Happy Fall Sale (a little late)

Hey all!  I'm joining in the fall fever/sale for the weekend!!  Everything at my TPT store is 20% off all day today and tomorrow:)

I'm hoping the fall happy thoughts and sale will bring some fall weather to Florida:))  Have a great weekend and don't forget to pop back by and link up for Monday Made It:)

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Sea Turtle Stuff/Project/Research/Fun

I think that title about covers it.....In my last post I gave a little sneak preview of a little project we have been up to in my classroom.  I showed you this pic:

The ping pong balls were "the eggs" of sea turtles.  Each student  had a nest and after a little over a week, we had the eggs "hatch" and they learned about how many eggs make it to a live hatch (not very many out of 100.....sad, but a good lesson).  Don't even ask how many times the "eggs" got spilled or knocked over in the classroom.....it was time for them to HATCH!

(Warning............lots of pics ahead)

One of our stories is about endangered sea turtles.  Each year I have the kiddos do a little research project.  There were 5 different species of sea turtles in the story so I put little papers with the names in a bucket and the kids each drew one to research.  Each project has to include: facts, nesting, and threats to the sea turtles. 

This year I decided to also have them make a little sea turtle.  I let them each pic a rock to be used as the shell of the turtle. They had lots of fun with this and were very creative!  

Today we got to hook up with a 3rd grade class (THANK ASH!!) and my kids did little presentations about their specific species of turtle.  The 3rd graders used a rubric to grade my kiddos and then they got to take a little tour of all the different turtles my students made.

I think they did a great job and had fun learning:D

Now I'm off to bed....lol!  Seriously, I'm off to figure out what I'm doing for Monday Made It!  The monthly edition is right around the corner..........can't wait to see what everyone has made!  Hope you have some time to make a little something to link up:)

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Writing Pack Winner, Info, and What's Hatching??

Wowza!!!!  I totally didn't expect the giveaway to be that big!  You all are awesome!!!  Thanks bunches for entering and popping by and all the super sweet comments!!!!
Rafflecopter has picked a winner.................drumroll please..............................congrats to...........................

Congrats Rachel M:)  Look for my Writing goodies coming your way:)   I decided since you all were so awesomely (word?) sweet, I would have Rafflecopter pick another winner!  Congrats also goes to:

Congrats to you too Kerry!  Look for your pack today:)

I also had quite a few questions about my Shake, Write, Learn tumblers

 

They are full of those lovely sight words!!  The kids find one, write it, then use it in a wonderful sentence and repeat:)  lol  You can read more about them here.  I had a worksheet last year to go with it.  This year my kiddos need practice with conventions as well as spelling, so we are writing lots and lots of sentences instead of just the word:)

Also, here is the link for details about my Vocabulators:)

I wanted to give a little sneak peek at something I'll be blogging about later this week.  Last Monday, my kiddos walked into the room to these on their desks.....

Can you guess what they are (or are supposed to be....)???????????

Each student each got one of these too!

Give up????

Well, one student finished one of his projects early..........

Have a blessed Sunday!

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Work on Writing/Word Work..Settling in and A Little Giveaway!

It's Friday:)))  Yeah!  It has been a week:)  Too many transitions for this gal who doesn't like change at all...lol!

You'll be happy to know, the octuplets (he he) have settled in quite well!  I was truly fearful I would be training for weeks again......not the case.  Now, it's not perfect but we are running 4 rotations and it's working:)  What more could a teacher ask for?  They have truly caught up with my "oldies" as far as all the activities I have introduced.


So far I have only introduced 2 Word Work activities:

Super Hero Sight Words

 

They are loving these and so am I!!  It gives them practice on those sight words they should be spelling without trouble but still have problems with and  practice with sentence writing. A 2 for 1:))

(p.s. if you purchased these a) thanks bunches and b) the cheaper the dry erase marker, the better for easier clean up)

 

and Shake, Write, Learn

They love these to!  (little man in this pic "forgot" to write a sentence with each word....he fixed that..lol)

 

I have introduced lots more activities this year in our Work on Writing.

Here's Rory's Story Cubes in action:)

Shared Writing Journals

 

I introduced the Story Bubbles this week.  Huge hit!!!  The kiddos loved them:)

These are our book cover writing folders.  I have glued the covers only from book sleeves onto folders.  Then I put paper in the folders and the students take a folder and create a story inspired by the cover.

My story stones:)

Here is the table with all our Work on Writing activities.  (it just needs a cute sign)

The kids have several choices and just love it.  And sometimes, they just take their writing journal and curl up  in a corner and write without anything;)

I'm feeling happy, happy that everything is working out so I'm having a teeny, random giveaway.

It's short and sweet, ends midnight Saturday, yep tomorrow.  The winner gets my:

Story Bubbles

Shared Writing Journals

Super Hero Sight Words Set A and B

Story Starters

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Octo WHAT?, Story Bubbles, and Math Help:)

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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Daily 5 is Alive!!!

.....and going really well in my classroom!!  (Or should I say Daily 3??  I use all 5 at different times so I'm going with Daily 5!)  Anywhosey..................yep, a word:)........................

  Woop, woop!!  I just introduced Word Work last week with my Super Hero Sight Word Mission activities and it was awesome!!!!  (Little side note, FYI......if you purchased that activity, THANK YOU!  If you laminate it and use it as a daily or weekly center, we have learned that the cheaper dry erase markers are much better.  They erase much easier.)

Ok, so back to Daily 5........our stamina is up to 17 minutes and they have learned Read to Self, Word Work, and Work on Writing.  (We do Listen to Reading everyday because I LOVE to read to my littles!!  I just haven't officially "trained" them in that...lol)

Now remember, I don't do Daily 5 the exact way they talk about in the book.  The biggest difference between my room and the book is that my kiddos have free choice within each activity but not with their rotation.  There are several reasons for this and I think there are several of you out there in bloggy land that also have "set groups" because last time I mentioned this I got lots of responses:)  I also have Guided reading groups (another reason for no free choice for rotations)  I meet with and that is one of their rotations (Teacher Time).

So here is how I organize it all:)  (yes, I have a really small class right now)

 

On most days, I do 4 rotations BUT Friday, for the first time everrrrrrrrrrr 

(cuz last year was my first year with Daily 5 and it was all I could do to get that going right.....I don't deal with change well......yes Miss Squirrels, Farley, and Reagan...Squirrel!!!!)

focus.............ok, so for the first time ever, I did 3 rotations: Read to Self, Work on Writing, and Word Work AND conferences with students!!!!  It was awesome!  I am so excited. (and so freaked out because I have so much review reading to do in my CAFE book!!!)   So today I will be making the cover for my PENSIEVE!!!! 

Goals for this week are to intro some new Word Work activities and conference at least one if not 2 days:)

Also doing a mini-lesson on:

Here are a couple of my Daily 5 anchor charts:

     Hope you all have a blessed Sunday:)  

Thanks for popping by:)

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