My Hope

I can only hope my students see me as this kind of teacher...

The Heart of a Teacher

This video was a great inspiration to me.  I thought I would share it with you.

While teaching, my motto is: ENGAGE, TRANSFORM, and ACHIEVE.  Not only do I want all children to ACHIEVE, I want them to know they are cared for and loved in my classroom.  I want them to feel that my classroom is a safe place for them to learn and grow as individuals.  I love to see a child get excited about something new and see the love they have for learning. 

This was a great reminder of why I love doing what I do!

Woo Hoo!!!

Not only do I have some awesome readers in here, I have some ROCK STAR students that are rocking with ROCKET MATH!  I want to give a big WOO HOO to Jackson for flying into subtraction in Rocket Math.  He completed the whole addition rocket from A-Z!  Just look at that sweet face!  Keep studying those math facts each night!  I want all my students to fly off into subtraction!  I know they can do it!

The AR Brain Beads have been a big success in my class so far!  They are LOVING the beads and they are coming up with all different kinds of patterns and designs to put on their necklaces.  When they reach their goals, they can wear the necklaces around school and hang them back up when they are done!  I am so proud of these kids!  They are really trying hard with AR! 

Don't forget that tomorrow we celebrate Veteran's Day.  We have talked about it and read a story called, "The Wall."  It helps them understand why Veterans are so important.  Tomorrow we will have a play in honor of Veteran's Day.  If you are or have been in the Military, I want to give you a personal THANK YOU for your sacraficies and all you do for our nation.  You are our HEROS!

Around Town and More

We started our next unit in our SRA Reading series, Around Town.  With this unit we learn about our comminuty and everything that goes along with it.  They love coming up and writing on the board and on the interwrite pad, which is hard for them, hence the fact that I NEED the SMART board!!!  But this is a game we play and they come up one at a time and write their idea on the web and then they choose someone who is sitting quiet to come up next.  They are so quiet during this activity... I can't imagine what it will be like if/when we get a SMART board! 

They all came up with excellent brainstorming ideas.  The story we did last week was "Red Light, Green Light, Mama and Me."  It was a story about a girl going to work with her mom at the library.  We read many books about the library, my favorite was "Library Mouse."

One of the many webs we made last week!

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We also got to our Pumpkin Seeds...

They counted them in small groups of 3 and 4 students.  They started counting by ones and found out that they just couldn't keep the numbers straight.  So we stopped counting and I had everyone come up with ways we could count that might be easier.  Guess what they ALL said?  Let's put them in GROUPS OF TEN!!!  Yay class!  Within in about 5 minutes, the 6 groups all had them counted and sorted with a grand number of 644 seeds!!!

I know... I know... I have an amazingly smart and awesome class!

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The kids were having free time on the interwrite pad. 

Chris is using the interwrite pad showing the students a writing lessons.

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Look at these ROCK STARS rockin with AR!  Let's get going with AR!!!!

AR!!!  AR!!!!  AR!!!

Watch out class!  We are doing a wonderful job with AR this nine weeks, but I know we can do better!  I know we are all going to do a rocking job and get their goals.

I have been trying to motivate all the students to get their goals with only 4 weeks left.  I thought that if they see how many points they have, they might try harder to reach their goal.  So with every point they get on AR, they will earn a bead on their necklace.  I can't wait to see how they do with it! 

I think they will LOVE it!

I do want to give a SHOUT out to these students who have made their goal already...

Noel

Nicholas

Taelyr

Tyler

Way to go kids! They even had their names announced on the morning show!!!

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Saving the best for last! 

 This has been such a life saver for our class!  I have found that tattling takes up so much time with all kids. 

They are loving this TATTLE MONSTER and are really writing great "tattles." 

All kids want to be heard and understood, but unless it is 9-1-1, go tell the "Tattle Monster!"  I read them all and talk with the child if they are not making the right choices.  It has been working out well in my classroom!  The first day we did it, they went through the whole stack of paper! It is slowing down now, but when someone comes up to "tattle" I tell them to tell the Monster! 

Try it at home and see how it works for you! 

Happy Pumpkin Day!

We had such a great time yesterday with our pumpkin centers!  The kids really got into it and even "learned" a lot when they didn't even know they were learning!!  We had many fun things set up for them to do.  We even missed recess and no one asked when it was.  How exciting is that? 

"How many pumpkins tall are you?" was a fun center for all.  We had students ranging between 15-22 pumpkins tall.  We have some tall kids in here! 

I think the favorite center was the "sorting of the candy center."  Thank you for sending in the fun treats for my students!  My favorite was the popcorn hands with the candycorn as fingernails and my favorite cookie dressed as a ghost!  What fun ideas!  Thanks to Savannah and her Grandma and Nicholas and his mom for making those!

Another center was a matching and sorting math.  They didn't get a chance to finish it completely, but they had fun trying to beat their partner to see who could match them the fastest!  They are so smart!  This was a great 'freebie' from a great blogger friend!  Thank you for all the great 'freebies.'  I think I could go broke buying all the things that I really want!!!!

The students had a lot fun cleaning the pumpkin out for me!  This was the first year in a long time that I didn't have to put my hands in the pumpkin!  My wonderful, awesome students all did it, without one complaint!  They estimated the weight of the pumpkin and the number of seeds it had.  The pumpkin weighed in at 24.4 pounds.  They were really close with one winner closest with 30 pounds.  The seeds are still waiting to be counting, because they are taking a very long time to dry and not be slimy anymore.  We will count them tomorrow and then I will take them home and bake them.  They all can't wait to taste them.

They are even seperating the 'guts' from the seeds for me!  They VOLUNTEERED to do this... I promise I did not tell them they HAD to do it!  They loved every second of it! 

For those of you that know me, I am always trying to watch my weight, but... I have a sweet tooth and I LOVE my Krispy Kreme donuts!  I had a very special surprise on my desk yesterday morning waiting for me when I came back from bus duty!  Of course, I couldn't say no!  I loved every bite! 

I hope you all had a wonderful night!  Thanks for letting me have all your ROCK STARS!  They are all doing a GREAT job!!!!