Happy Holiday Season to all of my blogging friends and readers! I have spent the last month and a half trying to tackle my classroom responsibilities as well as new coaching responsibilities that kind of just fell into my lap unexpectedly. But, many times it is the unexpected things that can bring us much joy! During the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I am constantly reminded as to how blessed I really am even when the crazy and stress seems to be ever present! The holidays always make me smile, and yesterday was no exception. I always love seeing the little brother(who is growing out a ridiculous beard LOL). We only had a two day school week because of the holiday season. We had just finished up our geometry unit, but I wasn't quite ready to begin a new skill. So, I found the cute symmetrical turkeys idea on Pinterest (inspired by The First Grade Parade), and decided to give it a shot. I am so thrilled with how well they turned out, and I was even ...
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"High Five" for Friday
Busy, busy, BUSY!!!!! I have been dying to jump in on the Five for Friday linky hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching for For.Ev.Er. but could just not seem to find the time to do it. Finally...I chose to post instead of sleep found some spare time to share with you five snapshots from my week. We have been working on commas in a series. My kiddos are obsessed with this grammar skill now. No idea why... but if it makes them write then I am all for it! This week, Christmas came early in my room!!! My small group table and a mailbox/messenger center were delivered. AND, they started working on the electric for my SmartBoard. YAY!!!!I was just a tad excited. My little friend "Boo" is a recent Dollar Tree find. He has been making appearances and telling fall and Halloween related jokes to the kids. We are working on our graphing unit. Since I am technology-less at the moment, I decided to do coordinate graphs on the floor. The kids have had a ...
Rocking Our Data
It seems like one of the big buzz words in education right now is DATA. The four letter word has had a lot of impact in the educational community recently. In my classroom, I use data in many ways. It tracks student growth and progress, drives my instruction, helps me individualize learning experiences, and simplifies my student grouping. There is so much data out that there it can become TOO much. But, my school is using data in a positive way to help us realize our classroom strengths and weaknesses as well as help us set student learning goals. Our district participates in Discovery Education's Think Link testing. These tests are are used to help us track what standards our students have or have not mastered. We assess our students, using this assessment tool, three times a year. There are four levels- level one meaning little to no mastery on a skill, level two shows some mastery, level three shows on grade level comprehension, and level four represents ...
