A Mixture of Things!

I have a variety of things to share today, so I had a hard time coming up with a title for this blog post. So, this blog has a mixture of things that I am sharing.

1.  I want to share a story about one of my sweet girls in class.  She told me that she was going to have to leave the next day and be gone from school for a little while because she had an eye appointment.  I always tell them that I don't like them leaving because I miss them and their smiles.  She came in the next day and showed me the picture below and said to me, "Mrs. Torrey, I'm going to put this on my desk when I leave and that way when you look at my desk, you will see me smiling.  That way you won't be too sad."  Isn't that precious!  

2.  Reading-Today, I was so excited because if the kids get their work done early, I have choices that they can do.  One of them is reading of course.  As I walked around the room today, I noticed that every student was reading when their work was completed.  It is so exciting to see them choose to read as a choice!!

This one is taking an AR test on the ipad after reading her book.  It is a test that asks questions over the book she has read.

3.  Art-I will have to admit that art is not one of my strong points.  Therefore, when I come across something that is easy for me to show/teach the kids-I love it!  I found these cute Leprechaun drawings from First Grade Blue Skies Now Soaring in Kindergarten.  It was easy to follow and the kids had a great time.

I hope your having a great week so far.  We start with our parent-teacher conferences tomorrow night.  When are your parent-teacher conferences?  

Have a great rest of your week!

Lots of things going on!!!

Sorry for the late post, I'm not sure where this week has gone but I can say it has been pretty hectic. Starting on Monday, we had to say our good-byes to our 12 year old dog.  :-(  He was diagnosed back in December with cancer and his tumor had gotten a lot bigger and he was getting weaker.  My husband and I didn't want him to suffer therefore, we had him put to sleep.  

Now our other dog that is 2 years old is missing him terribly.  We are trying to give her as much attention as possible.  Now, we are debating if we should get another puppy.  They say that Siberian Husky dogs do better with having a companion.  My problem is that I don't know if this old lady can keep up with a puppy!  We will see!

Tuesday-I woke up with a fever and ended up having to get a substitute for the day.  I will say that I slept until 11 and then from 12-3:30.  I went to the doctor at 4:30 and back home and asleep again at 8:00 until my alarm in the morning.  The sleep was very nice!  

Along with being sick, my stepdad had surgery to remove some kidney stones.  Everything went great with the surgery.  

Wednesday-At our school, we do AR reading and if the kids had an 85% average on their AR tests then they got to go bowling in the morning.  Our librarian set it all up.  The kids had a blast!

Thursday-We started our 10 day countdown like Crystal was talking about in her last post.  Only we didn't do balloons because my co-teacher doesn't like the popping of the balloons.  She came up with the idea of using little cups, pinning them on the bulletin board and putting tissue paper around them.  Well, when putting it together I had to tweak it some because it just wasn't working out for me.  (I'm not very crafty).  

Today, if they hadn't moved their owl down yesterday for behavior they got to do what was in the cup and it was painting.   They were thrilled!  We haven't used paints too much this year so this was a real treat!

I've made it through so far and now tomorrow is our field trip to the zoo.  It is supposed to rain here but we are hoping it holds off until we come back from the zoo..........fingers crossed!

Have a great day!

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

 

 

 

READ! READ! READ!

For the last few years, Crystal and I have had our little first graders in a competition against each other in reading.  At our school we do the Accelerated Reading Program (students read books on his/her level, take a test on the computer over it, and earn points).  The first graders usually don't start it until December or a little later since that is when they really start becoming more independent on their reading.  

So, we decided that the last nine weeks of school we would see which class could earn the most points.  We have told the kids that if both classes can earn 1,000 points together, then we would all have a little party at the end of the year.  Of course, Crystal and I are both competitive and we both do everything that we can to get the kiddos wanting to read and win LOL!  Crystal accuses me of cheating all the time :-) (at least she accuses me of it when we are in the lead :-)) 

Joking aside, it is a fun and friendly little competition and the kids really get into it!  They absolutely love it and are reading their books whenever they have time at school and taking them home in the evening to read them. 

At our school, in the morning the k-1 group will have days that they go to the library in the morning before school starts.  They get to watch an educational video.  The upper grades will be in the hallway reading his/her AR book.  Our kids have gotten so excited and want to read that they have asked to be able to go out in the hall and read instead of watching the video.  Of course, we let them! 

Crystal and I graph everyday where the classes are on the points.  The graph is hanging in the hallway outside our rooms.  So, the kids are always excited to get to the rooms to check to see who has the lead.  Our graph is below:

 

 

I was glad that when I took this picture, my class was in the lead HA!!  HA!!  Although, I will say that the two days before Crystal's class had the lead.  :-)  The kids are doing a great job with it and have earned a lot of points so far.  We are pretty sure that we will make the 1,000 points and will be able to celebrate together! 

 

We are really glad that the kids are having so much fun with it (along with their teachers :-)) and that they are reading a lot! 

 

Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!  Kristi



ISN'T IT EXCITING!!

One thing that I love about first grade is to watch students grow and really start to read.  They develop that love for reading and get so excited about reading.  At our school we have the AR (accelerated reading program).  This is where the students read a book that is on his/her level and then takes a test on the computer over what they read. 

Many first graders don't start until around December because this is when they really begin reading on their own at the level that the AR books are on.  My whole class is now in AR and they are so very excited about it.  In fact, that is all they want to do.....I think if I told them that all we were going to do for the day was AR read, they would be thrilled LOL!  

So, we go to line up at the end of the day to go home the other day and I look over at the line and saw the following from those that I had lined up. 

 

 

I was so excited and happy to see those that had lined up for the day just standing in line reading!  I couldn't believe that they were that excited about it and that they were taking any time that they could just to read that AR book!  So, of course I had to snap a quick picture of them.......they were so involved in their books that I don't think they even knew that I took their picture!!  LOL!!

 

I so love seeing kiddos get excited about reading!!  What a wonderful thing!!!  I hope their excitement for it continues for a long time!! 

 

Hope all of you enjoy your weekend!  Kristi