Reading Buddies and a Freebie

Wow! It has been such a busy week! And to top it off it was very rainy today. So the kids were squirelly all day. The bright spot in my day was we started our Reading Buddies! We join up with a 5th grade class and the kids LOVE it! First I had the kids do a little getting to know you activity. They interviewed each other and were having a fantastic time finding out their common interests. I overheard a lot of great discussions and some very amusing ones as well! Here are a few pics of the kiddos interviewing each other.

Get your Freebie here.

I have staff development tomorrow. Yep~I have it on a Saturday. At least I'm getting paid for it! It's a math workshop called "Do the Math." I hope they have stuff I can implement right away in the classroom. Those are my favorite workshops! Make and takes! Woohoo! Keeping my fingers crossed!

Objectives Board

Does anyone else have a love/hate relationship with dry erase markers? I tried to do a math activity today and what should have been a 10 minute quick check turned into 20 minutes! My students frantically searched through my stash for a dry erase marker that worked! Ugh! I also wind up spending quite a bit of money on them. Our school has a small supply but they really - but it's more of one marker per teacher type of thing. Oh well, what can you do? Fork out more cash for dry erase markers I guess!

I am still getting stuff situated in my class! I didn't print off book box labels until today! We have such a transient population that I always wait to finalize things until after Labor Day. I'm sure I'll get a couple new students next week! You know - after laminating, cutting, affixing, etc. right?

At our school we have to have our objectives posted so I thought I would share my cute objectives board! Here it is!

 

The chalkboard was one of my summer projects. {a summer project I actually finished!} I saw so many cute chalkboards on various decorating blogs that I was determined to make one myself! I'm so happy with the way it turned out!

 

First Grade Scientists!

I try to do a craftivity on Friday's and saw this super adorable one {for free!} on Teachers Pay Teachers. Find the link HERE.

Here are some pics of my kiddos scientists!

My firsties absolutely loved this activity! We had such a good time!

So far my Labor Day weekend has pretty much been running errands and such! You know, the stuff you put off during the week because you are so busy? That what I'll be doing! Fun stuff like getting the oil changed, vacuuming, mopping, groceries, etc. My friends are going to the beach! Ugh!

Happy Labor Day!

First Week of School! Classroom Management Lesson and Freebie

Whew! I think I made it! Hooray! The first week is over! I actually had a great week. But am I ever tired! My feet were absolutely killing me by the end of each day! The only major incident I had was when one of my sweet firsties projectile vomited all over another girl behind her in the lunch line! UGH! And I had sent her to the nurse and they sent her right back! If they don't have a fever they send the kiddos straight back to class, which kind of irks me to no end. I've had this happen before (last year) with the vomiting after I send them to the nurse. Frustration! I mean I get that the nurse sees a jillion kiddos a day but when they are turning green at the gills? Isn't that a clue? My sweetie who was vomited on was such a good sport! Bless her! She just marched to the nurse and changed her clothes! I think I would have demanded to be sent home. Sure she changed her clothes but it must have soaked through? *shudder* she kept soldiering on! You gotta love the crazy things that always seem to happen in the first week!

So everyday we have been making anchor charts - What does good classroom behavior look like and sound like? and so on. I think my poor kids are anchor charted out! No matter how cute I make them! The behavior has been pretty good so far, so the anchor charts must be working!

By midweek however, the tattling was starting to get ridiculous! Thank goodness my first grade team whipped up one of my all time favorite lessons for classroom management! The minnow and whale lesson! Yes, you heard correct...minnow and whale. And we refer to this lesson all year long! The kids NEVER forget it!

First you start by reading the classic book by Dr. Seuss...

We then discuss how the little boy in the book likes to exagerrate..."stop turning minnows into whales!" his dad tells him. We talk about small (minnow) and big (whale) problems. I chop up some examples of problems and give one to each student. They are then supposed to identify if it is a minnow or a whale problem. Then they get to stick their example on the minnow and whale anchor chart. Our's looks like this..,

Like I said - I refer to this lesson ALL YEAR LONG! And the beauty of it is the students remember! When they come to me with a small problem, all I do is say "minnow or whale?" and usually it is a minnow and they go off to solve their own problem!

Download the problem examples HERE

Hope everybody enjoys the long weekend! I'm going to my friend's 30 B-Day party! Woohoo!

Well, my hubs is harassing me about needing the computer to look up football scores! Football madness begins! *sigh*
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