Thankful Thanksgiving

Today, as it is Thanksgiving, and most people in America are home with their family and friends, I am at work.. I am struggling to be as thankful as I could be, but really want to push those feelings aside and let the small bit of blogging world that I am connected to at this point via my blog, know how much I appreciate them and their support.

Last year when I started teaching a 1st/2nd grade multi-age, my first elementary experience since student teaching, I was overwhelmed, scared and not really sure what to do next!  I somehow came across the blogging world and the TPT world in my frantic internet searches for ideas and could not be more thankful for the PROFOUND impact it has had on me as a teacher!  I have found so many amazing resources, and blogs..People who I don't know, but I feel like I know from reading their blog, who I feel have been a stronger 'co-worker' than any I could ask for!  I also feel so blessed to s l o w l y be able to take what I do on a daily basis and share it with the world via my blog and TPT store.  

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving Holiday and counts all their blessings - not just today, but everyday!

*Students will be arriving in 8 minutes - Must get prepared!*

Thanksgiving already?!?!

I realize that  I have not updated this blog since the beginning of October..and I wish I had a good excuse.. But I don't!  It's really just finding time, energy and ambition to do anything aside from make dinner, take the dogs out, work on lesson plans, laundry and cleaning at the end of the night!!

Did I mention that we only have 18 more school days till our FIRST break of the school year!  Currently we have had ONE Wednesday off ( for St Kitts Independence Day) and ONE Monday off for Mid-Semester break... Other than that, its been 11 - 5 day weeks from 7:30 - 3:15 every day!  I am so excited for 3 1/2 weeks off with my hubs and dogs!!  And yes, Thanksgiving is Thursday of this week, and YES we WILL be at school!  We have a huge Thanksgiving lunch at the school, but its STILL a normal day!  

The school year is going by so quickly, and I am quite impressed with how well my kiddos are doing!  They have picked up and dove into the Daily 5 so well and I LOVE the way it works and how to an outsider it may look like my kids are just all sitting around the room on the floor doing whatever they want, but they are all working and learning and doing so well!  Due to my shorter amount of time, I am running 2 lessons/2 rotations one day and 3 lessons/3 rotations the next day.  This is giving the students a much more thorough work time and it gives me more time to work with each group!  SO glad I decided to give it a try!  Wish I had more than just one year here to try it out, I have learned things I would do differently and so much I would do the same!

Our BiG focus for reading/writing/Science/S.S has been Dinosaurs over the past month - month in a half.  We have read The Enormous Egg, written some fiction stories, such as 'If I had a pet dinosaur', have done a variety of reading of fiction and non-fiction dinosaur books and are working hard on a dinosaur research project now!  I have a HUGE document of all the things we have done that I am working on finishing out and will be sure to share it when I am done!  We are hoping to be done and have a big Dinosaur Museum for the kids to share all their hard work!  Since we live on a small island in the middle of the ocean, we were not able to visit a dinosaur museum, so we watched a variety of videos and utilized the anatomy museum on our vet school campus to look at other skeletons of dogs/cats/horses/donkeys/cows and discussed how they would be similar and different to dinosaurs!  The kids loved it!

We also had Halloween over this long period of time since I last blogged.  On Halloween students get to dress up and we go trick-or-treating to every semesters (7 of them) classes on campus.  The kids get S O M U C H candy!!  But it sure is fun.  This year one of my creative students made her own centipede costume (due to living in a house on the island where I killed around 80 centipedes in 4 weeks, I HATE centipedes) and it was SO COOL!!   

These are the SMALL portion of the centipedes we killed at our cCentipede house as we called it!

The FABULOUS centipede costume!  

And random - their cute ACORN acrostic poem and design!

I am trying really hard to get a good understanding of the Everyday Math Program and effectively teach it to 1st and 2nd grade simultaneously, and am finding it so difficult!  Does anyone else out there use the program and have any great ideas for teaching it to a multi-age classroom?!?!

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope everyone has a great holiday off with family and friends (I'll be thinking of you while I work all day!)

Christopher Columbus and catching up!

At our school, we have an assembly each morning for about 5-10 minutes that the entire school comes to (about 60-70 kids).  We generally discuss something important that is happening that day or that has happened in history.  This past week on Friday, our superintendent showed us a video and discussed with students how it was Stand Up For Your Teacher Day!  She played a great song that was really touching and I wanted to share it with other teachers out there!

While at times, teaching is hard and time consuming and so much work - but its amazing what we do for SO many children in our lives!  This song is a great reminder of that!  

This past week, my students have been working on a Christopher Columbus play which they will be presenting to the entire school at assembly Tuesday and they have also been working on my Christopher Columbus book and activity.  They had a great time doing it and felt so knowledgable about such an important person!  You can check out this unit here at my TPT Store! 

Here are some of the student outcomes displayed on my very limited wall-space classroom!

Our classroom is back into full swing now after Missoula Children's Theatre left and we dove right into week 5!  We are ALMOST done introducing all of the Daily 5 segments and letting kids start to make their own choices - hopefully in the next 2 weeks!   Students are doing a great job and I am so impressed with their hard work and dedication to succeeding!  I have been trying my hardest to hang all the posters we make together related to the Daily 5 up -but I am quickly running out of room!  How long should I leave them up?!   We are also starting to get our CAFE board up and running and I am diving into my individual assessments and groupings!  

Math on the other hand, has been a tough cookie for me!  I cannot decide the best way to get it down and taught in such a short time, with 13 kids, at about 3 varying levels and make it successful!  As I was avidly following my blogs, I found that The Clutter Free Classroom had a great idea so I took that and recreated it to fit my math curriculum and classroom!  Students can now refer to the bulletin board if they need to know their centers rotations, their assignment at each center or any other information such as our weekly goals, the unit vocabulary and their daily Math Message! 

Left - center rotations.  Below is grade level Weekly Goals (discussed on Monday, tracked weekly by me)
Pink - Teacher Choice center and instructions
Purple = Hands on center and instructions
Blue  = Math Games center and instructions
Green = At your Seat center and instructions
Yellows = Daily Math Message (all students have Math Message Journals)
Green/Red below yellow = Unit Vocabulary

Since I do not a teacher store to go buy things and it costs a FORTUNE to have them
shipped here - extra lamination worked great as a 'holder' for the center rotation cards!
Reuse!! 

Writing daily center assignments was made easy by putting a colored sheet of paper inside a paper protector.
I can write and erase daily with dry erase markers!

The Math Message is a daily assignment students get right to work on when they come in.
The vocabulary is something they check in on when they finish early! 

There it is!  Thanks Clutter Free Classroom for helping create my
Math bulletin board!

So far, it is working GREAT for the 2nd graders - The 1st graders are still getting used to the increased independence but they are learning!  

For our Catch the Reading Bug - kids are doing amazing!  I have some kids who in 5 weeks have read over 900 minutes!  WOO HOO!  I feel like maybe I should start requiring book reports?! Or at least book title -author - summary?!  Ideas?

The Important Book

While this week my students are all busy learning, practicing, reviewing, being hyper, and getting excited for the amazing production of Robin Hood Thursday evening, I have been trying to throw in some productivity! Last week I read The Important Book by Maragaret Wise Brown with the students and we discussed what makes things important, how they are important and that each of us have different characteristics that make us US!  To continue with that theme, I created this quick project for students to work on this week in the midst of being actors and actresses!

Students took so much pride in this activity and have made some amazing final products!

Check out the unit here at TPT and see some of the great products they have created!  (I have to say, this is the most honest and thoughtful my kids have been in sharing things about 'themselves'!  Usually they like to be similar to their friends!)

Tomorrow is our big ROBIN HOOD show!  It's going to be an exhausting day!  "Normal" school from 730 - 12...Rehearsal from 12-345...Show 1 @ 4...Show 2 @ 6...Clean-up...Normal day Friday!

Cold coming on, tired and ready for the weekend! <3

Catch the Reading Bug!

This year to help promote reading outside of school I have piggy-backed along with an awesome idea that Lindsey @ The Teacher Wife had last year!  It was a Home Reading Tracker board.  Her design was different than mine - but it follows the same idea!

I decided to use the phrase CATCH THE READING BUG and for ever 100 minutes that students read, they would 'catch'  a bug in their jar!  I was SO fortunate to find the PERFECT graphics from Scrappin' Doodles.  I took those graphics, created a cute border, made my heading and each student got a bug catching jar!

To track our reading, a monthly calendar is sent home.  To assure students are continually excited about getting bugs and parents and students alike are not forgetting to record their reading, students turn in their calendar each Friday, I add up their minutes read and we have a big Bug Catching Time!  What.A.HIT!  They are SO excited each and every Friday to turn their calendars in and see how many bugs they are up too!  Now I just hope that this excitement lasts all year!

Here is a look at our board so far!  This is after 3 weeks of school! *INSERT HAPPY TEACHER HERE!*

Happy Reading! 

Time? . . .

As a (new to elementary, multi-age) teacher, I feel like I am constantly looking for more time in my day, my night, my weekends and my life!  As much as I plan to be productive and get certain things accomplished each night, it NEVER seems to happen and then I am bogged down and behind again!  I know, teachers say it gets easier...but by the time I'm ready for year 3 at this job, I will be leaving St. Kitts and starting over (who knows where!) again!

Aside from that, the school year is continuing to get great!  My kiddos are getting into the routine, and are quickly getting more and more giggly comfortable with each other in our small community!  The first three weeks are almost totally past, and I feel like we have done SO much, but SO little!  Getting our routines and procedures down, introducing Daily 5 and Math Centers and throwing in as many fun crafty projects as possible has taken all our time!

Thanks to Amy's Great Back to School Unit!

Again Thanks to Amy's Great Back To School Unit!

These adorable All About Me Books are from Lindsey at The Teacher Wife!

Another great activity from Amy at Step Into Second Grade!

In regards to my Daily 5 - I am SO happy with the way it is going and how *AMAZING* my kids are doing!  They are SO proud of themselves each day for building stamina and making their teacher proud!  I deemed them experts at Read to Self today as they hit a solid 17 minutes of stamina and know the Urgency, the I-Chart, the IPICK strategy like the back of their hands!  We are still working diligently on actually implementing the IPICK strategy properly each time we choose a book, but that will take time!  They completed Day 3 of Work on Writing (or WoW as we call it!) today and made it to 7 minutes of stamina, created a list of topics to write about and were excited to start, and sad to stop each time!  WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!

Here are some photos of what we've done, maybe I'll find spots on my walls for all of them and can get a picture of them together!

A students Topic List today!

Our Class Topic List

Hard at work during WoW!

I will admit though, I do have a major slight fear of how it will work in our TiNy classroom when everyone is not doing the SAME thing!  Training and practice!

Last week on Friday, we have an Everyday Math Inservice and learned a great deal about implementing the program into our classrooms.  I am still really a bit hesitant about teaching Math in a center format with 3 groups all at different levels, but I am hoping it works out okay!  This week we have been practicing rotating...Yes, JUST ROTATING!  Understanding that when the timer goes off we -
1) Are Silent
2) Clean up
3) Push in chairs and stand silently behind them until told to rotate
4) Rotate quickly and quietly and get RIGHT to work!

We are doing to use the acronym DING (like a timer!)
D - Don't Talk!
I - Immediately clean-up your area
N - No moving until told to rotate
G - Go to your next center and get RIGHT to work!

I only have an hour Math Block (which is actually less by the time we get in from Snack/Recess, get started and then clean up to go out to lunch!) so we have a LOT to fit in!  Luckily, I do have a few blocks where I only have one grade in my room at a time and that will be a HUGE Math re-teach time!

On a happy note...Missoula Children's Theatre is here for the next week and will be teaching the students grade K - 8 the play/musical of Robin Hood and there will be a HUGE performance next week on Thursday.  It is probably one of the most amazing things to see 2 people come in and transform a school of young children into amazing performers in such a short time!  It causes lots of turmoil to our schedule but is such an amazing experience for the kids its totally worth it!

This past week, in all my spare time, I have tried to create a fun and engaging Phonics Program for my kids.  They got really bored with the one I used last year, so I pulled the sound and word pattern outline from that program, and created my own!  I have 5 weeks worth done so far and am pretty excited about it!  This is my first BIG teacherspayteachers created unit and my first big unit I have complied in this format!  It consists of 40 words per week that students can choose from, and also a big activity to support that sound and other optional word work activities.

Check it out here:

Well, I feel like I may have a cold coming on...UGH!...so it's off to sleep for me!  I hope everyone is having a great school year thus far!  

First Week Recap

After a long 9 day stretch, the weekend was welcomed with open arms!  4 days of inservice and prepping for the new year and 5 days with kids...I couldn't wait to sleep in!!

Regardless, our first week went great!  My kids are learning our routines and procedures quickly and have done a great job this week.  I think my favorite thing about this week was seeing how GREAT my kids were from 8 till about 10:30 and how their attention spans slowly dwindled for the rest of the afternoon!  They are just SO precious!

Since this week was entirely focused on establishing rules, routines, and building community, we did a lot of fun activities.  The kids all worked really hard and I was so impressed with them!

In the first days, I asked my class to help me create a list of things that were important to include in a class promise (This activity was part of the First Week Detective Packet).  I was so impressed with the list they created!  Here is Our Class Promise:

After creating our class promises, students created a book to review the Class Promise.  They were then given a 'HW assignment' to take their books home and share it with their parents and families and teach them about our class promise.  Parents even had a sign a form and return it to school!  

I think the students favorite activity from the week was the Learning About Our Teacher from the detective packet.  They had to hunt the room for index cards with the answers to questions about their teachers.  They worked so hard, and had so much fun and felt reallly cool to know lots of new things about their teacher!

Another project that was a big hit, was making their magnifying glasses for the bulletin board from the Detective Packet.  They had to create clues about themselves, put them on the glass, and behind the glass they put a picture of themselves.  It was really fun to try and solve the mystery of Who is who?!

After our 4 days of TRIBES training, we were ready to begin using the great strategies we learned in our classroom.  One thing I did with my kids was create Tribles..They are little fluffy guys who help describe our feelings.  First we talked about each feeling and then the students gave a color to each feeling.  It was SO cool to hear the explanations for their feeling color!  One student said "I colored my happy face yellow like the sun because when I am happy I feel like the shining sun!"

Aside from these activities, my students also completed Amy's Stickin' to a Great Year craftivity and her Stand Tall Molly Lou Mellon flowers!

I am really looking forward to this upcoming week, starting our Daily 5 Routine and moving into some basic Math Center Activities from Amy's Let's Get Started Unit.  This coming Friday, we have an Everyday Math Inservice and I am looking forward to getting more training on our Math Program before jumping into it!  Here is a quick look at my week 1 Daily 5 Lesson Plans.

More to come next week - Happy Week 2 (or whatever week you may be approaching!).


I am going to end this blog with a little 'my life' photo-op!  These are my 'kids'.  They have a pretty rough life!

Koala - the Princess!

Nevi - pre launching into the pool!  

Nevi - post launching in the pool!