Thanksgiving...Gobble! Gobble!

One major part of not having my own classroom that I miss is celebrating the holidays! Since I only have my kiddos for 30 minutes I tried to make the most of it! Every week I use the Write-In Reader, the intervention portion of our reading series, for my 3rd and 4th graders. So I decided to do a little writing with the story, since it was a short week.

I decided to make the pre-writing a little Thanksgiving-ish for this. (The writing had nothing to do with Thanksgiving :-/) Once they were finished with the pre-writing they could put it into their hamburger graphic organizer. I use this hamburger writing ALL THE TIME!! I just find that it works perfectly for my students! I got this from superteacherworksheets.com. (I love this site...it's so worth the subscription!)

Since that really wasn't very Thanksgiving-ish I had students write what their favorite food at Thanksgiving and what they are thankful for. The key was that it had to be a COMPLETE sentence!

 (These didn't come out as cute as I hoped they would, but oh well-better luck next time!)


On Thanksgiving I started my day out with a little 5k! It was a turkey trot fundraiser for Hospice! It was a little snowy and REALLY cold, but totally worth it!

Me (on the right) and my practically little sister, Allyce at the turkey trot!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Hopefully you all were stuffed with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and yummy pies!





 Stay Classy 
 <3 The Classy Teacher

SimpleK12

Professional development....we all just love it! Ha! It sure can be a pain in the booty at times, especially when you have to keep track of your hours every year, but I am actually loving it! Yes, I am that dork who loves to learn and find out new information. My school has signed up ad got everyone in the district a subscription is simplek12.com. (Pssst....you can go there for free too! You just might not get credit or be able to do everything!)

Simplek-12 is a website that has articles, webinars, shared materials, and forums for teachers. (I have been all about watching the technology webinars-soooo many ideas now!)  The best part about this website is that they keep track of your professional development hours for you! Yes you don't have to do any of the logging! They also allow you to connect with other educators, which I love! As you do different task you can also recieve points and they have silly fun prizes that you recieve...yes actual prizes. The biggest prize is bunny slippers since it's professional development in your P.J.s! :)

I love this idea on so many levels!

My latest thing I would love to try, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, is flip my classroom. This basically means using more technology for students to DO things and less direct instruction. How am I going to do this? I HAVE NO IDEA! I only have my kiddos for 30 minutes at a time, so I'm going to have to think about this!

Open to suggestions! :)

<3 The Classy Teacher

November Currently!

Wow....I'm late on my Halloween post AND my currently post this month....talk about a slackin' off!

Here is my November Currently from Oh' Boy 4th Grade's linky party...

Listening: I admit it...I'm watching Christmas movies already! I can't help it! I just LOVE Christmas and everything about it. Don't get me wrong...I love Thanksgiving too! I just couldn't resist the temptation of all the Christmas movies! :)

Loving: WOOHOO! Three day weekend! Who doesn't love 'em? In all seriousness a BIG thank you to all the veterans out there. Our country would not be the same without each and every one of you!

Thinking: I'm going shopping tomorrow and just can't stop thinking about the clothes I want to get! I didn't do a "school" shopping this year before school, because I was caught up in my sister's wedding festivities, so I am in need of some new attire!

Wanting: See thinking! Did I mention that I might have a slight shopping addiction? I literally can't help myself once I'm in the store. You get me in a purse store (Coach) then it's all over.  :)

Needing: I need to organize my clothes & closets. They just need some updating organizations.

I also need to organize my evidence binder for school. It has all of last years evidence in it. (In NY we have to prove what we have done and how we have met some of the teacher standards. It's basically just paperwork and book keeping!)

Yummy Pin: If I didn't mention it before I TRY to eat a Paleo friendly diet. (The Caveman Diet) I am not always successful, but I do my best. So, I have decided to share two recipes I have recently made and both were a success! (I am just starting to cook more, so this was a major step for me!)

The first one is an appetizer...I brought these to a Halloween party with some of my teacher friends! :) Everyone gobbled them up!

 These bacon wrapped dates are totally yummy! You can find the recipe here! I did not put the almond in them, because I thought it would be a surprise for people when they bit into it. I did put cream cheese even though it is not Paleo friendly. You can do it without it too! 

I dressed up at a unicorn for the party! :) This costume really just manifested itself. I am going to do this for school next year!

 Here we are at our little teacher get together! The host (who is taking the picture) had us go on scavenger hunt all around our town...talk about FUN! We laughed our butts off!

My next recipe is a fall recipe! Paleo Pumpkin Muffins! I was really craving something pumpkins, so I found this recipe...they were super delicious and perfect for a quick breakfast in the morning! They are also very moist! :) You can find the recipe here!

It snowed quite a bit here last weekend and even throughout the week. Here is a taste of winter for you! :)

Stay warm...Stay Classy!

Halloween!!!

It's been awhile since I've blogged. I wanted to show everyone some pictures of my kiddos using SmartMoves. They aren't the best pictures, due to lighting, but the students really enjoy it and it helps them focus! It's a really helpful too! :)

 It's hard to see but here the students are following line of color!

In this picture you can see that students are following the movement of another student on the board. :)

The program plays soothing music during this activity, so it's also very relaxing!



Now on to some newer topic:
HALOWEEN!  I'm a little late, but I just want to share the FUN traditions we do at our school!

All the elementary students (in costume) gather in the gym and line up to prepare for a parade. We then march down to the middle school and high school and walk all through the halls. The middle school and high school teachers hand out candy and other snacks. The older students love this time too! They get to see all the little ones dressed up and have the same kind of excitement as they did when they were younger. The faculty & staff also hands out healthier snacks, such as apples and oranges. Once we have completed the route all the students march back up to the elementary school and go back to their classes. All the classes have a party, but at different times during the day. The students get to work on halloween math and ELA throughout the day. Each class also decorates a pumpkin based on a book they have read in the class. The pumpkins are displayed out in the hallway for everyone to see! It's just a fun day for all!

The treat I gave my students! SUPER easy! Just put mini marshmallows in a baggy and write "Ghost Poo!" I also gave them each a Halloween pencil.

One of my co-workers (and friend) and I decided to dress up as crayons! (I'm the one in the pink!) The students LOVED it! They were cracking jokes all day. They would ask me for a pink crayon or to help them color something!

Many times as educators we get caught up in things like testings, paper work, and all the other demands that are held on us,(not that those things aren't important) but I think it's days like Halloween that make us realize our students are KIDS. They need to have fun and get to be kids! Seeing the smiles on kids faces is one of the best parts of teaching!

What does your school do for Halloween?

SmartMoves

Well I haven't blogged in awhile. Why you ask? The answer is simple...TESTING. Yes, we just gave regional tests, but now we are giving benchmark tests for our reading series. It seems to be all I do. It's a very frustrating part of the job, simply because I feel like now we do less teaching and more testing. Does that even make sense? 

Okay...enough with my rant! :) 

During testing I use SmartMoves to give students quick breaks that still maintain focus. If you're not familiar with the program it is on the SmartBoard and there are motions that students follow while calming music plays. There are colored lights that the students need to follow with their hands and then the lights become people doing the movement as well. There are multiple levels to it. The higher levels are pretty tricky! (Trust me-I tried them!) The simple level is more manageable and easier to follow. Some of the movements are making circles with your arms/hands, making a figure-8 pattern, and moving one hand one way and the other the opposite way.) SmartMoves helps create the link between the right brain and the left brain, so they work together.  The movements also hep strengthen muscles (the shoulder muscles) to improve motor skills, such as writing. It is a really helpful tool. 

I also like to use it for transition times, getting the "wiggles" out, movement breaks, and a practice in focusing. It's something worth looking into in  our world of testing. And YES-the students LOVE it.

I will post pictures of the students doing it soon! :)

-The Classy Teacher

October Currently

I know, I know I JUST posted on Sunday, but I'm really getting into this whole blog thing! It has really inspired me to document what I'm doing and slow down to think things over.  I go from 3rd, to 4th, and then all the way up to 8th during the day. I taught 3rd last year and I had some of my 4th graders that I work with in my class last year. It's pretty neat to see them this year too!I will probably usually focus on what I'm ding with 3rd and 4th, but you never know when I will just HAVE to share something about 8th grade.

Without further ado...here is this month's Currently from Oh' Boy 4th Grade:

Listening: Well I flip channels a lot, because I usually don't get hooked on shows.  Usually what I put on the TV is just nonsense. (I'm an E! junky!) The only show that I have really been enjoying is The Voice...Okay, maybe I just love Adam Levine! ;)

Loving: I love my new job! I get to do all sort of fun and creative things with my minions. This week we are focusing on long o using oa and ow. We made roads, wrote on windows, highlighted, and did word sorts. 

We built a rOAd and then flipped it over to practiced word reading with oa, highlighted the long o sounds, and sorted the long o sounds into 3 columns. 

These crayons are awesome! We wrote ow words on the windOW to practice spelling and saying words with ow in them! :) 
 

Thinking: about how this weekends will be the last weekend I get to watch my little cousins for awhile. Their mother, my cousin, is a wedding photographer, so I watch them on the weekends while she works. Check her blog out here! (Psst....She just photographed my sister's wedding on August 31! :)) 

 Here they are with my other "little cousin" on the first day of school. The twins are in pre-k and the older one is in kindergarten! They live next door to me so I had to see them get on the big yellow bus! 

 Last weekend they made an ultimate tower out of blocks. They even had a garage at the bottom that a toy car could go through!


I'm also considering running a 5k this weekend...I mean why not, right?

Wanting: our regional math assessments to be graded. We get paid extra for staying after to grade them, but I'm just not a fan of these assessments and want them to be over. Who am I kidding? We will still have to do them in the middle and end of the year. Womp womp womp...

Needing to order supplies for my classroom! I don't even have a pencil sharpener! I didn't order yet, because I wasn't sure what I would be teaching! I'll do this ASAP though! 

Treat!! I just put a common and proper noun word sort on TPT. Check it out! :) 

JUST BECAUSE:

A few photos from the photobooth at my sister's wedding! Can you tell we had lots of FUN! :D 

 


<3 The Classy Teacher

Flash Mob!

This week was like any other week at school until Friday! In the morning the entire elementary had an anti-bullying program kick-off. We use the OLWEOUS program in our school. First students met in the gym for a school wide morning meeting. Each grade level had tie-dyed a white shirt their grade level color, so it looked like a rainbow in the gym.  There we saw an anti-bullying video our staff made last year, learned about our new giving tree project, and listened to Sara Bareilles' song Brave. Brave is out new theme song this year. (The students LOVED it!) Our hand print tree is branched off from Rachel's Challenge, which we did last year, but this year bystanders who stand up for bullying will get a hand print to add to the tree. Then all the students went back to their rooms and had mini lessons about bullying. The classes rotated between the three grade level teachers where each teacher taught a different lesson. Students really enjoyed going into other classrooms and started to truly understand what bullying is and what they can do to stop it. The students were SUPER excited to hear that at lunch we were having "Mix it Up", where students get to sit with different grade levels and classes to get to know each other better.

Later in the day, when  I was teaching in the middle school, the students all made a an anti-bullying video. Later they had a school wide picture taken! I was sad I couldn't be there! :( BUT, I got to do something super cool! I learned a dance to Katy Perry's song ROAR. We streamed to another school who was also doing it with us. The other school is our "rival" school, so we were coming together to make peace and take a stand against bullying. On Saturday during halftime at the football game we all performed a flash mob! It was mostly middle school and high school students, but some younger students who take dance lessons at the local dance studio were also apart of it. The news came and everything. You can check the dance out here!

Our school was featured on WBNG News!  :) 

I am so excited to be apart of such a wonderful cause! I can also now say I've done two flash mobs, which is pretty neat! :)

My friend Karen and I on Friday. The teachers were asked to wear their anti-bullying t-shirts that day. They say: " Delaware Academy Stands For... Dignity for All" :) 

Something New!

I have been toying with the idea of writing a blog for about a year or so now! I finally decided to take the plunge for several reasons: 1. I made it through my first year of teaching! 2. I'm finally done with my Masters!!! (YAY!) and 3. My cousin really encouraged me to join TeachersPayTeachers, so I figured I could do this! (You can check her blog out at If You Give a Teacher a Treat :))

Just a little background info about me to get started: 


I worked as a universal pre-k teacher for about six months right out of college. It was really just luck! I swear! :) After going on about a dozen interviews and coming in second almost every time due to lack of experience (how do you get it if no one will give it to you?!?!) I watched my little twin cousins for about six months. My cousins were about 2 at the time and I really enjoyed doing things like going to the library with them, and all the other fun things we would do. During this time I decided to go back to school to get my Master's in special education. I went online to Grand Canyon University. I then decided to sub at a local school, Delaware Academy and Central Schools. This eventually helped me land a job as a one year sub in third grade, then I received my Master's last February, while I was teaching 3rd grade. This helped me land my current special education position. I currently do 3rd, 4th, and 8th grade ELA direct consultant and resource room. 


I am hoping to post more about ideas and experiences that I have! Stay tuned!