3 More Days and AR Competition Winds Down!

 

I can't believe we only have 3 more days of school!

 

That means next Friday I will be leaving my classroom and school for the last time. :-(

I'm feeling sad and excited all at the same time.

 

I have keys to my new classroom and school already. They were done on Thursday. It was really hard to get up and go to work Friday when my own kids were still in bed snoozing. I just keep thinking that next year, we will have the same calendar! That will be so awesome!

 

About my new classroom, I just took some of my things up there and looked around. Then I came home and took a nap! LOL!

 

It is too overwhelming right now to think of all that I need to do...

 

Anyway, the AR competition has come to an end--which is a good thing. Kristi and I are both extremely competitive. The library closed on Wednesday, but we each asked for a basket of books so the classes could keep reading. I even pulled some leveled readers from earlier in the year to keep them earning points. We had told the kids we would have a party if we made it to 1000 points (between the two classes) in the last nine weeks.

 

On Thursday, we knew we would not make the goal so Kristi and I started taking tests too. I took a test on The Hunger Games (which I had read last year) and some of the half point books pictured below.

 

 

At the end of the day, I had 27 points. Kristi had 5.

 

Would you believe she bribed (with Coca Cola) another teacher friend to take a Harry Potter test under her name?

 

So I came back the next day and took tests on Catching Fire and Mockingjay and earned another 25 points (I got a 60% on one of them--oops--guess that is why you shouldn't wait a year to test on a book).

 

Like I said we are really competitive! :-)

 

As it turned out, the classes tied and we made the 1000 points so we have a float party planned for next week. Hooray!

 

Well, I wanted to leave you with a video of my daughter singing in her school talent show, but I'm still working on getting it uploaded. Maybe tomorrow...this proud mom has to share. :-)

 

Have a blessed weekend!

Crystal

 

 

 

How to blow up a Balloon!!!????

 

So last year we found this cool idea from Erin at First From Franklin.

 

 

 

 

http://firstwithfranklin.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-day-countdown-baby.html

 

We came up with a list of fun things to do each day, typed them up, printed it and stuck it in the balloon.  If the student doesn't have to move his/her clip down throughout the day, then they get to participate in what it says in the balloon the next day.  The kids are so excited about popping a balloon every day and want to make sure that they are following our rules so that they can do whatever is inside the balloon.  The following is what we decided to put in our balloons:

 

May

9^th – Gum-we gave them gum to chew all day long

10^th – Sunglasses-this was the day that we went to the zoo for our field trip, so we gave them sunglasses to wear to the zoo

13^th – ink pens-they will get to write with pens all day

14^th – lunch in the room with the teacher

15^th – extra recess

16^th – move desks-they get to arrange the room the way they want to for the day

17^th – mystery readers (other 1^st grade class)-they get to read with the other 1st graders

20^th – kickball-we will have a kickball game between the 2 classes

21^st – nature walk-they will go outside and take a walk and do a scavenger hunt

22^nd – Movie Day

 

The best part about all of this is that I learned something about Crystal last year when we did this activity.  We were in my room after school and started to blow up the balloons.  I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life.  Crystal doesn't know how to blow a balloon up.  Bless her heart, she tries but it doesn't work!  LOL!

 

I was sitting there blowing up balloon after balloon and realized that she couldn't do it.  She was trying with all her might and blowing, making noises and turning red.  :-)  Needless to say, by the time I had all of my 10 balloons blown up, she had her one balloon halfway blown up.  I had to blow the other 9 up for her.

 

This year, I was so excited to do it again just so I could watch her try to blow a balloon up (I know it probably isn't very nice of me), but I have never seen anything like it before.  LOL!  She must have been practicing or something because she actually was able to blow up a few more balloons this year.  Although it took her 14  2 hours.  :-)  I only wish I could have a video of it for the full effect so you could hear the noises and see her face as she tries so hard to get 1 balloon blown up.  But, I did capture some of it with pictures.  Check it out! 

 

 

Taking in deep breaths before her attempt to blow up her first balloon!

 

 

After 15 minutes LOL!  Here is what she had on her first balloon!

 

 

 

 

WOW!  2 hours later!!!  :-)

 

 

 

 

 

SHE DID IT!!!  14 HOURS LATER!!!

 

 

It really didn't take that long, but I think I had about 4 balloons done by the time this first one was blown up! 

 

Needless to say, we had a fun time blowing up balloons and we did have a good laugh about it at Crystal's expense (Thanks Crystal). 

 

Hope all of you have a great week!  Kristi  

Moving :-(

Some of you may remember from this post in March that I will be changing jobs next year, and I am a teacher that likes to leave ASAP on that final day. It is approaching so FAST!

 

11 more days with kids!

 

13 more days total!

 

I started thinking that I did not want to be sitting around here packing after everyone else has gone home for the summer. On top of that, Kristi is the one moving into my room and she has been giving me grief about getting out of her way. Well, not too bad...but I've got to give her a bad time because I know what she is blogging about this weekend and it will be an embarrassment to me! You'll have to stay tuned to find out...all I can say is she took pictures of this most embarrassing fact about me.

 

What a friend! ;-)

 

Anyway, back to moving. On Saturday, I came up to my room and took everything out of my cabinets and my closet. I didn't think I had very much stuff because I have only been teaching THREE years, but as you can see...

 

 

The room was a mess! I had three bags of trash and several boxes of recycling. I packed 5 totes, one large box, and LOTS of items that wouldn't fit in those things to take home with me. I literally only left the things that I'm still using or what will stay at the school.

 

Now I'm thinking, "Where am I going to put all this stuff?"

My new classroom is smaller and I don't even have a closet! Ack! The set up should be interesting...

 

The clean out was fun and revealing. I found a lot of things from college that I was sure I would use and hadn't touched in three years. Like Charlotte...

 

 

Charlotte was made in my teaching art class--the program insisted we learn to teach art, music, and PE because we might end up with a school that did not have a teacher for specials.

 

Funny thing is...that is exactly where I'm heading! As of right now, I will be teaching my own specials at my new school. I'm still praying they find a music teacher because...well, let's just say I've learned and forgotten how to play the piano twice in my life...

 

So I had to part with Charlotte. She is now sitting in the teacher's lounge waiting for a good home or someone else to throw away because I didn't have the heart to do it!

 

Have a great rest of the week!

 

Crystal

 

P.S. Kristi is already filling my closet, cabinets, and filing cabinet! ;-)

TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale!!!

Teacher Appreciation Week is here! I hope you enjoy some special thanks from your students, parents, and schools this week. We have already been told some of our goodies coming from our wonderful PTO. Can you say MASSAGE? And yummy breakfast?? Sonic drinks???

 

It is nice to know we are appreciated and our parents do a great job of that!

 

Kristi and I decided to join in the TPT (and TN) sales this week, so head on over to do some shopping. There are LOTS of sellers in on this sale so we'll be doing some shopping of our own!

 

Our TN sale will run May 4th - 10th.

 

 

 

The TPT sale is a TWO day sale May 7th - 8th so act fast!

 

 

Enjoy your week!

 

Crystal and Kristi

Testing...Results...Relief!

Ooops! This was my mid-week post that apparently I saved instead of publishing so...

This week we have been doing AIMSWEB testing on our kiddos. I always start this process with fear and trepidation...it makes me nervous!

What if the kids don't show enough growth?

What if they don't show any growth?

What if...

What if...

What if...

You can fill in the blanks, I'm sure.

I know my kiddos have made progress throughout the year - a lot really! The data proves it! It is quite fun to go back and look at the different growth reports that you can pull off of AIMSWEB. I'm so proud of my students! Even the ones that worry me a bit have shown so much growth that I can't complain. :-)

This is our first year using this testing program and this time we were required to do the R-CBM (if you're not familiar with it, I'd call it a fluency passage...timed 1 minute reads) on the computer. I wasn't sure I would like it---thought I'd prefer the old fashioned paper/pencil method. However, when I got started, I found that using the computer to administer the test is SOOOOOO much easier. I just had a paper copy for the kids to read from and kept track of errors and the stopping point on the computer.

Anyway, as I'm looking over the data I can take a sigh of relief...especially after this conversation during one of my reading groups today.

Me: "The first word is reheat. When we see the prefix re-, what does that mean?" (Keep in mind, we have covered this about 3 different times throughout the year and had just talked about it yesterday.)

Group of 3 students: BLANK STARES

Me: "If I say I need to reheat my dinner, what do I mean?"

Students: BLANK STARES, SHOULDER SHRUGS, NERVOUS GIGGLES

Me: "Really? We just talked about this... If I need to reheat something, I need to heat it AGAIN. The prefix re- means again."

Students: SMILE AND NOD

Me: "Say that with me. The prefix re- means again."

Students repeat after me three times...

Me: "Now what about the prefix un-? For example, in this word (pointing) unsafe."

Students: "Again!"

Me: HANGING MY HEAD AND CRYING...well, maybe not really, but I felt like it!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great rest of the week!

Crystal

Making Butter!!!

We had our extra fun thing this week and it was extra special!  Every year, we have this extra fun thing.  There is a parent that does a lot with 4H, so she comes in and does some lessons with different grade levels at our school.  On Friday, she came in and had the kids make homemade butter! 

This is always quite an experience for them because they don't realize how much work it can take.  Many of them got tired and said that their arms were hurting after shaking the jar several times.  They worked in groups and passed the jar around, so luckily they didn't have to shake it up all by themselves LOL!

They always have a great time with making butter and when they get their butter made, they get to try it on homemade rolls, YUMMY! 

It is fun to watch them try the butter because many of them are so used to the store bought butter and the taste of it.  They assume that the homemade butter is going to taste the same.  Many of them didn't expect for it to taste different. 

After they got done, a lot of the students talked about how they were going to go home and do this again!  What fun!  Check it out!

 

Hope all of you have a great weekend!  Kristi

Acrostic Poems = Giggles

The end of April is fast approaching and we hadn't spent a lot of time on poetry yet, so we started writing Acrostic poems.

 

First we did the seasons and the kids did a great job! Here's a few of my favorites:

 

After the seasons, we tried to do our names. That was amusing! I didn't want to take pictures--too revealing of my little kiddos--but here are a few of my favorite things they came up with. They made me laugh - maybe they will give you a giggle!

 

N - Naughty (true of this one :-))

N - Nosy (he said his mom calls him a Nosy Nellie)

O - Obnoxious (HA HA!)

T - Talker (several came up with that, all true! This is a talkative group)

E - Extra special (sweet)

I - Important :-)

U - Unmean (we had been working on the prefixes un and re)

 

Have a great rest of the week!

Crystal