A cute find...

Just thought I would share a cute find

I found these at JoAnns a few weeks back. They are magnetic metal signs. They can stand on their own (there was also ones you could hang on the wall). I think I may weave some ribbon through the holes and tie a bow in the corner. The red one I may use as a little message board, you could even use an expo marker to write on it! The black one I am thinking of using vinyl letters to put Passes on it and then clipping my clothes pin passes (made earlier) on the sides.

I will keep you all posted (with pictures of course) on how I am using them in my classroom.

My summer update: So this summer I am actually going places!!! I can't believe it, we never go anywhere...our schedules are completely opposite so it makes it difficult. I will be around for majority of July, so I am sure I will be posting like crazy...moving grade levels and having time to "think" I have a TON of ideas and things I want to make/share with you all. Please hang in there as I post here and there this next month, I hope to make up for it in July!

Summer is here, but first...

As most of you know I was asked to move up to 5th grade next year, which meant moving rooms again! So I spent most of yesterday moving from upstairs to downstairs (what a work out). Thanks to some great friends and co-workers all of my stuff made it down the stairs and to the new hallway. I knew I would spend the day today cleaning and arranging the school furniture how I wanted it, then moving my things in...not necessarily unpacking but at least setting up some things. Well much to my surprise, when I arrived at school this morning all my things were in my classroom along with a few things from the previous teacher.

It took a lot of deep breathing, some walking away, more deep breathing, and a little Micky D's Sweet Tea to calm me down. I'm not sure if you all know this or have thought this, but yes I am slightly OCD...rule #1 when dealing with someone that is OCD: Don't touch their stuff! Seriously! You may think you are helping, but your not...(which they really did think they were helping and in all fairness I have not been at my new school very long and they don't know me that well yet...and some think I am joking when I say I'm OCD until something happens like today).

Therefore I spent most of the day moving things so that I could move other things. Needless to say I am pretty tired, and yes finally calmed down. So here are a few pictures from this morning and afternoon. Keep a watch out for updates throughout the summer!

This morning:

This afternoon:

 

Updated: Leon and the Champion Chip Unit!

Here you go...up to Chapter 29...should have the rest for you all soon!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!


TWO DAYS with students...left!

Ending and Sore!

With three days of school (with kids) in sight I am pretty excited about a summer being around the corner. The good and bad about it is that my summer is shorter and pretty booked this year (actually going on a few trips...but with a three year old, so this should be interesting). I also have an in-service to attend, a classroom to move/redecorate, and a new grade level to prepare for! Before I know it, it will be the beginning of another year. Hopefully I will get a lot of blogging done, more buckets sold/made, and products on my TpT store. But we will see.

I have been reading Leon, The Champion Chip and the kids are still loving it! However I have not be able to officially type up and add to the lesson plans (sorry about that). I should get to that soon. I did want to share a fun little letter with you all...it's a letter to the teacher from the kids, they are really interesting to read! Click HERE to download!

I was also busy this weekend with a little thing called The Warrior Dash! This is my second time, and proved to be a little harder, so needless to say I am sore...I just hope I can walk with out too much limping tomorrow during our awards ceremony. Enjoy some pictures!

We were the m&m warriors! (most of us are teachers)

My medal!

I managed to not get too much mud on my face, until the very last obstacle...a girl decided she wanted to swim and kick her way through a mud "puddle" and my hair also got stuck in the barbed wire!

What We Have Been Up To

Thought you all would like to see what we have been doing this past week...aside from an all day planning session and taking county benchmarks!

Here are a few of our cuite potatoes:

We have been doing a little Health:

And here are a few of the movie posters for the book Nubs:



I hope all the Mommies out there are having a wonderful day! I know I am...my husband let me sleep in, and then I have spent most of he day tucked away in my room getting things checked off my check list, reading, catching up on DVR, and all sorts of relaxing stuff!

This is what my class made for Mother's Day, due to our time restraints I forgot to take pictures, but I got the idea off of Pinterest. The card we attched it to was a little notecard on which they wrote a note, glued it on craft paper, laminated it, they used colors/paper from the same colored sheme paper and made the clothes pins match. Here is what we used:

Paper we used:

They turned out so cute!

Have a great week!!!!



Exhaustion

The end of the year responsibilities are starting to overwhelm me! They are usually tough any year...the constant emails and reminder emails and then reminders about the reminder email filling up my inbox, the checklists, the book inventory, the names for awards, the awards, the report cards, the meetings....and of course don't forget those darling, so quiet, well behaved, constantly on task students!

This year it is a little more challenging for me...being at a new school this time of year has proven to be difficult. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, or what to expect next so I can be prepared. This is very hard for me to accept seeing the my personality is organized, structure based, and well yes OCD. So I "just keep swimming"!

On a lighter note, I have been meaning to share yet another picture of THE hole that was in our playground. This picture definitely does it justice, it was taken by a much braver person than I....

This was the first day I dared to take a picture, and I told you it was MUCH deeper...that I could hear the voices of the workers, but could not see them!

This was THE hole...that same day, just a little bit later

Well it's all covered and yet another memory for the school year!

Finally my potato unit is once again updated with a vocab. page and two more days of lessons. We are working on our SS mapping lesson and Tater Traits (they brought in their cutie taters today...pics soon!)

Click HERE to get the updated unit!



Worth the Wait...

FINALLY!! Here is the first part of my Leon and the Champion Chip/Potato Unit.

The kids are having a blast...today we completed part of the Where in the World mapping exercise as well as put the potato chips they brought to class into different catagories...then of course we ate them!

For my fabulous followers I will post the unit as I complete it, only on here. Once the unit it done I will be moving it to my TpT and TN store...so grab it while you can! Click to retreve!

ENJOY!

Bummed...

I totally didn't save my lesson plans, on my laptop and not the school drive, for the Potato Unit I have been doing with my students!!!! I have the first week completed and wanted to share it with you all, because we are having so much fun. I do, however, have the Potato Math page that we did on Thursday..so I will share that with you all.

I bought two bags of potatoes, because I wanted be sure I had a potato for each student. One was larger than the other which allowed for us to discuss the difference when estimating, and using the information we had gotten from the first bag of potatoes.

When weighing the individual potatoes it proved to be a little difficult. One of the skills we had to cover at the end of the year was using grams and kilograms. Well the potatoes weighed more, in grams, than we had weights for...so we had to combine weight sets and do a lot of adding of weights. We managed though. My suggestion would be to maybe use those small, yellow potatoes or even cut the potatoes in half.

Now to answer a few questions from you all!

My Lesson Plan Book:

I have had a lot of questions about it, and would love to share it with you all, however it is an Excell document and would need to be adjusted to fit your schedules and school hours. When I upload it into Google Docs it goes crazy! So I guess the best thing to do is maybe have you email me and I can send it through email. Like I said I don't mind sharing it at all!



My shelving for each group:

I found them at Walmart! They are the Mainstay brand and as I tried to find them online, but I think they can only be found in the store, it's similar to this one but black in color: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-3-Shelf-Bookcase-Alder/11061207. They do have two removable shelves I just use one because my book boxes are so tall.

What I keep on the shelves: On the left is their book boxes for Guided Reading/Reader's Workshop. They keep their journal, post-its, library books, classroom books, and possibly a book they are reading in group in their boxes. Any time we are doing reading they take their book box wherever they are....at a center, at their desk, in group with me...that way they have everything they would need. On the right is their crayon/colored pencil box. I do buy these myself...they very from year to year depending on what is on sale and where. On the bottom of course dictionaries...and this year Kleenex and occasionally the trash can (so they don't kick it around the room). On the top I have always had some sort of group caddy/bucket etc. to keep glue sticks, scissors, and hand sanitizer in.

HOT Potato!

We skipped spring and went right into summer here! The last three/four days have been in the 90's and of course that is when my air in my house decides not to work...three days without air makes for very little motivation/production from me, and LONG nights with little sleep.

My school also had Field Day these past three days! I seriously don't know what I was thinking when I chose black shirts for our class color. This is also the first school that I have been at that the students/classes still compete against other students/classes for points. Not that they win anything other than bragging rights though. I was SO proud of my class....I must admit my expectations were not extremely high for a few reasons. First, I have what I call the Mod Podge class...because I was displaced and came to this school in September I received about 3 to 4 students from other classes...they still don't work as well together as a class that would have formed in August. Secondly my observations during recess have been that my class prefers to play tag or sit...so our athletic abilities have been minimal.

BUT I am happy to say that we won FIRST place OVERALL, scoring the most points they think have ever been scored. We placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in EVERY event. I think that was the first time we have actually worked well together, as a team. So despite the heat, sunburn, and exhaustion...overall, it was a great day!

Here is a picture of our banner...the theme was Go For the Gold. I must admit, not my finest work...and the theme was a little difficult to work with, but oh well.



As things begin to end, and get crazy (my EOY folder is huge)...I began reading the book Leon and the Champion Chip aloud to my students (great read aloud for 3rd...on level for 4th or 5th...great for starting 5th!)

The idea for this unit "sprouted" from a post during St. Patrick's Day! While blog stalking I vaguely remember seeing pictures of potatoes all dressed up...and thought, "how fun would that be at the end of the year". Well not thinking I didn't bookmark the blog...ugh! So I spent about a week scrolling through old blog posts for these pictures. When I finally found it, to my surprise, it was a lower grades project. I was a little bummed but because all these ideas were already flowing through my head, I decided to "kick the activities up a notch, and add my own". The pictures and cute activities were found at The Bubblegum Tree. Make sure you also check out the follow up pictures at this link.

Well as the wheels on my brain were turning...I decided to make this an entire unit. I found a "potato themed" book (Leon and the Champion Chip) to read...of which I am making unit plans and activities to go along with it, keep an eye out. We are measuring, weighing, estimating, and so on potatoes in Math...much like The Bubblegum Tree unit. We are also taste testing potato chips and graphing results in Math....goes along with the book. For writing, much similar to The Bubblegum Tree...we will be dressing up our potatoes and writing stories featuring them as characters.

I can't wait to share a few of the activities my kids have been doing with this book, so stay tuned for a lot of potato updates!!!!