Sunday, April 28, 2013

Instagram (Teacher Talk Tuesday)

Hi friends! I'm so excited to share in this fun linky about Teacher Talk Tuesday on Instagram! Teach Dream Inspire is new on Instagram!! My Instagram will have both personal pictures and teaching pictures. If you'd like to follow me, click on the button below or search for teachdreaminspire!


You wanna join in the fun?! First, go link up with What the Teacher Wants and Apples and ABC's. Then, each Tuesday use the hashtag #teachertalktuesday to find all the amazing teachers out there sharing on Instagram!


Here are some screen shots from my Instagram...




Can't wait to add more!!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Five For Friday

It's that time of week again... time to link up with Doodle Bugs for another Five For Friday! 

1. A couple days ago I blogged about our life cycle study... today... look at this little guy...


He's our first caterpillar to hang upside down! So excited! Before I left school today I saw two other friends climbing to the top to join him!

2. This week we have been learning about adjectives and adverbs. I decided to incorporate the life cycle theme into our writing. After a little School House Rock (my fav!), I had my kiddos brainstorm as many adjectives as they could to describe a butterfly and a caterpillar. I wrote each adjective on a Post-it and stuck it on our anchor charts.



Then we talked about adverbs that could be used to describe how butterflies fly and how caterpillars crawl. After giving my kiddos A LOT of examples of adverbs, they wrote a creative story using a butterfly and a caterpillar as their main characters. They were to include as many adjectives and adverbs into their story to make it as detailed and interesting as possible. They turned out too.darn.cute! 


I used Amy Lemons' butterfly template and writing paper from her life cycle unit. It's fabulous! You can grab your copy here!

3. Speaking of Amy Lemons... I also used a couple of her patterns to make our butterfly life cycle model.



4. My sweet hubby helped me to put the final touches on my new earring holder.


5. My pile of stuff to do this weekend...


My two final projects for my Master's classes this semester are due Tuesday. I'm so dreading this!!  At least the weather here is gonna be yucky and I won't feel bad for staying indoors for two days. Ha!

Happy Friday! 19 days!!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Plants, Butterflies, and Frogs Oh My! and a Freebie

So we are all kinds of deep into our life cycle unit!! I looked around my classroom today and I thought I just had to share...

I have beans growing...



caterpillars....



and frogs... This little bit came today... in the mail ... crazy!


If you can only image how excited my sweeties are with all the live animals in our classroom right now and not to mention there are less than 20 days left until summer! 

We are also working on arrays in math. We spent the first half of the week practicing our repeated addition number sentences to match an array and today I had the kiddos create their own array.



I got the idea for this chart from Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. Her ideas are always super cute!! I just tweaked her chart a little to match what we're learning.

Here is my example of what I had my kiddos do today...


First, they created their own repeated addition number sentences. Then, they drew their arrays to match.  I saw these napkins at Dollar Tree and knew I had to incorporate them into math somehow. 


If you would like a copy of the Picnic Arrays recording sheet you can find that here.


Have a fabulous rest of the week!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Be a Fly on My Wall

I'm so excited to be linking up with Jodi Southard over at Fun in First for her Fly on My Wall linky party! I always love taking a peek into other teacher's classrooms! 


Lemme start off by saying this was all kinds of hard! Ha! Going back through my pictures, I feel like I missed about a gazillion things that happen during my CRAzy day! 

First up...


The kiddos start arriving at 7:15... yes... at the break.of.dawn. After they unpack, they get started on morning work. My morning work comes from Second Story Window. I love it because it reinforces what we're learning, and my kiddos can complete it independently! I also have designated days that my kids can "shop for books" from the classroom library and use the computer in the morning (Once their done with morning work of course!). Morning announcements come on at 7:50. After that we check morning work. 


At 8:00 we jump right into reading. I usually start with a quick mini-lesson, followed by some type of independent practice assignment, and then I choose two kids to share their reader's responses from the day. Depending on the concept I'm teaching that day, this block of time can last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. If time allows before writing, we do a quick round of Daily Five.


Next up is writer's workshop from 9:00-9:30. I usually start off with a quick 6+1 Traits lesson. I copy our trait practice on a half sheet of paper. I get my 6+1 Traits' lessons from Evan-Moor. My kiddos have some time to work on their writing pieces, then I choose two students for share chair. While my kids are writing, I conduct writing conferences.


My math workshop block is actually broken into two chunks (9:30-10:00 and 10:30-11:05) because I have two kids push in from another class right in the middle of this block of time for Social Studies/Science. Did I mention my schedule is kind of crazy?! I have kids coming and going all.day.long! I have about six different alarms set on my phone just to keep track! I digress... back to math. I model, model, model concepts for about fifteen minutes, then my kids work on an independent assignment. I usually try and check over their work right then so I can pull any kiddos that are struggling during Guided Math time. While I'm working with kids in smaller groups or individually, my other kids are working on their math tubs for the week. I have six tubs. Five have center type activities and one is a math journal prompt.


I alternate between Social Studies and Science from 10:00-10:30. This week we've been working on plant life cycles. I like to use the workbooks that are provided for us because I think it keeps me focused on the most important concepts my students to know.

We have recess from 11:05-11:20, specials from 11:20-12:00, and lunch from 12:08-12:38.


After lunch, I have a little block of time set aside for language. During this time we work on spelling, grammar, etc... This week we have been focusing on prefixes and suffixes. I read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and I had my kiddos come up with adjectives to describe Lilly. Then we went through our adjectives and found words that had prefixes or suffixes. 


After my language block, we do Daily Five and Guided Reading. I have three Guided Reading groups and I keep all the materials I need for Guided Reading in the drawers pictures above. The drawers are right behind my small group table. My kiddos choose their Daily Five rotation and place their "tickets", courtesy of Ladybug Teacher Files, next to their number in the pocket chart. Language and D5/Guided Reading lasts from 12:40-1:45ish.

At 1:45 we pack and stack. I sign behavior calendars and my kids do their afternoon jobs. We start dismissal at 2:00. My team rotates afternoon duties each week.

and.... That is it! My day in a nut shell. Thank you so much for joining me! I wanna be a fly on the wall in your classroom too! Link up with Jodi and be sure to check out her day too!

Clip art and fonts from Cara Carroll, The Enlightened Elephant, and Sonya Dehart.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Five For Friday

Hello friends! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for her Five For Friday linky party. This week, I'm doing a Five For Friday spring break style! Here is five random things from my spring break...

1. I decided to join a gym! I really wanted to find a gym that was reasonably priced and had group fitness classes. Hello Zumba and Sha'bam! 

2. One of my sweet teamies introduced us to this new snack last week and I've been munching on it all week! LOVE! The best thing is... it's not bad for you either! It's called Sheila G's Brownie Brittle. You can buy it at Publix in the deli section.

 
 3. This week I've been working on a couple of projects around the house. One project was to organize and decorate our home office. I made these bulletin boards to hang up along one of the walls. I also made three of these for my classroom back at the beginning of the school year.

I bought a sheet of foam core board from Home Depot and had them cut the sheet into thirds.


Then, using hot glue I covered the board with fabric and glued a ribbon to the top of the board so I could hang it.


Here's what it looks like from the front...

and on the wall...

4. I also finished up my newest unit and posted it on TPT. 


This unit comes with activities for 8 math tubs that cover a variety of math concepts. Students can complete these activities with partners or independently as part of your daily math station rotation. Setting up these tubs is super easy! Each activity comes with directions and a recording sheet. All you need to add are dice! You can find the unit here! I also put it on sale until Sunday!

5. Last, but not least, I've spent some quality time with my two fur babies! They've loved having mommie home!



Hope you've had a wonderful week!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

New Unit!

I've been looking for a way to incorporate most of the concepts we have been focusing on this year into one set of math tubs...


I think these activities do just that and what's even better is that they are practically no prep! All that is needed are the directions for each activity, copies of the recording sheets, and dice (you can find an 8 pack of dice at The Dollar Tree). 

Here's a closer look...

If you wanna check it out, I'll have it in my little shop on sale until Sunday! Yes, until Sunday! After all, I'm on Spring Break and I'm lovin' life!!