My favorite place in the world...

Only 8 more school days until Spring Break... WOOHOOO! You can definitely tell that my kiddos are ready to get out: tons of tattling, talking, and tears over pencils. PENCILS! And they're MY PENCILS that I bought, and we have literally about 1,000 pencils in our room. Too bad, so sad, I am not playing Detective Smith to fingerprint and ID the owner of the pencil in question.

To kick off our weather study in reading this week, I went to the library right after school on Friday. As in  if-I-don't-go-right-now-and-do-not-go-home-first-I-will-definitely-forget-and-have-to-make-up-my-own-weather-books-Monday-morning-at-8:39. I picked up about 20 picture books and nonfiction emergent readers to help us answer our weather questions. After toting my gigantically heavy bag over to the carpet full of books, I set the stage for our reading lesson:

"Boys and girls, this weekend I went to one of my FAVORITE PLACES!"
Immediate 1st grader response: "KARAOKE?"
"Uhm, no, the library."
"Oh."

After a full day of pulling teeth for responses and moving spots on the carpet and making bar graphs of our class pet wish list {can you tell I REALLLLY want to get a class pet?}, I gave up and gave in to the madness. We watched 3 BrainPOP Jr. videos today {thank God I signed up for a free trial last night} and then moseyed on over to our class Twitter.

Around St. Patrick's day, another classroom asked us questions about our leprechaun projects we made. I was thrilled to actually have someone talk to us/respond to us on Twitter, so I made 2 students respond immediately. I was bummed out when they didn't answer for another day or two, but it's totally understandable now because they are a class in IRELAND! I couldn't believe it when they sent us another message on Friday:

I jumped upon the chance to try and expand our worldview, so we downloaded Google Earth and zoomed from our school to their school in Ireland. {With only a few incidents of being "lost" in the Atlantic Ocean when my Smartboard did not respond to me. And yes, of course my firsties screamed and pretended they were swimming/saw sharks.} Then we watched their leprechaun video and some precious ones SWORE they saw the leprechaun running in the pitch black video. I can't wait to continue the conversation, my kids can't wait to pretend they are swimming again.

And finally, the ONLY thing that got me through today with only a mild migraine was the gallon of kisses theat were abandoned at the bottom of my bag from my lovely KDP gift... THANKS AGAIN!

Brave kisses before they were devoured

KDP, Watercolors, and the Week Ahead

The past two weeks have been nonstop!

I was so honored when I was asked to speak at my university for the KDP annual symposium. Last year that was my major project for my presidency and I was so happy to be able to help this year. It was amazing to be able to talk to so many fellow students about my journey this year, and it did make me really proud of how far I have come this year. I also got to talk to Kristen, this year's president, and one of my all time favorite professors over some margaritas and chips--nothing better!  I was able to sit in on a session about using technology in the classroom and got some really cool ideas.

Last week in writing, we made rainbow similes from Cara Carroll's March Madness Mega-Pack. After making them {so cute}, I have a new love for using watercolors in the class. We did have a few issues with some friends mixing colors together in the paint container, but after a very stern talk and moving some clips down, I think they got the idea.

Inspired by the gorgeous weather of the past two weeks, my students chose to read nonfiction weather books this week in reading. {The other choice I gave them was more questioning activities with Mo Willems and David Shannon, so I think the weather really has them wondering!}

I'm planning to use weather as a theme for reading and writing this week. We are watching a BrainPOP video to begin talking about nonfiction books, creating an anchor chart for our schema/new learning about weather, and are using graphic organizers to record the things we are learning while reading.

In writing, we really haven't had a logical progression of units or focus, which I hate. Since I found myself cutting our writing time shorter and shorter because I didn't want to do writing, this week I am determined to get our writing groove back. We are introducing graphic organizers to help us plan for our writing and write to a topic. This also gives me a great chance to tell them more summer camp stories, their favorite, starring AnneMarie and myself sporting pigtails and Grace with har ribbons... Thank goodness they like my cartoon drawings!

Here are some other snapshots of the things we've been doing for St. Patrick's day--the leprechaun was a major hassle but they totally ate it up! {Figuratively and literally-leprechaun pie was one of our many green snacks that day!!}

Stress

Spring fever has hit room 131. I don't think it would be beneficial to tell the 6/7 year olds that it isn't spring yet. They know and I know the groundhog was wrong--it's going 70+ degrees tomorrow! I'm giving up hope.

After a morning rock concert assembly about writing, it was impossible to focus on any of my plans. When I asked a student in math to count up by 1s for me, the tiny number of students not twirling on their chairs a la Britney Spears or passed out on their desks half the class had deer-in-headlights eyes. We moved on to March centers, which they beg me for all day.

I'm beginning to have a seemingly chronic eye-twitch which is going along nicely with the clenched teeth I wake up with. One major stressor is I am beginning to doubt the running records I performed on my students the other day before report cards. After the principal emailed saying she as impressed by their reading growth, my self-consciousness sky rocketed. Tomorrow I am nervous to meet with these groups and verify their reading levels.

I met with the superintendent today to discuss my last observation, which went really well. She had nothing but compliments for me, which was nice. Here's hoping I don't have to change all of my report cards by hand on Friday before they go home!

At our staff meeting today we talked briefly about the fixed vs. growth mindset. My boyfriend had mentioned it to me before, but now I think I need to change the way I praise my students. A fixed mindset would result from telling students they are smart. If they think that smartness is something they are just simply born with or without, they either will not try or will become intimidated when they come to something they are not good at automatically. A growth mindset would be one that praises the effort the child is exhibiting and showcases that the effort is what results in the correct answer or learning. Tomorrow I want to try changing my teacher talk to reflect these philosophies.

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!"