Five for Friday...errr...Saturday, Nov. 14

Happy weekend!! I'm Five for Fridaying the way I do everything: LATE! God bless my hubby for putting up with my punctuality issues. :)

 

So...don't tell anyone...but my class is harboring fugitives. 

 

 

We disguised our feathery friends so no one would know they were (turkeys). No turkeys here! Just princesses, pirates, football players, and cyborgs. :)

I'm so excited about college football today! As a UGA fan, here's what I need to happen:

 

Texas A&M beats Mizz

UGA beats Auburn

Miss St beats Alabama

 

That most likely makes the SEC championship a battle of the bulldogs (UGA vs Miss St) and makes it an interesting rivalry between me and my real-life BFF Melissa over at Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late (who roots for Miss St). 

 

 

If those things happen tonight, expect a celebration sale in my TPT store tomorrow!

Back to things related to school. We have been working on retelling the last few weeks. Last week we retold fiction stories with this handy dandy anchor chart.

 

This week we retold non-fiction books by making a circle map. We wrote details from the book around the circle and then wrote the main idea in the middle. 

We followed up with this journal activity where students picked 3 details to draw (after a lot of modeling).

Higher students wrote about their pictures, too. 

 

It's still a concept that's a little fuzzy, but we're getting there. Thanks Deanna Jump for these great interactive journal activities! 

 

Oh! I almost forgot that we made Thanksgiving retelling bracelets thanks to this Dr. Jean activity. The kids LOVED it and it really helped them retell the story of the 1st Thanksgiving. Click {HERE} for the details!

 

Last Sunday was my grandmother's 93 birthday! The family got together, so we started taking some family pictures. Here's such a nice picture of me and the hubby!

 

 

And here's a...well...typical picture of me and my brother. Even after 30 years, some things never change...

Look what came in the mail! It's my handy, dandy new pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies!

 

Several of my teacher friends have been talking about these pencil sharpeners, so I HAD to try it out!!!

It's advertised as the quietest pencil sharpener, and that's no lie! It's sooooooo quiet, so it doesn't disturb the whole class. Hallelujah! I also like it because it stands up on it's own, so I can move it all around the classroom and use it anywhere. This is a reasonably priced product, so please check it out!

It even comes in pink now!  :)

Have a great weekend!!!!!

Getting Started: Read to Self

I don't know about you, but my reading stations are this crazy mix of Daily 5 and Debbie Dillard. Both systems are good, so I've pillaged each one until I've made what works for me. The one thing that I've definitely included from Daily 5 is its focus on training students and building stamina. I never thought my kinders would be able to sit quietly and read for so long, but today we hit 15 minutes!

 

Not that everyday was a picnic. You can see that it took us a few days to get the hang of things. But now, we're reading like fish swim, like birds fly, and like Michelle Tanner eats ice cream!

 

One problem I've had in the past is that I didn't have a good system for giving my students books to read.

 

I just met these little guys.

 

What level are they on?

 

What are they interested in?

 

I DON'T KNOW!!!!!! 

 

Instead, of stressing, I raided our book room and made 5 sets of 5 different bags (each bag is labeled A-E). Throughout the week, I rotated which group had which bag. When we rotated through all the books, I replaced them with new ones from the book room. Easy peasy!

 

 

I hope beginning your stations is successful and smooth this year. Please post any tips you have to getting stations started!

Five for Friday...Snowmageddon style!

Oh my goodness!!! This has been the craziest week I think I've ever experienced! I teach in Atlanta, and you may have heard Atlanta has had some snow problems this week (such an understatement!!).  

 

 

I'm linking up with Doodle Bug to share my craziness from the week  =)

 

 

1. The snow started falling around 11:00am, and when we dismissed at 1:45pm, the roads were already JAMMED! No one could get through! No buses. No day care vans. No parents.

 

At 4:00pm, we had about 800 students.

At 7:00pm, we had about 400 students.

At 9:00pm, we had about 200 students.

Our last student was picked up at 10:30am Wednesday morning.

 

I knew it was not a good sign when we started pulling out mats for the kids to sleep on.

Once we were down to only a handful of students, and they were settled for the night, I was able to leave. Except that I didn't have anywhere to go! The roads were icy and the traffic was gridlocked (may new least favorite word!). There was no way I would make it home. Thankfully, a loving teacher who only lived a mile away from school opened her home to teachers who couldn't get home. Can we say slumber party!?!

Snow orphans ready for a slumber party!

 

The next day, Wednesday, several teachers were able to make it home. However, the Chattahoochee River still stood between me and my house, and we've all seen the signs:

 

 

The roads were icy and the abandoned cars were causing traffic problems on the interstates, so I decided to stay put in the nice warm house where I'd been staying. I FINALLY made it home Thursday afternoon, just in time to hear that schools were closed Friday. Phew! What a relief! It's gonna take a few days before I'm ready to leave this house again!

 

2. My hubby was also affected by the Snow Jam (a name that makes this thing sound a whole lot more fun than it actually was!). He spent 8 hours trying to make his 8 mile commute. He eventually had to abandon his car in the Bank of America parking lot and trek in the snow the last 3 miles. He left a thank you note on his car, by the way, which I though was so adorably thoughtful.

 

 

We rescued his car when I got home Thursday.

 

3. Before the snow hit, we did do some actual learning this week. My para-pro was a HIT when we did our labeling lesson. After talking about labels and other text features, my para let us label her, which the kids thought was the most fantastic thing they had ever seen!

 

Teachers will do anything to help their students learn!

4. We're also learning about measurement. To practice measuring length, the students took off their shoe and traced it. One thing I've learned about teaching is that any lesson where kids can take their shoes off is a winner! Students estimated how long their shoe would be in cubes, and then measured it. To end the lesson, we ordered the shoes from shortest to longest.

5. Monday was also our 100th day of school! I didn't take any pictures unfourtunately, but I do have a couple of links to share.

This first link is to a 100th Day Ticket a co-worker of mine created. The students worked on 100 day activities all day, and as they finished, I marked that activity off of their ticket. I put yarn on this and my students wore it as a necklace. They loved it, and it kept them working hard! This is in Word, so you can change it to fit your class' activities.

The second link is a super fun TPT freebie I found. I used a lot of the ideas from here including a fruitloop necklace (made in groups of 10 of 1 color), "If I had $100" writing prompt, "I can write 100 words," and 100th day snack mat. Hope it's helpful for you, too! 

 

Reading Mentor Texts

Making inferences...ahh, what a delightful skill to teach. I was a little surprised that this was one of the first reading skills introduced in our kindergarten reading curriculum. However, my kiddos really seemed to get it! I started with a mini-lesson that I totally stole from another blogger (I hate that I can't remember who!) I found her! It's our dear friend over at the Inspired Apple!

Mini-lesson:
I got my purse and pulled out one item at a time. I asked my kids what they could guess about me based on these items.

1. car keys--I own a car, specifically a Toyota
2. Zaxby's gift card--I like Zaxby's and chicken
3. cold medicine--I've been sick

I asked my students if I had told them any of this information about myself. Nope! So how did they know it? They used clues from my purse and knowledge they already had (like 'you need keys to drive a car' or 'you take medicine when you're sick').

Anchor Chart:
We then made an anchor chart. Disclaimer: This is not the actual anchor chart, but a charming representation of it  =)

Click the pic to get this freebie

.

Read Alouds:
Then we read this book: Animals Should Definitely Not Wearing Clothing

 

This book is super simple and has very few words, but that's why it's so great for teaching inferring. The author doesn't tell you much with her words, so we have to use the pictures (and other clues) and what we know about animals to figure what she means.

The next day, we reviewed our anchor chart and read No, David

 

This is another great inferring book.

Games:
After reading, we played an emotions inferring game. This is important since emotions are something we have to infer a lot when we read. I told the kids short stories using them as examples (because who doesn't love to be made into an example?!). I said things like "Bartholomew went into the dark basement. He heard a loud creak. He started to shake." The kids could easily infer how ol' Barty felt, but then they had to tell me HOW they knew. I didn't tell them the emotion, so they must have used clues. What clues?? They had to give me specific examples. Dark places are scary. Hearing noises is scary. Shaking often means you're scared. By the end of the game, they were really getting how to cite the specific clues they used. This game isn't fancy, but it worked!

Link up!:
I'm linking up to share these mentor texts with the always-fabulous Amanda and Stacia over at Collaboration Cuties. I hope you'll link up, too!