Candy Science, Homework Club, and CHAMPing a Class Party

Hey there!

Linking up with Kacey from Doodlebugs for Five for Friday tonight.

 

We had a fun week in second grade and K-2 science class. All of my science classes had completed their science skills unit and we were ready for some experimenting! Of course, I took to Pinterest for inspiration.

We started with What Dissolves? to become familiar with the term dissolve so we could do Dissolving Pumpkins.

We did Sink or Float Candy Science and Gummy Bear Science.

 

The kids had a great time and hopefully learned a little bit too. I, unfortunately, ate way too much candy! ;-)

I had lunch with my Homework Club on Wednesday. We watched Magic School Bus--Haunted House.

  

 

We do team "STAR Homework." Each month, everyone starts in the Homework Club. If they earn 4 stars each week, they stay in the club and we eat in the classroom once a month.

My district did close school in honor of our volleyball team making it to state. That meant our Halloween party and parade were moved to Thursday. I had to leave early to head to the state tournament in Hays, Kansas with the team. I was more than a little worried about my rowdy group having their class party without me, so we "CHAMPed" it on Wednesday and reviewed it before I left on Thursday.

 

 

I had a good report from the para who is usually in my room, so I'm feeling a little proud of my bunch! She said, "They did great!"

Speaking of state volleyball... I love this picture from the sub-state championship. The excitement as they celebrated the match-winning point was awesome!

We didn't do well at state...nerves definitely got the best of us. But it was a fun season and we had much success to celebrate. A 34-6 record is still very impressive!

I was disappointed to not make it out of pool play at state, but it did free me up to watch my niece run in the state cross country meet.
 

I was tired just running from place to place to watch. These athletes are amazing!

 My niece took 12th! Woohoo!

And finally...

This might be the first school picture I didn't immediately hide. Ha!

Have a great week!

Wisdom for Wednesday-Knowledge and Wisdom

I know I've said it before........"I wish I would have listened to my mom."  The wisdom that we can have as adults is nice and unfortunately as a child, I didn't always listen to that wisdom that my mom would give me.  

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to start out with all the wisdom that we learn in life and then drop down in age.  I know for me, I would have made much better choices and did things a lot different.  My relationship with God would be a lot stronger for sure.  Unfortunately, we don't start out at the age of eighty, but the good news is that if we seek God (no matter what age we are) he can give us all the knowledge and wisdom we need.

Thanks for joining us for this week's:  

James 1:5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

The Pigs, the Wolf and the Mud

We read The Pigs, the Wolf and the Mud in our reading book.  It was about the 3 little pigs and the wolf comes to get them in their mud hut.  In the end, the wolf doesn't want to mess with the pigs because they are messy and he doesn't like mud.  My co-teacher and I put the first graders into teams of 4.  They were to build a house and we (teachers) were the big bad wolves and we were going to try and knock down their house with the blow dryer.  Each team had to decide what type of material they were going to use to build their houses (popsicle sticks, dominoes, unifix cubes, or pattern blocks).  They practiced building and then we called each team up to a table and they had 3 minutes to build their house.  Then we tried to blow it over with the blow dryer.  The kids had a blast doing this and we had one team that we couldn't blow their house over.  They used unifix cubes and put them all together which made them more solid. Check it out:

Have a great week!

Take a Peek into 2nd!

Hi there! 

I am so excited! I just got home from our Sub-State tournament and we are STATE BOUND!

This is my niece and my daughter.

Here I am with Harley. Coaching these girls has been so much fun! I can't wait until next weekend!

Now on to Take a Peek into 2nd! 

You'll have to forgive me being late. Between parent teacher conferences, regional cross country (which Chaz did great--super proud of his effort this year after the knee surgery), and sub-state volleyball this week has been a little crazy!

 

You must check out Alicia from Wittmer's Whimsies!

I was so excited to see the product Alicia was highlighting this month. I had just started working on planning some rounding activities for my students, and this will be the perfect addition to my resources! Click on the picture below to check it out!

Wish us luck at STATE!!!

P.S. I get to miss the Halloween party. ;-) I'm hoping they close school! We are a small school, and I know a lot of our staff and students will want to go support us. Do you close school if a team makes it to state?

Wisdom for Wednesday - The Word

Happy Wednesday Thursday!

I'm sorry for the late post!

I had a 1/2 day of school yesterday and then conferences from 4:00-9:00. I was booked! I did 16 conferences back-to-back. They scheduled me a short dinner break--just enough time to get the yummy chili they provided, but not enough time to eat it! :-(

The craziness will make today easier, but last night I was exhausted!

Anyway, I'm glad you popped in for this week's:

I'll keep this short and sweet!

This believer needs to do some feeding on The Word this morning after such a crazy day yesterday!

I hope you can find some time to get into The Word today too!

Fire Station Tour

We are so lucky because we are 1 1/2 blocks away from the fire station.  So, we got to go take a tour of the fire station.  The kids were so excited!  Some of them said that they were dressing up as a fire fighter for Halloween so it made it even more exciting for them!  The fire fighters did an excellent job showing the kids around and explaining the various equipment there....I even learned some stuff that I didn't know.  :-)

On a side note, here is our forecast for the week (I love warm weather and not looking forward to the cold).  I would say this is good for the end of October!

79° F

Have a great day!!

Five for Friday (on Saturday)!

Hello there! I hope you had a great week!

It was a little crazy for me, as you will see by my pictures. 

I'm very excited to be at home this Saturday though! No volleyball tournament. We have sub-state next week. I really hope we can make it to state for obvious reasons, but selfishly it would also get me out of the Halloween party at school. Ha!

Anyway, I'll jump right in with my Five for Friday pictures. Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs for this fun and easy linky party each week!

1

We had staff development yesterday at school. It was a great day, but I found some time for doodling. I promise I was listening--our last presenter said we should let students doodle, just saying!

We had some great technology presentations!

Lots of new ideas whirling in my brain…just wish we were 1:1 iPads and didn't have to share. :-/ 

I plan to share more about the technology as I play with it. 

2

I snapped a couple of pictures of some things in our building we are using to promote POSITIVE attitudes and KINDNESS.

The kindness tree is for the kids. When we notice them doing an extra special act of kindness, they get to add an apple to the tree. There should probably be WAY MORE apples! It is hard to remember, but I'm working on it. The other teachers and adults are too.

P.S. Yes, it bothers me a bit that we are putting apples on the trunk instead of it "growing" from the branches! But I'm picky like that…

This next one is for the staff.

It has been great to see so many staff "shout-outs!" It was especially fun to see the notes left anonymously by either administrators or board members after they toured our building one night. 

3

I'm almost done reading Teach Like A Pirate.

Two words: Inspirational and Motivating

It is challenging me to keep honing my teaching skills and think outside the box to create effective and engaging lessons. 

4

I should have  bought the bigger container for my "Smart Tags!"

That's all I can say about that…

5

Thursday we took our annual field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. They had these new wooden play vehicles this year. Too cool to pass up a photo opportunity!

Extra Credit?

I finally got to watch Chaz run this week! 

Every other time, there has been conflicts between cross country and my coaching volleyball. 

I'm so thankful he has recovered so well from knee surgery. He is not as fast as he was last year, but he is shaving off time at each meet so he is getting there. 

Now… I think it is time for a nap! ;-)

Wisdom for Wednesday-Forgiveness

Have you ever needed to forgive someone for something, but you were just having a hard time with it?  I know that I have and then I saw this quote and realized it is just as damaging to me as it is to the one that I need to forgive.

For me, it is easy for me to say that I forgive someone when they say they are sorry, but I sometimes have a hard time forgetting it.  Not only does forgiving feel good, but I know that I make many mistakes and I am hopeful that those that I apologize to will forgive me.  

Thanks for joining us for this week's:  

Ephesians 4:32 - And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Whole Brain Teaching

Ok, who does whole brain teaching?  I started incorporating some of it into my classroom a couple of years ago.  I know that there is a lot more that I could be doing with it so I was wondering what all you did with it if you use it.  Here is what I have done so far:

1.  Ready, Set Go!-I love this one because the kids have to listen to all of the directions first.  I found that in the past when I was giving directions they would start doing the first direction before I finished with all the directions.  The kids now listen to all the directions and then I say Ready....their response is Set Go and then they follow the directions.  

2.  Hands and Eyes-Whenever I want the kids attention and want them listening to me, I simply say hands and eyes.  They try to beat my by putting their hands together and eyes on me before I finish saying hands and eyes.

3.  Teach-OK!-I have kids with shoulder buddies and one is peanut butter and one is jelly.  I ask a question and I call out either peanut butter or jelly (whichever one I want to talk first) then I do an action like 3 claps and say teach in a certain voice (maybe a whisper).  Then the kids repeat my action and say OK in the same voice that I did.  After they do this then they talk to their shoulder buddies.

4.  Oh Switch!-When the kids are talking with their shoulder buddy and I want the other kid to talk, I say Oh Switch and they repeat Oh Switch and the other kid will start talking.

5.  Oh Yeah/No Way- I ask a yes or no question and the kids respond together with an answer of Oh Yeah or No Way.

I know that there are a lot of other things that can be done with Whole Brain Teaching.  If you have some other things that you are doing, please share with me because I am wanting to incorporate some more of it into the classroom.

Have a great day!

League Champs--Short and Sweet

Hi there! 

This is short and sweet because I'm still getting over 'the crud.' Antibiotics are helping now, but my busy schedule isn't!

Yesterday we won our league tournament! We are now 30-3 overall and excited for sub-state--hoping for an appearance in the state tournament at the end of the month. 

I'll be back next week with something teaching related! ;-)

Crystal

Wisdom for Wednesday - Complete Reliance

Good morning!

This week's quote needs little in the way of introduction, so let's just get right to it.

This quote speaks to me right now!

I'm tired!

I'm fighting some kind of sinus cold.

I coached away volleyball matches on Monday and Tuesday night.

 Last night we got home at 10:30 or so--which is way past my bedtime. Seriously.

I'm tired!

Coaching VB has left me with little free time, so my house is not as clean as I'd like. 

I can't even get Kristi on the phone! We've been playing phone tag for WEEKS!

I'm tired!

My class is far from where I would like them to be (academically and behaviorally--but we are making progress).

Field trip next week. Yikes!

Parent-teacher conferences are later this month.

I'm tired!

All of these things that pile up and exhaust me are reminders of how I must completely and totally rely on God. 

I simply cannot do all that I need to do or want to do in my own strength.

I must rely on the Lord to help me through.

He is, after all, the one who knows my struggles and circumstances better than anyone else. 

I've been reading through Psalms and got to chapter thirty-one yesterday. David trusted the Lord completely. He calls Him my rock, my defense, my fortress, my strength. David let faith be lived out in his confidence in the LORD through difficulties.

I want to be that way!

What about you?