Liebster

It's been awhile since I've blogged. My computer officially died over Thanksgiving break. Boo! SoI've been a little out of lube in the bloggy world. I haven't even been blog stalking...but I"M BACK.

While I was gone I was nominated for the Liebster Award for blogers with 200 followers or less. First of all I wanted to make a quick shout out to my nominators: Heather form Wild Rumpus , Janet from Mrs. D's Firsties, , Marie from Beach Lovin' Teach and Danielle from Classroom Cupcakes! Thank you ladies! If you aren't already following them ...please head over and check out their amazing blogs. 

I was so pleased to be nominated for the Liebster Blog and wanted to share the love, too!  

The rules: 

• You must post 11 random things about yourself.

• Answer the questions that the nominators set for you.

• Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.

• Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers) and link them in your post.

• No tag back, (but please leave me a comment on this post with the URL to your Liebster post so that I can learn more about you!)

Random Facts

1.  I have a crazy cat named Maise who steals the magnets off of my fridge.

2. I think about 75% of my wardrobe is from Target.

3. I HATED math as a student but now it is one of my favorite subjects to teach.

4. I have the best grandma in the whole world!

5. Thirfty’s Double Fudge Brownie on a sugar cone will always be my favorite treat.

6. The Real Housewives are a guilty pleasure of mine.

7. …so is US Weekly.

8. I ALWAYS wear flats.

9. I love country music.

10. I heart leopard print.

11. I have a betta fish and Maise is always trying to get him, too. :) 

Questions I was asked by Heather. 

What is your best teaching memory?

Umm…I am drawing a blank. But my favorite memory from this week was reading Island of the Blue Dolphins with my class. One of my reluctant readers was full of questions; “I wonder if Captain Orlov is coming back. If I were Karana I would go with Tutok? What would have happened if Ramo didn’t die at the beginning?”  I think he’s hooked!

What is your worst teaching memory?

One day I was subbing and a student spilled a whole carton of milk onto my foot.My socks and shoes were soaked and by the end of the day I smelled like spoiled milk. Not good.

What made you decide to start a blog?

I loved reading teaching blogs. Being a new-ish teacher, I found teaching blogs to be a huge inspiration!  Eventually I bit the bullet and created my own blog.

What's your favorite season and why?

Summer! I just love everything about it.

Do you have a teaching idol? Who and why?

Mrs. Wray, my fourth grade teacher. She was so fun! I was actually talking to my  friend about her today. We were both in her class 20 years ago!

Do you have any hobbies, and, if so, what's your favorite?

Does blog stalking count? How about eating? If so, I have two hobbies!

Coffee or Tea?

Both! But Chai Tea Lattes are my absolute fav.

Dessert: chocolate or other?

Chocolate. Always chocolate.

Snack: sweet or salty (Can you tell I haven't eaten yet this morning?!)

Both I LOVE good eats!

What were you prior to becoming a teacher?

I was a student… and while I was being a student I was also a nanny, store clerk, restaurant  hostess, after school program worker and camp counselor...gotta pay for school some how!

If you hadn't become a teacher, what would you have been?

Hmmm….that’s a tough one! Maybe something to do with community health or social work, but I really can’t imagine  not teaching.

Questions for my nominees:

1. What is your favorite kids’ book?

2. What is your favorite subject to teach?

3. Chocolate or Vanilla?

4. What school supply can you not live without?

5. Who would play you if they made a movie about your life?

6. What is on your Christmas list this year?

7. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

8. Where would you go on a dream vacation?

9. Dog person, cat person or neither?

10. How would your friends describe you?

11.  How would your students describe you? 

And the nominees are...

Starring in First Grade 

Miss R's Room 

Mr. Michelbook's Classroom 

Middle Grade Maven 

Smiles and Sunshine 

Polka Dots and Teaching Tots 

Seriously Read

Teaching in a Small Town 

Teaching with a Touch of Twang 

Go check 'em out and follow along if you are doing so already! 

Youtube Finds!

I've had a bit of a leisurely day today and spent some time perusing pintrest and youtube. I am so excited about some of my finds so I needed to share! 

These videos are so fun and catchy! 

I actually found this song, "Meet the Elements", last year and showed this years class the video on Wednesday. Since then we've all been singing it! It gets stuck in my head every time I hear it and the same is true for the kids. Hopefully the info gets stuck in my students' their head too! 

This one is perfect for the introducing the Age of Exploration in Social Studies. 

Love this video, too! Great for talking about perspectives on the war. 

These videos are so fun and add an extra level of engagement to the lessons. If youtube is blocked at your school, check out keep vid. I wrote about it in this post. 

If you have a video that you love, please share! 

Reflecting on Trimester I

Whew! The first trimester of the year is over. (Do you all go by trimesters? Quarters? Semesters?)

On top of the usual report cards and parent conferences, my charter school is also going through its charter renewal. I don't know what the process of charter renewal is like in other states but in California it is pretty intense. Needless to say, all of this has made for a stressful few weeks.

When the school year gets busy it is so easy to get caught up in the moment and forget to reflect. I didn't want that to happen so as we approached the ending of the first grading period, I came up with a few quick activities to help my students reflect on the first trimester of the year and look forward to the rest of the year.

Part 1: Slide Show 

The first thing I did was put together a quick little slide show. It wasn't fancy. I basically uploaded all of my pictures from my phone and threw in some music.

The kids were beyond excited to watch themselves on the "big screen". As they watched the slide show I had them fill out this simple little organizer.

I was happily surprised at how seriously they took the organizer! They filled in all of the squares which made the other parts of the reflection easier.

Next, they used there organizer to complete two quick reflective writing pieces.

Part 2: That was Easy!

The first, was this little gen from One Extra Degree.

(Click on the image to get your own copy from Amanda) 

We watched a staples commercial before they filled out their sheets. They were so entertained by the idea of watching commercials during class. :)  The kids actually had a hard time picking just one thing "that was easy" and they were so thoughtful in the way they chose exactly what to write about. 

Step 3: The Essay 

The last writing piece was much more involved. Each student wrote a 3 paragraph essay. The first paragraph discussed what they enjoyed most in the first trimester. The second paragraph focused on what they learned.The third paragraph was about what they hoped to achieve in the next trimester. 

It was given as an on demand writing sample and I was very impressed with there work. (I told them that I would be showing the essay to their parents at conferences and I could tell that they wrote to impress!:) ) 

What do you do to help your students to be reflective? How do you recognize progress in your classroom? 

Currently

Happy Sunday everybody! I just got back from an amazingly wonderful birthday weekend and I am linking up with Farley before I start hitting all of the paperwork I missed while I was away.

It was my birthday this weekend and I spent it at my very favorite place: Avila Beach. It was very relaxing and oh so much fun! And this view never gets old: 

(SOURCE)

Plus it was unseasonably warm - 80 degrees today! 

While I was away, I received an iPad for my birthday. I was so happily surprised!!! Now I can't wait to start downloading apps and playing with QR codes! What are some apps you enjoy? Any tips for using the iPad in the classroom? Let me know!

Speaking of the classroom, my favorite thing to play in class is the Curious George Soundtrack. I know that it sounds a little young for my 5th graders but it is calming and fun! I love Jack Johnson so I am happy, too!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, too. If you haven't already, go link up. Now back to reality for me! Report cards, here I come!

Too easy....Too Hard......Just Right

Happy Sunday everybody! I hope that my East Coast buddies are staying safe with Sandy looming. Thinking of you all! We are enjoying a lazy fall morning out here in California. I wanted to take a minute to share what's been going on during reading time in 5th grade.

So it's no secret that my kiddos were having some issues during read to self. We were not exactly reading during our school wide reading time...even though we all had our books out. A lot of my kids were just hanging out with an open book...not so productive. It was seriously driving me CRAZY!

 I felt like I was loosing precious minutes of instructional time while my kids did their best to fake read. It was turning into a huge problem for me and it turned out to have a two part solution.

First,  I taught my kiddos the difference between fake readers and real readers. I blogged about that part of the solution HERE.

The other part of the solution was reteaching picking the right book. I had gone over the idea at the beginning of the year but had never really taught a lesson on the whole concept so I decided to start from scratch.

I scoured blogland and pintrest...my usual first line of defense...and came up with this lesson:

I started by telling them I picked out a brand new book for read aloud and that I was really excited about it. I pulled out The Life of Benjamin Banneker  from my bag and started reading aloud with my usual enthusiasm  Then I said, "Turn to your neighbor and predict what will happen next". *Crickets* A couple of kids tried to come up with something but most just looked at me like I was crazy. Which was exactly what I wanted!

I said, "You all are supposed to be making predictions. What seems  to be the problem?" One of my superstars replied, "Well I really tried to listen but some of the words were really hard and I really couldn't understand the plot. I think that's a high school book or something."

Too which I quickly replied, "Okay, so your telling me this book is too difficult because the words are too hard and you didn't quite understand what was going on. That's okay because I picked up a couple of other books while I was at the bookstore."

Then I pulled out Don't, Danny, Don't! I read three pages and then asked them to predict. They laughed and said "Of course we know what is going to happen. That's a baby book!"

Just before I pulled out the final book I heard one of my students tell her neighbor, "This is just like Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. We Can't find the right book." That's when I knew the lesson was going in the right direction. :)

Finally a pulled out James and the Giant Peach. I read 3 pages in my best read aloud voice. My kiddos were hooked! I asked them to predict with their neighbor. There were insightful murmurs all over the room.

I was smiling. My kids were smiling. All was right in the world.

Then we had a quick discussion on why James and the Giant Peach was an appropriate book and why the others were too easy or too difficult for us.

We used that info and created this anchor chart:

(Sorry it's so out of focus!) 

I was so happy that they were able to help me fill out the chart...we even ran out of room on the chart because they had SO many ideas.

At the end of the period, the kids took turns book shopping in the classroom library. We placed the anchor chart in the library so that they were able to refer to it as they shopped. Overall, I feel like the lesson went very well and they really understood and applied the information. I just love when that happens! :)

What lessons went well for you this week? I'd love to hear about them! Leave me a comment below. :)

Fun Friday

I was ready with a fun Friday post when I came across this fun little linky from Teaching in Fourth. We all need a little extra fun on Fridays so I am linking up with Kelly and you should, too! :) Check out the fun graphic she created for the party and the end of this post.

                              

Since it's Friday I thought I'd share some of the activities we do in my room when we need a little extra fun. This week we had assessments, a fire drill, earthquake drill and vision screening. Which made for some long days and a couple of awkward periods when we had 10 minutes before being pulled for vision screenings or 15 minutes before lunch after a morning FULL of testing. These are the times I need to pull some fun tricks out of my teacher hat. Here are a few we had fun with this week:

                                                      

                                                     Read Aloud with a Twist 

My kids love a good read aloud but sometimes they have a hard time staying focused. Whenever we are going to do an extra long read aloud I pass out a teeny tiny piece of play-doh for each student. They quietly play with the clay and listen. It is amazing how it improves their concentration!

Responsive Classroom Games 

I love the games that are part of the Morning Meetings in Responsive Classrooms. These are great games for the morning but are also fun during those awkward in between team. My kids LOVE "Just Like Me". Click here to find the link to that and a couple of other Games. 

Word Games 

My kids LOVE word games. They're great because not only are they fun, they help students look at words in a new way. These are my kids current favorites: 

<Click on the images to get your own copies> 

And now to the linky! 

Here are the links:
Super cute Disney Princess aprons 
 Covered in Glitter and Glue Go check her out!

I hope you all have a wonderful & restful weekend! 

Now go link up with Kelly! 

Tell Me Something Good

I am linking up with Jennifer over at Rowdy in First grade for a little bit of positive thinking. These last few weeks have been completely a  little crazy and today was no exception, so I think Jennifer's linky is perfect way to end this busy day. 

Something Good at School: 

- We've made a ton of progress in math! I love, love, love Stephanie's Calendar Math and I've already seen so many benefits from using her product. Check it out! You won't be disappointed. 

 -My kiddos are really getting into Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'dell and I feel like they are learning a ton of new stuff as they read. 

               

I was a little nervous about it because it is much more complex than the other novels we've read so far this year.

- My first formal observation went well. I HATE being observed. I can never sleep the night before and I get way too nervous during the lesson but things went well and now I am DONE... until next semester. Whew! 

Something Good at Home: 

-I spent the entire weekend in my hometown doing absolutely nothing except soaking in some family time. Such an amazing weekend...shopping with my momma, dinner at my grandama's, lunch with my cousin. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! :) 

-My boyfriend's mom made me the most AMAZING pumpkin chocolate chip bread. I've been looking forward to having it for dessert ALL day long. It's the little things that make me happy!  

Take a minute to link up! I can't wait to read about the good things going on in blogland. :)