Currently and A SALE!

Love the beginning of each month - because I love to hop around and learn new things from everyone's currently!  Farley is BRILLIANT! http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com/ . I PUFFY HEART love her blog !   Go check it out if you haven't before!

I think my Currently is pretty simple.   I had a great day shopping, Starbucking and getting pedicures with my friend Jen!  We laughed a lot and I needed it after this week.   I have been a GROUCH.   I was so grumpy on Thursday I had to bring donuts to my class on Friday to apologize.   I am blaming it on the lice.   It is the season and I am not handling it well.   If I ever leave teaching it will probably be the reason.   I don't even really want to go to the movies or public places because I am pretty convinced they are everywhere right now.   I probably would benefit from some counseling but ain't nobody got time fo that - and really.... how do you find a counselor who specializes in lice phobias?  

I am joining the Teachers Pay Teachers Super Sunday sale and I went in all the way - 20% off of EVERTHING - plus the 8% they throw in and all of my stuff is practically free - so please give it a try!   http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/In-That-Room

 



 

We just finished using my Snow unit!   I think you will love it as much as my team did! 

 

Have a fantastic day!

 



Snowetry - Writing Cinquain Poems!

I home today with my Grant - he was a little under the weather.   It was a relaxing day.   He actually snuggled with me all day,  which very rarely happens.   It was sweet.

Yesterday, we worked on Snowetry - cinquain poems from my Snow  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snow-a-Four-Book-Literature-Unit-Fiction-and-Non-Fiction  unit.   They turned out so cute!

 

They had a great time making these.   We also found a great to help create cinquain poems for beginners. -

 http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/cinquain.htm

We also spent some time organizing our books in the classroom.  ( I have to say that I am totally jealous of all the super organized classroom pictures I see on everyone else's blog.   My desk looks like a bomb hit it 90% of the time and I have obviously not taught my class how to keep our books organized well,  because we have to reorganize OFTEN.)  So we had a classroom discussion about organizing and divided books out by category.   I gave the kids index cards and asked them to label the books.   This was a pile of Steven Kellogg books. I LOVE how they labeled them (and am pretty impressed at their spelling~!).

 

Hope your week is full of fun and funny moments!

 



 



Sort of broken...

I have not blogged all week.   I just couldn't.   I have been in the weirdest mood. I am just sort of broken right now.    First,  my mom had a heart attack.   She had a heart attack last Friday.   She is doing well,  she is already home from the hospital and feeling pretty good but she is in Michigan and I am in Texas and I feel awful and sad about it.   Sometimes living this far away sucks - a lot.   I just want to see for myself that she is doing okay,  but right now I can't get there - so I am stuck in this weird place feeling guilty and sad and just kind of yuck.

And then we got our annual notice for Grant's ARD - Texas acronym for special ed meeting.    Which I expected.   I knew it was coming but still even now,   I HATE it.   In case you have ever wondered what it feels like to sit in your child's IEP meeting... it feels like...like being naked in a room full of people as they list everything that is wrong with you.  And even though you know everything already and were probably even a harsher critic than they are,  it is nauseating.  I have to say,  my child has the MOST AMAZING team of teachers,  administrators, therapists in the world.   They are supportive, loving,  professional,  AMAZING.   I know they work so hard,  I know they love my child.   I know we are blessed.   I know, I know, I know,  but still it freaking hurts.  I know we need to start thinking about "life planning" (even though he is only in first grade),  I hate the idea of it.  I love my child.   I love him exactly how God made him.   But still... somewhere in my irrational little heart,   I am broken thinking about what his future will entail,  what he will not be able to do, or experience.   I still hope that he will "get better".   He has done so many things that the doctors have said he couldn't do,   I just keep hoping.   I have to, right?   I am his mom,  I have to keep believing in him and all he will be able to do.   But once a year,  I have to discuss the reality of it in a big room full of wonderful people, and it is awful.   It takes everything I have to keep it together.  In fact,  I cry at other people's ARD meetings.   And I get why parents don't show up.   It's too much sometimes.   I think being on the other side of the table gives me a completely different perspective for the families of the students we serve.

Here is my little booger delivering popcorn to the teachers and students at his school.   His amazing teachers do this with the kids each Friday to teach them real world skills.   He loves it! Look at his smile!   We are blessed.   I just need to get through the meeting. 

 

This week in class we started my Snow Unit -

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snow-a-Four-Book-Literature-Unit-Fiction-and-Non-Fiction.  We have had a great time learning about Snowflake Bentley.   My class is incredible and they have had a great time comparing him to people like Amelia Earhart and George Washington Carver - because they all had perseverance.   I love them.   We loved making snowflakes and drawing the other half of snowflakes in the Snowflake Symmetry pages.   We are will be working on Cynthia Rylant's Snow book next week and writing poetry.  I can't wait to see what they come up with.

 

 

 

 



George Washington Carver FREEBIE!

We are talking about inventions and inventors and how they changed the world.   This week we are focusing on George Washington Carver.   I made this little graphic organizer and writing page to go with it,  so I put it up as a freebie - please use it if it will help you out!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/George-Washington-Carver-writing-papers-FREEBIE

 

 

Completely Random....but I hate these!

I do not get how these things prove I am not a robot,  which is not surprising,  there are many things I do not understand about the internet.   I am horrible at reading them,  sometimes I have to click through 5 or 6 of them before I can even read them.  And... I hate that they now use blurry pictures of house numbers.   Does anyone know how this really works?  Or why?   Are there a lot of robots commenting on  blogs?   These just prove to me that I may need a stronger prescription lenses... ughhh!  Can you read these?

Am I the only one?

Just not feeling it...FREEBIE!

I started making this Valentine's Day packet a long time ago.  I bought a lot of cute clip art from djinkers.com and fully intended to make a big old set of activities... but I just can't get myself to want to.   So my laziness,  is your gain!  So I have what I have started... a few little activities that might give you some bellwork or a little letter writing activity. 
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-ELA-FREEBIES

 

(Hedge)Hog Wild and Alexander Graham Bell and the iPhone 5!

My kids love Eve the Hedgehog.   They love her WAY more than she loves them at this point,   but she is coming around.   She is getting used to having her bowel movements reported across the classroom, and each bite of food she eats monitored and applauded.   Today she took a trip in my teammate Jill's hamster ball.   She pooped 4 times in there.  Each time was VERY exciting for my class.   She seemed to like the ball okay,  but we took her out after the pooping,  didn't want her to get poop in the prickles (crap in the quills?).

We watched a couple of videos about how to draw a hedgehog by Jan Brett - http://www.janbrettvideos.com/how_to_draw_a_hedgehog_high_bandwidth.htm .   If you have never been to www.janbrett.com - you are missing out.   My class BEGS to go to the site when they have free time.   My kids followed along and drew some VERY cute hedgehogs.   They were proud as little peacocks about them and they were all shouting out about what they would name their hedgie.  A couple kids chose Sonic,  Mr. Prickles,  Spike, Makayla, etc.   Then one of my babies shouts out that her hedgehog is named Prick.   She even wrote it across her paper.  So innocent and sweet. None of my kids thought this was funny at all.   This is why I LOVE second grade.   Of course,  my immature butt was over in Jill's room giggling about it as soon as the day was over...

Here are some of their cutie patootie drawings.

 

In other news,  we are talking about inventors and their inventions and how those change and evolve over time to fit our current needs.   We have been learning about Alexander Graham Bell and his contributions to our society.   We did the phones through time sort that I posted yesterday.   Today I asked them to write on Edmodo about what they thought Alexander would have thought of the iPhone.   They started talking,  a lot,  the way they do.   But OH MY GOODNESS.  They came up with things like he would have been jealous because it is better than his own invention,  and he would be "fansinated" by it,  and... (insert drumroll)... he would have been so proud that someone else had perseverance like him to keep making it better and he would buy one. HELLO!   I.LOVE.MY.JOB. 

Happy Friday Friends!