I love my white shoes...

Today was a really really good day! I had been stressed out lately because of report cards and IEP surveys (which I still need to finish) but I feel motivated and proud of the work my students have been doing this year. I am finally beginning to have faith in myself, I think in part due to the fabulous keychain I won from Tammy at Klingercafe with my OLW on it!

My first graders are now on Twitter as a way to share what we're doing, work on our spelling, and be introduced to digital literacy. Follow us! @1stGradeFriend

I also just got back a standardized assessment and was amazed at how much my students have gone up since they were last tested in the fall.  I know it would have been hard for them not to have gone up, but I am still just so proud of them (and myself!)

During my zillion running records today, I shockingly realized a large number (around 8) of my students are suddenly reading above grade level independently! I really think this is due to the Daily 5, because they get so much practice reading and time reading every day. 40 minutes a day * 5 days a week *114 days so far this year= around 380 HOURS of reading. I feel so validated and proud, especially because all throughout college I always said I NEVER EVER wanted to have to teach children to read because it was such a huge responsibility.

I felt like my students needed more practice with spelling, editing, and number stories, so last week I started using the Daily Edit Problems I bought from Jennifer Bates at Finally in First through TPT. My firsties are already getting quicker finding the mistakes and answering the problem, which I tell them they will need to do for second grade.

Last week in math I started using some Dr. Seuss centers after our EDM lesson, and they LOVED IT. I had about 3242 students beg me for more centers. Little do they know I spent $40 on Leap Day on amazing March centers, so they will be sick of shamrocks pretty soon!

I'm still amazed by how smart they are nowadays, I get chills whenever one of them can tell me what schema is, or I overhear one of them tell another "One thing good readers do is..."

We read one of my new books from the book fair today, Pete the Cat Loves his White Shoes, and we kept singing the song all day long! We even called my mom, Mrs. Smith to retell her the story-- Miss Murray says she was at a doctor's appointment, but my first grade friends are sure she was sleeping.

And finally, as always, thank goodness for Cara Caroll and Abby Mullins, and the rest of the blogging community for being such amazing inspirations. We made Seuss juice last week as our culminating lesson for Senses, and they could not stop talking about it! I cracked up at my Cats in their Hats slurping down the Seuss juice!

I have a feeling that as I sit here and finish my report cards I will be whistling Pete's song because "no matter what you step in, you just have to keep doing your thing and singing your song!"