Things I heard in first grade

Child 1 talking about baby sister: "She cries a lot when she wants my mom."

Child 2: "She cries all the time? You should put her in a cage or something."

Wordless Wednesday

Woof woof?

Although I'm a day late, happy Autism Awareness Day! I always loved seeing the main building on my college campus lit up with blue lights in honor of this important day, so I was happy to see the staff and students in my school took it really seriously, too. After a particular meltdown in my class today, I brought my students over to the rug to talk about how wonderful it was that so many of our students are different in our class. After talking about how everyone is different and some students' brains work differently than others, I thought my kiddos were beginning to understand that the tantrums weren't because a student wanted to be bad or get in trouble, but that they were learning how to express their emotions.

And then.

A student raised their hand and asked if it was contagious. After a deep breath and winning smile and a reminder to myself that student was only 6, I began a wonderful speech. No, really, it was moving. If it had been a Hallmark movie of the week, inspirational music would have begun to play while I was speaking. I started to talk about how it was not contagious, how all of us have different colored eyes or some have freckles, or some are really good at math, or reading, or tall or short, and that we are just born unique and special and everyone has wonderful strengths and by working together we can all help each other learn and become better people and a better world. Beautiful, right? Life-changing, right?

Insert 6 year old who asked question. As soon as I began speaking to answer THEIR question, student began barking like a dog. Let me repeat. Regular ed student, in the middle of a serious classroom discussion, started BARKING while I was answering their question. Oh, but don't worry, that wasn't all. Student also began panting and grooming themselves with their "paws."

Woof woof? Two more days until break, woooooooof.

Other canine-free happenings from the past week:

After reading Kristin's post about her Angry Birds carpet behavior management system, I IMMEDIATELY printed, laminated, and cut out these guys for my class. She's right, it is magic. Anytime someone is beginning to impersonate Willow Smith and whip their hair back and forth, or is playing with the bookshelf, or is whispering to their neighbor, I take down a magnet with a flourish. They turn on each other so quickly, it's magic. "GUYS SHE'S GOING TO TAKE DOWN A MAGNET! SIT CRISS CROSS! DON'T TALK TO ME!" Thank you, Kristin!!

So after our first successful knocking down of the pig king, I tricked them into choosing to read outside for the classroom reward. "Oh sure, you could draw for 10 minutes. ORRRR you could read outside for a WHOLE HOUR?!!" It was so calm and peaceful in our school courtyard--and geese dropping free! Here are some shots of them I was able to take:

Teacher time on the bench

 I finally re-purposed my ugly red felt bulletin board from the beginning of the year and made this much easier-on-the-eyes Focus Board. I bought Common Core standards posters from Deanna Jump at the beginning of the year when I actually thought I would have to post my standards being taught. We don't have to do that in our school yet, but I thought it would be a good habit to get into. The sentence strips for other subjects are dry erase strips I bought from Lakeshore at the beginning of the year so I can change them out easily. The whole idea was to limit the number of bulletin boards I had to completely re-vamp. (Since my holiday bulletin board was still up in February.)

And completely not teaching-related:

!!!!!

For the 6th or 7th time! Our seats were behind the stage, but so close! It was amazing, as usual.

He was looking for me, of course.

 Now off to look for a copy of the Easter Bunny's Assistant since I purchased, copied, and planned for Abby's Mini-Unit with this book and CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE! Wish me luck! (And if you have an extra copy, send it my way!)

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!"