Five for Friday!

Hi!  I am so excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a Five for Friday!  I haven't linked up in awhile and I am glad to be here.  I am also glad it is Friday.............that I will have blogged twice in a week (blogged yesterday about being awarded the Liebster Award!)..............and that I am posting a Five for Friday on a Friday!  It was a great week, but super busy.

We started out our week with a field trip to our local university - Pacific University.  It was such a good time.  We walked all over and the kiddos had fun, but they were exhausted.  Did you know this picture shows us walking up a big hill?  At least, according to my kinders.  They didn't know why we had to go up such a big hill!  Ha!  (It is a slight slant.)  

College students took us on a tour of the campus and talked about what it would be like if they went to college at Pacific.  They talked about different majors and showed us different buildings.  We saw the art building, the theatre, the cafeteria, the student union, the chemistry building (it was great because my hubby came out to say hello to us since we were in his building) and we even sat in a college classroom!

My school wants to plant the seeds of college and is trying to encourage our students that this is something they can do - and that college is possible!  This group of kinders will be the first group in our school that will visit a different college all 5 years that they are in our elementary school.  Yeah!

After we got back from the field trip, my amazing student teacher had the students create these beautiful stained glass butterflies for our window.  They are so cheery and brighten up our classroom.  She had the black butterfly outline precut.  She put contact paper down and then had the students stick tissue paper on it.  Next, we covered the other side with contact paper and then the students trimmed around the edges.  Now, we have such a lovely display in our classroom!  It was the perfect activity for after a field trip too.

That night (what a long day! Phew!), my husband and I sat down to grade.  He had just given his organic chemistry final (these college professors get out so much earlier than we do!) and I needed to grade our district math assessment.  We use pieces of Karen Jones' Kindergarten Common Core Math Assessment Pack.  I had been putting off grading and he actually motivated me to get started on it.  I cracked up looking at the difference of our work, but we have the grades covered in our house - from the beginning years, to higher education!

Wednesday I normally do 4 math center rotations because we have a long math block.  This past Wednesday I decided to mix it up though.  I had the children in their math station groups, but instead of rotating, we stayed with our groups and each group made a different zoo animal.  Today after school, my student teacher hung up their animals on my hall bulletin board.  It is so adorable!!!!  Seriously, I can't stand it.  These animal patterns come from Deanna Jump's Zoo Math and Literacy Fun packet.

I posted the lion pic (above) above on my instagram account on Wednesday.  I tagged Deanna Jump.  Well last night I screamed (literally) when I looked in my IG notifications.  I noticed Deanna Jump had not only liked and commented on my picture, but she started following me on IG!  WHAT?????  I am so flattered, honored, speechless, excited.............and just amazed.  Deanna Jump - TpT legend - is following my IG account.  Thanks so much Deanna.  You made my night, day, and whole weekend!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Make sure to check out the linky party and see what other teacher bloggers are up to :)  Have a wonderful weekend.

Currently - May!

Hi!  I love the beginning of the month because it is like a fresh start every 30 days or so.  A new beginning, the changing of decorations, and in this case, one month closer to summer vacation!  It also means that it is time to link up with Oh' Boy Fourth Grade for another edition of Currently.

Listening: I just got out of bed and came upstairs.  I am sitting on the couch with our sliding glass doors open.  It is a gorgeous day in Oregon and the birds are chirping and happy.  It's going to be a great day!  Now, if only I can stop this cold from getting worse I'll be in good shape ;)

Loving: Being Tribes trained.  Are you?  It is a great way to build community and relationships.  All of the teachers in my school were trained this year.  We had two days at the beginning of the school year, one day in the middle of the year, and then yesterday was our final day.  It was exciting to discuss things that we liked about it this year, to get refreshed on some of the strategies, and to look ahead to next year as well.  We were given about 30 minutes to come up with a culminating task for our class this year.  Here is my student teacher and my teammate hard at work in our planning session.  We came up with a great way to end the year! I'm excited to share it with you once we complete it.

Thinking:  How is it May already?  Is anyone else with me?  All of a sudden, it is here!  I just typed my May newsletter yesterday at work (wish I had a Mac at work!) and need to go in to work today or tomorrow to print it and stuff it in their folders.  Good thing I looked at it again for I just noticed a typo - please excuse it!  I typed up all of our end of the year events for the parents to see what will be happening in our classroom.  It is always such an exciting time, but also super busy!

Wanting: I want to get started on end of the year things now.  The end of the year is crunch time - right!?!?  There are so many things to fit in, projects to make, assessments and report cards to complete as well as field trips and end of the year memory books, award ceremonies..........and the list goes on and on.  I got started this week on some end of the year assessments.  My student teacher just finished her official two week solo and she did a great job!  I started pulling kids out into the hall in order to get some testing done while she was teaching.  It is always a crazy time of year when testing season approaches because I have to keep my kiddos occupied, while I pull them for one on one assessments. This was brilliant!  She was teaching, I was testing, and teaching did not have to come to a screeching halt!  I want to keep going while she is in my room and try to get as much done for the very end of the year now, so it won't seem so busy when June comes.  Here is a sweet picture of "Miss D." and me and our school carnival last night.  She is awesome and I hope a district snatches her up soon!  Isn't she the cutest?

Needing: I MUST write my birthday thank you notes this week.  My birthday was April 19th and it was a wonderful birthday.  I always love hearing from friends and family near and far, and just being thought of makes me happy.  It is a great day on Facebook too!!!!  I was blessed with some sweet gifts from family and friends and I need to reach out and thank them.  I do love writing handwritten notes............but I am a procrastinator.  I am actually looking at the pile of cards I have that I need to write in.............and I have been looking at them for days.  Oy!  I need to motivate.  This week.  I declare it here in cyber space - this week I will write them and mail them off!  Settled :)  Teehee.

Summer, yes, hope, dream:  Summer.............sigh...........sweet, sweet, summer!  Oh how I adore thee! May does mean that summer is in sight.  I am so excited for the summer this year as I have many fun plans.  I am excited to make the Teachers Pay Teachers conference this summer.  I get to meet and room with two lovely gals - Alex from The Kindergarten Connection and Becky from The Class Couple.  I know we will have fun, and learn so much this summer.  It is also time for my 25th high school reunion.  What????  Seriously, I have been out of high school for 25 years?  Do you remember how as a child time went by so slowly?  Now, it flies by.  Can't believe it!  It will be great to head back to Louisiana and visit with my childhood friends.  Some of us are all staying together (my friend Aimee is letting 3 of us +hubbies come invade her space) and it will be so great to catch up in person.  After the reunion, my husband and I are going to rent a car and travel to either Gulf Shores or Destin for a little Gulf Coast vacation.  My hubby has never been to this area of the country so it will be a fun, albeit hot and humid, vacation!  I just need to research and book a place.  I'm also hesitant to tell you that we have had our Ikea Ektorp couch for about 10 years now.  Finally, we are going to get a new couch this summer and I can't wait!!!  I am already looking online and look forward to curling up with my hubby, a good book, and/or my laptop and enjoying some of the relaxing days of summer.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Next Two Weeks

Happy Monday everyone!  I am just coming off of a great weekend and I hope you are too!  It was a little hard to return to "reality" actually.   It was my birthday yesterday and so my husband and I had a fun weekend in Seattle attending a Mariners game!  The Mariners are now our local team and we were happy to cheer them on and see them win!

We also stopped in Olympia on our way home and explored The Evergreen State College Campus.

I currently have a student teacher, Kayla, (or "Miss D." as the kiddos know her) in my room and she is doing a fabulous job!  Today starts her two week solo teaching portion of her time in my room.  I am happy to report that I am not worried because she has some fun lessons planned, and she is capable of handling the classroom, and continuing instruction for our kinders.

One exciting theme of her two week lesson is the metamorphosis of the butterfly.  We got caterpillars over a week ago and when we came in this morning, we can see that they are starting to form their chrysalis.  We are all beyond excited!

In addition, Kayla will be working with my students on their end of the year tech sample (how are we working on end of the year goals already???) using the app "Draw and Tell" to have the students draw the lifecycle of the butterfly.  Yeah!  They are learning, using technology, and we get to take care of some end of the year tasks.

Do you know "Draw and Tell"?  It costs $1.99 but it is so worth it.  It guides the students step by step through the app and is a great reminder of what they need to do.  Each student will be drawing their own lifecycle so they will all have their own unique touch.  Last year my school bought the app for all of the iPads in our building so we got a deal on the price.  Many of the K-1 teachers use this app for our tech sample.

This is a big two weeks because Kayla will also be working with the students on their end of the year district writing sample.  The prompt is "Think about your favorite animal.  Name the animal and describe three characteristics that make it interesting."  What????  That is a hard prompt for kindergarten.  But, we will do our best!

We are also going to have some fun math centers taking place, as well as all of the other things that pop up in kindergarten - children losing teeth (two today!), College and Career Day Assembly and presentations, storytime, songs, and more learning fun to prepare for first grade.

What will I be doing while Kayla is teaching you ask?  I have many tasks on my to-do list.

• Individualized easyCBM progress monitoring for all of my students
• Begin the end of the year district math assessment for some of my kiddos
• Work one:one with students on skills they need to practice (I am so excited for this part)
• Look forward to the end of the year and try and get things organized and ready
• Go through my vast book collection
• Time depending - go through my math and science cabinet
• Plus, all the other little things that pop up

Check out this book collection!  It is awesome! I have a rolling easel where I keep all of the current themed books to read.  You can see some of the books have been removed from my book shelf which is why they look like they are falling down.

My mom is a retired first grade teacher and when she retired, she sent me all of her books.  I also inherited some books from retiring teachers in my buildings, I have bought some, and I have also gotten books from book orders.  They are organized and labeled (thankfully - that was another project years ago!), but I find that I do not read all of them.  There are books that I tend to skip year after year.  So, those books will be taken out and either given to Kayla (if she wants them), put in my students' library, or given away to my kiddos - which they will love!

This will be a fun two weeks, but it will go by soooooo fast.  Do you have a student teacher?  What do you do with your time when you have a student teacher in your room?