September Currently

September?? Really?? This year is flying by.  It is time once again to link up with Farley at Oh Boy 4^th Grade for this months Currently.

Listening…to the Nascar Sprint cup race on DVR.  We had Sunday night family dinner with grandma Sweetie so we are just now watching the race.  If you have followed me for even a short time you know that if we aren’t at the track racing it is on the TV at our house…life with 3 4 boys, can’t forget the hubby.

Loving…my new class of Kinders.  I have 19 sweeties so far and they are a great bunch.  Not that they are all perfect…far from it…but they are kind and a good friend to each other, really want to learn and we are having a ton of fun!

Thinking…I am so glad I get an extra day for the holiday weekend.  I have a ton of projects on my to do list and never seem to find enough time during the regular week to get them all done.  So I am hoping to be super productive tomorrow. The first thing on my list is learning how to use my new Silhouette Portrait that arrived last week. SO excited!!

Wanting…to slow down time.  My youngest started High School 2 weeks ago, our middle son is a Jr. in High School and we drop our oldest off to UC Irvine on September 27^th.  I am already freaking out a bit.  I just want to stop time.  My little babies, who are all much taller than me, are all growing up so fast.  It seems like just yesterday they were little boys. I am super proud of the young men they have become but sad that in just 4 years we may have an empty nest…what!! That can not be happening already.  I have to stop thinking about it, and cherish each moment I still have with them at home.

Needing…to use my treadmill.  I know this is like a broken record.  If you look back at my older Currently’s I am pretty sure this has been said before.  I swear every time I say it, I do have the best of intentions of making it happen and then something just goes wrong.  Well, winter is coming and I am embarrassed to say not one of my pair of jeans fits…I don’t mean they are a little too tight so they are uncomfortable…I mean I literally can not get them over my junk in the trunk!  I can’t wear my summer maxi dresses and skirts all winter, I will freeze.  So TOMORROW I AM starting back on the treadmill.  I am saying this for ME not for all of you…lol.

3 Trips…I have always wanted to travel abroad and my three top picks are Paris, London and Venice. I have only seen pictures of them online and in books, but I will make it there one day. I told my husband that is going to be our big trip once we retire.

Be sure you link up with Farley and let me know what you’ve been up to.  I love to read your comments.

~Laura

Five for Fraturday!

I guess the first 3 weeks of school finally caught up with me.  I came home after helping my husband deliver some vehicles to customers for his autobody repair shop and was in bed by 9pm and didn’t wake up until 7am.  Then this morning I had an exciting outing, you can read more about that below, so I am just sitting down to write about some of the things we did this week.

 I’m linking up a ‘lil late with Kacey from Doodle bugs for Five for Friday Fraturday. 

Here is our focus wall for this week.

 My pictures on our circle maps for this week were a little embarrassing with my lack of artistic ability.  I almost didn’t post them, but I felt it was important for everyone to know we aren’t all perfect and the kids love them no matter what. So just try not to laugh too hard.

 We are working hard on learning all our letters and sounds.  One thing I love using to do that are these ancient, and I mean ancient…I am not even sure how long they have been around, “trinket” cups.  I have one for each letter of the alphabet and they all contain at least 6 items that begin with that letter. 

 Yes, the “Dd” cup is held together with masking tape…lol. I told you they were old.  However, they are fantastic for helping my ESL students work on vocabulary and reinforce beginning sounds.  I review one a day and keep rotating them until everyone knows their letters and sounds.  I use them during my guided reading time and it only takes literally 2-3 minutes and that way those groups that need more practice keep using them each week and my high groups see them once and move on to other activities.  The kiddos love them and I do too. I didn't even know if they still made them...but they do.  I found some nice pretty new ones from Lakeshore that you can get if you like them too!

We are continuing to work on our names.  We just finished up our 3^rd week and I think all but 2 of my TK kiddos can now recognize their names.

 We use this check in system every morning.  I change the letter they are looking for in their name.  The cards all start in the middle pocket chart and as the students come in they move their card to yes or no.  It also acts as a super quick way to take roll.  Once we finish the alphabet we will look for number of letters in our names, then number of syllables, etc. The possibilities are endless.  Kim Adsit from Kindergals spoke about this at I teach K this summer.  She said just take pics and copy hers…but why reinvent the wheel I figure.  So I got her pack and pressed print.  You can check it out here.

We are also working hard on writing our names.  My friend Irene Leeby from Learning with Mrs. Leeby has a fantastic editable name pack.

My kiddos loved their name worksheets and I could differentiate them with just first names or first and last and there are several different versions to choose from.  

You make it, save it, print it, and you can use it again and again. She even has a great tutorial video on customizing your worksheets.  You rock Irene!

Do you use videos with your kiddos?  I thought I would share some of our favorites that we used this week. Harry Kindergarten is a definite winner. His videos are fun, get the kids moving and teach too! My kiddos also think it is really cool that I actually met Mr. Harry this summer at the I Teach K conference. 

You can get these and all of his great videos at his website Harry Kindergarten Music!

We learned all about circles this week.  We used our Whole Brain Teaching Power Pix.

My students know not just what a circle is, but they will tell you that “A circle is a round shape” using their gestures too.  I just love WBT it is fun and learning at the same time.  It activates the kinesthetic, auditory and visual cortex of the brain simultaneously as well as the limbic system so that your students learn while having fun. You can learn more about WBT here.

We also made our “circle man” craftivity from Vickie Plant. These just came out adorable.

Now to my exciting excursion from this morning…I got to go to a SPA…courtesy of one of my students.  I received a gift card for a massage and a facial from one of the sweeties who was in my class last year. 

Let me tell you this place was fantastic.  Like those fancy places you see on TV.  I am a true country girl and don’t get to the “big” city too often. 

They give you a fancy robe and offer you champagne and mimosas, herbal teas, snacks a soothing lounge with sounds of crashing waves playing.  All I can say is WOW.  I have had a massage before, but not ever in a place like this.  The facial was a first for me and it was heavenly.  It was a well deserved treat for this long weekend.  The best part, I get to have another child from this fabulous family next year.  So, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for another spa day.

Did you have a great week??  Do you have some great plans for the long weekend?? I’d love to hear all about it!  Be sure to check out the link up and see what everyone else was up to this week.

~Laura 

Five for Friday...Fun, Fun, Fun!

I made it through week 2!  I know it will get easier and I won’t be dead tired every day after a few weeks, but boy do I forget what the beginning of the year is like.  I forget how much time must be spent on procedures and rules.  I forget how YOUNG they are…lol.  I actually have several that aren’t even 5 yet!  Despite all of this it was a fantastic week! 

I am linking up with Kacey atDoodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday!  Be sure to check out all of the great posts, after you read mine of course.

On Monday we start by going over “Our focus wall” for the week.  We are continuing our way through the alphabet and adding sight words.  We learned the number 2, the color blue, and finished up learning all about triangles.

These were our Cc and Dd circle maps.  The kiddos love making these.  I think they just try to come up with things they think will be hard for me to draw so they can all have a good laugh…even though that is supposed to be against the rules.

We also discussed the “rules” of coloring this week.  

This anchor chart is a few years old, I do agree it is starting to get a bit tattered, the original idea was from Pinterest.  Sorry, I don’t know the original pin, I have seen similar ones numerous times.  When I made this a few years ago it was way before I had given any thought to blogging and never thought I would need to know where I got the idea.  Now, any time we need to color in class I just gently remind them to be sure they are using 3 star coloring. I leave the chart up for a few weeks until I am sure they are always doing their best.  It works wonders!

This week was a whirl wind and I didn’t get many pics snapped.  Also, it could be that I forgot my camera bag like 3 days in a row.  We were learning all about ourselves, our friends and our families.  So for Friday fun day we made Friendship salad.  

This was an idea from Kim Adsit at Kindergals.  Each child brought a fruit to share.  We cut them up and put them all in a bowl.  I brought in a pretty mushy brown banana and asked the kids if we should add it to our salad.  Of course they all shouted, NO!  I asked them why and they said because it was rotten.  So it lead to a great discussion about what would happen if we have one “rotten” banana in class.  That it ruins the fun for everyone.  They all decided they did not want to be that rotten banana.  It was a great community building activity.

With our “cooking” and learning about the letter C this week.  We then made these super easy Chef paper bag puppets from Creation Castle.  They were super excited and they came out pretty cute!

I received my second Stitch Fix this week as well.  The way it works is you fill out a profile and a personal stylist picks out items for you.  You receive them and have 3 days to decide if you want to keep them.  There is a fee of $20, but if you keep anything it goes toward your purchase, and if you keep it all you get an additional 25% off!

Sorry I don’t have any pictures of the clothes on me.  My teenage boys weren’t too keen on taking my pic.  They were involved in a quest on the computer…lol.  One major difference between having boys and girls..lol.  They really don’t care about clothes.

I love that it comes with a card from your stylist with tips of what to pair with the items that they send to you.  It totally takes the guess work out of it.

                      

This black shirt was cute, but the back was entirely lace.  I know you are supposed to wear a shirt underneath, at least I would think so…but it just wasn’t quite my style.

This tank again had the lace thing going on…what are they trying to tell me.  I just didn’t care for the blue and black together.

This silk tank was just hanging on me.  Like a box.  My waist is the one thing I like to accentuate, not cover up.  I am so short it just made me look like a little barrel.

Truth be told I almost didn’t even try this dress on.  I liked the color and the fabric was super soft.  However I have this condition called, “cankles”, where there is no difference between my calves and ankles…lol.  Yes it is a real medical condition… I am sure of it.  Anywho, I don’t wear dresses that show off this lovely condition.  I live in pants or Maxi’s.  I did try it on and it was a total disaster.  I could have fit two of me in the top part, yes I also have no boobs!!  Sorry TMI I am sure.  Thank goodness for Victoria Secret or it would be embarrassing.

 My last item was this beautiful pair of earrings.  They were very pretty and silver is my color.  But, once again they wouldn’t work for me.  When I was in grammar school I had on dangly earrings while on the swings and they caught on my coat and about ripped out of my ears.  As a result I can only wear post earrings now.  Otherwise they would have been keepers.  So I batted "0" with this fix, but I hope the next one will be better.  If you want to give it a try, just click here.  Even though I didn’t keep anything it still was lots of fun and I am hopeful that the 3^rd time is the charm next month.

Today I got fantastic news.  My Donors Choose project for a huge classroom rug was fully funded.  Have you tried Donors Choose?

It was super easy, the website walks you through every detail.   You choose what you need for your room, answer some questions, write a short essay explaining how it will benefit your class and why you want the item(s).  That’s it!  They give you a maximum of 4 months to get fully funded.  My project started June 25^th and it was fully funded today.  So it only took me 59 days to raise $522. 

Isn't it just beautiful! I am over the moon excited and I know my kiddos will be too once our new rug arrives.  I have heard of teachers getting iPads, Elmo’s, art supplies, books, you name it.  You should give it a try.

I am off to date night with the hubby. Fun, Fun!!  Hope you all had a great week.  I love to read your comments, so leave me some love.  Be sure you are not a no reply blogger I like to respond via email. 

~Laura