National Board

Since I was in the 4th grade I have always wanted to be a teacher. That dream came true 7 years ago. Since then I have always been searching for ways to become better at my career. In May, I will have graduated with my Master's with a concentration in Reading. Since I can see light at the end of that tunnel, I decided why not add something else to my plate, thus the idea of becoming nationally board certified was born.

So, last month I registered to start that process. Last week I received that special package and was all smiles.  My coordinating teacher took this picture, so that whenever I am stressed I can look back at the time when I was so excited to keep me motivated.

A week into the process, I have a big thick binder of all the paper work I need to read, and a wondering mind as to where to even start. I would love to link up with anyone who is going through this processor has been through it.

Until then, keep checking back for my progress, tears, excitement, and thoughts on the process!

Time to catch up!

Hello my blogging family,

It has been a while since I have had time to check in with you guys. I hope everyone is doing well. There has been so much going on with my life it would take me months to catch everyone up. So instead, I am going to share just a few blurbs of what has happened so far.

                           

 I have a unique student in my room. His name is Jordan. He goes home with other students on the weekend. They love writing about what they do with Jordan.

We have started a book club at my K-2 school. We

meet everyday before school for 30 minutes. We sing, 

read books, do activities, and write our own

Principal reading to students.

stories.

To celebrate how excited we are about reading, the whole school dressed up as their favorite book character.                             

                                                                      

                            

Muah, dressed as Olivia the pig.

 



                                                     

                                                                       Jordan even got into character.







 Student teacher dressed as the mouse

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

 

                                                                          

We had a door decorating contest about being drug free. My student teacher did this door and did a great job. I love how she tied the election in with it.

trying it out

TWO AWESOME WEBSITES

                                                           
     
Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.
Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. It also keeps the source of where you located the idea. To get started you have to be invited. Just leave your e-mail in the comment section below.



 tools for decoding                          birthday treats                            scratch off rewards

                                                
 Teacher tipster has something for all teachers, new and old. This guy is hilarious and opens all his videos with some kind of joke. He has videos for everything from going in the hallway to what to do for the summer. He even has a cd out with all his original songs.

I'm Back

Hey blogging family,

It's been a century since I have written something on here, or at least it feels like it. The school year is less than 1 month away. During the summer, the month of July, I have been reading my life away.
The first book was The Book Whisperer.

                                      

It has inspired me to become a lifelong reader myself. Yes, I said it. I never really read for enjoyment. I only read because I was made to and I got by with it too. But thanks to Donalyn she has inspired to find material that enjoy reading about. So needless to say Barnes & Noble is my new favorite store. I have spent countless hours on the website and have taken many trips to the actual store. I have purchased 4 new books.

I read the cafe in 1 day and starting the The Daily 5 tomorrow. I'm so excited about implementing this program into my daily schedule this year. If anyone has read these two books in uses them in a K-2 setting, please share your strategies.

Henry and Mudge

Estimation...Cookie Station Another fun EATING activity.

Estimation is one of the hardest skills that I have to teach. My students firmly believe estimation means to count. That is not it at all. I want them to use the information they know to predict a great answer. NOT just GUESS!

We do this cookie activity to introduce estimation. Each student gets a cookie. I began by rambling off that there are 1 billion chocolate chips in 1 cookie, 300, 295. Of course the students are like no way. They have a pretty great understanding of spatial sense. I then introduce the term estimation and we discuss. The way we use prior knowledge with this activity is by counting the chocolate chips on top of the cookie, therefore we know that it has to be more then that number. I have the student write their number on one side of the paper towel with crayons. Another lesson inside of that is because they feel as when their answer is wrong they can erase it and change it AFTER we count.

They then began to break the cookie up sorting the cookie from the chocolate chips. They group them to make the chocolate chips easier to count. Some students get really picky and refuse to have any sight of a piece of the cookie in their chocolate chip pile.

They will then count the chocolate chips again and write the correct answer on the opposite side of the paper towel. They get to see how close they were or how far away. Believe it or not a few students hit it right on the nose. So awesome! Of course they get to eat the crumbs that are left. They truly get a better understanding of estimation. Who wouldn't with food involved?



Twinkie Place Value

Who doesn't like to eat in class. We are on our discovering numbers unit. The students answered word problems showing tens and ones on the Twinkies. All you need to do the activity is pretzel sticks (place value), gummies with large wholes (tens and ones), and a cake (holder). We only do tens and ones. SO we have 2 pretzel sticks with two different color gummies.

They got to use the MIMIO to read the problem and help them solve the problem. The picture looks exactly like their actually Twinkies and sticks.

They did a great job working together to illustrate the problem. They each had a job. One person had to get the tens, the other the ones, and the other had to form the number. Everyone was on task! OF course being able to eat it afterwards if they did their best had nothing to do with it....LOL!