Five for Friday - September 26

Whew!  Another week down.  This was such a great week.  I felt like routines were FINALLY taking shape and my kids were rocking it all week long.  Could not have been more proud of them and what they accomplished this week.  They were finally digging in so deep to their learning and it was fun, exciting, and rewarding to watch. 103 is the place to be - let me tell you. :)  Here's my Five for Friday for the week!  I haven't done a linky in a while and felt I needed to get back on board - so here goes!

We dove into beginning, middle, and end this week in reading and I integrated it with being a good citizen.  We watched lots of Franklin and Arthur videos to help us describe what a good citizen is - responsible, respectful, fair, caring, and honest.  We read some nonfiction books and then we did lots of describing, BME, and what not with some fiction books.  One day, we did an "impromptu" lesson that popped off the top of my head with major vs. minor events in a story.  I think it was super beneficial for my kids - they were really into it and fixing their papers to have more important events and not ones that didn't matter. Does any other teacher think that impromptu lessons sometimes go the best?

We began our geometry unit this week and my kids are eating it up.  They love messing with the pattern blocks and making shapes.  My big focus this week was really getting my math workshop to how I wanted it.  I took time on my writing workshop and it is running like an well oiled machine.  I did the same thing with Daily 5 and now felt like I could focus on math.  This week my kids helped me accomplish my goal - they were fabulous mathematicians during workshop time.  They were so engaged and on task.  We did lots of filling in shapes with our pattern blocks and then adding up how many blocks we used.  They did so well during math workshop that I got though my whole class math testing that I needed to get done so I can start small groups next week. Go me!

Last weekend I ordered my first set of Jamberry nails.  I am so excited for them to come - I've been putting on nail growth stuff all week so that they are ready to go next week!  I'm still waiting and hoping that they show up tomorrow.   I'm ready to get them on this weekend!  Through all my blog searching and reading over the summer they seem to be a teachers dream for not chipping and such with our busy hands during the week.  I'm up for whatever works because when my nails chip I immediately start peeling it off - hoping that Jamberry changes my nail life!

Our first grade team has decided that our Student Learning Objective for the District this year is for 100% of our students to improve their AVMR score in math on Backward Number Sequence and Numeral ID.  With the new Common Core changes lots of our kids are behind in math and continue to fall behind as the year goes on.  Does anyone else use AVMR at their school?  It's a great intervention tool and it's quick to do for the kids.  I usually squeeze my meeting and groups into our math workshop time. Since we're focusing on backwards number and numeral ID I whipped up this Bingo game last night that I'll be introducing to my kids next week.

I sent it home with my kids today to play with their parents over the weekend.  It's easy and quick and what kid doesn't love Bingo?  We also use this app a lot in our room to help with numeral sequencing and it's adjustable to help my higher students too!  It's free. :)

Nothing makes me happier then arriving home to new clothes in the mail.  I'm a sucker for Abercrombie and Fitch clothes lately.  They are so comfy and look great for casual weekend styles but can be spiced up for the work week too.  Today, I came home to a huge bag that my husband and I ordered over the weekend when they were having their 50% off sale.  I squealed - literally out loud. I love new clothes - especially when they can be purchased from my couch.

There's my Five for Friday!  Tonight, I'm planning a date night with the husband with a weekend of relaxation to follow.  Naps, grading, creating, and cleaning are on the agenda.  Monday is inservice day in our District - so while I am dreading Monday, I'll refuse to think about it all weekend. :)

Until next time!

Squealing & Predictions

If think that the weekend goes faster and faster when your a teacher.  Yesterday I was waking up and breathing in crisp Saturday morning air, and didn't have anything pressing to do.  This morning was about the same - got some things done around the house (laundry, cleaning, meal prep, you know - the wife things). We had a leadership meeting tonight at our church for a few hours and now I am convinced that when you are a teacher your weekends go by faster than anyone else.  I'm feeling the Sunday Night dread as I watch some football on the couch and play with my sweet puppy.

Anyways, enough of my whining - this week in 103 we did so many things and our week went by fabulously!  I love my kids personalities and what they challenge me to do everyday as a teacher.  I love their hearts, hugs, individuality, and creativity.  I could brag about them all day.  Since last week we were really struggling with describing characters, we took another week to work on it.  We watched short movies of our favorite characters to help us better describe characters using inside and outside traits.

I am a sucker for Franklin.  I loved him as a kid and think he teachers some really good lessons to kids in short little clips that they can understand and my kids adore him.  We watched one about Franklin's big soccer game and then we had to describe Franklin with a partner.  I got the worksheet from Peterson's Pad by coincidence when I was searching for graphic organizers.  My kid used this all week and all I had to do was switch out the picture in the middle.  At the end of the week they had to describe Piggy or Elephant (they could choose) and they actually did really well - hooray my teacher heart!  Next week we will work on being a good citizen and describing major events.  I am really trying to integrate my science/social studies and reading time since I do not have a separate scheduled science or social studies in the day.  It's been working good so far and it's nice to really focus and dig into two topics at one time.

We've been doing lots of work with bullying and being a good friend in our classroom - watching videos and reading books to help us understand what bullying is, and what we can do when we need to help our friends.  Our counselor came in this week to give us a little lesson on "Not Squealing Unless it's a Big Deal".  She read the kids a funny and cute little book, and used a puppet to help us talk about when is a good time to get a teacher for a problem, and when it's just a kid problem that they could try and work out together.  Bullying is such a hard concept in first grade - I've really been emphasizing the difference between a "disagreement" with a friend - something that happens every once in a while with the same or different people, and "bullying" which is repeated each day by the same person.  Since it's something our school really emphasizes at the beginning of our school years, I'm happy to help my kids understand it better.

We also added predicting to our CAFE wall this week - and we got really good at making prediction sentences during our Read to Self time in Daily 5 and with a partner during Read to Someone.  We used many books to help us and did little activities with pictures and animals to help us make prediction sentences. Here is the poster we made together to help us with sentences when predicting!

Next week I'll be sharing more about our citizenship and major events in reading!  I'm off to do some creating for the classroom and to look around TPT.  I love buying products from people I know!  My really great friend Kayla started her blogging and TPT journey with me this summer.  We've been friends since we were in 2nd grade and even though she lives in Texas and I here, we are still super close.  I'm so thankful for her!  She posted a new product today that I am excited to head over and buy for my littles.  You should check out her store here, and her blog here! She's fabulous.

Until next time!

Routines & Dreambox

My own personal goal is to have a blog up once a week - I've been slacking!  Since last year I didn't take many pictures of my class, I keep having to remind myself to take pictures of our activities for all you lovely people to see!  We have been moving and cruising along in 103 and are heading into our 5th week of school already.  Holy cow!  I'm loving my kiddies and their personalities.  They are hard working and so caring - however, this week we have been REALLY working on our chattiness and tattling.  We are planning to read the book "Don't Squeal Unless it's a Big Deal!" with the counselor this week to hopefully bring the tattling to a minimum.  Any teachers out there agreeing with me?  Our talking has been great during partner work while we focus, but my kids are turning into such good friends that they just want to talk all day long.  We've had to refocus on being "First Grade Fast" so that we can get everything awesome done in the day.  I think it's a problem for every first grade teacher - or any teacher for that matter so I'm aware it's just going to take time. :)

This week we got really good at "Read to Someone" in our Daily 5 literacy time.  We are up to 15 minutes of work on writing,  and our read to self time is SHOOTING out of control.  If I let them, they would do read to self our whole literacy block. Guided reading groups are up and moving in our room so 20 minutes is spectacular!  We've been working on reading to someone by sharing a book together,and I also introduced reading to someone where you sit by a friend, but read your own book and talk to each other about our reading strategy for the week.  This week, it was all about characters and setting. Setting was pretty easy for them, but describing characters is proving to be more of a challenge - we'll spend another week on it really dig into character traits and describing words. If anyone has specific resources they would recommend send them my way!
Here's a few pictures of my kiddies reading:

They are so cute together.  I just love watching them being engaged in each other's books.

In math, we've been focusing on comparing groups of numbers.  Our math curriculum does a lot of focus on games to teach concepts - my kids LOVE math workshop time and working with others.  Sometimes our days can get a little out of control so we have had to do a lot of stop and go, stop and go, the last few weeks to get our math workshop time the way I want it as a teacher.  The game they were playing required them to compare 2 numbers and decide which 2 were bigger. They busted out their math toolkits and built the numbers with cubes to help. Some of them even began writing number sentences all on their own.  They are so smart! :)

One of the things our district has put into place is "Dreambox Learning".  It's a online math program - kind of like a game that helps address "gaps" in our students math curriculum.  My kids adore it.  They think it's the coolest game and often ask to play it as a reward.  It lets me see their progress and identify needs so I can pull them into small groups for common core skills.  If there is something my kids need to work on, the site has them play games to work on it and then I can continue to pull small groups.  This also allows my gifted kids to get harder math and challenging problems to help them grow.  As a teacher, I love it.  And, it's a plus my students like it too!

One last day of my weekend before another week of learning.  Weekends always go by so fast.  In the summer I never noticed because I was in a permanent state of "weekend". But now I'm like what? It's 1:00 on a Sunday? I need to start getting ready for Monday! Eww.
So, in my last hours of weekend I'm watching some football (Go Broncos!) with some great friends, my adorable goddaughter, and my sweet sister.  Here's to eating and not counting calories! :)

Hope your weekend and week were as good as mine!

Highs & Lows

  Week two is in the books and with it comes a nice and much needed 3 days weekend. Thankful for holidays today - because this week everything seemed to catch up to me.  I've decided to keep up with the linkys and link up with A First For Everything for her highs and lows party.  Here we go!

My kiddos are starting to get into routine again and I couldn't be more excited to get past procedures and all those not so fun items that are needed at the beginning of the year. This week we started our first Jill Eggelton book during shared reading - Ratty Tatty Cat.  

It's one of my favorite because the rhythm in the book is so great for kids to catch onto.  I follow her day by day schedule pretty well for now as we build routine but eventually I'll need to focus more on the standards and how those can be incorporated with her book.  On Monday we read the book and focused on digging deeper into the text with comprehension questions. Tuesday we found WOW words and added them to our wall. Wednesday we looked at punctuation and how to change your voice when you see those marks. They did this cute little activity where they got to pick a punctuation mark to use and then they got to practice writing a sentence and talking with a partner.  At first, my kids struggled so we had to do a lot of modeling but after a few times where I modeled and then we did some guided practice, they got really good at it!  It was cute seeing them come up with a sentence to use and watch them practice reading it with a friend.

Thursday, we looked at a word family - AT and found them in our book and added words to the word wall.  I had the kids do an interactive activity where they were able to brainstorm words and put them in the -AT family "house".  They thought it was so neat and were really into it - even calling the words "brothers and sisters".  Love their little firstie brains.  Friday was the last day - so we read the book all together and then they got to illustrate a picture and pretend they were the illustrator of the book.  Lots of them focused on the part int he book where ratty tatty cat gets stuck in a cage - they can be so creative with their speech bubbles.  We hung their work on our "Art Wall" and picked our favorite lines from the book to add to it as well.  Loved doing something more interactive for them this week. Next week we focus on Setting's in book - I'm excited to see how they will do with that!

My low of the week was getting literally NO time in my classroom to plan this week.  It was ridiculous how many meetings and things we had to be at.  Monday we had professional development on Lucy Calkins writing since our district is committing to her Common Core books this year, Tuesday I had a math training after school, Wednesday we had a staff meeting, and by Thursday I was completely fried.  I know that we need meetings as teachers but how in the world are we suppose to get anything done? Our little chunks of planning time in the day are not usually enough so I end up taking a lot of it home.  Hopefully these next few weeks won't be as bad and I can find a rhythm of how to get everything done.  I know I'm not the only teacher that struggles with this! :) Husband had a fantasy draft on Tuesday night, so I went back to school - snuck the puppy in so she wouldn't have to be alone at home again - and worked until 9:00ish that night.  Wednesday I was there late as well to get everything done so I don't have to go back this weekend.  Life of a teacher!

What are you highs and lows from the week?  Link up!

Until next time.

Classroom Reveal & First Week Fun

There is no tired like a first week of school teacher tired.  Can I get an amen?  On Friday night we hung out with friends - which is usually what we do on Friday's, and we began watching a movie and I knew I wouldn't even make it half way through.  Sure enough, I passed out on the couch until the end of the movie and then slept 11 hours that night.  Incredible how exhausted your body becomes after one week of school.  Oofta.

 I decided I should finally do my classroom reveal and give you a peek into the first week of school in our 103 classroom! We had a great first week together and I adore this group of kids already.  They are so kind and caring and really want to learn.  Although they are all very chatty, we are working on the chattiness and pretty soon it'll be like they were never chatty in the first place!  I have 23 little nuggets this year compared to my 27 last year. Our week was filled with lots of community building games and activities as we got to know each other as a "family".  I'm a huge believer in responsive classroom and building community so I make sure at the beginning of the year to focus on building those relationships and a safe place to learn.  We start every morning with a morning meeting and then we've been closing each day with a closing circle.  I'm hoping to continue closing circle for another week and then getting it in when I can - our schedule is so packed!

 We did activities like active listening activities this week, we made jitter juice, did some fabulous coloring and started building our stamina up with Daily 5 and Writing Workshop.  Here's my brag moment - at the end of the week my kiddos were writing 15 minutes independently already. Can you believe that!?  They LOVE to write. I was able to sneak in 3 writing conferences each day to get ready for my writing groups I want to start in 2 weeks.  Our Read-To-Self time is up to 10 minutes which I'm impressed with as well! Next week we get into work on writing and we'll start talking about generating ideas in writing workshop time.  Go 103 - we are seriously the place to be right now. ;)

In my "professional development" Pinterest time this summer, I found a great activity that had to do with using our words and how they affect others.  The sweeties squirted out a whole tube of toothpaste, and then they were instructed to work together as a team to get it all back into the tube.  They had spoons and could use their fingers to try and get it back.  You would have thought I was crazy the way they looked at me.  It went from 'this is so much fun Mrs.Vanderbush!" to "how in the world is this going to work?"After we had cleaned up, we met back at the carpet and talked about how the toothpaste was how our words worked - once we said them to someone, we couldn't take them back.  My kids mouths literally dropped.  They were shocked.  We read the book "How Full is Your Bucket?" to give them a better idea of how to use non-toothpaste words and we've been referring to them all week.  It was a great activity and one I'll use next year too. I was so proud of how well it worked and how they took too it.
With all our learning going on, we of course needed to give our bodies some brain-break time.  We use GoNoodle in our room and my kids already love it. We chose a character and love to do different brain breaks to get us ready for learning. Here they are practicing some "yoga" before we get ready for math time. They're poses are so funny. We had a really great week - I'm so excited to see what next week brings.

Moving onto our classroom reveal - keep in mind it was after school when I took these pictures so it's a little messy at times.  Forgive me! I was exhausted and had to just sit for a bit before I cleaned up. :)

Here's our focus wall and carpet area. The focus wall holds our "I Can" goals for the week and our vocabulary and word wall words.  It's all ready for next week. :) With our math curriculum we start each day with calendar doing days of the week, graphing weather, and practicing writing the date.

 Here's our classroom library - the lamps are usually lit throughout the day. This has become a place my kids already love. I pick two people for "special spots" during Daily 5 and they get to sit on the pillows in the area. It's been a "cross-my-fingers" type of place for my kids already.

 This is my teacher prep station - it has everything I need for the day. It also holds all my PD books for easy grab when I'm planning.

Here's my teacher area. I love having my small group table right by my teacher stuff so that I have everything within arms reach. The shelf with the coral buckets hold our guided reading materials and then I carry around little teacher "caddies" for conferencing & small group time. It's messy - sorry! :)

 Our whiteboard - I don't really use it that much since we have a SMARTboard in our room, but I do use it to post their jobs and our morning routines for the day.  I also write the date on it for them. Below the whiteboard is our Math vocabulary.

 These are the kiddos lockers and our classroom word wall.  We put up their names this week and a few sight words from Kindergarten.  It's something we use all the time during the day.  The pockets under their locker names hold their lunch card if they have a "cold lunch" for the day.

 This is my "game" zone.  The things on the shelf are for word work during daily 5. The bins on top hold the kids writing folders - as you can see they are already stuffed with writing. Happy teacher over here! And the tall drawer holds math games and activities.  The little caddy on the right side holds my carpet area materials (markers, koosh ball, erasers, etc.) for our large group time.

This is our writing zone - there are different paper choices in the drawers and their writing toolkits filled with markers, pencils, crayons, erasers, etc. are below it. When we get our iPads going in the classroom, they'll be stored in the dish rack and their own headphones are right next to it. The black cart on the left is full on Daily 5 work on writing choices in they want to take a break from their writing folders.

There you have it - our classroom and our first week.  I'm off to finish some laundry, look ahead to next week planning activities, reading teacher blogs and relaxing. Enjoy your weekend! 

Until next time.

Heres To.

Tonight is the last night of summer. Tonight I've been praying over my list of students constantly as I prepare for another school year. It's been a while since I've posted on the blog and I've been running through my head exactly what I wanted to say or write about.  After our trip to Colorado, the weeks went by so fast.  Last week was our teacher week - packed with meetings and more meetings - and I was constantly asking myself how in the world I was suppose to get anything done with all these meetings we had to go too  I ended up going in on my day off Friday just to lesson plan.  Pure craziness I tell you.  As I was planning - and secretly scrolling through Instagram for new ideas - I came across this picture.

This was exactly what I kept reminding myself of as I planned for the week ahead.  How community building is SO important - and lots of teachers only take the first few days to really build that with each other.  Mostly because we are under so much pressure to get started with assessing, and content. Last year, I really took a similar line like this to heart and let me tell you - my kiddos truly were incredible.  Our routines went off (for the most part) flawlessly throughout the year, and they cared for each other so much more than I could have ever dreamed.  We were a school family. They took that to heart - they cared for each other's hearts in ways I couldn't even believe sometime.  I promise I will make that commitment this year.  To have fun with my kids again and enjoy their personalities.  We'll take time to play games and be challenged.  We'll take time to learn more about each other and build an environment built on trust and courage.  We'll accomplish so much more when these first 3 weeks (maybe even more) are spent truly on our routines and community.  Because of this simple reminder on Instagram my first week looks stinking awesome with my nuggets.  Jitter Juice, toothpaste "word" lesson, get to know you games, and play dough.  What a fun time it will be.  Picture galore and tons of smiles.

Although tomorrow mornings alarm will come to soon, my coffee won't be in my cup fast enough, and my butterflies will be enormous, my heart is full of love for the kiddos I haven't yet "fully" met. My heart is full because Jesus has given me such a passion - my heart is full because this is going to be a great year.

Heres to 2014-2015.

Five for Friday!

I'm linking up for the second time with DoodleBugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party!

 I'm super excited about these linky parties and I like going through and seeing what everyone is doing in their lives. So here we go - let the randomness begin!

 My husband Ryan and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary on Monday!  August 04, 2012 was the best day of my life - literally. I got to marry the man of my dreams, and we got married in a dream location.  We got married in Aspen, Colorado up at Maroon Bells - if you ever have a chance to get there, seriously do it.  It's SO beautiful. You'll never want to leave.

We actually left for Colorado today in order to enjoy a weekend in the mountains! We're planning on making this a tradition - and my husband loves it because not only do we go to Colorado for a few days, but it usually falls around the time that Bronco's training camp is as well.  We landed in Colorado early this morning and are spending a few days in Denver with some of our closest friends along with our cutie-pie Goddaughter - seriously, isn't she adorable?!

 When we get back from Colorado, I have three days before I have to be back at work.  I know those three days will be spent doing little things that I forgot or busy work I want to finish before the school year chaos begins.  I'm also planning on testing my kiddies on their DRA level throughout those days so that I can get a head start on evaluating and we can dig into guided reading right away.  Yesterday morning, I spent the morning finishing up a few things and my classroom is almost done and so close I can feel the relief!  Here's a sneak peek before the classroom reveal later on in the week next week! :)

I am in love with my library space this year - and my chevron theme pops out everywhere you look. Love it.

I am waiting for this lovely book to come in the mail!  My super great friend and co-worker ordered the 3rd-5th grade one earlier in the month and when she brought it to one of our work sessions, I fell in love. Morning meeting is something I adore doing with my kiddos and it is so critical at the beginning of the year for community building and relationships.  

 When I started going through hers, it's split up so that there's 20 greetings, 20 activities, and 20 messages that can be used in the meeting AND the best part, is that the author tied it to certain skills that you may be teaching - perfect way to integrate subjects into the morning meeting to get more practice.

This might seem super minimal but I received my FIRST comment on my blog the other day.  Someone commented about liking my writers toolkit bins and that she might possibly start using something like that as well.  I think my husband thought I fell or something because I let out the girliest squeal when I got the email that someone commented on a blog post.  Keep the comments coming my friends - it makes my day! :)

There's my Five for Friday - have a wonderful weekend!  I'm off to enjoy the beautiful mountains of Colorado and soak up some time with my handsome husband. 

Until next time.