Shopping Finds

I finally have made it out to do some shopping for school.  While spending time in Portland at my dad's, we went out shopping.  There are so many more places to shop at in Portland than in Salem.  Dad had his birthday on Sunday and received some shorts from his brother that were too big.  We went out to exchange them.  I mentioned to him that I need to go to Kohl's while there.  On the way home, he said we could stop.  It's so different shopping with Dad compared to Mom.  I didn't want to ask him to stop, but I'm glad he suggested it.  I wanted to check out the Skippy Jon Jones books that I've seen other teachers talk about.

We went to Kohl's and found them right by the door.  It was the only stuffed animal there.  I bought 3 books.  I've never read these, but when I taught 3rd grade the kids used to tell me all about the book.  When I got home, I read the first book.  It was quite good and funny.  I think the kids will really like these in our classroom library.  I really like the stuffed animal!

Later on Tuesday evening, I drove to Target.  I was still trying to find Dr. Seuss pencils.  I could only find one package at the Salem store.  I couldn't find the pretty colored ones that I found, but they had plenty of The Lorax pencils, so I bought those.  I want to make sure I have them for Dr. Seuss Day.

I also found the plastic colored bins that I used on the table last year.  I decided to replace them.  The kids often dropped them and they would crack.  I debated about buying them at Really Good Stuff, but I didn't want to pay more.  While I was there, I began talking to a teacher who was looking at the same thing.  We talked and found out we were both first grade teachers.  As we were talking, we discovered that we both teach in Salem.  How is it that we were both over an hour away from home, shopping at Target, and we come from the same school district.  This teacher is a bilingual teacher, but she offered to give me some help.  She gave me her name and told me to e-mail her when I get to school.  She said that she and her partner, who now has been transferred, would be glad to help me on the planning.  She also suggested that I read The First Grade Parade.  I told her that I already do.  I hope she can give me some help.  

While I was in the car, I felt cold.  Before I left, I felt that I was getting a sore throat.  Well, late that night I checked my temperature and I had a fever.  I have been sick all week.  I've had a fever every day.  So far, today I don't have one.  I hope it stays that way.  The sore throat has been bad, I've even done some vomiting.  It seems when I get up to go to bed or get up in the morning to go to the living room, if the fever is high enough it causes me to be dizzy then vomit.  It has scared my cats that they are keeping their distance.  I called the doctor on Thursday and went in for a throat culture to see if I have strep or a virus.  I was so surprised to find out that I have strep!  Who gets sick in the summer?  I haven't even been around anyone lately except the whole family on last Sunday and no one was sick.  This has been a bummer but I'm so glad that I am at Dad's.  I've kept him busy making me soup, getting me juice, running to the store, and washing my clothes.  Hopefully, I'll be better in a few days.  I'll probably stay here until I'm sure I'm feeling fine.  I had planned to get together with friends while here.  I do have plans with one on Tuesday.  Hopefully, I will feel well enough by then. Saturday was my first day without the fever.  Today I'm starting to see a slight change in my throat.  This has been one awful summer experience!

First Freebie

Happy Saturday!  It's so nice that the weekends and the weekdays are relaxing days.  I need days like these after the stressful year that I had.

I spent a week and a half visiting my dad in Portland.  It was nice to not just go for a quick weekend.  While I was there, we celebrated the 4th of July.  The following day was spent celebrating my birthday.  Dad and I went on a drive to Multnomah Falls.  It is about a 30 minute drive from his house.  It was a very busy place on that day.  I think it was because we finally had summer weather and people were still vacationing from the 4th.

The bridge was built in 1915 and the lodge in 1925.  The lodge is on the National Historic Register.  My grandparents, who lived in Washington state, were at Multnomah Falls on their honeymoon in 1930.  The falls is about 625 feet high, the second largest in the U.S.

My cats, Charlie and Chloe, travel with me to Portland.  They hate the car ride, but love hanging out at Dad's house.  Chloe loves running up and down the basement stairs.  There is so much more to do and see.  They don't sleep as much, but they eat more!  Here's a couple pictures of them being lazy.

Chloe loved to jump in Grandpa's leather chair when he went off to bed.

What a life Charlie had!  No wonder he wasn't happy to have to leave and go home!

I do want to offer the Writer's Checklist as my first freebie.  I've been reading and watching videos from Ladybug's Teacher Files .  They have been very helpful, but I'm still trying to figure some things out.  (This is the first time I've put on a link.  I hope it works!)

Here is my first freebie to those of you who want it.  I know one person did request this.  I did remake it and put it in Power Point as Kristen from Ladybug's Teacher Files suggested.  I've never used Power Point before, but I did figure things out.  I did order a book from Amazon that I hope will help me.

Here is the Writer's Checklist.  I hope you can use this with your students.  I did number the cards.  However, I thought some of you might not want them numbered, so there is a set without numbers at the end of the packet.  You can download it here.  I'm crossing my fingers that this will work.

Well, it's past 1:00 a.m. and I better head to bed.  Have a great Saturday!

First Week of Summer / Writer's Checklist

     Well, it's been a busy first week of summer vacation.  I spent the week mainly cleaning out my classroom.  Last year I moved into this school and classroom and just didn't have enough time to truly organize.  When I ended the previous year, I had to be out of school on time due to remodeling that was going to take place.  There was a lot of clutter, so I really went through things after school ended.  After teaching for 17 years plus several years as a substitute and teaching all grades between first through fifth grades, I have a lot of stuff.  I threw a lot of papers and things away, but it was just taking too much time.  I told the principal and custodian that I would finish by Monday.  


     I found out on Monday that my badge would be deactivated as of 4:00.  I knew I couldn't get done by then.  I could stay later, but I wouldn't be able to get back in the building if I walked out.  I started the day by going on my first walk of the summer.  I have decided that I will do some exercising this summer (this has been neglected this school year).  It was too long of a walk for the first time.  We walked 2-1/2 miles around a park with bird nests that belong to eagles or other large birds and walking part of the time by a river.  I was exhausted afterwards and just couldn't pack up the room that quickly since my legs hurt.  I did get a friend to come over with her daughter to help lift boxes and put them on a shelf high against the wall.  I finally finished the room right at midnight.  I had to fill my car with some things and I'm hoping I have room in my storage unit to keep them over the summer.


     I will go over to school this afternoon to turn in the check-out paper and get checked out.  I just remembered that I forgot to empty the refrigerator.  I sure hope they let me go back and empty it!  Otherwise, it will be quite smelly when I return!


     I had a comment about the Writing Checklist that I made recently.  This morning I saw that a few people have pinned it.  Wow!  I've never had something of mine pinned.  I thought I better post about it again with an update.  At the time I did that, I was missing the last two steps from my picture.  I have a new picture with all 8 steps.  The top card has a glare.  It says: Did you . . .  There is a title at the very top that says Writer's Checklist.  If you want to 

Writer's Checklist

see a picture with those top cards, see my post titled Eleven Days to Go. (I don't know how to make it so you can click the title and go there.  Something else to learn.)   I taught this to my students in the spring.  Next year, I'd like to teach it early in the year and maybe have a checklist sheet that they fill out when they are publishing their writing.

     Now that I'm done with school, I can start cleaning my home -- a job that has been neglected lately.  I'm planning on driving to Portland on Friday and staying with my Dad for a week to week and a half.  It will be a nice time to spend with family and friends.  I'll be there for the 4th of July and for my birthday on the 5th.  I'm looking forward to the break and getting caught up with friends.

I Made It! Summer is Here!

     Last Friday was my last official day at school.  Yeah!  I finally made it!  We had two days with the kids that week.  They were busy days!  Tuesday was field day.  Half of the school had field day in the morning.  The other half had it in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we had some rain, so the kids participated in field day under the covered area and in the gym.  They still had fun, though.  They sure enjoyed the bouncy houses!  In the afternoon, we had an End of the Year/ Summer Birthday Party in our classroom.  It was a fun way to end the day and year.  We had ice cream sundaes, cookies, cupcakes, and drinks.  There were 3 parents who volunteered to help.  I really appreciated them dishing up the ice cream while I slowly called kids to go get their ice cream.


     In the last week, the students were learning about Tomie de Paola's Strega Nona stories. The kids had never heard them before.  They really enjoyed it!  We have been doing an author study using Tomie's books about himself as we studied realistic fiction.  It was fun to add some of his fiction books.  I noticed the kids were reading all of the books during Read to Self.  We made a chart that we used as a story map to chart out the characters, setting, problem, and solution.  I saw something like this when I did a search online.  I don't remember what blog it was from because I had ever read this blog before and didn't write it down.

The kids enjoyed repeating the words Strega Nona said when using her magic pasta pot:  

Bubble, bubble pasta pot, Boil me some pasta nice and hot, 

I'm hungry and it's time to sup, Boil enough pasta to fill me up.  

We watched a video that I have of Tomie dePaola speaking to an audience of kids and their parents.  He demonstrated how to draw Strega Nona.  I watched the video over and over at home and drew her in steps so that I could teach the kids.  We ran out of time to draw her, but the kids liked my picture. I did this last year with my third graders. Next year, I will teach this earlier so that we have time.   

 My drawing following Tomie's instructions.

Drawing and writing about Strega Nona by a

third grade student from a year ago.

I also created a binder about Tomie de Paola and his books for the students.  The kids enjoyed reading this during Read to Self.  I'm considering adding more to the binder and writing up an entire unit.  I took a class about 12 years ago on our state inservice day about Tomie de Paola.  It was taught by an Oregon teacher who met Tomie and had permission to write a book about him.  I have enjoyed teaching about his books since then.

It has been fun to see how the kids have started to read Tomie's books.  I'm sure they will continue to look for them next year.

     The teachers worked 3 days after the kids got out.  Because we had 2 snow days and a flood day (very unusual to have a flood day), the superintendent decided that the teachers would need to make it up at the end of the year.  On Thursday we had to work 12 hours.  That was so difficult at the end of the year!  We spent 4 hours in professional development and the rest was used to do as we needed.  Four hours were for finishing grades.  I worked on the grades on Thursday and Friday and barely got them done in time.  There has been a lot of paper work that needed to be turned in to my principal that I also was working on.  I didn't get to work on my room until the weekend.

     I'm still at work busy cleaning and organizing my room.  Why do I let it get so messy?  I have things scattered around the room, but I promised the principal and custodian that I would finish on Monday.  I do want to get out of there and onto my vacation.  I've been going to school around noon and staying until 8:00 p.m.  I am exhausted.  I was going to go today, but I think I need a little break.  Maybe I'll just go for two hours since I am meeting a couple of friends this evening for dinner.  I've known one since 3rd grade and the other since 8th grade.  We haven't seen each other in a long time.  It should be fun!

     I'll work hard to posting more often this summer.  I'm hoping I can learn how to put on here things that I create to share with everyone.  That's something I still need to learn how to do.  I have created some great things this year now that I discovered and know how to use clip art that I'd love to share.  

     Enjoy your weekend!

Penguin Music Program and Earth Day

After being sick, it was a hard week.  I was so glad we only had four days.  Friday was a furlough day.  Each day I had trouble with losing my voice.  It's just not all there and I'm still coughing from the bronchitis.


I have a very active, noisy group of first graders.  I work with them all the time on how to behave and follow the rules.  Things were getting better until I got sick.  I think after being gone for a week and a half and having 3 substitutes the kids have gotten worse.  I had to spend a lot of time this week working on their behavior in the classroom and in the hall.  I hope I can get them back to where they were before I was gone soon.  It is exhausting!  


The first graders had their music program this week.  The songs were all about penguins.  It was so great since we are studying penguins in the classroom, too.  I taught the kids a poem called "Doing the Penguin" for the program.  We have three first grade classrooms.  Our music teacher is awesome!  She made some very cute vests for the students to wear.  

After the show - most of the kids had taken

off their costumes

The program was on Tuesday.  It was a busy day.  We had a fire drill.  Then we practiced in the morning with the risers for over an hour.  In the afternoon, the students performed the music for the whole school.  Their final performance was that evening for their parents.  They were wonderful and had lots of fun!

We learned about Earth Day while reading the book Arthur Turns Green by Marc Brown.  This book came out last year.  The kids loved the story.  We studied Marc Brown earlier in the year, but I saved this book for Earth Day.

We made a chart to go with it as the students learned about problem and solution in a story.  The chart was in the shape of a recycling bin.  We started using our ELD sentence frames and will continue next week with the speaking and writing parts.  The students are learning about contractions with this book, too.

The students also took a district writing test this week.  The state cancelled the writing test this year for fourth graders due to funding.  So, instead, the district is testing every grade in writing from kindergarten on up.  I think it was hard for some kids to do.  They were given two writing periods to do the test.  I'll be grading them soon and then our first grade team will look at some of them before we send the grade to the district.  Testing is stressful on first graders.

I'll be starting next week's lesson plans today.  I'm thinking about starting a poetry mini-unit.  In reading this term, we are to teach a poetry mini-unit and teach realistic fiction.  Maybe we can spend a couple weeks on Poetry and then return to realistic fiction for the remainder of the school year.

Returning to School and Arthur Turns Green

     I've been off school for 6 days from having bronchitis.  Two days in one week and four the next plus a furlough day and two weekends.  I'm ready to go back to work.


     I drove over to school yesterday to pick up a book so that I could write lesson plans for the next week.  I want things done a little earlier so that I'm not up so late tonight.  With Earth Day coming, I decided I wanted to read Arthur Turns Green and use that as my mentor text for the modeled reading and ELD lessons this week.


     I was at school briefly.  While I was there, I read the substitute's brief note.  This substitute was there for the last two days.  She's been in my room before.  She was there the first day that I was sick.  Her note said that she couldn't find any lesson plans.  I couldn't believe it!  I was so organized.  I put a bright pink binder together and put a title on the front that says "Substitute Plans and Notes".  How could she not see that?  I actually cleaned my desk the day before I got sick and it looks pretty nice.  This notebook is sitting on top of the desk.  Next to it is my Sub Tub with all of the books and papers that will be needed.  I drove over to work on Wednesday evening to drop everything off and left it all organized.  It was still there when I got there on Saturday.  


     I don't understand why someone didn't call me.  I could have told her where the plans were or e-mailed them.  I sure hope she didn't tell the principal.  I don't need more problems from her.  I'm going back today (Sunday) to get things ready for tomorrow.  I'm going to take a picture, as evidence, to show how organized things are.  


     I've written up my ELD plans using Arthur Turns Green.  I'm going to introduce contractions to the students and have them using them.  

I've come up with a form that I think I like for planning out the lesson.  It takes a lot of work to plan these ELD lessons, but I want to make sure I teach all of the important parts especially for my ELD students.  I have one student who doesn't speak much English.  He's Russian and in his first year of school.


I'd attach my ELD plans, but I'm not sure how to do that.  I only know how to attach photos.  Hmmm.  Something for me to learn how to do for another time.


Well, I'll take pictures of what we do this week and write later about how it goes.  


Last year Marc Brown's sister, Kim, came to my school.  She showed us the sketches of this book before it was published.  She talked about Marc and how he wrote his books.  She was in town for Marc's son's wedding.  Marc Brown's son now lives in Portland.  How exciting! Anyway, this is a great book for teaching about protecting the Earth.

New Blog Design

I am excited to see my new blog design. It was time to change the blog to something more colorful and cute.

I want to say thanks to Alicia at Dreamlike Magic for the design. I think she did a wonderful job and am very happy with it.

I'm still sitting at home sick. I found out on Saturday evening that I have bronchitis. I'm very tired of coughing. I've been busy typing up lesson plans for my substitutes. I finished this evening plans for the rest of the week and then drove 30 minutes to my school. Hopefully, things are going okay in my classroom. I have a very active classroom of 30 first graders. They take advantage of things when I'm not there. I'm sure I'll have to revisit the rules and procedures when I return.