Just Another Manic Monday?

Hi, friends

This is a super short it's past my bedtime, but I really want to share post.

First, I'm SO jazzed!  We finally were able to squeeze in yoga today for the first time this school year!  Two  years ago I wrote a Donors Choose project to get 25 yoga mats to teach my class yoga to help them self-regulate.  Plus, it's a really great way to expose them to an organized activity that isn't aggressive like football.  (Or deathball, as I sometimes like to call the recess version of football.)

And second, I wanted to share this brand spankin' new product with you.  I'm really having a hard time building my nuggets' number sense this year, so I felt like I needed to take a step back and teach them how to extend the counting sequence using tools.  I taught this lesson today and got really concrete, usable data back.  I'm feeling really happy about it.  Also, if you checked out my store yesterday you'll notice that I knocked 50 cents off the price so now this lesson is only $1.50.  I think that's pretty reasonable.

Have a great night!
xoxo,
Rachel

Five for Friday. On A Saturday. Sigh.

Wow.  I'm with my friend Carolyn on this week--there is no possible way this week had just 5 days in it.  Something must have happened to the space/time continuum.  There were definitely extra days added to this week somehow.  But, the upside is that now it's the weekend and I'm sitting on our balcony enjoying some coffee and this beautiful fall weather to share 5 random things about my week with you.  

And I'm so jazzed that Jen from Hello Literacy designed these super cute number buttons for everyone to use!  (You can get them on her blog, on on Doodlebugs.)  If you teach reading and don't follow Jen's blog stop reading right now and add it your Bloglovin' feed.  She has brilliant ideas about literacy and intervention.   No more blabbering.  Here's my 5 for Friday.  (On Saturday.  Of course.)

I'm feeling so thankful for my K-2 team this week.  I had a moment of extreme frustration during a meeting this week and the next day one of my team members came up to me at dismissal and said that there's all times that we feel like that and we're here to support each other and help make each other great.  It was so sweet of her.  She didn't have to say that to me; she could have just let that moment be.  But it really helped to refocus me and remind that I am part of a team, and you can only get out of a team what you're willing to put into it.  I also really need to sing the praises of my real life friend and grade level special ed teacher, Kristin, who helped me cling to my last few shreds of sanity this week.  I have 2 particular little loves this year who need SO. MUCH. SUPPORT and Kristin was there every day after school to help me make behavior plans for them, to listen to me vent, and to give me a 10 minute break from them when I needed it.  Really, y'all, I know this sounds like a cheesy kumbayah moment, but I honestly just feel like sometimes I need to pause and reflect.

I do not know HOW this happened, but somehow the heat in our school kicked on this week.  Uh, it's SEPTEMBER still.  How is that even possible?!  I mean, if I taught in a state that touched Canada I might understand.  I would imagine that maybe at this time of year in Maine or one of the Dakotas or maybe even Minnesota I might wish the heat was on in my classroom.  But here in DC?!  NOT necessary.  On Thursday afternoon it was a pleasant 75 outside.  In my classroom?  A balmy 81.  It felt like the reptile house.  My poor little loves were melting.  At about 2:30 I decided to teach an impromptu origami lesson on how to make a fan.  

This week, I introduced my work station rotation board.  It helped us by 1,000%.  Now I just need to work out the best flow for our work stations and the location of each within our classroom.  I'm hoping to put up the work station rotation cards in my TpT store by the end of the weekend.  I went with seasonal group names--bats, skeletons, ghosts, broomsticks, pumpkins, and spiders.  I deliberately avoided monsters because I didn't want anyone to act like a monster.  ;)  

I'm so excited to take a field trip with the hubs down to Eastern Market today.  It's a fantastic outdoor farmers' market/art market/totally radical market in DC just a few miles from where we live.  I sold him on the idea by promising to be back in time for the Notre Dame game today.  =)  And by promising to buy Honeycrisp apples.  

My classroom printer and I are in a fight.  I'm 95% sure that the fight is over, and that I won, but you can never really be sure.  (Actually, you probably can be sure, but I don't have the technological prowess to be sure.)  To be on the safe side I will be printing most things that I need for Monday at home over the weekend.  I hate that moment of panic when I have to start going classroom to classroom to print what I need for the day.  

Enjoy your weekend, sweet friends!  

xoxo,

Rachel

Five for Friturday

Hello, sweet friends!  I'm linking up again with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday.  On Saturday.  Again.
                                                        

This week was a crazy week!  I got a new students on Wednesday, and it really turned our class upside down, so I'm taking some time this weekend to make 2 behavior plans.  But enough about that.  Without any more rambling here are my five randoms.
1.  Every day when I sign my morning message like this it feels so weird.

I got married last November, but didn't really push the name change last year.  My AP told me I needed to use my married name this year, so I keep trying to remember to tell people that my name is Mrs. Wilser, but every time I say that I feel like it's not real.  I feel like Mrs. Wilser is really my mother in law.  And my poor little nuggets are so confused about my name--some of them still call me by my maiden name (which totally doesn't bother me), some of them have fused  my maiden and married names together---Wilsener, and I have one poor little confused nugget who thinks I'm Ms. Willis.

2.  This week we launched our place value unit and we learned about number houses and how each digit has a place on Wednesday.  They really seemed to be on the same page with me and when I was walking around during math they seemed spot on.  Clearly, I didn't make it to this little nugget.  :(

3.  This week we also did our first science lesson!  I generally start science by talking about the scientific method and I do a few experiments with them that are super cool, but not necessarily connected to first grade science standards.  I do this chromatography experiment with them every year.  Basically, you just draw a big black dot on a coffee filter and get it wet so that the marker bleeds and you show them the different colors that are inside the black. It's always a crowd pleaser.  

4.  Today, I ran a 5K with my husband, a friend, and her boyfriend.  It was super fun, and I totally PR'd!  Average 10:33/mile.  Woot, woot!!  I was really proud of myself.  And I'm also feeling so thankful for the random stranger next to me who pushed me to my PR.  There was definitely a moment where I was ready to walk it out for a minute and this guy next to me said "Keep running.  You're pushing me, and we're going to finish this race together".  That is why I love running.  It was really awesome.

5.  On our way back from the 5K we stopped at the National Book Festival and I had to buy books for my classroom.  I don't know if you've ever read I Stole This Hat, but I literally laughed out loud in the book festival tent while I was reading it.  I love the Book Festival!  I'm also really jazzed to read the book How Do Dinosaurs Say I'm Mad?  It's a really great book about expressing your feelings, and what to do when you're angry.

Thanks for stopping by for my Five for Friday!  I have to hustle up now and get ready to watch the Michigan State/Notre Dame game.  I'll be back with some more from room 125 tomorrow or Monday.

xoxo

Rachel

Whaaaaaaa?! A Blog Update and It's NOT Friday?!

I have really great intentions every week of blogging more often, but somehow it always seems that all of the sudden it's Friday and I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday.  But today?  Today, friends, I'm coming at you on a WEDNESDAY!!

Previously, I blogged about how we use Responsive Classroom structures is in my school.  One important aspect of RC is that you take the first 6 weeks of school to establish routines and procedures, and then after your routines, expectations, and procedures are established you can generally move forward throughout the year focusing on instruction.  We're in week 4 of the first 6 weeks right now, so we're practicing our routines and structures daily, steadily incorporating more each week, and moving towards small group instruction and independence in 2 more weeks.  So far, we're kicking independent reading's tush, and  we're dominating Fundations.  This week, we launched partner reading, and I'm really surprised with how well it's going.  They l-o-v-e it!  So much!  We've really just been practicing sitting hip to hip, knee to knee, balancing our book, and taking turns as they read each page.  If I was better at remembering to photograph my nuggets I would insert a picture of partner reading here.  We've also launched writing workshop, using our new writing curriculum.

Another structure that I've started this year is calendar math.  It's something that I've never done before.  Right now, we've been adding the date on every day and tracking the days we've been in school, but that's it.  In October we'll start keeping a tally chart of the weather and using the tally chart to make a graph.  Is that all you do during calendar math, or do you do more?  (If we're being totally honest I feel like I always hear about calendar math, but that everyone does it a little bit differently.)  I'd love to hear about the way you do calendar math.

Have a great Thursday!  =)
Rachel

I'm on time!!!

Y'all!  I can't believe I'm not tardy for the party this week! I'm feeling so proud of myself for posting my 5 for Friday on FRIDAY!  Check one in the getting my act together box?  Without any further rambling, here are my 5 random postings from this past week.
                                               
1.  This past Monday was our first class birthday party.  And I had the frosting on the table to prove it.

I mean, did this little nugget even get any frosting into his mouth?!  

2.  I always forget how crazy back to school time is.  I feel so exhausted.  I only worked out one time this week.  And we went to a happy hour tonight and when we came home at 8:30 I was secretly wondering if there was a way I could call it a night right then and there.  

3.  Last year, in a moment of feistiness, I tossed all my seat pockets.  And forgot to request more.  So far I've been using these crates, but I don't love them yet.  

The kids have a hard time keeping them neat, and sometimes they crush their materials when they are trying to put them back into the crate.  I mean, it's been functional to this point, but I'm just not sold on it.  Any other ideas?

4.  Back to School night was this past Wednesday.  I think it went pretty well; I had half of my families show up, and I did a home visit.  A win-win.  I really think it was a great event, and I have an awesome bunch of babes this year who are so excited to learn.  

5.  We did this Fundations assessment today, and it went really well.  In a shameless self plug, this is part of my Fundations unit 1 work stations and it can be yours with several other activities for $5.  It was a great check in of our first week with Fundations.  I know that Level K rolls out letters a little more slowly than Level 1, but I think these activities would be helpful in Level K as well.  Take a peek!

Have a great weekend, everyone!  Enjoy all the football games!  =)

Five for Friday on a Saturday. Again.

Hi, friends.  I'm late.  Again.  But I'm going to link up with Doodlebug's for 5 for Friturday (that's a mix of Friday and Saturday) since it was so much fun last week.

1.  I launched writers' workshop this week.  We're testing out this new writing curriculum put together by Schoolwide.  I like it because they plan out the entire lesson for you and they use LOTS of mentor texts.  I would say the criticism I have right now is that it seems like sometimes their goal or objective for the lesson is slightly disconnected from the actual content of the lesson.  After our lesson we completed the sentence "I feel like a writer when..." and they had some sweet ideas!  One kid said that they feel like a writer when he reads books and another said he feels like a writer when he concentrates.  

2.  On Tuesday this week we also talked about adjectives as words that describe and brainstormed some adjectives that we could use to describe first grade.  We came up with a nice chart full of describing words and then I gave them part of this lifesaving back to school packet and they wrote about first grade.  This one certainly WASN'T on the chart, but I obviously 100% agree. 

3.  Even though this week was a short week because of Labor Day it felt super long!  I don't think it helped that I had several commitments during the week outside of school.  I'm just feeling so behind, and school just started.  How can that be?!

4.  Today, I spent all day at an area charter school as part of a TeachFest launching the DC Common Core Collaborative (DC CCC).  Even though I was a little sad to miss college football games during the day it was great to be around teachers who are so committed and inspired.  I'm in the first grade math group, and during this first quarter we're each designing a performance task that will fall in the operations & algebraic thinking.  We specifically decided to focus on 1.OA.3 and 1.OA.4.  I'm so interested to see the tasks that everyone is going to design!  

5.  My teacher desk has been a HOT MESS since the first day of school and Friday I promised myself that I would not leave the physical building of my school until I dominated that mess.  I would be lying to you if I said that I hadn't repeatedly looked at this picture of my table throughout the weekend just because it makes me feel more zen.  

You're probably saying to yourself  "Zen?!  I can see scraps of paper on your table!"  You're right.  There are scraps of paper on my table, but those are all piles that have post-its on them and are ready to go Monday morning.  

That wraps up my Five for Friturday.  I hope your weekends are lovely and that your team wins tomorrow!  (Unless you live in Chicago.  Then you have to lose so my Bengals can win.)

xoxo

Rachel

Smithsonian Teacher Night

Hi, friends

This is just a super quick update to let you know about a really awesome annual event in the DC area.  If you're a DC area teacher you should definitely check this out.  The Smithsonian hosts a teacher night every fall; it's always on a Friday night "after hours".  This year, it's Friday, October 25th from 7:00-9:30p.  It's free to register, and I hear that there's some great swag.  I've never been able to go because of weddings and family trips, so I'm super jazzed that I'll be able to attend this year.  It takes about 2 seconds to register, and it's 100% free.

Have a great Thursday!  =)

It's past my bedtime. :\

Holy moly.  I can't believe my life/social calendar decided to explode at the same time as back to school.  The mess I leave on my circle table every day shames me until I get to school the next morning.  I am so exhausted; I feel like a little hamster on a wheel, just running and running in circle and never going anywhere or accomplishing anything.

I wanted to stop by tonight to let you know 2 things.  First, I'm working on (what I hope will be) a really great resource for anyone who does Fundations in their classroom.  And maybe even for teachers who don't use Fundations?  I'm hoping to roll it out unit by unit or several units at a time.  Look for the first unit to be up by the end of the weekend.  And secondly, once I can get my act together I'll be sharing the structures and routines that I've been setting up these last 2 weeks.  And maybe, maybe I can even get some pictures of my classroom together.  (As long as you promise not to judge my anchor charts!)

Have a great night, friends!  =)
Rachel