Great Giveaway

Hi all,

I've been AWOL for a while.  To be honest, my school days have been so busy and stressful that I just haven't thought to take pictures or anything.

Earlier this week I found this great laminator give away over at Sensational Seconds.  Check it out, and maybe you can win a laminator!

I'll try to be better about posting next week.

Joell

Word Wall Books

Hi all,

I have to say, I'm going to toot my own horn here.  I'm very excited about the word wall books I made over the summer.  I had my kids start using them on Friday.  We're currently working on nouns and family words.

This is the cover, the kids are having fun coloring it.

Each section has a color.  This one is white.

There are no pictures for starter words or sight words, so they just get lined pages to write the words.

Adjectives go on orange.

The noun section is pink because the red is too dark to read the kids writing with pencil. It's supposed to be red.

Here's one of my student's work in the noun section.  The pictures match the ones on the word wall. The book is great because when the word wall gets full and the words come down, the kids will still have the word available to help with spelling, etc. all year.

Verbs are in the green section.

Tag alongs are blue.

Sight words are on pale pink.

I am so hopeful that this will work, and so excited with how the first few pictures and words they wrote looked.  They were very excited to get their books and write in them.  I hope that continues.

Emergency Sub Plans

The words that strike fear into my heart!  Usually I write up sub plans when I know I will be gone.  These are plans for when I don't know in advance or can't go in and set things up before school.  Yes, I have been known to go in at 7:00 a.m. sick as a dog to get things ready for a sub.

We are required to have emergency sub plans ready to go.  I finally got around to creating mine.  You will find them here: Emergency Sub Plans

If you see anything obvious that I missed, please comment below.  I'm tired and I've spent hours working on this, which means there are probably errors involved.

Joell

And We're Back to School Again

I hope you all had a nice Labor Day Weekend.  I had a friend here from out of town and we had a great time.  But today was back to school all over again.

My students do really well in the morning, but really struggle in the afternoon.  It's just so hard for them to be on their best behavior for that long.

My math was a disaster today.  The new program we're using utilizes a lot of technology.  My iPad was controlling my computer and it all went haywire.  The kids were tired and having behavioral issues.  Most weren't even trying to stay with me (so far this program is not very engaging to the students).  I was getting very frustrated.  Then in walked our wonderful aides, whom I really do love, except they chose that moment to start taking kids out for testing.  That was the point when I decided to skip math for the day (sh, don't tell anyone!) and put on a video for a while.  My sanity was saved, but now I'm even more behind in math.  So frustrating.

I stumbled upon a movie theme for my room this year, so I put up a decoration on my door that goes with excellent work samples.  Right now they're just ordinary worksheets, it changes all through the year.  Here's a picture.

And that's it for today.  Hopefully I'll eventually catch up with myself and have time to read other blogs and stuff.  Right now I'm just trying to stay above water with the workload and newness of everything.

Joell

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Hi all,

One of my favorite activities at the beginning of the year is to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Then I pass out magnetic letters and we act it out with a big coconut tree drawn on the board.  The kids enjoy bringing up their magnetic letter when we get to it in the story.

After that, we make our own coconut trees and repeat.  This way they can each have all the letters.  Here are some pictures.

We first made our coconut trees, then cut out and ordered our alphabet letters.

We acted out the book, then glued the letters on. These first two were mine. The ones below are all student work.

This one likes when they all fall off, of course.  I love that even one of the palm leaves is falling.

The scattered approach

Another scattered one.

One of my more orderly kids...

It's so fun how each one is individual to the child.

So there ya go.  A fun, easy, beginning of the year alphabet review.

Joell

Day 4

Hi all,

I have survived until Day 4.  Things are getting a little better.  I'm trying to get the kids trained on procedures and still manage to teach a thing or two.  All the new stuff has me feeling stressed out and I don't feel like I'm being a very effective teacher, but I'm trying my best.

I got out my "practice" binders today.  The kids loved them!  I did actually think to get out my camera, so here are some pictures of the kids using them to practice handwriting.

Here's one that was getting close to finished.

They LOVED using the dry erase markers.

And the colorful socks as erasers were a hit, too.

Eraser on one hand, pen in the other.  Cute.

This is the neatest writing I've seen this kid do.

Another one got down to G.

I just hope they don't lose the markers and lids.  I'm letting them keep them in their desks.  I'm so happy to be almost done with the week.  I have company coming from out of town for the weekend!  Enjoy your Labor Day!

Joell

First Day

Well, we got through the first day.  We got very little done.  It's going to take some time for us to learn all the rules and procedures this year.  Kinda scary when you're already behind on the first day, but I did everything I could with what I was given, and that's my motto because I can't do more than that.

The kids are very cute and tried really hard on the few academic type things we did.

I'm completely exhausted and heading to bed soon.  All the pictures I took today had kid faces in them, and I just don't have it in me to edit for pictures here.  As I'm trying to get used to a lot of new routines, I might be more likely to forget to take pictures and things.  Once I get more used to my new room, new equipment, new students, and all the new curriculum, I'll hopefully be better at remembering to snap some pictures.

And with that, I'm off to bed where I"m sure to sleep well.  *yawn*

Joell