[waves hi...]

What a roller coaster this year has been.

Feeling like I'm getting my "teacher legs" under me a bit again.

Still have moments where I get knocked flat with sadness, but those moments are gradually being replaced by the memories of the 12 1/2 years we had with Kenton.

I've been working (s.l.o.w.l.y) through my to do list...it's LONG.

I have "create a year long writing plan" as one of my goals this year.

Sigh. Yeah, need to get to work on that one.

Soon.

This month we've been learning how to take notes while listening, viewing, or reading, and how to organize those notes onto a graphic organizer (mostly tree maps or spider graphs), and then take those notes and move them into sentences and into a cohesive paragraph.  This week is the big test to see if my littles are understanding.  They have been given a non-fiction passage, a graphic organizer, and will have this week to create a paragraph. 

{shudder}

This could get really interesting really fast.

There are some great SHORT first grade non-fiction passages here: http://www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Decodable_passages

They're free (BONUS!) and they have about 80 words and come in several formats.

Helpful if you're needing to increase your littles' non-fiction reading selection on a budget.  ;)

One of my other goals this year is to better utilize the time I have scheduled for rotations (aka centers).  One part of my goal is to equally divide the time between math and literacy.  I do great with math, not so great with literacy.  I'm working on it...

If you teach Saxon Phonics and Spelling, here's a fun and free little UNO type game for Spelling List 16. 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/68803494/Spelling/UNO.pdf

Sometimes I have my littles write the words they have in their stack after they finish.  What I've found is that recognition of the word, being able to know what it is and read it, helps so much with their ability to spell it.

Yeah, I'm slow.  I know.  LOL.

Graphics are from the one and only incredibly talented Dustin Pike.  Stop by and see what he has in his shop.  Seriously the cutest stuff.

And now, I have 45 minutes of silence here in my classroom while McKayslin is at Paige's house and Luke is home doing dishes and folding laundry (yes, I'm spoiled!).

Time to work on items 1, 2, 3, and maybe 4 of a bazillion things on my to do list.

Have a great week!

And, seriously, thanks for sticking with me through the past 8 1/2 months.

Seriously.

It means a lot.

[Emergency Sub Plans] [CureSearch]

A giant thanks heading out to those of you that have purchased items from my Teacher's Notebook shop over the past week!

Our family sincerely appreciates your support!

 

Today's item took a LOT longer than I had planned for it to take.

However, the finished product is exactly what I'd hoped!

 

There have been a few times in my career that I've seriously been too ill to go to school to make detailed sub plans.

I've sent e-mails to my colleagues asking them to print off my plans and copies and get everything ready for me.

They willingly ablige, but I feel guilty for the entire day (and most of the next week) knowing that I added stress to their morning.

 

And now, with everything that's going on with Kenton, I've felt for a while that I needed to have something that was sub ready just in case.

 

Introducing my first set of EMERGENCY SUB PLANS!  :)

 

This set is focused around the book My Friend is Sad, and Elephant and Piggie book by
Mo Willems.

 

  Emergency Sub Plans feature activities in math, fact discovery and recording, writing (with a rubric!), spelling, reading comprehension, and PE.

22 pages that you just need to print off, make copies for your class, purchase the book, and BAM! Sub Plans for the day ready to go.

$5.00 at Teacher's Notebook.

On sale at a 25% discount through November 15.

 

My heartfelt gratitude goes out to Steve and Debbie at Teacher's Notebook, who in their own time of need dealing with Superstorm Sandy, generously offered to match all purchases made in my shop with a donation to CureSearch in Kenton's name.

 

THANK YOU for sticking with me and my sporadic postings.

I'd promise to do better, but well, that's just a promise I am not able to make.

I'll be here when I can with new and fun stuff.

Have a great Friday and a fantastic weekend!!

[Teacher's Notebook Shop] Update

I just posted a couple of new things in the shop.

 

First up, October Daily Review.

15 full pages of review.

Sentence Editing and Math.

Perfect for this time of year as a whole class teaching experience in first grade or a review/self-start experience is second grade.

 

$3.

15 pages.

 

 

The other thing that is now posted is the Research Writing Pack.

It's good stuff.

I've used it for 2 full weeks in my class now as a whole class writing experience and the kids are LOVING this type of writing.

 

I'll share with you in a few days the best way I've found to start this project.  :)

$3.

10 pages.

 

Thanks for shopping My Little Classity Class.



[Writing Adventures] Research_or_Informational Writing

I have to admit, I'm getting a little excited about this whole writing aspect again.

I used to LOVE to teach writing in first grade.

Not sure what happened, but then I just didn't anymore.  :(

But. . .with this as my teaching goal this year, I'm finding ways to do what we are required to do in a way that works well and I LOVE.

Isn't it amazing what you can do when you decide to stop whining and just get to work?!  ;)

One of our required writing pieces is a research or informational piece.

Uuuggghh.

LOL.

I've seen about a bazillion and one of these little tree map guys floating around blog world.

I seriously love the idea of using a tree map to organize writing with kids.

It.just.makes.sense.

But. . .(there's always a but with me, you know that by now, right?!). . .

what I've seen just.didn't.quite.fit.what.I.wanted.

You know what that means.

I made my own.

Now there are a bazillion and two of these little tree map guys floating around blog world.

What's different about my tree map?

Maybe nothing.

A few things compared to the ones I've seen. . .

* Handwriting lines (critical in first grade - especially the first half of first grade!)

* Topic sentence (remember how first graders get distracted?!  They're all. . ."A car is a vehicle. . .squirrel!" and while that's awesome in conversation, it's kind of less than awesome in writing - having a topic sentence written will {hopefully} help actually keep them ON TOPIC!!)

* Concluding sentence (again with the squirrel. . .)

I plan to introduce this as soon as we finish our narrative story about the first day of school (one page a day, there will be 8 pages plus the introduction and conclusion - we've currently written through day 2).  We're going to write a biography.

So. . .if you can use this bazillion and second little tree map guy, enjoy.

If not, well, that's okay, too.

Just have to say that I'm LOVING my littles this year.

(I know - I say that every year, but I always mean it!!) 

Yesterday was an awesome day!

Everyone stayed on ready or was able to move up on the behavior chart.

Everyone.

The whole day was full of hand raising, commenting, questioning, working together, listening, direction following.

Our balloon popper activity was FREE TIME.

And they rocked the heck out of it.

No arguments.

Played nicely.

Cleaned up perfectly.

Were really quiet.

It.was.awesome.

It's Thursday.

One more sleep till we get to go see our boys.

:)

Have a great rest of the week!