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 :)