Well, for the last few weeks I have had a bad cough and when my ribs started getting sore I started getting worried. But my cough is almost gone so I was surprised when my my ribs were more sore than ever. I had just told my brother how sore I was and popped 4 Advil when I coughed. I felt/heard the rib crack. YUCK! I yelled out and started crying in pain. I think I freaked my sweet 5th grader Quinn out. My brother wanted me to go to the ER but I knew there was nothing they could do and it wasn't quite as bad a last time. So, my vacation week plans have not turned out as I expected. I thought I was going to take my kids mini-golfing and finally going to give my house a deep clean. I thought I would finally get around to doing some work in the yard. NOPE! I can't do much of anything. And to add to the fun I have been coughing today! Oh man, that is torture.
My son Quinn has been especially sweet, bringing me coffee and stopping by to gently hug me.
I think my favorite product would have to be my Daily Editing Word Problems. It took me forever to make but now I have a whole year worth of morning work ready to go! Instead of writing a morning message on the board and correcting it whole group each student has a strip on their desk to try to find the mistakes on their own before we go over it together. The best part is the daily practice with word problems. We put a box around what I call the "Ding ding ding!" {The words that told us if we needed to add or subtract, etc}
The first half of the year we edit for capitalization, punctuation, and we circle sight words.
The second half of the year there are also spelling mistakes to correct.
My students love that the questions include holidays and themes we are learning about like penguins.
The first year we simply glued the strip into a notebook and showed our work below. Last year we used Cara's calendar binder which was great. This year I am trying to stick to the Common Core and needed to replace the coins so I made this to use and we put a month at a time into prong folders.
I still have coin questions in my Daily Editing pack so I guess I will have to edit the monster this summer to correlate with Common Core. Luckily there are 190 word problems so I am having no problem skipping the coin ones.
Area
My favorite area of my classroom is my guided reading table. My district has this crazy idea that only kindergarten teachers need a kidney table and they will not approve a request from any one else. Isn't that weird? I finally got one when a retiring teacher gave me hers.
I use Full Brain Teaching call and response. I say, "Class Class" and the students say "Yes Yes" back. I vary how I say it and they have to vary their response. If I say, "Classity Class" the students say "Yesity Yes" back. ANd then they are supposed to freeze and look at me. If they don't freeze I'll say, "Hands and Eyes" as a reminder to stop moving and look at me. What I like about this is I can use it anywhere like the library or on a field trip and don't have to rely on having my bell or whatever with me.
Sanity
I have a 40 minute lunch in our faculty dining room every day. We have a very friendly staff and lunch is usually filled with laughter. I need that adult time away from the students. I have heard from other teachers that their staff room isn't fun and many people eat lunch in their rooms. That is a shame since teaching can be so solitary sometimes.
*****Confession
I wrote this earlier today but fell asleep before I could finish. Tylenol with Codeine makes me loopy. I may just stick to Advil. Many, many Advil.
The good thing is now I probably have more posts I can read! :-) Go link up with Reagan if you have time.
