Open House {2014}

Open House was Monday night. To clarify for my readers, my Open House is a night where parents come for an hour to learn about our classroom. I cover everything from curriculum to field trips. It is pretty much everything the parents will need to know for the whole year. There is so much to get ready for Open House. I have been planning with my team for Open House this past week.

You can check out my past Open House posts here;

Open House 2013

Open House 2011

I make a folder with handouts of super helpful (I hope) information for parents. Let’s start with what is in the parent information folders.

I put these awesome reading strategies handouts in the folder. I hope parents will use these strategies and praises while reading with their student at home. I got these handouts from Growing Firsties. 

I put their students’ STAR reading and math level. This is a computer-based test through Renaissance Learning. The students’ have to take this to be placed for their AR level. I include a handout explaining AR and how the parents’ can log on to see their child’s quizzes.

Most of the time that the parents are in my classroom, I’m going over my power point of everything from curriculum to paying for lunch.

Here is what was in the hallway for parents to look at before coming in. The front is their graduating year from high school! Inside they listed their goals for the year.

1^st grade goal banners:

Here are what their desks looked like:

 I made magnets to hold their work at home and book marks for parents. I also included some of their projects from this year.

Erica made this adorable tags for the water and I just had to use them. She makes the cutest things! Check them out here. 

My Open House went really well. It was extremely hot in the room though. I'm pretty sure the AC went out because I'm not a nervous sweating presenter but it looked like it last night. So glad I had the water bottles for the parents! They drank them during the presentation.  I had 14 out of 18 parents attend. Two of the parents that did not attend though had children in my class last year so they know the drill. Then one momma who didn't show is about to have a baby any day now so I get that. Not sure what happen to the other child's parents but I sent out the powerpoint and sent home the information so everyone received it. It is great to see the parents again at school before we meet for parent teacher conferences. 

Now on to progress reports, lesson plans, team leader meetings, and informal observations! Have a great week teachers!

Five for Friday {September 12}

This week seemed to last forever. It was just jammed packed with meetings, phone calls, e-mails, to-do lists, technology issues, etc. I’m so happy it’s the weekend!!

I’m so happy I could sing… about finally getting Daily 5 up and running! YEAH! BTW it is my fourth week of school. I finally have my kids quietly working independently. Amazing! Anyone with firsties knows this is a huge deal.

This is listening:

My kids are working on MyLexia a computer-reading program. They can login on their own now.

This is writing:

 

My kids labeled Pete the Cat and wrote in our class journals.

This is word work:

My kids are working on their spelling and sight words.

In reading this week we read Curious George at School. Our goal was to retell the story. I made this anchor chart to keep up in our room. As a class, we made this anchor charts. The kids all got the draw a part of the retelling. At the end of the week, we did an interactive notebook retelling. They had to sequence the events and the draw the pictures underneath the flap. These are from Teaching with Love and Laughter.

This part of my room makes me happy. It’s our birthday board and job chart. My kids love to look at their pictures under their birthday month and see their jobs for the week.

I got these wiggle tools from others recommendations. This is a wiggle seat that helps kids that can’t sit still. They can wiggle in their seat without distracting other kids. The kids enjoy sitting in the wiggle seat. They trade it around as needed. Some use it for writing, others for sitting at the computer, and others use it during independent math. No one fights over and it moves around the room. It has been interesting to see where it ends up at the end of the day. The other tools are for my students with ADD and ADHD that need something to touch while listening and working in class. They keep this inside their desks and use as needed. It doesn’t bother anyone and keeps the kids on task. I also place Velcro under these students’ desks. They touch it and stay focused. We read Pete the Cat this week and made up our own Pete the cat stories. I had one student finish his entire Pete the Cat final copy today. This is a huge deal for him to write around six sentences.

I needed a pick me up yesterday and also needed a notepad. I reached in my drawer and picked this up. This is a sweet note from a student from three years ago. He is now in 4^th grade! It was just what I needed! I love seeing my old students and remembering all the great times we had in class.

Hope you all have a nice weekend! I have Open House on Monday so look out for a blog post.

Five for Saturday { September }

I know it is Saturday…but this is my Five for Friday. I’m still lingering on yesterday. Short weeks for some reason feel longer. I can’t figure it out. Is it because we are still supposed to cram everything we do in five days into four? Is it because we had a meeting everyday? Maybe it was because I stayed late every day this week?

Well this was my Monday:

Awww relaxing, beautiful, peaceful, sunshine, beach.

Tuesday we started word work for the very first time! My kids were pumped to start working with the “fun” materials. I started them out at their tables with wikki sticks, magnetic letters, stamps, and markers. They loved writing their spelling words, sight words, and words from our word wall. They are so loud though!!! We are working on quiet voices. They are just excited about the new materials. I was going to introduce writing on whiteboards and lego letters next week. I may have to hold off until they can control their volume more though.

 

I got a bunch of new books from my reading coach! I wish they were all mine…but they are for our first grade team. We have ten classes so I split them among the team. There were ten read aloud sets that were the same and then various level of books for the students. I tried to split these evenly by level and genre. So one person didn’t end up with five math books that were all easy reads. They should get a good mix of great literature, excellent read alouds, cool non-fiction reads, and little readers for their first graders. Each teacher got twenty new books for their library. I love getting new books to add to my library!

I have a super sweet volunteer this year who was a teacher at my school. She stopped teaching when she had her second child and now she is a photographer. She is such a help in the classroom! She cut out all this lamination and took beautiful pictures of my kids! She had all the pictures printed out for me professionally and wrapped them up like a little present. So thoughtful! She also wrote the nicest note saying how great I was with the kids and she thought I was the perfect teacher for her daughter. Melt my heart! This made my day! Sweet and encouraging notes help me realize why teaching is my passion.

We read “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” this week. This book is all kinds of funny! My students’ love how expressive and persistent the pigeon is in the book.  We used this book to write captions this week. This is my copy…without a caption. I wish I would had mine done or taken a snap shot of their finished products. They wrote:  

Don’t let the pigeon cook!

Don’t let the pigeon go to the farm!

Don’t let the pigeon go to school!

Don’t let the pigeon teach your class!

Don’t let the pigeon babysit!

They did such a good job but Friday afternoon is super busy and I forgot to snap any pictures. I'll have to take some pictures on Monday.

Well friends I hope you enjoy your weekend! I’m going to watch some college football and do chores around the house!

Currently: September

I can’t believe it is already September! I need to change my school calendar tomorrow! Time is just flying by! This will be my third week of school already. I know a lot of bloggers are just going back to school this week. GOOD LUCK!! You’ll be great! Watch Kid President he always cheers me up and gives me inspiration for the day.

LISTENING: I’m listening to Wheel of Fortune and watching people win wonderful vacations and money. Blah. Not my choice of TV but hubs has the remote right now. It also comes on after Jeopardy which hubs is a HUGE fan of. He prides himself on knowing the answers. Honestly it makes me feel uneducated. Who are these people? Who were their teachers?

LOVING: The 3 day weekend was exactly what I needed!! I got a lot of R & R in which was much needed after being sick and the pure exhaustion from the first two weeks of school. I read two books and started a third.  I read If I Stay and the sequel book. Then I started reading Big Little Lies today. Easy fun reads. I also got to watch three college football games on Saturday! I watched the UCF game way earlier in the morning-8:30 a.m. true fan right here. We had a big breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, frech toast, pastiers, fruit) and watched the game which was played in Ireland. I also watched the Navy/Ohio State game. My brother played football for Navy when he went to college. Then we watched the Alabama game at a gender reveal party. It’s a girl! Our sweet friend’s are going to be amazing parents to a baby girl. She is going to have style and lots of shoes. Today we went to the beach for five hours. It was super relaxing to listen to the waves and read in my chair.

THINKING: Now I’m thinking of going back to school tomorrow. I checked my work e-mail and reminded myself of what I need to do tomorrow with my kids. We use the Accelerated Reader (AR) program at my school and the whole website changed. I need to STAR test my kids this week in reading and math but first I need to figured out all the changes.

WANTING: The home improvements in my house to be done! My husband is doing a great job repainting our bathroom and fixing things around the house. But I would really like for the projects to be done. With that being said….we have so many other projects we still need to do. It never ends when you own a home.

NEEDING: To clean up the kitchen and put away dinner before I get way too comfortable on the couch.

3 TRIPS: This is my favorite part! My first trip would be to the Greek Islands. I have always wanted to go but it is expensive! It looks beautiful and have pinned a million places I want to visit there. The beaches look incredible!

My next trip I would love to go on is Hawaii and we are actually planning a trip to go there next summer! My brother and his family live there now. I can’t wait to visit them and see my nephew. It will be his first birthday when we visit.

My last trip would be to Napa. I love California, wine, food, and mild weather. I think this would be a great relaxing vacation for me.

I hope everyone has a great 4 day week!