Connect Four and Other Ramblings...

Whew!

If you could hear me now, you would hear a huge sigh of relief that this day is over. It was one of those days...if you know what I mean. :-)

I'm also relieved to have conferences over. That always makes for a long, busy week. It is fun to go to my own children's conferences and hear how different they are. All of my son's teachers had the same thing to say: "He is a great student. We just need him to talk more." Then my daughter's will tell me how Harley talks so much more than Chaz (they are only a year apart in school, so the teachers remember him well).

And one other rambling...have you ever lost a horse?

We came home last night to find our horse missing!

My heart just sank for Harley...she has wanted a horse since she was three and just got Cosmo in June. My husband and Harley set out to look for him.

Chaz and I stayed home to cook dinner. I worried and fretted, then finally told Chaz we needed to pray that the Lord would help us find Cosmo. Unfortunately, that is not always my first response as it should be!

Anyway, the phone rang as soon as we were done praying. A neighbor calling to tell us where we could find Cosmo. Praise the Lord!

All was well, but Harley was not too happy with her horse for "running away." Ha ha!

Okay, now to what you are all here for...teaching stuff. Here's my small group table all ready for the first round of Daily 5 tomorrow.

This is a simple game that we call Connect Four. Partners take turns rolling the dice, then they attempt to read one of the words with that number correctly. If they do, they get to put their colored marker in the square. The first person to get four in a row wins. We also add that they can "knock off" their partners sometimes to make it more fun. The kids love it!

Kristi just posted this one on TPT for working on the short u sound and she has several available in our store. Best of all, she sells them for just $1!

Enough ramblings for one day...

Have a great evening!

Crystal

P.S. Does anyone have any behavior modification plans that they just love???

More Election Fun!

We worked on our campaign posters this week for our Animal Election.  The kids are so excited about it and are taking it very serious!  Check out their cool posters:





We will go through the actual voting process on November 6th.  Only they will be voting for their favorite animal.  :-)

We had parent-teacher conferences this week and put in extra hours to have today off.  I think we all agreed that we were very tired and would be doing a lot of napping throughout today and this weekend.  Along with being tired, our weather has gone from around 85 degrees to 38 degrees in a day!  So, it's a dreary day which makes it even better to stay in and take a nice long nap.

Hope all of you have had a great week!  Kristi

We've Been Boo-ed!

 

Erin over at First with Franklin visited our blog and "Boo-ed" us. This super fun linky party is from Tori at Tori's Teacher Tips. Such a great way to get many awesome October ideas! Thanks so much to Erin for "Booing" us! :-)

If you've been Boo-ed here are the rules:

If you've been booed, copy and paste the above pic and these "rules" into your post.

1. Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!

2. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else),

or freebie(s) that you love!

3. Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again:
http://toristeachertips.blogspot.com/2012/10/ive-been-booed-fun-october-linky.html

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED!

4. Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas! And while you are there... check out the other great blogs!

Here are some of our favorite October activities:

1. We would like to try this cute craft this year...found it on Pinterest. It is from Deep Space Sparkle.



2. We both have this book and it is one of our favorite fall reads. Sharing Kindergarten has a great pack to go along with it (including a freebie) and how it can be used with Daily 5!


3. This may be a stretch for fall activities, but I just stumbled upon it and definitely plan to use it when I introduce place value. It does use marshmallows which reminds me of bonfires (which of course are best in the fall). How many times can I use 'which' in this paragraph? Anyway, found this on Babbling Abby's blog and includes a printable!



Here's who we are Booing:

Forever in First
First Grade Blue Skies
Fluttering Through First Grade
Synonym Rolls and Antonym Moments
Wolfelicious

On another note, conferences are ahead for us...Tuesday evening and again on Thursday. Our fall  parties are this Wednesday also... It is going to be a llllllllllllllloooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggg
week! But...we will have Friday to rest up so that is a blessing!

Have a blessed Sunday!

Crystal




 

Animal Election - Thanks to Tori!

This week we started an Animal Election! Meet our candidates:

 

We are busy learning about each candidate and will hold an official election on November 6th. As we talk about the election, we have been discussing how it is similar to the Presidential Election. I was very excited when some of my firsties told me they had watched part of the debate with their parents saw their parents watching the debate last night.

 

Here is our vocabulary words proudly on display:

 

The candidate posters and vocab words are part of an awesome packet from Tori over at Tori's Teacher Tips.

  

Kristi and I won the set in a contest this summer and I was super excited to get it out and get started! Best of all, when I went to her site to copy her button I stumbled on her posting that the Election Time pack is ON SALE!

So scoot on over there right now and grab it up! You won't be disappointed!

Crystal

 

MORE SIGHT WORD PRACTICE!!

So, we are continuing to work on our sight words. Along with our password for the day, I have put words on the back of each students' chair. Each time we leave our desk, the student has to push in his/her chair and then tell me the word. 

The kiddos loved this so much that they even started to say the word, spell it, and use it in a sentence. I was just planning on them saying the word, but they were so excited about it and started spelling it and using it in a sentence on their own. YAY!! Check it out....

 

 

Hope all of you have a nice and relaxing weekend! 

 

Kristi

 



 

 

What's the password?

 

 

Call it desperation if you want to...but this is what Kristi and I resorted to today.

 

Every morning we go over our "words of the week" or sight words from our Treasures reading series with an awesome power point that Kristi made (you can find them at our TPT store if you're interested). The kids get to whisper the words to their shoulder buddies after I read the clues and then the word starts "falling down" on to the slide.

 

The kids really seemed to have the words...

 

...until we read the story.

 

Yesterday, most of my students misread WHO as HOW.

Small group after small group...HOW, HOW, HOW!

 

Kristi was having the same problem in her room.

 

We had to do something.

 

Yes, a giant sign would do nicely!

 

I wore the sign all day. My kids had to whisper the word to me every time we went somewhere...and randomly in class, I would call on someone and say, "What's the password?"

 

I felt a little strange walking the halls with my giant sign.

 

Other classes read the word.

 

Other teachers read the word.

 

I hoped my kids were reading the word.

 

At the end of the day, I got good news from one of our Title teachers who pulls some of my students for extra one-on-one reading instruction.

 

"My girls knew that word today!"

 

Now...

 

 

...the question remains...

 

 

...will they know it tomorrow?

 

 

Have a great evening!

 

Crystal

 

P.S. We are wearing OF and SOME tomorrow.

Christopher Columbus Day!

We studied about Christopher Columbus this week.  This cute little craft idea was found on pinterest (I believe I spend way too much time on pinterest, I may need to start setting a timer when I get on it LOL!) and it took me to the following site:

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/fall/columbus-day-craft.asp

The kiddos loved going around and saying the names of the three ships (Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria).  They thought they were really cool names and each one of them wanted to tell the names to me almost everyday this week!  :-)  I was glad that they were excited about it and could remember all of the names of the ships.  Check out some of the results of their work:

 

I just love it when the kids get so excited about learning stuff.  Christopher Columbus was a big hit with our kiddos.  I even had some that wrote 2 pages about him during the Daily 5 work on writing.  How Exciting!! 

 

 

Hope your week was good!  Kristi 

Cute Faces and Randomness!

Hooray! We finally had time to do our faces for my "The FACE of a Reader" bulletin board.

 

 

 

Aren't they cute? I seriously got some giggles out of these. :-)

 

Sorry the picture is so dark. When I don't have students (before school, plan time, lunch time, or after school), I like to sit in the dark. Weird, I know, but it helps me relax, okay? And I didn't realize I should have turned the lights on until I uploaded the pictures...and I'm too tired to do it again.

 

Why so tired?

 

Well, besides having a long day...

 

I thought it might be fun to share what currently keeps me busy outside of school:

 

This is my son running cross country. He typically runs on Thursday nights, but this week it was Tuesday so I already felt like it should be Friday. Maybe some of my kiddos at school helped me feel that way...but I would never say. ;-)

 

This is my daughter playing volleyball. She plays on Thursday nights - yes, the same night my son is usually running in different places. Hubby and I have been taking turns to go watch them.

 

I took several pictures on this night trying to prove that she always has her hands on her knees. Ha! Ha! Believe me, I caught several with her like that. I even recorded a few minutes for her to watch and see.

 

I know, I know. I'm horrible!

 

I can't help it! I played volleyball in college and coached it for 4 years...I am trying very hard to be mom - and not coach though.

 

Have a great rest of the week!

 

Crystal