Five for Friday... on Sunday ;) 9.25.16

Happy Weekend!

Happy Fall!

I am so excited to be back in action, and I'm hoping that this will be a more regular thing for me. A personal goal that I had this school year was to blog more. I'm really wanting to get connected again. So I'm starting out with an old favorite of mine: Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

It was a slow process, but this week we managed to rewrite, label and discuss our first mentor sentence. We didn't do much more than that, but it was a harder book to start with! I used this book to talk about September 11th, and since we had it already read we stuck with it!  

Really working on growth mindset for a school wide initiative. We took some time this week to discuss some of these quotes and how we can use them in our everyday 

It always amazing me each year how quickly our math picks up at the beginning of the school year for our third graders.  We are already working on 2s, 5s, and 10s for count-bys, and discussion things like commutative property!  These guys are rocking it, but it's been up-hill most days! 

Speaking of an up-hill battle some days, I've really gotten creative to get us up and moving in the morning!  We are loving these math centers from Ideas by Jivey! Check them out!

I've been working really hard on a classroom redesign. It's been a slow process, however I've started to put some things together and some furniture is slowly being delivered. I've done a lot of clearance shopping this past couple weeks after the back to college items have been discounted! I'm also lucky to have had some great support through our schools PTO!

Here's a sneak---

A Peek at My Week 9-1-14

Hello There and Happy (sun) Monday..... 

I am a little late, but school hasn't started yet so in my world that means that I'm right on time. 

I'm gearing up for my first day of school this week and want to link up with...
Jennifer from Mrs. Laffins' Laughings for 

A Peek At My Week!

                                                                                                                                                                       

There it is.

The first week!

I know that I have way too much planned.

I always do that. 

Here's my plan.

Reading/LA- The first couple of days we're going to be working on some small projects so I can get an idea of where the kids are coming in at. We'll be doing some writing and reading and trying to have fun. One of the first things we will create are All About Me posters.  As the week goes on and we finish that, my plan is to dive into some of my new purchases from the TpT sale.  I'm going to use a popular Mentor Text for some basic reading and writing activities. I know you've heard of it!

Click here to find on Amazon

                                                  

The plan is to use this book for much reading and writing through the week thanks to Ms. Jivey's awesome complete pack of reading and writing units. Click the picture to go to her store!

What I'm most excited about is that I also have a mentor text unit and an interactive reading notebook unit for this same book thanks to Jessica.  So this first week of planning was not hard for me at all! I'm so thankful for that especially because I don't know where my kiddos are yet. 

Writing: In writing, along with the story activities from above we will be starting our 3rd grade memory books this week. The first entry is a picture from the first day of school. I love this first entry because the kids are so excited about it and they are really wanting to show me all that they can do when it comes to writing. I give the least direction with this entry to get an idea of where they are coming in at, and I am usually surprised as to all that they share!

Math- This week I'm going to do some review activities. I have a telling time scavenger hunt where I put clocks around the room and they have to read the time. I strategically place the clocks next to important parts of the room so then we can talk about them, like the mailboxes or the extra supplies, etc. There are also mystery letters with each clock so as they complete the hunt, the letters spell out a new word. I haven't updated it yet for this year (YIKES I'm running out of time) so I don't know what my mystery word will be this year yet. We're also going to spend some time doing some basic math centers that I put together to get our math brains going. Again, it's great to see where the kids are coming in at and also have them 'playing games' while they are showing me! I'm just sad, because I don't know if I can get my hands on some iPads so they can use the version that I made with QR codes. They always love those!

Read Aloud- I always start the year with a fun read aloud. This year will be no different. I plan on putting together some activities for this book this year, so stay tuned for that. This week I will be doing a lot of reading of Justin Case: School Drool and Other Daily Disasters.  

I know I've talked about Justin before but if you aren't familiar I really suggest you check it out. It's a 3 book series, but I usually only read the first on to my kids. Maybe I'll do it differently this year. Justin is starting 3rd grade and he is a nervous little guy who is scared of almost everything, including his dog that he begged for. The story just takes you through his third grade journey and how he morphed to a strong, confident, only sometimes scared 3rd grader. 

Oh my goodness---- this post got very long winded, and I do apologize for that. I'm going to stop there even though I had some other things to share. Let's just save them for next week, considering I'm sure I have way too much planned anyways!!!  Hope you all have a great week. 

Making the Most of the End! Five for Friday

Happy Friday!

 I can't believe how fast this week went for me. 

I'm down to only next week and then my long maternity leave/ summer break is officially coming to an end. 

I am feeling so many emotions..... 

but I'm trying to make the most of each day that I have left. 

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday again today! 

It's been a fun week. Make sure to make it to the end of my post to watch a cool video!

ZOO DAY! 

On Monday I met up with some old teaching friends at the Milwaukee Zoo.

Hudson did great, and slept through most of it....

However it was great to spend the day with old friends!

I have been really enjoying our beautiful weather this week. 

We've been spending a lot of family time on walks around the neighborhood.

Hudson was a little crabby one night so I put him in the carrier instead of the stroller. 

He loved it!

Our baby selfie!!!  

I spent some time at school this week. 

Sad, but true... it can never all be done when you start back.

I finally got some things accomplished. Here is my favorite spot right now.

It's not finished, but I'm loving the polka dots. 

I played a new game with some friends this week. 

It's called "Word on the Street." 

I actually think it would be a great addition to my classroom. 

Have any of you played it? 

I was nominated for the ALS Ice Water Challenge this week. 

By a 5 year old.  The cutest 5 year old on the planet.

Of course I couldn't say no. 

Now I know there has been some controversy with this whole ice water challenge. 

Some people think it's great to raise awareness...others think you should skip the challenge and donate the money you would spend on the ice instead. 

I can see both sides.  

We did both.

My husband and I donated, and accepted the challenge. 

Did you hear that no matter what people think...that it's working? 

It has been reported that the ALS foundation has shown a considerable increase in donations since this started earlier this summer? Whatever works, right??? 

Five for Friday 2.7.14

I'm spent.... what a week! I haven't posted anything this week either, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to link up for the first time with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly linky called Five for Friday!  

I'm not sure my week was as exciting as I originally planned it to be, however it was a full week of school, so after 5 snow/cold days I'm excited to say that I got a full week in with my kiddos.  Here are my 5 for the week...

1. This week in math we worked really hard on place value.  More specifically we focused on rounding numbers to the nearest ten and hundred.  As those of you who have been reading and following my blog know that our school is new to math expressions this year, so I'm trying very hard to keep track of just about everything that's going on.  We started the year with multiplication which is not usually what we do.  We are now at the point where we're working on place value, so I was quite nervous to teach it at this point in the year.  I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way that they have kids work on rounding.  

We started by writing and drawing the number out that we needed to round. 

We then wrote and drew both hundreds or tens that it could be rounded to. 

Last we looked back at the first number we drew, and focused on the tens place in our proof drawing.  If it has 5 or more tens, we rounded up.  If it has less than 5 tens we rounded down. 

Students loved this strategy and it crossed over nicely when we took the pictures away and just looked at the place in the number that we needed to focus on. :) I was one happy lady!

Our school is a PLC (professional learning community).  We meet once a week as a team, and discuss the big three questions: 1-What do our students know? 2-What do our students need to learn? 3-What will we do if they aren't where they need to be.  We also have one early release a month to either meet as a team, a district team, or do some vertical teaming. This week our team was back together again after a co-worker has been gone on maternity leave.  We spent a lot of time planning our upcoming 'Pioneer Simulation' for the last quarter of school.  I will explain more as it gets closer, but in a nutshell students partake in a full on simulation getting fake pioneer identities, jobs, families, animals, etc. They then travel west on the Hacker Trail in hopes of making it to the valley in Oregon.  It makes me so excited for what's to come! Our kids have a blast with this simulation. 

Here's a sample family portrait from last year.  Th students keep this portrait on their desk as they are traveling in their wagon trains.

  

Although it's been freezing cold again this week, I've been driving a different way to school to see this beautiful image each morning...it's just been great for the soul and helps to start the morning off calm!

Don't worry.. I pulled over before I took the picture!

To keep up on our multiplication, we've been playing Yahtzee this week during indoor recess. It's been too cold to go outside, and I think we've had too much 'screen' time... so I've pulled out games and taught my kids how to play: boggle, Yahtzee, checkers and more!  They are loving every minute of it. I'm not going to lie, I also love it!

On a personal note.. I've left the water on in the bathroom now 2 times this week.  My husband is beyond shocked as to how real pregnancy brain is.  He even took a picture because I didn't believe that I did it....twice!!!????  I mean come on, it's running pretty hard, not just a trickle!! :)

T.G.I.F! Have a great weekend!