Five for Friday

I made it to Friday and am still awake! I don't know about anyone else, but I am ready for the weekend. More importantly, I am ready to enjoy next week hanging out with little E. The last few weekends, we have been super busy. I come home on Friday night and am falling asleep by 8:30. Then we've stayed busy all day Saturday and I have completely missed out on Doodle Bugs Five for Friday linky party. Not tonight (although I may have already taken a 30 minute cat nap).

Wednesday was early release for us. That means that my friends leave a whole two and a half hours early. This day also happened to fall on the Great American Teach-In. We had two visitors this year. The first was a Cross-fit trainer who had all of the kindergarteners up and moving. Then we had one of my best friend's come in. Karri is a veterinarian. About 2 years ago, she and her husband moved to North Carolina. They just happened to be visiting this week and she was kind enough to take a few hours out of her day to come share with my friends.  They loved her! They can't quite say veterinarian so they refer to her as the doctor.  

For the last few weeks we have been studying numbers 11-20. I have been working at integrating more arts into our classroom. This activity was a hit! My friends had a blast using popcorn seeds to create models for numbers. 

This week has had frigid temperatures for Florida standards. I am so thankful for the car seat warmers. I have used them at least 4 morning this week. It's very comical listening to my friends talk about how cold it is. Poor things, they just have no clue what true cold weather feels like. Then in the afternoon, I am able to enjoy the nice sunshine. It's been a crazy weather week. 

 This week we have spent lots of time learning about the first Thanksgiving. As a culminating activity during math we used our measurement skills and made individual pumpkin pies. My friends had the best time. Most of my friends were scraping the bottom of their cups for every last drop. I only had one friend not finish it. I am so glad that I went out on a limb this week and to do this activity.

Karri's visit was definitely one of the highlights of the week. For years we have had many conversations, prayers, and tears about starting families. In February, my husband and I were up to our elbows in home study paperwork. I may have been dragging my feet. One evening, Karri told me I needed to get it done because her little girl needed a friend. Her words were just the encouragement I needed to finish all of the paperwork. Karri's little girl is 3 months older than E and for the first time we were able to meet one another's babies. E had the cutest outfit on, but it didn't last very long before he needed an outfit change.  To hold each other's children this week was indescribable. No one will truly understand the connection we share. These two babies are the answer to many prayers we have shared. I'm thankful we are experiencing this new world of mommy-hood together. 

Tomorrow we're off to meet Santa! Other than that there's not much planned but catching up with some friends and doing some shopping. I hope everyone has a nice low-key week and relish in all you have to be thankful for. Head back over to Doodle Bugs so you can see what everyone else has been up to this week. 

Five for Fraturday. - Happy Halloween!

Once again I had good intentions and then Halloween happened and well . . . .here I am again joining Doodle Bugs with Five for Fraturday.

I don't know about anyone else, but it has been a CRAZY week! Monday evening another kindergarten teacher and I were walking out to our cars only to meet a snake - a LONG snake! Let's just say we ran back in the classroom and went the LONG way to our cars. Then Tuesday we had no running water at school because there was a water main break across the street. Between the district and our school, six portable toilets for 800 students were brought on campus and a case of water was delivered to every classroom. Let's just say it was DISGUSTING and GROSS!!!

I love my kindergarten team! There are 8 of us in all and it may have taken us a who years to all gel and bond, but we truly do support one another and work as a team. One of the best parts of working with these ladies is that throughout the year we do special days where each one of us selects one activity and the students rotate classes. It's a great change for everyone, we all get to know one another students a bit, and it helps keep their energy filled bodies moving to a different activity every 30 minutes and not driving us bonkers. Friday was our Halloween themed rotation day. I spent all day helping 120 five year olds make these number pumpkins. I planned ahead and copied them on colored paper, my wonderful husband whole punched them all ahead of time. All of the students had to trace the number,  draw a picture to match the number, and if there was time they wrote the number word too. 

My friends have been working really hard the last two weeks on identifying characters and settings. This week we added a little fun twist and turned ordinary pumpkins into characters. My friends had to work together to pick a character, plan what they wanted to do, what supplies they might need, and execute their plan. I plan to blog about this tomorrow to share a bit more. 

I have spent the last two weeks eradicating signs of my less than mediocre sub. Truthfully, I could write a whole post on this topic, but for many reasons I will not. Instead I will only share four things.

• She did not read anything! She missed the big note that said all the assignments in the lesson plans that were highlighted yellow needed to be collected so I could grade them. She sent everything home for two and a half weeks.
• When October started, she changed the calendar by changing the heading. That's it. She never once moved the dates to the proper days of the week. I was so happy to fix that this week!
• My class never left their desks. How sad! They never went to the carpet, they never moved around the room, they never danced and sang songs. She had no concept of what was developmentally appropriate for kindergarten. 
• She had no clue how to use the copier nor read the plans and notes to know what to copy. She managed to go through five of my 6 reams of paper. It takes about three weeks for me to use a ream of paper. I have recycled about three large piles like this over the last two weeks. Thursday I found this pile sitting on the bookshelf in the corner. It's just so much wasted paper. 

Now I will move on and never bring this up again. I am very happy to move on to November!

This week we spent time comparing numbers. I love when my friends can participate in a group activity, like this. Two friends selected a number, two more friends used ghost counters to model the number, one friend selected the sign we needed, and then we all said "(the first number) is greater/less than (the second number)".

Happy Halloween! We spent the evening at our friends' house. Every year they host a Halloween Trick-or-Treating party. They ordered pizzas, everyone else brought a dish to pass, and then all the kids go trick-or-treating. Edison was the cutest Olaf with his four Elsas. So were clear, Edison did not collect any candy, and we eventually went back to the house ahead of everyone to get away from the mosquitoes. YES -Mosquitoes! Growing up in the Midwest I only had to worry about making sure I could wear winter clothes with my costume, but in Florida I have to worry about putting on enough bug spray. Overall, it was a great way to end the week and this guy is totally worth melting for!

Don't forget to head on over to Doodle Bugs and see what everyone else has been up to.

Now to enjoy the cold front this weekend. It's a chilly 64 degrees this weekend. I am not cut out for Midwest winters anymore.

Five for Friday . . . Fraturday

Let me just start that I began blogging this post last night, fell asleep, and then spent the day taking my mother - in - law to the airport and running errands with my husband and E. It is now 9:00, and we have been ready for bed since 7:30.

So after taking the last 7 weeks off to focus all of my attention on to being a mommy, I am finally ready to return to my little space in the blogging community. What better way to rejoin than with Doodle Bugs weekly Five for Friday now Fraturday . . .

This week I returned to work. While I love being a mom, I also love being a teacher. I wish I could just strap E to me and bring him along. It was a slightly crazy week with the end of the quarter with grades due today by noon. Monday was a district work day, and Wednesday my school provided subs for all of the kindergarten teachers to have a planning day. Enjoy my five highlights from the week.

I've really been trying to figure out how to explain what went on in my classroom while I was away. In January, my district decided to contract all subs through a third party. Because of this, my administration and I did not get to select who would be my long term sub. Let's just say I've had a lot of nice, thoughtful, brilliant, intelligent colorful language. Look closely at this photo and see if you can figure out how many things are wrong. My husband and I spent 2 hours Monday night sorting through and organizing all of the centers I had left for her. It looked like she threw 8 weeks of reading and math centers into three bags. I could dedicate an entire post to just the mistakes she made. Let's just say it was BAD!!

 My friends should have learned about matter while I was gone, but that would have required a sub who read plans and actually wanted to teach my friends. Obviously that didn't happen so we did one of my favorite experiments for matter. This experiment requires, a snack size bag, ice cubes, and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. We start by placing ice in a snack size Ziplock bag. Partners then had the challenge of changing the ice from a solid to a liquid (it does help that it is still 85 degrees here in Florida). Then we added one Alka-Seltzer tablet  to the baggie and watched  a gas form as the bag expands. My friends understand solids and liquids, but gases are harder for them to understand, but with this experiment they are able to see a gas right in front of their face.

I took some time redoing the words for my word wall and creating two charts for our first and second quarter High Frequency Words. I noticed that our HFWs were getting lost with the letters. It was just very busy and hard to determine what the words were because they had a heavy border around them.  So I created all new word cards. It is turning out much better than I thought. I also took the first and second quarter words and made a chart for each quarter. Then I added name badges for each chart. As my friends master the set of words, their badge will move up to the next chart. I normally do something similar at the end of the year, but I am hoping will encourage my friends to learn their HFWs now. I still have the third and fourth quarter words to write. Once they have all 127 words they will move their name badge to a chart that says, "I'm ready for First Grade!". I love healthy competition and encouragement, and this provides just that.  

This week it was nice to be back in my classroom with my friends working together. There's something I love in helping my friends learn to work together, have fun, and achieve a task or goal. I can definitely tell the few who ran circles around the sub, but I know they have missed me and are ecstatic I am back.

It wouldn't be right unless I included the highlight to my week: coming home to Edison. He has grown so fast. About two weeks ago he finally started wearing 3 month clothe and in about 3 weeks he will be completely out of them. I'm trying to have him wear as many as he possibly can. E has some adorable outfits, but the weather is still too warm for many of them. 

That's about it. This coming week is Read Ribbon Week among every child's favorite free candy holiday. We'll be working on some creative character projects this week. I hope they turn out. Check back to read all about it. 

Five for Friday . . . Fraturday

I had all intentions of finishing this Friday night. Then I fell asleep - you know the I've-made-it-through-the-first-week-EXHAUSTION, and nothing I write is making sense anymore. So Five for Friday has turned into Five for Fraturday. Normally the first week seems to fly by, but this week seemed to drag on and on and on and on. Did it seem that way for anyone else? I also think it was the hottest week ever too. The heat index the last two days was around 120 degrees. Really!!! How is the even possible? But alas I am at home in my comfy pajamas and happy to say I had the best week ever.

Monday was the first day of school. I am now up to thirteen friends in my class. Every day they do something that just amazes me and makes me feel so lucky and blessed to have this group of friends. We had a lot of fun read Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. We made a list of all the things Mrs. Bindergarten did to get ready along with ourselves. We made Kindergarten is SUPER hats (found HERE) and I have to say I have a wonderful husband who comes and helps the first day. He helps go through supplies and take photos. It's so helpful to have someone that I can just look at and he is able to know just how I want something done. This year he dressed as Superman to go along with my classroom theme! He is amazing!! Now My friends ask where he is and when he's coming back.

Thursday afternoon, I had the privilege of joining several friends for our county's first Reading Council Meeting of the year. It was held at a popular local restaurant. My friend Betsy and I both ended up texting our husbands and telling them to join us after work for dinner and had a great impromptu double date. I think nights like that might be one of my favorite things to do with friends - laughing and sharing.

This week my friends worked on learning their positional words such as above, below, behind, and in front. We started off with everyone getting two Dixie cups and one animal manipulative piece. Then they had to listen to my directions and move the piece based on my directions. They loved this! It also gave me a really good idea about what each student already knew. We also spent some time reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and writing our names. My goal is to add a photo of each student to their page and assemble their pages into a book.

Kindergarteners say the darnedest things. Early on this week one of the ESE teachers was helping keep my friends occupied while I was taking care of some business. She would call a number and my friends would hold up that many fingers. I learned this week that five and five make ten, but when you put your hands together it also makes a butterfly!!! A butterfly! - said with perfect innocence and timing it was great. I also have another friend who would like to go home. This might be the biggest challenge among my friends, which is nothing compared to past challenges. This friend refused to eat, cried, made herself dry heave from crying so hard that mom kept her home one day and picked her up early one day. While this has not helped the situation. Today she was telling me "I need to go to the hospital". She's calling the clinic the hospital. It is so cute, but she thinks if she goes up to the nurse in the clinic she will go home. I'm happy to report that today was successful and we stayed all day (with many a few tears).

This week I joined Blog Hoppin's Back to School 2014 . I made it through the first four days. Head on over and read what is happening in everyone's classroom's this year. 

Don't forget to head back over to Doodle Bugs Teaching so you can see what everyone else has been up to this week too!