A week-long hiatus from posting, but we're back in action!

Well, it has been 11 long days since I have posted last, and let me tell you, I wish I had!  I am currently surrounded by a table full of post-it notes that I have written every day for the past week or so to remind me (and you!) of all the great things my kiddos and I have been up to.  If you are a person who likes to skim blogs that are short-and-sweet, well, this post is not for you!  Here goes nothin'!

Oh, the things they say...
Two of my favorites from this past week:
- A pair of my boys were swinging next to each other, and their swings kept going in sync with each other--they were going up and down at the same time, and just could not figure out how to make it so that when one was up the other was down, and when one was down the other was up.  Each time they would find each other's swings in sync, one of them would yell, "Reboot the swings!  Reboot the swings!  We've gotta get this machine working right!"  Probably a "had to be there" moment, but all the first grade teachers got a good chuckle that day at recess :)

- Each kiddo in my class has a "book basket" that has leveled books for them, and also has books that we have read in our guided reading groups for them to practice reading to increase fluency.  One day last week, on of my students was having trouble finding all of her books; of the nine that should have been in her basket, there were three.  I was pretty frustrated with this, and after getting the rest of the class started on some work, I took her over to her cubbie and explained that we needed to find these books because some of them were Ms. W's and some of them were the school's books.  After emptying her cubbie (and finding nothing), she looked at me with a completely serious face and said,  "But Ms. W, books don't have arms or legs, and they couldn't have climbed out of their cubbies without stairs or they could have fallen!"  To her, it was a perfectly obvious and honest explanation; for me, it made me smile and reminded me that I teach 1st grade, where things sometimes get misplaced.  It was just the comment I needed to brighten my mood :)  (And the books were found--in a neighbor's cubbie.)


The Desk Fairy
After this organizational issue, we had a visitor from a new friend!  She is our classroom Desk Fairy, and she came to see just how neat and tidy of a 1st grade class we were being :)  I came into the class one morning to find a note on our board saying:

Dear Ms. Weissberg’s class,
 
It looked like your class needed a visit from me!
Let me introduce myself…my name is Teeny Tidy.
 
I am a Desk Fairy and I make sure that your classroom stays nice and neat,
And when I see things I love, I sometimes leave a treat!
 
Since you have cubbies in your classroom, I check to make sure they’re clean,
Because leaving your room a mess seems kind of mean!
 
I enjoyed my visit to your class this time, and hope to return again soon,
Until then, good luck keeping a neat-and-tidy, clean classroom!
 
Love,
Teeny Tidy, your Desk Fairy

What a treat it was to get a visit from Teeny Tidy!  In addition to our class note, she left individual notes for the six students with the neatest cubbies--she explained in her note that, to her, neat meant that everything was in the cubbie, and that it was stacked from the largest items (like books) on the bottom to the smallest items (like pencil cases) on top.  These six students each got two marbles to add to the class marble jar.  (My kiddos went nuts over this...they come in literally every morning and check to see if Teeny Tidy came!  I told them that we can't expect her to come too often--there are a lot of classes in our world :)  (Their response: "oh, yeah, Ms. W, there are a lot of classes in the world!")  It looks like our Desk Fairy will be making frequent visits to Room 106 ;) )

Teeny's note has the yellow outline, and the student notes have marbles on them!

Vocab
An update on the latest spellings from our class:
chran = train
uv = of (we're really working on this one!)
chrp = trip
lonk = long


Confusing pictures
Speaking of confusing sounds, I was doing a picture sort with one of my reading groups where we were sorting pictures into two categories of beginning sounds--"c" and "ch."  We were dealing with pictures like "comb" and "cake" and "crab" and "crayon," and then this picture came up:

Because of the sounds of this sort, I knew this picture was of a "candle" (and, to me, I think it looks a lot like a candle!), but my student looked and said "dress."  (Now that I said that, can you see a dress, too?)  He realized right away that it couldn't be a dress, because that had a different beginning sound, but it reminded me of the picture below.  Isn't it funny how we can think a picture is so clearly one thing, but someone else can see it from a different angle?  This sparked some great class discussion!

Do you see an old woman or a young lady when you look at this image?

"Beep Beep!"
Recently, we finished learning about the desert habitat, and one animal we studied in this habitat was the roadrunner.  When we first learned about this bird, I asked the class if they had ever heard of this animal before, and one kiddo said, "isn't there a cartoon about one on TV?"  My bait was taken--this is exactly what I wanted to hear!  I made the funny little "beep! beep!" sound from Roadrunner and Coyote (the one Roadrunner makes right before he speeds away), and then we moved on.  Well, a couple of days later, one of my reading groups was reading a book about a car...check out the speech bubble of what the girl in the story says!  It had my kiddos cracking up and saying "beep! beep!" in Ms. W's "roadrunner" voice--too cute!

ABC order
A big focus in Language Arts has been alphabetizing words--a trickier task than you might think!  When we started out, many of my kiddos had trouble with this; they understood the order of the alphabet, but were really thrown off when there wasn't a word for each letter.  (We used our read-and-spell words for the week, so we organized 10 words at a time.  These were words like all, little, big, and get, so they could get all and big as #1 and #2 in the list, but didn't understand what to do when there were no c's!)

Once we jumped the hurdle of what to do if we had a letter that didn't have a word (skip the letter and move on in the alphabet until you get to a letter that you do have a word for), I gave them a list of words, but there was no word that started with A.  I had one student look at the list for a good five minutes before raising his hand and telling me he was all done.  I looked over his list and informed him that the list looked exactly the same as when it started and he looked at me and declared, "but there were no A's to start with!"

A couple weeks--and a lot of practice!--later, and I handed out a blank piece of paper to my class on Friday with 12 rectangles on it.  Their job was to use the week's read-and-spell words to fill in 10 of the boxes, and then they could pick two more words for the additional, empty boxes.  I set them to work, and I swear, y'all, it was magical.  The kiddos got to work writing and cutting out their words, and all the while, there was a sweet harmony of the alphabet song being sung in my room.  It was like I was in ABC heaven!  Hard work and practice really does pay off :)


Looking both ways...
...before going out into the hall!  Just a funny side-note, but whenever my kiddos are leaving the classroom (with a message for another teacher, to run an errand, or to get a drink of water), they literally stand in the doorway and look both ways!  Looks like some parents and older siblings did a fantastic job of teaching my class to cross the street--one less life skill for me to cover!


"I will"
Another interesting observation: many of my students reading "I'll" in a book will read it as "I will."  I just find this fascinating because most of them don't formally know about contractions yet, but they are decoding them anyways!


Teacher buddy reading
On Friday, I needed to walk a student to the nurse after recess, so another first grade teacher brought my class inside for me.  When I got to Mrs. B's classroom, all of her students and my students--over 40 kiddos!--were on her rug, waiting patiently as she was picking a book to read.  I got to her room right as she was choosing a book, and instead of not reading and going right back to my classroom or having Mrs. B read the whole thing, we "buddy read" to the classes.  Y'all, this was the highlight of my week!  The kiddos giggled as we sat on her reading chair together--we had to make sure that we were sitting in the proper "elbow-elbow-knee-knee" position that we teach our students to do when they read with someone!  And then we took turns reading some Dr. Seuss to our (surprisingly attentive) classes...what a great Friday treat :)

Handwriting practice
Looks like I've got the making of a cursive-writer in my class!  Thought you guys would enjoy this work sample--as I was told, "Ms. W--it's like the letters are holding hands!  That must be how you learn to make cursive letters..."

Letters "holding hands"--adorable!

Author studies
I feel like I had to make a million author studies and text sets for projects in my reading classes in college, but I feel like now that I am in the classroom, I can really see the value of them.  To me, they are not just to have fun read alouds with a common theme or type of artwork or story, but to get kids "hooked" on another type of book or author that they might not have discovered on their own.  For example, after I read this...

...my kiddos came back from the library with these by Mo Willems:

And after I read these by Eric Carle...

Really neat artwork in this one :)

This story is about the "history" of pretzels!

...my kiddos checked out books like these:

I know professors tried to teach me the importance of text sets and author studies in class, but I think this was a "real-world experience" that I needed to see to believe :)  Plus, how can it hurt to get kiddos addicted to the wonderful and talented authors and illustrators that we love?


Book baskets
I mentioned these earlier, but this has been something that I've struggled with for a while now.  I couldn't find a system that worked for me--we tried keeping our books in gallon-sized Ziplocs (they tore and names wore off of them), in baskets on the floor (these took up a lot of space and drove me nuts), and a couple of other things, but I think I finally found a solution.  I placed hooks on every table-corner, and each child has their own book bag to hang there.  (I purchased recyclable bags that are machine washable so that they will last and I can wash and use over and over.)  Now, every student has access to their books at all times (either to read them during down time or to use during our Language Arts block) and they are easily transportable around the classroom.  Fingers crossed these last as long as I hope they will!  And, at the end of the day, they hang where coats and backpacks go during the day--nice and easy storage, and something organized that I think Teeny Tidy would appreciate :)

Hanging at student tables...

...and then put away neatly at then end of the day!

Shapes
We're almost done with our geometry unit, but take a look at some of the cool things we've done and have been doing:

Our math and science word walls :)

When asking students to show me their work, I've found it a lot easier to take pictures using the manipulatives as a form of assessment, rather than have them trace the shapes and color them in.  My kiddos know I always have my camera out, so this is just as exciting as me taking a picture of them, and I also have work samples to show, hang, and save!  Welcome to the digital age in the classroom :)

I replaced the signs that were hanging above each table (they were different colored stars) with the shapes that we are learning about.  Each shape corresponds to a particular pattern block that we work with!

Using our Geoboards..."Look!  We made trains!" (We were working on quadrilaterals here)

"And I made a house!" (Sorry the picture is sideways!)

Here are some of my kiddos using a shape software that I have on the computers in my classroom--in this section of the program, the students have an outline to fill and have to fill it using different shapes.

Making triangles on dot paper--can you tell that I compared this activity to connect the dots earlier in the lesson?  I thought this was so cute!

The same student did connect the dots with quadrilaterals the next day!

Reasons that I love fall
#1 stays in it's spot, but the rest are in no particular order!
1.  School starts.
2.  Halloween.  It means I get to read fun counting books like this (One Witch, by Laura Leuck):

3.  Baked goods.  Since I love anything with apple or pumpkin flavors (but especially pumpkin!), I get to bring in fun treats like this to leave in the staff lounge:

"Pumpkin party squares" and candy corn sugar cookies!

4.  Thanksgiving.  We've got a few more weeks till this one comes around, and I can't wait!!!


School spirit
Last week, in schools nationwide, it was Red Ribbon Week.  Wednesday was our day to dress in our favorite college or professional sports team gear, and I thought I'd share the black and gold representation that we have going on at my school :)  GO STEELERS!!!!

Last but not least...why I love my job:
Even when I think the day isn't going my way, I am constantly reminded that I am, in some form or another, doing my job, and that--again--in some form or another, I am loved.  I have a nice little collection of student artwork on my desk bulletin board, and just one peek over to that part of the room, and my day is brightened :)  I hope y'all have something like this to look forward to wherever you work!

A very creative spelling of "Weissberg" but I'll take it!

Well, if you made it this far, thank you!  (And wow--you must have had some free time on your hands, because this baby was loooooong!)

Before I sign off, I'd like to send a big thank you to all of you that have approached me, emailed me, or gotten in touch with me some other way and told me that you enjoy reading this blog.  It means the world to me, and is so encouraging to hear!  It's exactly what I need on days where I think it's late and I need to go to bed--you all are the reason I find myself staying up for an extra half hour (but usually more like a full hour!).  (Well, most weeks...this past week was not a good example of me being good about my posting!)  For those of you that don't teach, I hope this gives you a little peek into the joys of spending my days in a classroom, and that you can "live vicariously" (as one of you pointed out) through my kiddos; for those of you that do teach, well, I'm sure you can relate to most of my experiences!  I'd love to hear what you all think :)

Off to finish preparing for the week!  Enjoy the last bits of your weekends!

Love from Room 106,
Allie


PS.  Thoughts on the new fonts of the blog?  I spend so much of my free time looking at other AWESOME blogs, and want so badly to change the layout of my page, but it looks like it might take a little time!  So, for now I've settled on a new font I like, and hopefully more will follow :)

How old are you??

I knew the question would come up.  It always does.  But today was the first time this year that one of my students came right out and said it: "Ms. W, how old are you?"

The guesses:
- 60
- ("Nah, she's not that old!  Ms. W, I think you're more like...") 50
- 18
- 30
- 45

I guess I'll just keep 'em guessing ;)


I also found a new favorite teacher-blog today!  I love having non-teacher friends who have more computer time than I do and send great links like this one my way.  Miss Law of "First Grade a la Carte," you've put a lot of ideas in my head--thank you!!!  (And an equally as big, if not bigger, thank you to my sweet friend who emailed this my way!)


Is this week flying by or what??  (Actually, that's kind of a lie, considering I woke up today thinking it was Thursday--oops!)  I can't believe we are wrapping up week #7 already . . .

Love from Room 106,
Allie

Dog names

As the story so often goes, I was able to hang some really neat new things in my room the past couple of days, but forgot to take pictures--I even remembered my camera!  So, look for those to come :)

Two quotes from today to make you smile (well, they made me smile at least!) . . .
We recently began our math unit on Geometry, so I changed some things in the classroom to deal with shapes.  One of the things I changed was the signs over each table; they used to be different colored stars (I had a "red" table, a "yellow" table, a "blue table," etc.) but I changed them to different--and differently colored--shapes.  So now each table has a color and a shape to remember, like the orange squares or the yellow hexagons.  (Yup, my kiddos know hexagons!  And rhombuses and trapezoids, too!)  When the kids walked in this morning and saw the change on the ceiling, this was a snip-it of a conversation that I caught and jotted down:

Student 1: "Whoa, look at the shapes!"
Student 2: "How do you think she [me] did it so fast this morning?!?"  (I think the students think I take the bus and get to school around the same time as them, but little do they know I've already been at school for more than an hour by the time of their arrival . . . )
Student 1: "I bet she did it at night . . . "
Student 2: "Yeah, probably right before she went to sleep!"

Up until now, the kiddos have only guessed that I live in a hotel, but now I think it's safe to say that some think I live at school in our classroom!


To preface this second story, I feel like I tell stories about my reading groups a lot, and I promise we do things other than reading groups in first grade--though reading is the big first grade goal.  It's just that during this time of day, I am sitting with 4-6 students at a horseshoe-shaped table, so it is a more intimate setting, where I am privy to much of their first grade dialogue.  I digress . . . One of my reading groups read a book today about a girl named Rosie and her dog, Fred.  After reading our story, I was working on some writing with these students, and asked them to write three sentences for me: one about the beginning, one about the middle, and one about the end of the story.  I looked over at one of my students, who, mid-way through his second sentence, had already written the name "Max" twice--there was no Max, human or canine, in the story.  So I said, "Who's Max?"  His reply: "Ahhh!  I mean Fred!!!  I just got confused because most people call their dogs Max!"

Do you have a dog named Max?  I think I've only ever met one dog in my life named Max!

Love from Room 106,
Allie

Another week begins!

I cannot believe that it has been almost a week since I've posted last . . . it seems like yesterday that I was on the blogging world!  The end of last week had a couple of ups and a couple of downs, but for the most part was "normal."  (Which I definitely can't complain about!)

Some updates/highlights:

Velcro
When we were outside for recess today, I was helping a student tie her shoes; they were the kind that reminded me of the Keds I used to wear as a kid--you know, the kind with the thin laces that are too short to actually tie well.  After I sent this little one on her way, I overheard one of her girlfriends say to her on the playground: "you know, that's really why Velcro's the way to go."  As I type this, I realize that without a voice recording of these girls, that wasn't really that funny, but the tone of voice/attitude that this friend gave with her little nugget of advice about Velcro was really somethin'.

"So sad!"
During one of my reading groups today, one of my kiddos looked at a guided reading "teacher" book (basically a textbook) that was near me on the table.  He said to me, "Ms. W, is that the book you're reading in your reading group??"  (Little does he know that I do not have a reading group at school . . . )  Regardless, I told him that yes, it was a book that I was reading as a teacher.  He asked me what it looked like inside, so I obliged and thumbed through it, showing that all it was was a bunch of text and tables.  Straight-faced, he looked at me and said, "Wow, no pictures.  That's really sad, Ms. W . . . "  I hear ya, kiddo--this is why children's literature is my favorite genre :)

Goal(d)s
Our class marble jar is almost full!  I don't think I realized how small the marbles I am using are, because we are seven weeks into school, and the thing is still not full--and I give away a lot of marbles!  Anyways, I'm really excited for my class to fill it and get to vote on a prize to enjoy as a class :)

This morning, I pointed this out to my students, and I said to them, "How about we make it our class goal to fill the marble jar by the end of the week?"  With that, one of my students asked me what a "goal" was.  The most popular student responses:
- "It's when you score points playing a game!"
- "It's what happens when you kick the ball into the net in soccer!"
- "It's the metal-stuff that your watch is made out of, Ms. W!" (my watch is gold . . . )

So I guess we'll just think of the marble jar as a net and we're trying to score?

Books :)
I think chapter books are so valuable to read to children, so along with our current author study of Frank Asch (who has written some "older" books, but classics that my kiddos love), I started reading a Magic Tree House book to my class called Good Morning, Gorillas.  We are learning about animal habitats in science, and just finished learning about the rainforest, so I thought it appropriate!  Here's an update on some books we've read (or at least started, in the case of Gorillas) since my last posting:

 

 

Hope your weeks are off to a splendid start--fingers crossed that I will be better about posting this week than I have been in the past couple of weeks!

Love from Room 106,
Allie

Hi-Ya!

I was a little too lazy to do my hair this morning, so I put it in a ponytail and tied a colorful scarf around as a headband.  I thought it to be pretty stylish, but my kiddos usually take a different spin on some of my "stylish" decisions; one of the first comments I got while my kids were walking in the door today was, "Ms. W--you look like a ninja!"  Why, thank you . . .

On to some more of the good stuff:

"Hugger of the Day"
At the front of my classroom, I have about a dozen jobs hanging up--everything from chair stackers, to weather reporter, to librarians, and, of course, the helper of the day.  Really, this person helps me by turning on and off the lights, pushing buttons on the SMARTBoard, and passing out papers if there are any.  Well, yesterday my helper was hugging me all day long.  Y'all, I love hugs, but it was getting to be a little overkill.  Early afternoon, I said to her something along the lines of, "sweetheart, Ms. W needs a little personal space for right now; can we save our hugs for the end of the day?"  She looked a little shocked and said to me, "but Ms. W, I'm your hugger of the day.  I was just doing my job!"  Can you see why I love my job??

Hard words to spell
of = uv
has/his = haz/hiz
drop = jrop
(Say these out loud . . . these kiddos really are on to something!)

Blogs aren't the only thing I write
Yesterday during reading groups, I had a stack of guided reading books on my reading table that I was in the middle of sorting.  We got to the end of one of my groups and one of my students looked me right in the eye and said, "Gosh, Ms. W, did you write all of those books?!?  You must be realllllly busy!"  Oh, the free time that my students think I have!

Shapes galore
Today we started our math unit on Geometry--I can already tell that I think it might be a favorite of mine :)  (I owe it to give a shout-out here to my mom, a math teacher who taught me everything I know about geometry--thank you, mom!)  We started out classifying shapes: a circle, square, rectangle, and triangle.  I was so impressed with some of the things my kiddos said in regards to how many sides/corners they had and what the shapes reminded them of.  After talking about them, we sat on the rug and looked around our classroom to see if we could find anything in the room that matched those shapes.  I heard examples like, "the coins we counted last week were circles," and, "our cubbies are squares," and, "the lights on the ceiling are rectangles."  But my favorite was when we got to a triangle, when someone said that Ms. Hall's (our fabulous math specialist who was in the room) shoe--she was wearing some fierce pointed-toe heels--had a triangle on the toe part of the shoe!  Adorable--and so observant!

Then we eased into some investigation time with our pattern blocks--if there is one thing I am so thankful for in our math curriculum, it is that we use a ton of manipulatives.  Before moving into the task at hand for today (making specific shapes with the pattern blocks), the kiddos got to explore with the blocks.  This helped a ton so that they weren't tempted to play while we were in the middle of the lesson!

One of my students made "a flower growing with rain coming out of the clouds above," another made, "a throne with the king's crown next to it," and another created, "a pumpkin with a face on it--a jack-o-lantern!"  Some things I was able to capture on camera:

"My neighborhood"

"A slithering snake"

"Carrots growing and a rabbit about to eat them!"

This week's been a crazy one--hopefully those that surround you at work are keeping you on your toes as much as my company is!  (For many of you, that would be your coworkers; for me, that's my kiddos!)  Happy Hump Day!


Love from Room 106,
Allie

Getting crafty with bulletin boards

As of yesterday, I thought Sunday was the quickest day of the week, but I honestly have no idea where today went.  Veteran teachers--does it ever slow down??  I feel like that sounds like I'm overwhelmed, and I swear that (right now) I'm not, I just feel like today happened in a blink!  On to some highlights:

Aren't I the one making the routines?!?
Every day we do our calendar, and we've established a certain way that we do it.  Well, even though I was the one that created this "way" of doing it, today I forgot a part.  And sure enough, one of my kiddos corrected me!  It's crazy the routine that my students remember and hold me accountable for!  I promise, tomorrow I won't forget anything!

Bulletin boards
Gotta love bulletin boards, right?  I certainly do :)  The first grade was lucky enough to reserve a set of bulletin boards in the library (right as you walk in--prime bragging space for our kiddos!) for--get this--the entire year!  We did this on purpose; one of the main focuses in our science curriculum is seasonal changes, and since we are in school for all four of them, we wanted a way to display this.  Every first grader contributed to our bulletin board by making two leaves, and then the teachers stapled them all up; our idea is that every season, we'll have our classes produce new artwork to hang (snowflakes and bare tree limbs in the winter, buds in the spring, etc.), and fingers crossed that we can squeeze out some time to get some fall writing in to hang up and showcase student work.  I can't remember the exact words we decided on, but the title we put on the board was something like "the seasons are changing, and we're reading every day!"

Love and marriage
Love: my calendar helper today was a girl, and as she was in the middle of helping out with putting today's date on the calendar, a little boy in my class shouted out, "Sally's* cute!" (*name changed)  It's moments like this (among many others) that I so appreciate that I co-teach math in my classroom with our school's Math Resource teacher so that another adult was able to cherish this moment with me.  If only we could all be so honest!
Marriage: Coincidentally, during reading groups today, Sally was finishing reading Halloween, a book I mentioned a post or two ago.  While this book scared one of her group members, it didn't scare Sally--on one page the book read, "Do you see the the ghosts?  Yes, I do."  She looked at me, grinned, and said, "that's what people say when they get married."  Only a first grader could muse about this while in the midst of a book about ghosts, black cats, and haunted houses . . .

New week, new author study
This week it's Frank Asch, so after another trip to the library, I'm all set for author study round #2.  Today we read one of Frank Asch's Moonbear books, Moonbear's Shadow, and also The Sun is My Favorite Star (perfect timing because one of my students randomly made the comment to me as she was walking into class today: "Ms. W, guess what I learned from my sister?  That the sun is actually a really, really, really big star!").  I don't think our P.E. teacher was very happy with me today--there was actually a substitute in P.E., and apparently there was a large interest in how shadows worked during class on the blacktop today . . . don't blame me that the kiddos are inquiring about and exploring what they learned during a read aloud!

Lesson plans . . .
. . . can you believe that after five weeks, I've finally figured out a format for lesson plans that actually work for me?!?  Whew!  What a relief!  (I literally tried a different format every week--all part of finding an organization style that works for me.  Not something that I copied from something else, or modified from another teacher, but something that truly works for me.)

Tuckered out, and ready for Tuesday!

Love from Room 106,
Allie

"Join the fun!"

How is it that Saturdays seem to pass by at a normal pace, no matter what I am doing, and then Sundays go by in the blink of an eye?  I swear, every week, Sundays get faster and faster.  Of course, it probably doesn't help that I do most of my school work on Sundays, but still.  I feel like like the hours between the two weekend days are somehow not spread out equally . . .

Well, I digress.  After some planning, football, and more planning, I figured that I needed to blog :)  I have so many things from last week that I have been saving up--be prepared, y'all, this may be a long one!

Word families
We've been starting our work on word families--not sure if you remember, but I had a ton of fun reading books like Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat to talk about these groups of words.  Well, this is some of the work that my kiddos did on these word families; they had to trace over the letters of the words that I provided for them (words we had talked about in class), and then come up with two of their own.  We had generated some pretty long lists as a class, so it was more a matter of the students remembering some words that we had talked about that matched the family they were working on at the moment.  When they were finished, they got to draw pictures.  I don't have any pictures of student work, but I thought you'd enjoy these:

 

Word families get me excited because it is a great introduction into teaching rhyming words, which I love.  It also makes me really excited to teach poetry later this year!  If you would have asked me my opinion of teaching poetry a couple of years ago, I probably would have given you a funny look, because I never enjoyed taking poetry classes in high school or college, but teaching poetry to young children and focusing on the fun basics of it is something I adore.

A new skill

Reading upside down: I've known about this skill for a while now, but let me tell you, my abilities are getting better and better every single day.  I sit at a horseshoe-shaped table for each of my five reading groups, so all of my kiddos are surrounding me with their books.  Because they are the ones reading them,  I get to enjoy the flip-side of them--upside down pictures, too!  Another skill that I am getting really good at, but also another to add to the list of "they don't teach you this in college!"

Scary books

Speaking of my reading groups, one of the groups started reading a book the other day called "Halloween."  It was a pretty basic book, with things like, "Here is a haunted house," and "Here is a black cat."  Of course, it had other words too, but it had words and pictures of all of your basic Halloween things.  One of my students finished reading the book so I told her that she could work on reading it again while the rest of her group was still working.  She looked at me and said, "Again?!?  But Ms. W, that was really scary!  I don't know if I can read it again!"  So precious.  (This is also the same student who reminds me every day that she can't wait to show me her "punkin" earrings later this month.)  It was so fun to hear her gasp when she got to the pages with ghosts, even though she knew it was coming!  So innocent, I just love it!

More books!

You know I love a good author study, and so I was so excited when we began reading some Mo Willems books this past week (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! made an appearance on the blog last post I think).  By the end of the week, I got to read Knuffle Bunny (one that I checked out from the library--I can't believe I somehow don't own it!) and City Dog Country Frog, one of Mo Willems' lesser known books, but such a great read, with a wonderful moral.  Up next week for author study: Frank Asch.

Pencils

I think I have a new idea for manufacturers of office supplies: sell pencils that are already sharp.  I know, I know--these are called mechanical pencils, but if you think that those click-y writing instruments are meant for six-year-olds, you are wrong!  Sorry, can you tell that sharpening pencils drives me nuts?!?  It's a job that I let my kiddos do by themselves, but it's a lot easier for them to re-sharpen pencils than start from scratch and completely sharpen 'em.

On top of that, our pencil sharpener broke on Friday :(  RIP, X-Acto (that's not really his name, just the brand).  For some reason, I think he might have had a warranty, so I need to go through some paperwork, because if that baby can be replaced, you better believe I'll take care of it ASAP!

Recess fun

Just another funny quote to pass along to y'all (if you've made it this far!).  On Friday, we were walking in from recess, and one of my kiddos was asking me if it was fun being a teacher at recess.  I was a little confused with his question, so I didn't really give him an answer, but instead asked why he was wondering.  He said to me, "well, Ms. W, it just seems like the teachers might get a little bored watching all the kids play.  You should really join in the fun some time!"  If only you knew how much I'd love to swing from the monkey bars sometimes . . . .

Rainforest fun

This past week, we focused on the rainforest habitat, and it was a blast!  I wish there was a rainforest close enough to take the kiddos to, but unfortunately the Equator is a couple thousand miles away, and only really a plausible field trip for Miss Frizzle and the Magic School Bus.  The highlight of our week was the "Animal Coverings" books we made--complete with real fabric and all!  Some of the animals:

How neat, huh?  The kiddos loved this project, and when it came time for our assessment on Friday, every single student matched every single covering correctly :)

Speaking of the assessment, I got a kick out of some of them.  Backstory: when I was student teaching in first grade, my cooperating teacher and I had students take out more than one color crayon when completing a matching part of an assessment.  This way, the kiddos got excited about using crayons, and as teachers, we would know what they were trying to match by just following the colored lines and not having to worry about random pencil lines.  So, this is what most of my class's tests looked like:

And then I had my class entertainers who thought that Ms. W would just love some mind-games:

 

Aren't they funny? 

From the archives
As I was uploading pictures, I realized I forgot these two favorites from back when we were learning about patriotic symbols--look at the way they drew themselves (and the whole class) saying the Pledge of Allegiance!

 

Alrighty, for those of you that are visual people, hopefully this post was satisfying to you :)  And for those of you that like words, I hope I provided enough of those, too!  I can't believe another week begins tomorrow--the year is flying by already.  Cheers to another Monday!

Love from Room 106,

Allie