Thanksgiving Fun! :)

So yay for Thanksgiving Break!  :)  I'm always ready for one when the time comes!  :)
We started off the week with our Thanksgiving Friendship Feast on Monday.  I cooked the bird on Sunday and we were ready to go.  Everyone remembered to bring what they were supposed to and I had a lot of fabulous parent volunteers.  It was so much easier with their help.  We set up the food on the counter and then I called up groups of kids to fill their plates.  Our lunch tables were set up in the hallway for the students to go sit at.  They took their Native American paper placemats that they weaved and their headbands and were all set.  While the other students were waiting for food they watched Garfield's Thanksgiving.  Here are some photos from our feast.  :)

The bird, before I cut it all up.  

Lining up to get food.  

Feasting away.

Here are my November bulletin boards for the month.
First up is the pumpkin cut paper craft I got a LONG time ago that we do every couple years or so and a pumpkin acrostic poem.

 Here is a turkey glyph that we found somewhere online last year and it turned out cute and the kids wrote either a turkey story or what they were doing for Thanksgiving to go with it.

       

Here is the wall outside my room where I put the class writing we did together.  Here is our class how-to article on How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

Also as I'm sure you know TPT is having an after Thanksgiving sale Monday + Tuesday.  Teacher's Notebook is having one Saturday through Monday.  So stop by either of my shops to pick up my Treasures units for up to 28% off.  :)  Below you will find the button that the fabulous 3AM Teacher made to link up to the TPT sale.  Click below to go to my stores.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and fun shopping (either in store or online)!  :)

 

Crazy Week & Silhouette contest

So this week started off not great for me, as my mom called me Sunday evening to tell me that they rushed my dad to the hospital in the early hours of the morning.  She didn't call earlier because she knew that we were going to the circus, typical of my mom.  She said that my dad's heart was racing and wouldn't slow down so he told her to call the paramedics that he thought he should go to the hospital (thank goodness my dad is not afraid to do that sort of thing).  Now some background info on my dad, he is 70 years old and has had 2 open heart surgeries.  One 30 years ago when I was a toddler and one 5 years ago.  Luckily he's been fine.  The other thing that is always scary for me is the fact that he is the first one in his immediate family to make it to 70.  His parents and 2 of his siblings did not.  So like I said, yay for Dad not being afraid to go to the doctor/hospital.  My mom said that once they got to the hospital they tried to give him some medicine to slow it down, but it didn't work so they had to shock his heart.  The first shock didn't work, so they shocked him again and then he was fine after that.  All of this happened at like 3AM.  She said not to worry because he was fine and they'd just been sitting around all day at the hospital.  He was scheduled to get a defibrillator put in the next day so if that happened again, it would shock his heart without needing to go to the hospital.  Then she asked me to call all of my siblings (I have 4 of them) to tell them.  Yay me.  lol  So I conference called them because I didn't want to make that call 4 times.  Thank goodness for my family.  I'm very lucky to have them and that we are close to each other and don't live far away from each other.  The surgery was supposed to be very minor and would be in the afternoon.  So I went to work and got through the day (happy to have the distraction) and left immediately after school to rush to the hospital.  My eldest sister had texted me when he went into surgery and I was getting a little nervous that I hadn't gotten a text saying he was out yet because it had been 2 hours.  I met my older sister in the parking lot and she showed me where everyone was waiting (my eldest sister, my younger sister, and my mom).  I was there maybe 10 minutes and then the doctor came out saying the surgery was done, it went well, and that my dad was cracking jokes though half of it (he's sedated, but awake), so my dad.  My sisters were teasing me that I came at the tail end when they had been there for hours.  So then they wheeled my dad back to his room and he was still cracking jokes.  The doctor said that as far as he could tell on his end, everything was fine, and he'd be discharged the following day.  Relief, let me tell you.  So Tuesday I call my mom during lunch to ask when they were letting him go and she said they weren't.  His kidney levels weren't where they really wanted them to be.  They assumed it was because of the dye they had to put in during the surgery and that they just need to put another i.v. in to flush his system of it and then he'd be able to go home the following day.  So again after school I headed to the hospital to give my parents some company (my dad was starting to get stir crazy and was taking it out on my mom) and a break from the sameness.  Wednesday I called again and this time he was signed off by all of his doctors that he was good to go and went home.  Now I always go to my parents house on Wednesdays for dinner.  It started out 5 years ago after his open heart surgery.  It happened during the summer and I was pretty much with my dad from morning until my mom got home so he wouldn't be alone.  My mom worked 2 jobs so I didn't like him by himself all of that time.  My siblings would come at times too so I could get a break and do things in my classroom.  When school started I was going there everyday after school to hang out with him until my mom got home.  Then finally last October my mom quit her 2nd job.  My parents didn't want me to just stop coming though, so I cut it down to Wed. and Sat. evenings.  So anyway, my dad looked good, just tired, and we're all happy he is home.  He is sore, but good.  So thank Heaven for that.  Luckily my class was pretty good for me (I had told them my dad was in the hospital).  It was a very long week though.
Now onto more fun things (thank you for letting me get the above off my chest).
All week I have also been getting everything ready for our Thanksgiving Feast for Monday.  Every year the 2nd grade, as part of our social studies unit, has a real Thanksgiving Feast.  Us teachers cook and provide the turkey and the classroom families sign up to donate the rest.  We ask for mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, green beans, biscuits, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, juice, plates, napkins, and silverware.  Of course everyone signs up to bring juice boxes, plates, and napkins.  lol  I bought my turkey on Tuesday night so it would be thawed out for me to cook this weekend, a nice 16.5 lb bird.  Wednesday enough of my class brought back things to have everything on the list covered.  Thank goodness for those fantastic families that say, "whatever you need."  For Art of the Week the students weaved paper placemats for the feast and made either a Pilgrim hat or Native American headband to wear for the feast.  It's a very cute affair and so good because it's amazing to me how many students haven't ever tried a lot of those foods.  They are more willing to try it here because their friends are eating it or brought it.  Then they find out they like it!  So it should be fun and my house will smell great tomorrow.  :)
Last night I went out with friends and saw Breaking Dawn part 2.  I think my heart was beating a mile a minute near the end of that movie, but wow.  That's all I will say it.
Today I plan on baking Shirley Temple cupcakes that I found on pinterest for a princess party that my younger sister, niece, and I are having for the premiere of the new Disney princess movie that is coming out tomorrow, Sofia the First.  We are having a princess themed premiere party so that should be fun.  :)
I'm going to leave you with a contest that Silhouette America is having for people to win a new Silhouette Cameo.  Just go to www.silhouetteamerica.com/santa and you can do your own letter to Santa asking for one.  Below is my letter.  I hope I'm one of the three winners!!!  :)

Slacker

I'm a total slacker when it comes to this blog.  There has been so much stuff going on and usually I'm too tired at night to come on and blog about what's been happening.  Major kudos to all of those bloggers who blog daily and make all of those things for TPT.  I have no idea how you do it.  I was such a slacker that I even missed the Monthly Made-It for this month, the first time since I started blogging that I didn't do it.  Well I'm taking the time now to catch you up on what's been happening.

So we went to the CAFE workshop by The 2 Sisters and it was of course, wonderful!!  They are great speakers, so fun to listen to.  They were also great about explaining everything and showing examples. I knew everyone at my whole table because there were 6 of us from my school who went and then 3 from my old school that I taught at before my school was built.  We had a great time all together.  Going to their workshop, we kept joking throughout the day, as like being at Oprah's Favorite Things episode.  They'd be talking about something and then they'd be like, "and you're all getting one!"  We walked out with a whole bag full of great things.  It was definitely motivating, but of course there has been no time to sit down and implement everything we want to do from that workshop.  Maybe this upcoming in-service day I'll have a chance.  We'll see. If you do Daily 5 or CAFE and can get a chance to see them, definitely do.  You won't be disappointed!  :)

Moving on to Halloween.  We celebrated Halloween on the Friday before, which was FABULOUS!  Parade, party, then weekend.  My teammates an I were Super Teachers, an idea I found through Classroom Freebies.  I linked to it in a previous post.  It was fun dressing up together and we got so many compliments.

The kids loved it too.  We had a great party with a Halloween sugar cookie decorating and eating station, a trick-or-treat counter where the kids filled up goodie bags, Pass the Pumpkin (like hot potato), Pumpkin Buckets (like Bozo buckets), and a spider web craft.  

Even though the day is always hectic and crazy, I love seeing the costumes my kids dress up in and how excited they are about everything.  I had great parent helpers so it was a big success and pretty much cleaned up for me by the end of the day.  

Last weekend I did my bi-annual (is that a thing?  I go twice a year lol) scrapbooking weekend.  I took off on Friday and went to a conference room in a hotel for a scrapping weekend with this group of ladies who put it together.  We go to the same place every time and there's anywhere from 10 to 13 of us.  My friend and I found it by accident.  Her husband had found a flyer about it at work and asked her if it would be something we'd want to do.  We went and now 3 years later we're still going.  :)  This was our 6th time.  I always get a ton of pages done.  We only scrap Friday and Saturday.  I usually have too much school stuff to get ready to do it Sunday too.  This year I also brought my teacher's manual along so I could get 3 more packs ready for tpt.  I did one Friday before I started scrapping and one Saturday before scrapping and let me tell you I was very happy to have the time to get them done.  I'm trying to keep ahead.  I'm hoping to get more done over Thanksgiving break but we'll see if that happens or not.  They take me 3 hours to do one pack, so I don't usually have 3 uninterrupted hours of time and I like doing it all in one sit down, not having to come back to it.  

This week for Election Day, my teammate and I did our yearly election process.  We read The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and the students have to vote on who's telling the truth.  We've been learning about the election process in social studies, so this fits right in.  I tell the students that the stories are like debates where the candidates are trying to tell their side of the story to get you to vote for them.  Then I picked 4 election judges to help me run our classroom polling place.  The students have their library cards as their voter registration cards and they have to show it to an election judge and sign by their name.  Then they get their ballot and go over to a ballot booth (Really Good Stuff privacy shield) to vote.  Once they are done they bring their ballot over to the ballot box where another election judge is standing and the judge gives them an I Voted Today sticker.  While the students are waiting to vote or after they have voted and are waiting for the results they did an election day abc order sheet.  Then 2 election judges tally the results and display them.  This year it was 3 Pigs 12, Wolf 11, so very close.  It always depends on the group of kids.  We have had some years where the Pigs win by a landslide.  In my teammate's class the Wolf won by 1 vote.  It's fun and my kids get to go through the election process as well, in a fun way.  

Now that leads me to this weekend, where yesterday since it was 65 degrees here, I put up as many of my outdoor Christmas lights as I could so I wouldn't have to do it in a couple of weeks when it will be cold.  I'm not going to turn them on, but they are up.  Hopefully they are still working after how windy it was last night and how windy I hear it is today!  Today I'm going with my siblings and their families to the circus.  We go every year, so it will be a fun outing again today.  :)

I'm going to leave you with my last October "bulletin board," courtesy of A Cupcake for the Teacher.  It was one of our Art of the Week projects, "We Are Batty for 2nd Grade."  My teammate and I did it together.  We had the students do the acrostic poem.  Very fun project.  

So sorry I've been such a slacker and hopefully I'll be better, but who know how I'll be feeling!  lol  Have a great weekend and week!  :)

October fun

Luckily now that conferences are over and we're back to being able to come in early and stay late, things are not so crazy.  I feel like I can catch my breath!  However because of all of that, October is almost over already!!!
My kids had a fun day on Friday as we had an in-school field trip where a company called HighTouch/HighTech came to do one of their science programs with our kids.  We did the matter one, as we have for the past couple of years.  We always find it's a fun way to wrap up the matter unit and it's cheaper when you have them come out closer to the beginning of the year.  We've also done their weather program before, which is also good.  So the students had a lot of fun getting to do all of these experiments with matter.  They told me it was "the best day EVER!!!"  I always laugh at that because I get that every year and then you know what?  The day of the Halloween party will be the best day ever, and then our Thanksgiving feast will be the best day ever, and then our holiday party...lol  I love my students.
I also got exciting news during the week and found out that my teammate and I are going to go see the 2 Sisters for their CAFE workshop on Monday.  Woohoo!  It was nice because my principal came in my room taking pictures of my kids during Daily 5 time and told me to stop by and talk to him later.  I had no idea what it was about and asked my teammate if she was told to come in too.  lol  Nope, just me.  So I went in during my specials time and that's what he told me.  He had spots reserved for the Daily 5 workshop and the CAFE workshop and wanted to know which one we'd like to go to.  His thoughts were for us to go to CAFE because it seems like we have Daily 5 down (which I thought was really nice of him to say).  I told him that I definitely feel more comfortable with Daily 5 than CAFE now that I've done Daily 5 for 2 years and I'm just trying to start CAFE.  One of my other teammates is going to the Daily 5 one because she's just trying to really get into Daily 5.  When I told both of my teammates that they were going to the workshops, they were VERY excited.  lol  Usually it seems like there is this group of people and they are always the ones that are asked to join committees and go to workshops and things like that and most of us are left out and that always bothers my teammates.  This year it's been nice though because we're being asked to do more and more.  I don't know if it's just because I'm team facilitator but they keep talking to me about things and then I pass it along to my team (that's my guess).  I went to a Common Core workshop this past summer, I was asked to be on the district writing committee for my school, and now this.  It makes you feel good that they know they can count on you.  So I'll have to make sure I come on here Monday afterwards to tell you about how it went.  :)
My team and I are being Super Teachers for Halloween this year, thanks to a great idea and freebie from Katie Smith and her tpt store http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Katie-Smith.  So we had a pow-wow to decide everything for our costumes and who was going to do what to get them ready.  They brought me shirts so yesterday I ironed-on everything and have it ready to go.  Our party is Friday so that will bring more craziness near the end of the week, but it will be fun.
Today I'm off to the pumpkin farm with my parents and my younger sister's family.  Should be a nice day!  Have a great Sunday!  :)

Fall Bulletin Boards

Things have been crazy lately (of course).  To show solidarity as a union we've been only working to contract hours.  I hate that.  I'm one of those people who gets to work 30 minutes before we need to be there and stays usually an hour past when we can leave (sometimes longer), so this has been killing me.  Without my extra time I've been feeling like a chicken with my head cut off because I'm rushing to get as much done as I can while I'm there.  Luckily our union has come up with something else so starting Wednesday we don't have to do that anymore and I'll have some sanity back (I hope).  lol  The lucky thing is that I have scrapbooking club after school tomorrow anyway so I can stay and get some stuff done while that's going on.  Woohoo!  :)  We had a meeting today after school so we could stay and work on some stuff too and that's when I switched out one of my bulletin boards and took pictures of them to share with you.  :)
As I've mentioned in past posts, one of my teammates and I share a wall.  We open the wall during Daily 5 time to do guided reading book clubs and the Daily 5 centers.  We always did centers before we learned the Daily 5, but what the sisters said in that book hit home with us.  It was just more work for us and we didn't know how meaningful it actually was for the kids.  So we got on board with Daily 5 and love it.  There was just one thing we could not part with though from our old centers and that was "Art of the Week."  For "Art of the Week"  we'd introduce an art project on Monday.  I would show both classes my example and teach them how to do it.  All of the art supplies were on the counter in my classroom and the "Art of the Week" was a Must Do on a center ticket we had.  We could not give up doing art with our kiddos because we love it so much.  So we put it in as one of the Work on Writing choices because we almost always have a writing component with our art project.  We also made it a choice (most of the time) so that way those who aren't big into art or good at it, didn't have to do it (there are some weeks the "art of the week" is the Mother's Day present, so they have to do it).  It's worked out very well that way for all of us.
So this first bulletin board is of our ice cream cones.  As a fun September art project and a way to introduce "Art of the Week" to the students we do this project in a celebration of the patent of the ice cream cone.  The funny thing is that one guy says he created it on September 22, 1903 and another guy says he did it on September 23, 1903.  So around that time we let the students create their own cones.  The rules are that they have to have a least 3 scoops, they can have as many more as they want, but at least 3.  Also, they have to be able to write about everything they put on their ice cream cone.  So if they want to make 20 scoops that's fine, but they have to write about all 20 scoops.  It's a cute project and the kids enjoy it.

As you can see, they vary in size.  lol  They add a fun bright display in our room though.  We also have to post by our bulletin boards what the students are learning or practicing by doing the activity.  So at the top you'll see my title and my learning standards.  The far left has the explanation of the ice cream patent.  (The green border seam down the middle is one of the areas where the wall opens up so I have to keep the bulletin boards separate but I use it as one.  This bulletin board came down this afternoon to make room for the fun Halloween project we had as "Art of the Week" last week.
So last week we kicked off our Daily 5 centers and rotation and did this art project that my teammate and I love.  We've been doing it the last few years because we just love it!  She brought it over from one of her previous schools she taught at and has always shared her tracers with my class and me.

So for these the student use a 12 x 18 sheet of yellow paper and black paper.  The tracers were made a long time ago from some large manilla folders they had, but this year we made more by using a file folder unfolded.  One of the tracers is solid and that's the one they use to trace on the yellow sheet of paper.  The other tracer has window holes in that they use to trace on the black paper.  Then they have to go back in and cut on 3 of the 4 sides of the windows so they can open and close.  Behind the openings are secret pictures.  I always show them to cut the windows by folding on one of the lines of the window and making a cut big enough for the scissors to fit in and go around.  We say it doesn't matter if it looks ragged because it's a haunted house!  Then they have to write about their haunted house or can write a story to go with the house.  These take the kids a long time (I still have some who aren't done with it!), but they are definitely worth it!  

You can see some of the creatures hidden behind the windows (I opened them for the picture).

This next bulletin board was another practice for "Art of the Week" before we started it for real.  

The good old fall tissue paper tree.  :)  So if you don't know this one, here's how it works.  The students get a brown 9 x 12 piece of paper and trace their arm and hand (fingers spread apart) to be the tree (trunk and branches).  They glue this on one side of a blue 12 x 18 sheet of paper (to act like the sky).  Then they take small tissue paper squares of different fall colors.  One square at a time, they wrap the tissue paper around the eraser on their pencil and swirl it around the top of a glue stick (careful not to dig into it).  They then hold it down where they want on their tree and carefully remove the pencil.  They could add as many or as little as they like.  A lot of them have a ladder, apple basket, and pile of leaves because that's what my example had and they wanted to copy (sincerest form of flattery right?  lol).  After they finished, they had to write about fall.  Always so funny to me that you have to tell them to add more details.  "Where's your grass, your tree is floating in the air."  I also love how skinny some of those trunks are.  lol  They turn out so cute and different.  

The last bulletin board is nothing snazzy.  It's our science bulletin board.  I made this printable a few years ago.  Now I wish I had changed the words on it so maybe someday I'll go back and re-do it.  I was going to give it away as a freebie, but I can't find it on either computer so maybe I got rid of it already.  We were learning about the 3 different forms of mater and the students had to draw something for each category to show what they knew about matter.  

This will be coming down soon too because now we're starting Living Things Grow and Change to go with our reading series (Unit 2 is Grow and Change).  The first chapter is Plants grow and change and our story for this week is The Tiny Seed.  

So there are my bulletin boards for now.  I'll take more pics when the next ones go up.  :)

Go, Go, Go

I was feeling so good after this weekend.  After going, going, going it was nice to have a 4 day weekend and catch up on things at a nice pace.  I had a little time for fun, but also worked on school stuff a lot as well (I know you can relate).  At the end of the day yesterday, I felt wonderful because I had caught up on everything and was ready to go for today.  Then today happened and it was go, go, go all over again!!!!!!!  I got to school early (as I do every day) to see if the copy machine had gotten toner (Thursday morning it had run out) so I could copy my homework packets.  I also needed to grab stuff for our art of the week project.  Copy machine still out of toner, but got the paper I needed for art.  I was thinking if we don't get toner before the end of the day I'm going to have 1 happy class because they won't have any homework this week.  lol  Got back to class, put out morning work, straightened up all of the things that I had taken out of my wheelie cart that I had worked on at home and then it was time for our weekly staff meeting.  We're in break out groups right now, so I was with my group to learn about close reading.  Meeting ended when the bell rang.  Got back to class in time to get settled for the kiddos coming.  Going, Going, Going all morning and then recess time, it's my duty day so out I go again with them.  lol  Luckily no one had an "Eat Lunch with the Teacher" prize card to turn in today so I did have lunch to myself to catch up on my e-mail and breathe and get ready for math.  Then before you know it they're back and it's math.  Cleaning up math, getting ready to go to music when my principal comes in.  He says, "Want a present?"  I reply, "Depends on the present."  He says, "A child."  I said, "Well I do have the lowest number with 22."  He said, "I was confirming that.  I'll get you all of the info for your student and get you a desk."  Then drop the kiddos off at music and low and behold we have toner, so sorry kids you get homework.  lol  Copy my homework packets and then have to put them together (because I differentiate them).  I also had not finished going through the take-home book bags that were returned this morning.  Then before you know it, it's time to go get the kids. Go to pick them up and of course my one friend who has only had 1 good week in music (last week) in all of the times we've had music, had a bad day.  I don't know what happened.  My assistant to one of my Autistic students was walking him.  Sadly this is a multiple occurance.  He's usually great for me, but he has a hard time when he's not in a normal structure routine.  Specials are hard for him.  He also has had a sad home life, although he's in a good situation now, but because of that he craves for attention in not good ways.  He will do things to other students and then when they tattle on him, he acts the victim and mopes and does the opposite of what you say to him.  I have learned when he starts moping to ignore him.  When he doesn't get the attention he wants, he ALWAYS starts doing the right thing and then I give him positive reinforcement for the good behavior.  It works every time, but I wish we didn't have to go through it every day and sometimes multiple times a day.  So he's in a funk for whatever happened in music.  We get back to the room and are sitting on the carpet together starting our review of the matter chapter (except for my moping friend who is standing in front of people because he knows he's supposed to be sitting and wants me to say something to him, luckily I've been trying to get the rest of the kids not to feed into his need for attention and no one has said anything) and my screamer girl (although she's only had the one incident so far this year) starts screaming.  I look at her and ask what happened to come to find out she had put her jacket on (she's always cold because she  wears a t-shirt to school every day, apparently she's stubborn about what she wears) and was playing with the zipper, zipping it all the way up (1. it's a winter parka.  It's been chilly, but not that chilly  2.  it's not freezing in our classroom.  There are times it can get cold in our building, but not today so there was no need to zip it all the way up), she got her neck/chin area caught in her zipper.  Now obviously that would be very painful.  My assistant rushes right over to help her and the screamer yells at her to stay away from her and keeps crying and screaming.  I ask her how she wants us to help her if she doesn't want anyone to touch her.  She says that it will hurt if someone touches it.  I reply that it's hurting her right now.  I again ask her how she wants us to help her.  She yells back she doesn't know, so my assistant goes to help again.  My screamer won't move her hands away.  I tell her that she couldn't decide what to do so we're deciding for her and she needs to move her hands.  My assistant gets her hands away and quickly fixes the problem and takes the screamer to the bathroom to wash up.  By this time, I'm frazzled and snap at my moping student to sit down, which he quickly does.  lol (I can laugh about it now, not then.)  We then continue on with matter and into writer's workshop.  My assistant comes back and I ask where the screamer is, if she took her to the office.  She said no, she took her to the bathroom and then left to go help other kids in other classes.  So she goes to check to see if the screamer is still in the bathroom and she is, sitting on the floor.  I ask if she's throwing a fit and she said no she's just sitting there, did I want her to bring her back in.  I told her no, leave her, she should come in when she's calm and ready.  The end of the day comes, we're packing up, and she has not returned.  I go to the bathroom to find her sitting on the floor with her back to me.  I ask her if she is going to pack up since it's time to leave.  No answer.  I ask her if she plans on staying in the bathroom no answer.  So we get the social worker to come take care of her while I get the rest of my class out the door.  Now also it's Tuesday so I have scrapbooking club after school and have to get all of that ready.  As I'm getting kids out the door, setting up for scrapbooking club while those kids come in, the custodians come bringing in the desk for the new student I'm getting tomorrow.  The social worker then comes to grab all of my screamer's things and to borrow my wheelie chair because my screamer has shut down and won't move so the social worker had to pick her up to move her to the office where her mother has been called and needs to come pick her up (she was supposed to walk).  After I get scrapbooking up and running I start getting everything ready for the new student so it's ready to go for tomorrow.  I also send out an e-mail to my parents about Halloween because I've had some questions.  Before I know it's time to clean up scrapbooking and get those kids out the door (which I have 3 3rd graders and 1 6th grader and they take FOREVER to clean up each week).  They all get picked up and I have to head back to my room, pack all of the scrapbooking stuff back in my closet for next week and then get ready for tomorrow.  I write my daily message, change the daily schedule, get stuff ready for my final parent-teacher conference I have tomorrow, and get the 1 minute math timed test ready.  I don't leave school until after 5:30PM and I'm wiped out again!  All of that feeling great and energized from the 4-day weekend is gone and I feel like I'm treading water again.  Not to mention it's negotiation time again and although I couldn't go to the meeting because of scrapbooking I hear some of the things that are going on with it and that zaps more energy.
So tomorrow I have a conference before school, a new student starting (please let the child be an angel) (I plan on having my moping friend be the new student's buddy for the day to again give positive reinforcement), a full Daily 5 time with 2 classes getting used to the routine, and we're supposed to be starting math groups although one of my teammates JUST e-mailed to say that she forgot that she has library right smack in the middle of our math time so what did we want to do about that.  lol  Should be another interesting day.  Here's hoping the conference goes well, my new student is wonderful, the students do better at Daily 5 then they did today, we figure out what we're doing for math, and I can catch my breath with no drama from the moper and the screamer.  I'm optimistic.  :)  Days like today don't happen all of the time.  Another bright side?  The crazy day made me want to come on here and share it with you.  Therapeutic.  Have a great day yourself!!!!  :)

I "heart" Columbus Day! lol

I made it through conference week last week!  All of my conferences went really well.  No problems at all and I have really nice families.  I was just wiped out from all of the planning of them and everything else going on.  It just seemed like it was one thing after another when it came to school stuff that I was trying to catch up, with no success.  Then came the blessed 4-day weekend after conferences!  I got all of my papers graded Friday.  I got some more of my math games laminated and cut Saturday and Sunday I finished up another unit for TPT and TN.  Not to mention I caught up on all of my tv I was so completely behind on too and my sleep!!!  Today the plan is to update my class webpage and make another unit or 2 for TPT and TN (I hope I can do it!).  I even had time to come on here and update!  I love long weekends!!!
This week will be busy (of course) because my teammate who I share my wall with and myself, will be opening the wall for the first time to get our classes used to it.  We do Daily 5 and guided reading book clubs together so this week we will get them used to it.  We are on a review week in our LA series so we won't be meeting with book clubs.  We will start them next week.  We have used these past 6 weeks to introduce and practice Daily 5 and get that routine going.  Now this week the wall will be open they will start learning how the Daily 5 structure will work and we'll be available to help out where needed and see where there is a need for re-practicing before starting book clubs next week.  It should be fun.  We're also starting this week differentiated math groups.  The same teammate and I along with 1 of our other teammates, got together to plan out how to split our classes up to better meet the needs of our students in math.  We're new to this so it's not perfect.  Any suggestions you have are always appreciated.  We're going to teach the whole group lesson to our class first for the first 20 minutes of math and then for the remaining 40 minutes, the students were divided up into approaching, on-level, and beyond groups and they will go to one of us to get instruction and games tailored to where they're at.  I got the on-level group, which is the biggest at 28 kiddos.  We wanted to keep the approaching group little so they could really get the assistance they needed.  That meant that the other 2 groups were bigger (the beyond has 24 kiddos).  My plan as of right now is to make groups out of the 28 and meet with some of them during our time together while the rest play games to practice the skills we're working on.  For this unit it's simple because it's fact power.  I have tons of games for that.  So I'm excited to see how this works.  Telling you about this made me remember some other things I have to add to my to-do list today to get ready for the week.  I'm just so glad that I have the time to think about and work on it!!
So to share my happiness and wish you a Happy Columbus Day I'm linking up with Manic Monday by Classroom Freebies (which I haven't been able to do in a while).
This week's freebie is one that I made as part of the review unit I posted Sunday.  If you click on the picture below it will take you to my TPT store where you can click the download preview button and get my Long Vowel Go Fish game for free!  Have a Marvelous Monday!!  :)