Five for…Saturday!

Happy long weekend!

Or for some of you…happy last weekend before you head back to school! ;-)

It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me, so I was beyond excited when I realized I actually took more than enough pictures to link up for Five for Friday over at Doodle Bugs.

1

I had to start with this one because it made me laugh so hard...

I challenged the class to practice bucket filling, so we drew names. This little sweetie…well, let's just say the person she had was doing everything BUT working hard this week. ;-)

2

I'm sorry if pictures of feet gross you out, but only a teacher would understand this...

At some point while teaching 1st grade social studies, I hurt my toe. I have no idea what I did! I just remember it hurting.

I pressed on--afraid to lose my students' focus.

Kinders come to me right after that and I was reading them a story, thinking, "Ouch! My toe really hurts!"

I looked down to find it covered in blood.

Again, I pressed on, knowing the Kinders need no distractions from the teacher. Ha!

The Jamberry wrap was holding my nail together. Ugh! 

Whatever I did broke the nail about halfway down my toe. OUCH!

And the picture…well, I took it an hour later to send to my hubby. That's how long it was before I could get away to clean it up.

3

Ignore the janitor cart in the background, but I put our "Screech" (cheater words) words around the door so we could practice as we were lining up. Now I just have to remember to refer to them often!

4

Word Work!

We only have one more Daily 5 "station" to learn next week--Listen to Reading. 

Then I hope to start Daily 5 rounds the following week. I'm just not sure how it is going to go with this bunch I have this year…

I may not be able to do it where I meet with each group every day this year--the way I've done it in the past.

We'll see…

5

 Here's a couple of samples of our artwork from this week:

These color wheel umbrellas were inspired by a pin I found from Color It Like You Mean It.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Most of my other pictures were already shared on Instagram. You can follow me there by clicking the button in the upper right sidebar. 

Enjoy your long weekend!

Wisdom for Wednesday-Applying Knowledge

Welcome back to another week of:

Guilty!  Guilty!  Guilty!  I will have to say that I am very guilty of this myself.  I have caught myself several times after going to church and hearing a good sermon and then I get home and don't follow it.  The sermon gets heard, the word gets read and I understand it but then I don't always follow it.  For example, sometimes (not very often of course LOL)  I tend to lose my patience with my husband when we are working on a home improvement project together.  I know that I shouldn't do this-I've heard it, read it and understand it, but I still sometimes do it.  I shouldn't just read the bible or just go to church, I should be doing what the scriptures are telling me to do and should apply it to every part of my life. 

Have a great day!

Secret Student

I always find it interesting to see what students get excited about each year.  This year, the group of students have really gotten into my secret student.  They always ask me every morning if I have a secret student and I tell them "Of course I do, every day!"  It is a simple thing and very easy to do.  All I have done for it is I tell them that I have a secret student that I am watching all day long to see if they follow our rules.  Throughout the day, I will say "I wonder if my secret student is doing the right thing etc."  Inside the little owl below I write their name on a note that I got from Stephany at TPT.

At the end of the day, I will open it up and tell them if I get to announce the secret student of the day.  If they didn't follow all the rules, I sadly say that I can't announce them because they didn't follow all the rules.  If they did follow all the rules then I announce their name, we clap for them and they get to take home the following note to their parents.  

It is so cute because when I am getting ready to announce the secret student I can see the kids crossing their fingers in hopes that it is them.  This group of kids love the secret student and I don't think they will let me forget to do it at all this year.

Hope you have a great day!

The Top 6 Things I've Learned From My 6th First Week of School

Hi there! 

I did it! 

I made it through Friday.

As I thought about my topic for today's blog post, I thought it might be fun to share some things that I've learned this week--my first full week of school. This is my sixth year teaching, so I'm going with "The Top 6 Things I've Learned During My First Week of School."

#6

People that are not closely related to teachers do not understand what the first week of school is like for a teacher.

Enough said.

#5

Painting for an art lesson just before my classroom is to be invaded for 1st graders and Kindergarteners for social studies will not work.

Yesterday, I did art with my 2nd graders and we painted self portraits. My room was an absolute mess…and I knew the Kindergarteners especially would not be able to leave the paint, brushes, paintings, etc. alone.

So we had recess instead. 

Don't judge!

#4

Speaking of Kindergarteners…

I am still not--nor will I ever be-- a Kindergarten teacher!

*And I'm thankful I only have them for 20 minutes a day!

That's all I have to say about that.

#3

I still don't like other adults watching me teach!

Our new superintendent came in my room a lot (well, it may have only been three times, but it felt like a lot) on Wednesday, and he actually came in and sat down and made himself comfortable and observed me and my challenging class.

First, he watched our morning meeting.

I was so nervous, I was shaking.

And I was thankful my special helper does most of the talking during morning meeting.

He did leave me a nice note.

Then he came back as I taught an impromptu lesson on even and odd during which I was calling (okay, yelling) for kids to come to the carpet one at at time asking (okay, yelling) questions like…

"How many kids are on the carpet now?"

"Can we make a pair?"

"Even or odd?"

"Oh no! We can't have an odd man (or woman) out! Get up here Sister Sue (that's a pretend name)! Sallie Ann (pretend again) needs a partner!"

I yell a lot during these exciting, impromptu lessons because the kids like it.

I'm not sure if the superintendent knew it was impromptu or not.

I'm also not sure what he thought of my lesson because I did not get another note. Ha! ;-)

#2

If you are willing to let loose, scream and get excited when telling a story, you can capture even the most difficult audience.

We learned about "seed stories"--small moment stories--and I always tell a story about when my son made me ride a huge barn swing at an amusement park.

I'll keep it short for you.

I'm not a huge fan of heights…okay I am afraid. Very afraid.

The lady who buckled me in thought it was necessary to say, "It's my first day. I hope I'm doing this right."

At some point during the ride, I'm pretty sure I was screaming, "I'm going to die!"

My son was saying, "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry I made you ride."

Of course, I survived.

My class especially loved me shouting, "I'm going to die!"

It was so fun to look around and see them all engaged. 

Challenging class, remember?

I think I'm going to have to get excited and yell a lot this year.

#1

I am not "Super Woman."

I am a fairly organized person.

Rushing out for volleyball practice after school is killing me!

This is what my desk area looked like this morning when I arrived.

It makes me crazy.

It makes me feel like a failure.

I should have a system…a routine.

I should be able to get this figured out.

I shouldn't have to work 4-5 hours on Saturdays to catch up or get ahead.

Then I remind myself…

This is only day 7.

And I am not Super Woman.

But I am super tired.

Good night!

Wisdom for Wednesday - Boundless Grace

Hi there!

I'm in the middle of my first full week of school and I have only two words...

TEACHER TIRED

I know you know what I'm talking about.

Anybody need a little grace?

I love this quote from D.L. Moody, but I really think you need to hear the rest of it to fully appreciate it.

"A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God's boundless grace from day to day as we need it."

We need consistent daily devotional time or quiet time with the Lord in order to know Him more intimately. This time with our Lord will sustain the work He is doing in our lives and help us draw the grace we need to live each and every moment in a way that is pleasing to Him. 

For me, this is a great reminder this time of year when I am so very TEACHER TIRED! I have to make sure I am still staying focused on the Lord and handling all the back-to-school pressure with His grace.

"My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness..." 

II Corinthians 12:9

Back to School Tour

I have made it 3 days and now this will be our first full week with the kids.  HMMM...I have to say I'm a little nervous because last week every night I believe I fell asleep by 8:00 pm.  I was exhausted!  So adding in a couple of extra days makes me wonder how tired I may be by Friday.  :-)  Oh and we are also doing an Open House night on Thursday.....which means that 8:00 bedtime will not happen on Thursday night for me.  

My room was ready for those little first graders to come to school last Wednesday.  Here is what it looks like:

Job chart and Prize chart

Calendar, Rules, and Whole Brain Posters

Look at all that space-I had 22 kids last year and this year I have only 16.  I didn't realize how much space I had in the room!

Word Work area

Lunch count area

Behavior Chart

Today I introduced our connect four game that we have on TPT to the kids.  They had a lot of fun playing the game while practicing the short a sound.  

We have also started building our stamina for read to self in Daily 5-we did 3 minutes today-YAY!  Check them out!

I will be excited to get that Daily 5 rolling!

Have a great day!

Crystal's Classroom Tour - Video Style

Well, hello there.

I survived the first two days of school (in case you were worried)!

And the first week of volleyball practice!

I'm the assistant high school coach this year…haven't made it home before 7:00 all week!

My sixth year teaching…you'd think I'd be used to the craziness of the beginning of the year. 

But no. 

I struggled this week to keep up. It didn't help that the tech guy decided I needed a new computer on the first day of school! 

I didn't want to complain because I did need a new one, but the timing was a challenge! That combined with the printing and internet problems we've had this week made even the simplest task  difficult and time consuming. Ugh!

 I have actually been at the school for hours today…on a Saturday. :( 

But I feel well prepared for next week, so that is good.

I decided to give you a video tour of my classroom. There is a part in there that will give you a hint as to how my first two days with kids went! ;-)

Feel free to ask questions if you see something I forgot to explain.

One thing I meant to say and forgot about my objectives board. I'm still getting used to how I want to word them, so no judging please! The last couple years, I have posted preprinted "I can…" statements, but I wasn't very good at referring to them. Also, even though my student helper reads them in the morning, I do go over them again during the actual lessons. Just wanted to clarify.

Hope you're having a restful weekend!

P.S. Once again the 20 minutes with Kindergarten (for science/ss instead of music) is going to be the longest part of my day! Bless you K teachers--I simply could not do it!