Hello all........I have been busy! Super busy.............like past normal busy.......wanna know why??????????
Well, I got 8 new littles over night! I feel like octoteacher! Since I'm OCD in having everything just right I have been scrambling to get name tags and folders, and book luggage, and luggage tags, and job clips, and labels, and name posters, and new reading and math groups, and, and, and..................................................
Yes.................. it freaked me out. (only because that's a lot of new littles at once and we are 6 weeks in and my others are alllllllll trained:). Yes, we lost a couple of teachers.... but happy dance, they have all been placed:)
They are all a bunch of sweeties. So my old sweeties and my new sweeties seem to have merged fine and the best news yet....................................I thought I was going to have to start my year all over with Daily 5 and Math Workshop training BUT we dove in head first Friday and I think it's all going to work out!
My biggest concern was Math Workshop because this is totally new to me this year and I am still trying to iron out the wrinkles........but my old littles LOVE Math Workshop and after my new littles got a taste of it on Friday, I think with some sweat and maybe a few tears (mine...lol, thanks for listening and encouraging Elizabeth) we might be able to make it work. I wish I had more time to teach Math.......
This is our Morning Math Meeting board. The bestest change I made this year. As soon as the announcements are done, my kiddos pop up with their dry erase boards, markers and erasers and get busy answering all this. Then after a few, I start our day and we do this together. The inspiration was from
Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6 and her calendar Math. It is awesome!! I change things out as needed and am still adding to it.....once it is done, I will post it in my store.
Now, for the Math help portion of my title.........I would love/need to set up group tubs for my kiddos to use during hands on and would love any ideas anyone would like to share:) Please oh perty please help:)) What do you put in them, how do you organize.......
Finally, I think I must be more creative when stressed.........right in the middle of my day Thursday (prep day for the new octuplets...lol) I came up with a fun idea to add to my Work on Writing activities:)
Introducing......
Story Bubbles! I'm really kinda excited about this because the possibilities for using these are endless!!!! There are 48 bubbles to inspire creative writing:)
I'm going to put 4 or 5 on a ring and have several sets of these. The students take a ring and try to use all the pics as characters in their story.
They can be spread out and the kiddos can choose what they want to inspire writing.
The younger children could use one at a time as a sentence prompt.
Another possibility is putting several on a ring and then having the kids start telling a story and passing the ring, and each time, adding to the story and adding the new character, object, or setting.
All kinds of fun ideas:) I just love these bubbles. The adorable graphics are all from
MelonHeadz and the wonderful Nikki! The same person that made mini me!!
I want to quickly say THANK YOU to some of my blog buds that I emailed in my pre-octuplet panic....thanks for the encouraging words ladies, you all rock!!!
In honor of my new 8 littles (and me not losing my mind...lol) I am going to give away 8
Story Bubbles sets to the first 8 people that leave a comment about how you would like to use these in your classroom, and your email:)

Have a blessed day everyone!!! I'm gonna watch me some football!!!
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