So late to the party

Hello, sweet friends!

This is a super late entry to say that a) I can't believe TpT has THREE MILLION TEACHERS!!! That's so crazy; I don't even really understand that number. Three million!? Really?! Even though I have a hard time comprehending the enormity of that number, I can tell you that I feel proud to be part of a community of such motivated teachers who are working hard to help their own students as well as other teachers on a daily basis.  And b) I am participating in the sale. Because my life has been so crazy outside of school lately I do not have any new products for the sale. :(  However, you can get most of my products under $4 during the sale, so that's a mini-win, right??  And if you're waiting for more products, stay tuned--I have several ideas rolling around in my head and as soon as we get the interwebs installed in our new domicile I'll be able to get cracking. :)

Thanks so much for sticking with me!

Xoxox

Five for Friday...on a Saturday...Again

Y'all, I really have the best intentions.  I always want to link up on Friday.  And then something always comes up, like delicious burgers and the Olympics Opening Ceremony.  Without any more babbling, here's my Five for Friday.  =)
                                                  

ONE

At the very top of my bloggy to-do list for much longer than I care to admit has been figuring out how to offer fan freebies on Facebook.  The other night I was finished with school work earlier than expected and wasn't falling asleep on my keyboard already so I thought that would be a great night to figure it out.  Even though I almost ripped my hair out trying to get it to work and may or may not have said some very unladylike things, I finally did.  Victory is mine!  I was feeling so darn excited, and no one else was around to appreciate said excitement.  So now I'm forcing you to share it with me. 

TWO

Every day after lunch, we come back to class for 15 minutes of Quiet Time.  I always tell them that it's time for them to "recharge their brain batteries", but it also gives me 15 minutes to make a chart, give a sight word assessment, talk to another teacher, or whatever.  It's a win-win.  

Earlier this week, one of my little nuggets wrote me a letter during Quiet Time, and even put it an envelope that she folded and glued out of another piece of paper.  It included this picture, which I find funny for a few reasons.

a) I'm actually the smallest person in this picture.  b) I honestly think I've only been on the playground a few times with my nuggets this year, because I have lunch duty, not recess duty.  And c) there's no slide at our school playground.  Ah, youth.  

THREE

I blogged about this earlier this week, so I won't really talk about it much here, but I made this graph to share my students' Lexia levels and hold them more accountable.  You can read more about it here.  I'm going to add it to my fan freebie page, so you too can hold your students accountable for their work in Lexia.  

FOUR

I was noticing that a lot of my students were writing about math by writing about things that weren't math (I drew a book.  I drew a tree.  Then, I colored it in.) so on Thursday we made this Math Actions chart to have an idea about all the match actions we might do while problem solving.  I said that they should have one math action every time they write about math.  (I actually hate saying stuff like that, but I also generally find it helpful for the low middle-middle kids.)  Sorry this picture is a little blurry.  I couldn't figure out why that was until I realized (after I left school of course) that it was because the lights were off in my classroom at the time.

FIVE

Last but not least, we had our annual Superbowl party this past Sunday.  It was really fun, even though the game wasn't.  Mr. Spouse's birthday is in mid-January, and I had planned to make cupcakes to celebrate, but didn't have time before we went out of town and then I didn't want to make them when it was just the 2 of us because I would eat approximately 58% of the cupcakes.  And that's not necessary.  So I made them for the Superbowl party instead, when we were guaranteed to have some friends around.  And then, as I was thinking about how best to serve them, I remembered that I had this.  That we got as a wedding present.  You know, 16 months ago.  

Better late than never, right?  I felt like I was classing up the Superbowl.  =)

Alright, friends.  Thanks for dropping by and listening to me ramble.  Have a great weekend!

xoxo

#teachertalktuesday

Yes, I know that's technically the hash tag that everyone is using on Instagram on Tuesdays, but I just feel like that's the most connected thread of this little blog post.  I'm just sharing 2 quick things, then I'm going to work on (FINALLY) creating a new product for the ol' store.

First, this happened today.

We were working on modeling word problems using pictures, and the small group at my table literally couldn't solve this problem because they did not buy into this "save the cookies for later" idea in the problem.  Finally, I asked them what they thought happened to the cookies.  They said I ate them all!  What?!  So that's how our picture ended up like this.  Not really the picture I was planning to draw, but hey.  That happens sometimes in the first.  

Secondly, I've been meaning to do this for a while, and I finally did it.  (victory fist pump here)  

It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but this is a graph of my student's current Lexia levels.  Honestly, I had never heard of Lexia until this year, when my school started piloting Lexia for our district.  Basically, Lexia is a research based reading program that hits all areas of reading (except writing).  What I really LOVE about Lexia is that it auto-places kids automatically the first time they log in, so they're automatically placed at the level appropriate for them, regardless of grade level, so it's inherently differentiating for each student.  It also highlights kids who need a specific lesson, and it gives you the exact lesson that they should be taught.  I would say the one thing that I love the least about Lexia is that sometimes my students have a hard time with the vocabulary activities, mostly due to exposure.  For example, Lexia will say something like "find the picture that matches 'enormous'", and they might choose the wrong picture, but if it had said "choose the picture that shows 'huge/large/very big" they would immediately know it.  In any case, I'm planning to add this to my Facebook Fan freebie page, in case you use Lexia, too.  (I figure I can't be the only one, right?)

Okay, friends.  My next goal is to show you how we're using math binders this year, but that means I have to remember to actually take pictures of said math binders.  Don't hold your breath, friends.  =)  

Enjoy your night!

xoxo