School Post

School has been pretty hectic these days. Although it is stressful, there are those rare moments of the day when all the students are actually doing what they're supposed to. :)

One day I snapped some photos of my kids partner reading with each other. They were being so polite to each other and helping each other with words; it was so great. It was one of those rare moments I wish I could capture in a bottle.

We learned about contractions:

When I told them they could skip 8 years of medical school and be surgeons, they were so excited!

We also learned about homophones this week:

They've been working on autobiographies for Open House. It's taking a while because of editing, but hopefully we'll get them done! Here is an example from one of my students:

Isn't he adorable?! I love his spiky hair. :)

Yesterday was the last day of enrichment class. The students made bracelets and necklaces to raise money for Jump Rope for Heart. Having kindergartners were difficult, but it was actually pretty fun and the kids seemed to really enjoy it.

 One of my favorite  bracelets!

I let them keep one bracelet and we're selling the rest. We also made paper beads! The kids had a hard time rolling them tightly but they got the hang of it. It was the best day when they made these beads. They were so efficient and so determined to finish making them all (I cut at least 50 strips of paper).

I actually learned a new craft from this class! Making paper beads are easier than I thought. I can't wait to make more. :)

School, school, and more school

Lately I've had school on the brain. Maybe too much. It's less than two weeks away, so I need to enjoy the few days I have before I get immersed in school life and have a 0% social life! Ha, just kidding. My goal this school year is obviously to be a better teacher and grade every day (third year's a charm right?) but personally, my goal is to not spend so many hours at school overworking myself. I have permission to leave before 7 or 8 and still feel good about the next school day. Let's hope so.

I forgot to post this a few days ago. My co worker's mom works at View Point Bank and they donate school supplies to schools in need. So she chose ours and made us lovely supply bags full of useful things including FOUR hand sanitizers! I always ran out at the end of the year, so I'm super pumped about it!
Thank you Heather's mom and ViewPoint Bank!

Excuse my no-makeup face..

Here are some of my classroom photos. I am nearly done with the room. Now it's on to the more important things like leveling my books, lesson planning, and FILING! Oh, the dreaded filing. But I am determined.

Isn't this cute? I saw someone post a digraph border on pinterest and I absolutely loved this idea! I am going to put my spelling words inside the border and whenever we focus on a digraph, I can just draw an arrow, or take it out of the box and put it in the center! There wasn't any free digraph cards online that I could find, so I painstakingly scoured the web for free clip art and made my own. It took a long  time, but it was definitely worth it. All I did was use card stock and printed the cards, laminated them, and hot glued circular magnets on the back. If you are a teacher and would like to use this also, feel free to email me and I would be happy to send you the digraph cards! Beg, borrow, steal!

I had this from last year. These are the 6 traits of writing on hot air balloons, of course. It's hard to see from the photo, but they are hanging from the balloons.

My puppet theatre

Calendar wall

Math stations and manipulatives/supplies

Daily 5 area.

I use the puzzle pieces to write the rules of each station so if they "forget" the rules, they can look!

My math station poster. I will put their names on the balloons and they will choose a continent for a different math station!

Here's a random cartoon I found in my files..

I hope you enjoyed my classroom photos! I hope this is a great year.. 

Oh, and Bonita Broccoli could use a friend.. I really want the carrot.