brain Busters?  Want to keep seeing them?

Leave me a quick note and let me know.

Have a great week!

[aaaaagggghhhh!!!]

Someone stop this crazy merry-go-round, please!

I want to get off for a minute!

I'm working on a fun "trade" or "no trade" game, but it's taking much longer than I'd planned.

I hope to have it posted by tomorrow.

I WILL have it posted tomorrow IF I can finish my math final tonight.  ;)

LOVED having that random day off yesterday.

Little Miss took us on an awesome bike ride.  We played a lot.  It was a great day!

But now, it's back to reality.

Happy Wednesday!

(Or as one of my littles said on Monday. . ."Today is Monday, but it's really Friday becuase it's a Friday schedule, and then Tuesday is a Saturday, and then Wednesday is like a Monday, Thursday is like a Tuesday, and then we have another Friday on Friday!  This week is just weird."  Yes, little friend, it is a weird week!)

So. . .happy Monday on a Wednesday for my CCSD friends!

[swamped]

Life is kind of kicking my hiney right now.

Too many things to do and I haven't exactly been prioritizing well.

I think some days weeks months years are like that.

My little classity class (a few of them anyway) are really stretching boundaries and testing limits.  Yesterday I had a shadow because she couldn't make her own decisions well, so she had to do whatever I was doing. The goal was to help her realize that making her own decisions is MUCH more fun than living with mine.  For example, I have afternoon recess duty this week.  I've been walking the perimeter of the playground while watching the kids (5 laps = 1/2 mile, by the way, lol).  Yesterday, because that little darling had made such poor choices on her own, her recess choice was to be right by me the whole recess.  That means that she had to walk that half mile with me, and believe me, I didn't stroll.  When she complained, I said, "Well, perhaps you should make better choices when you're in charge of yourself so your recess choices can be your choices instead of mine."  I'm at my wit's end and not sure what else to do with this little one.  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Seriously.

On the home front, life is cruising along faster than I'd like.  My kiddos are growing and changing so fast.  They're at such fun ages and we're loving doing things as a family.  Add into that all of my other responsibilities, and, well, I'm swamped with life.  Not complaining.  Stating fact.

But, to quote Pete the Cat, it's all good!

Have a great Wednesday!

[FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!] and an easy few bucks

If you're looking for a really easy way to make a couple of extra dollars with virtually zero effort, give my new friend Clay an e-mail (clay@bigeventfundraising.com).  Tell him I sent you.  :)

His company will pay you to put a text link on your blog.

See mine?  Over there ---------------------------------------------------------------------->

Yep, Clay has offered the same opportunity to any of my blog readers who are also teacher bloggers.  Seriously easy. 

PSA before proceeding with today's blog post:

The excessive use of exclamation marks in the title are totally necessary for surviving this week.  :)

Still rainy and colder here today.

We didn't have outside lunch recess yesterday, because, and I quote, "It's just too squishy outside!" (Ha, ha, NOT a first grader quote - our principal quote!! My littles laughed so hard when she said that!).

Not sure what was going on yesterday.

Can't blame the full moon.

Maybe I can blame the storm?

My kiddos were w.e.i.r.d.

A little more naughty than good.

But not naughty so much as just off enough that they were making me crazy!

Oh well.  It's Friday.

(I totally did the happy Friday dance in my head because it's sooooo much cooler in my imagination than what it would look like in real life, lol).

Have a great weekend!!

[k5 learning site trial offer]

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.

I'm excited to try this out with a few of my littles that need that extra little boost.

Several of them attend an afterschool program where this could be used.

Check out K5 learning and see if it's something you'd like to try!

I'll be posting several reviews during the course of my trial.

Anything that gets the kids engaged in learning is a thumbs up from me!

Happy Wednesday!

[sigh]

Just not feeling it today.

So much time/effort goes into each post and game/activity.

Is it really so hard for people to say thank you?

Will I ever hit 200 followers?

(I cringe as I type that because it makes me all sorts of annoyed when all people do is talk about how many followers they have - who knew this teacher blogging community would feel so much like high school girl world - but seriously, I KNOW how many people download every.single.thing I post yet rarely, if ever, leave a comment or "follow" my blog)

Are my resources valuable to anyone except me?

Do I need a nap?

At least I know the answer to that last question.

It's a resounding yes.

Killed a giant spider in my shower this morning.

I hate spring/fall for that exact reason.

One of my littles is moving.

Today's his last day.

Today was payday.

Paid bills.

Doesn't feel much like payday anymore.

I think I need a good dose of sunshine and laziness.

I'll be back sometime.

Maybe soon.

Maybe not soon.

No response necessary to this post.

I'm NOT fishing for compliments or trying to get everyone to say nice things.

That's like getting flowers on Valentine's Day - forced affection.

Yuck.

If you've been around for any length of time, you KNOW how I feel about forced affection.

I'm not even going to apologize for the downer post.

Some days are like that.

We all have them.

Just being honest.

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

See you when I get back.

Whenever that is.

[Pinerly]

There's this new thing that is supposed to take the Pinterest world by storm.

Pinerly.

Heard of it?

Until I get some friends to join through this link, I can't really tell how great (or un-great) it's going to be (10 friends have to sign up through your link for you to gain full access).  So. . .if you want to have a dashboard to help make Pinterest even better than it already is, schedule pins, and get stats about your pins, click on the image above and let's get this party started!  :0)

Have a great Sunday!  We're currently sequestered in our house with round TWO of strep - Little Miss this time! It came on super fast Friday night with a way high fever and "throat that hurts in a weird way." The throat part we attributed to worry for cousin Cole who just had his tonsils out and was hurting pretty bad.  Well. . until the "weird hurt" continued through the whole day yesterday and she just couldn't get warm even in her footie jammies snuggled in 2 blankets.  Uncontrollable fever.  Yep.  A visit to the dr. confirmed strep within 3 minutes of the test being started.  :(

She'll uncontagious by 9 pm tonight.

Just in time for one more FULL WEEK of school before spring break!

I'm working on some more brain busters mathematics challenges.

I'll let you know when those are ready.

[Dropbox] Join Me?

Ali of Education Lasts a Lifetime reminded me of this great little site called DropBox.

Being out of bandwidth (never happened before, but it has now) at box.net is creating kind of a problem with sharing my files.  I *think* the bandwidth resets at the first of each month, but that leaves 8 days until I can share with you again unless I put everything on Teacher's Notebook. . .

Until (drumroll, please). . .DropBox!

I'm going to be adding my files there.  Hopefully the downloads will be smoother and we won't encounter the dreaded "exceeded bandwidth" messages.  :)

You WILL be able to download files without having your own DropBox account.

However, if you create an account through my link, we'll BOTH earn an extra 250 MB of storage space!  Even if you don't ever plan on using your account, this would really REALLY help me be able to share more files with you.  So. . .pretty please won't you create an account?

You'll be able to work on any of your own files from any computer/mobile device without copying everything to a flash drive or external hard drive or e-mailing a copy of the file to yourself.  You can start something at school, finish it at home, and it's all saved right there in your account.  It's pretty awesome, actually!

Anyway. . .here's the link to create your own account which will get BOTH of us extra storage space.  DropBox.

Thanks and have a great weekend!!

[sigh]

I have this headache.

Remember? 

The one that hit on Friday.

Came back on Sunday?

Has been a lingering annoyance since then?

Yes.

That one.

It's back.

And it's not being nice.

Dang thing actually woke me up this morning.

Sigh.

Off to take some meds and get ready for the day.

This could be interesting. . .



[FRIDAY!!!!!]

This has been a  pretty great week.

Nevertheless, I'm glad it's Friday!

Have a great weekend, friends!

[Permission to Pin]

You better read the fine print!

Check out Laura’s post on Pinterest.

You learn something new everyday.

You have my permission to pin from my blog and/or Teacher's Notebook store. 

It would be great if you'd give credit when you pinned.

Thanks! 

I don't think I'll be pinning from any sites without permission.  It's just a little scary - the whole copyright thing.  If you'd like to give permission to pin on your blog, follow the link above and get your own permission to pin button.  :)

[stuff]

Yesterday was a less than spectacular day in first grade.

Honestly one of the toughest, most frustrating days I've had in my career.

It was a day full of discipline needs from the very moment the first bell rang.

Disrespectful to adults in charge.  Bratty attitudes.  Lying.

And that was the first 10 minutes of school.

It went downhill from there.

Sigh.

I hate, hate, hate days like that.

Went to bed with a headache.

Woke up with a headache.

Got the 6th grader off to school without incident.

Thankfully. 

Last night he had a major meltdown about a math problem.

We might have had some yelling and crying.

And am currently dealing with the crying 2nd grader.

She's not feeling well.

And is exhausted from not sleeping well.

Yep.  Looks like a grand day here.

BAZINGA!

**If you are the first person to comment explaining the BAZINGA comment, I'll send you either the pre-primer sight word smash game or the primer sight word smash game that are available exclusively at Teacher's Notebook!  Maybe brightening someone else's day will help me find my smile this morning?**

So. . . today's going to be a day of survival.

An attempt to be more patient.

More thoughtful.

It has to get better than yesterday.

Many thanks to all who left such kind and supportive words about the SMASH game yesterday!  You made me smile!  It's a new favorite in my classroom.  My littles LOVED the challenge of the "bonus" cards (the ones where they had to say the whole phrase with the correct mathematical comparison term - ie: 28 is "ten greater" than 18).

I'm working on some add-on sets of cards.  Some of my littles need very specific practice with numbers of a smaller value before being thrown right to the larger value numbers.

How do you deal with days like yesterday?



[FRIDAY!!!!] and a non-school post

Opening Night went mostly very well!

These are "my" boys at dress rehearsal.  Kenton is mine (on the left).  Diego is his best friend.  We simply call them "the brothers" or "the boys."  Diego used to be one of my littles in my first grade class!!  Craziness!

Bubba's mic kept shorting out, so at the last minute, he was told to go mic-less.

He did a great job projecting and was so much fun to watch!

Looking forward to 2 more nights of Pirates of Penzance.  :)

(Not looking forward to 2 more nights of singing "Climbing over rocky mountain. . ." in my head over and over and over, lol).

So glad it's Friday!

 Grammy's coming to spend the weekend and watch a performance of Pirates.

There's a roast in the crock pot for roast, potatoes and gravy, and rolls for dinner.

Looking forward to an awesome weekend!



[whatever]

Wow.  What a day.

I had big big plans for groundhog day.

Big.

Ummmm. . .yeah, didn't happen.

Dealing with littles who seem to have forgotten the class rules.

Or who were pushing to see if I was really back and would enforce said rules.

Uuugghh.

Exhausted by noon.

Feeling horrible.  Again.

Didn't go to math class.

Migraine.

Big thanks to Jess for handing my assignment in.

Miss M ended the school day with a fever and sore throat.

Off to the store for kids' cold medicine.

Home.

On the couch.

Trying to help with homework.

Didn't work so very well.

And the whole time, the song Tonight, Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae kept running through my head. . .

It's been a really really messed up week. . .

La, la, la, whatever,

La, la, la, it doesn't matter. . .

So, tomorrow, our hundreds day is going to be super SUPER low key.

No grand plans.

No big expectations except survival.

Survival would be good.

Ever so grateful for the weekend.