Five for Friday: August 14

With today being a Friday - I only have 2 Fridays left of summer break - EEK!  I'm sure I'm a broken record but what happened to the time. My summer mornings are slowly dwindling away.  This way I had to get decently back into the routine again because I had class all week - but I'll tell you more about that below since I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

This week I was in class for 3 days learning all about Responsive Classroom and how to incorporate it with my plan this year.  I have always built up a classroom culture of respect and kindness but I also know that there are always ways to improve and little things that my kids were doing the past two years were starting to REALLY bug me. Like not keeping their desk organized, how putting the lids on their markers, their lockers being a disaster zone, etc.  So with Guided Discoveries of EVERYTHING in our room I have faith that we can get things done, organized, and hopefully not have to deal with those problems all the time.  At the end of our class I got to dive into the "First Six Weeks of School" book and found it to be really helpful to set up that classroom culture right away. If you don't have this book - even if your NOT doing Responsive Classroom get it anyways.  It's so useful.

I'M GETTING RID OF MY CLIPCHART.  And I have never been more excited about it.  I came into First Grade not wanting to do anything like that with my little nuggets - and because I didn't stick to expectations, I ended up having to find something for management. First year I used a chip system, and then last year I used a clip chart.  For some people it works really well - and they notice a difference in their kids but for me it was the same kids always at the top and the same kids always at the bottom.  And it really wasn't "fair" by any means. I hated having it out in the open for others to see and that the kids were obsessed with it - and not wit how to just be good because it's the right thing to do.  I felt guilty for making my kids please me with actions when I shouldn't have lowered my expectations and let them get away with it.  So this year I'm sticking to strictly Take A Break - and using Logical Consequences and the Buddy Room. There are always going to be those kiddos that might need something MORE but for the most part, I really learned in my class that if you have high expectations for your kids, and don't let your line slide, your kiddos can live up to their expectations. My goal as a teacher its o help my kids be self managers - and self regulators instead of clones to pleasing me.  I'll do more on Take a Break and how I introduced it when the time comes. If you have any tips let me know!

Tonight at our church we are having a worship experience that is unreal.  This is the third one that we've done as a church, and each one is so powerful and touches you in new ways.  My husband and his team have been working on it so hard - the music, lights, special effects, and I'm so excited to see it come together and to worship a God who is so worth worshiping. 

I am working on and hoping to wrap up a new product in the next few days.  At the start of each month I always like to introduce fun month words and activities to go with it.  I don't know about you by my kids really liked word searches my first two years - and I'm thinking they will this year too.  So I'm making word activities that are centered around a "month" - not sight words necessarily but just fun words that will come up in the month. September is all focused back to school so that's what I'm working on now. It's going to have fun word puzzles, word searches, write the room cards, and a few other printable.  Check back on the blog when I release it and when it goes up in my store!

I'm still working on my BUILD math stations for the first unit of Investigations.  If you have any people that you know have already done this that I could look at to get some ideas I'd be so thankful!  That will also be in my store but don't expect that for a while sadly - I'm still mapping out how to make it all work!  

Link up and share your Five for Friday!  I'm so thankful for a summer to rest and get inspired in our jobs.  Not many jobs get to do that, they don't get to start over every fall so today I'm thankful for work time, rest and relaxation, and time to rethink and be better.

Have a great weekend!