Five for Friday

Hi Peeps!

It's been a crazy few weeks, and while lots of learning has been going on, not a lot of picture taking as been going on!

It's nuts at how busy my class is keeping me-I often forget how far we come in a school year.

So, here is an update of what we've been working on - mostly anchor chart style. :)

First and foremast, the most important thing that has happened...

MY SHELVES WERE FIXED!! :D

Look at that beautiful gloriousessness! It's so pretty. It's so organized. I'm in love. :)

We've been spending some time talking about perseverance and how mistakes are okay.We've also been talking about how everyone is smart, but just in different ways. To go along with that, I recreated a chart I found on Pinterest.

We've also been learning about different ways to get along, and how we can start solving some of our own problems.

We've been focusing on sentences and meaning in writing.

Now for the biggie!

We've been spending a lot of time learning alllllll about reader responses and how to do them (as well as practicing them!). {Here are the posts I did last year, which is guiding my instruction this year. Post 1, Post 2}

We've just started learning about character traits, and have already learned about plot and setting.

We've covered a lot! We also been working on math-not to worry about that! We're almost done chapter 1, and will be starting chapter 2 soon.

Here's to the busyness of the beginning of the year starting to slow down soon!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Everyone's Smart

Well, I've successfully survived one week and two days with my kids!

Some of them are going to keep me on my toes, but I think I have a pretty good class (Even the toe keepers!)! :)

Each year, I always work  to build a classroom community/family (you can see how I do it through Responsive Classroom), and this year, I added in something that I learned from my Learn Like a Pirate book study.

Paul calls it Marble Theory, a way to show how everyone is smart, but we did it with base ten rods in my room (because I had enough for everyone, and they were already prepackaged in sets!)

Before we started, I had the kids brainstorm a list of things they could be 'smart' about.

Then, I passed our four cups, and a bag of 20 base ten rods to every student.

They needed to write two things they felt really 'smart' about, and two things they didn't feel as 'smart' about.

I showed them how to divided up their base tens blocks-more blocks go into the ones they are 'smart' about, with less blocks going into the 'not as smart' cups.

Once everyone had picked their things and divided up their rods, we took a gallery walk around the room, to see what they had. (And it was one of the quietest gallery walks ever! :)

Then, I had them come back and write the same thing for their cups (Reading & Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies) and had them reallocate their rods.

We took another gallery walk (another super quiet one!) to see our results.

After we had cleaned up, we talked about how different people have different levels of 'smarts' for everything that we do-but that we all had the same amount of smarts to start with.

We said it together a few times-we're all the same amount of smart-just in different ways. This led into my 'easy' discussion, how we don't use that words, because what one person finds easy, another one may find hard. That's because their 'smarts' are in a different area.

This then led into a discussion about even though it is hard, we need to keep trying and persevere, and change our mindset, and led to use starting this chart (which I pinned from Runde's Room, but came from Fieldcrest Elementary - please pin it from the source if you are going to pin it)
We're not quite done with the chart-we ran out of time-but we'll continue to work on it and it will be posted in our room to refer to.

So far, so good! I think the kids definitely enjoyed it, and hopefully we did an activity that I can refer back to all year long when we forget that we're all the same amount of smart.

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Sanity Savers

Happy Thursday (or pre-FriYay! ;)

I'm back for another edition of Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week.

Today we are talking all about sanity savers.


My biggest sanity saver is this...

There used to be Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in there (TRULY the sanity saver! :D ), but I'm peanut free this year, so I had to have some substitutes :)

It's not quite the same, but it'll do in a pinch.

Another sanity saver is that I take my lunch to the teacher's lounge. Now, I know that a lot of people recommend that you stay OUT of the teacher lounge-and away from any negative talk.

However, our staff is pretty awesome, and there is rarely any negative talk {and if there is-a lot of times, we all on the same page and it becomes a bit of a vent session-which can also be 'healthy'}.

In fact, a lot of time, we aren't talking about school or kids at all. :) We range from TV shows (some of us are reality fans :), to books, magazines, current events, etc. It's great to get some adult conversation and get out of my room for a little!

When I get home, and I've had a difficult day, I will either play a video game (on my computer-like Dynomite, where I get to smash eggs-its very therapeutic!), or I work on something like this

It's the start of a scrapghan-using up extra skeins!

Keeping my hands busy helps me relax, and sometimes I'm to 'het up' to read or relax :)

How do you help save your sanity?

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

'15~'16 Classroom

Welcome to my 2015-2016 Classroom!

Let's take a tour, shall we? :)

We'll start right outside my door.

I change my garlands for the month/season :)

 To the left-the 'command center'-mailboxes, attendance/lunch count.

To the right-storage for me, exit ticket poster (our classroom rules and hopes and dreams will go above it), classroom jobs and our goals for the next two weeks.

Around the backside of the 'command center'-our library! The empty bulletin boards will hold our reading and writing anchor charts.

On our whiteboard, I have our daily schedule, as well as show how you know signs. Think Marks will also go up on here.

Then our small group area.

I have comprehension art from the Brown Bag Teacher, as well as I can standards (from me :)

Where I have teacher storage for small group, and the rest of my book bins underneath out writing charts.

 Next to that, I have another table for students to work at, with our grading posters and the mathematical standards on it.

Then our vocabulary section.

and my desk, which is a bit of a mess right now

My area

And our whole group meeting place

We can juuuust fit everyone in a circle-like shape :)

And the part of my room that isn't quite done-my shelves! (Although it's mostly done and the parts are in, so hopefully it will be fixed soon :)

The broken section

My binder section :)

Mentor Texts and Guided Reading Book section

A small display

And the Science and Math stuff that should be on the shelves :)

Close up of my awesome bins and toolkits :)

That's my room!

It's a little crowded with 22 desks in there, but so far we are having a blast, and I'm excited for the new year! They've been pretty amazing so far :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

     

Currently

I can't believe September is here-Happy New School Year!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn