Trying to get back in the habit of blogging! This month has been super busy! So here's my Five
for Fraturday! If you wanna link up just press the button below:
Last Wednesday was National Bookmobile Day! A
Bookmobile is a mobile library that travels to areas and schools that do not
have huge libraries, school or local, to choose from a plethora of books. Our
Bookmobile comes every Wednesday. To celebrate Bookmobile Day the peaches got
to color Bookmobile templates and our amazing Librarian Terry promised cupcakes
the following week. This week we were in for a treat by having yummy chocolate
cupcakes courtesy of Terry in celebration of the Bookmobile! She came in and
gave our kids some facts about the Bookmobile, it's been servicing our county
since 1948, and how special it is for our small school. Our kiddos love
Bookmobile and squeal with delight when they hear the beeping of the Bookmobile
as Terry parks it in our school yard. As you can see, we celebrate our
Bookmobile every Wednesday through the kiddos excitement and enjoyment when
they hear the Bookmobile arrive.
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| Our Bookmobile |
We have been busy bees in the classroom learning about
Toque Macaques. Disneynature came out with another amazing movie called Monkey
Kingdom. The great part about these movies is that Disney has a teacher
resource and lesson plans that you can utilize in the classroom. Many of the
activities are above my peaches heads so I broke it down even more for them
using lots of graphic organizers, mini books, and activities. We talked about
what they knew about Toque Macaques, viewed the trailer, learned about
Hierarchy of the Toque Macaques and answered a Can, Have, Are Chart. To celebrate
Earth Day we attended a showing of the movie at our local theater and got a
sneak peak of next years movie, Born in China.
In the land of Language Arts we've been studying
digraphs all week and will continue next week. I created a digraph scoot where
my peaches had to figure out what digraph was missing from the word. My kiddos
enjoyed it and will have a digraph write the room to complete next week.
My favorite part of learning digraphs is using fun
resources I've purchased from TPT. Thanks to Sarah Jacobson from A Sunny Day in First Grade my peaches had fun crafting Checkers the Chicken, categorizing with
Theo the Thief and I was so inspired by this digraph fun that I created a
pattern for our own Theo the Thief. Isn't he cute! I give credit to this
cute raccoon to Pink Cat Studio, she has the most adorable creations!
In second grade we
read my favorite story, Thunder Cake! I couldn't resist the opportunity
to get my kiddos engaged in the story by reading this non fiction book about
Lightning. They were blown away by all the facts in this book they could hardly
wait to read the story. Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco is about a
young girl and her grandmother. The young girl is frightened by the coming
storm but her grandmother shows her how brave she can be by going on an
adventure to collect ingredients for the cake. My peaches enjoyed counting with
the girl as she figured out how far away the storm was from her grandmother's
house. To celebrate this book we always cook thunder cake in the
classroom. It was a great success!
We journal every day in class and my peaches come up
with some cute art work to go with their sentences. Here's my favorite one from
last week.
In Math we are piloting Go Math for next year. Luckily,
my peaches haven't covered measurement yet so it worked out perfectly. They
LOVE IT! I feel like I'm just a facilitator of their learning. The online
program is super interactive, they review the skill and then have evaluations
to turn into the teacher so we can use the data to reteach or extend lessons.
The second my first graders logged in they have been in love with the program.
I also use it for my second graders for the class work portion of the lesson.
They enjoy it as well. The only drawback I've seen so far is that in the
interactive portion, if the child selects the wrong item it does not tell them
they are wrong it just continues the lesson as if they chose the correct
object. Also, it's great for schools that have computers or iPads for every
child. I could also see myself using the program as a whole group activity if
computers weren't available for each student. Overall, I would highly recommend
the program, Go Math, to a tech-savvy school. In May I plan to pilot Math
Expressions!
This year in art I attempted a giant feat, paper mache!
Dun, dun duuuun! We've been working on these bad boys going on three weeks! We made
our paper mache, painted them and then added our continents. I can proudly say
they are all done and happily decorate our classroom. My favorite day was
painting day. I had a peach blew up his paper mache, because it was
deflating, while the paint was still wet. I must say the results were
comical.
I've saved the biggest news for last!
So I've been working as a Paraeducator at my school for six years. When I was hired I figured I was just helping the lead teacher with all her students. However, it was so much more. I was in charge of kindergarten through second grade. Not only that, but I held other responsibilities that help run a school. It has been a great experience and I love all of the students and families I've gotten to know the past six years. To be part of this small school is to be part of an extended family. A week ago I attended a job fair so that I could impact more children in my community. I visited various booths and basically told them "I'm game for any grade and don't care how far away your district is!" It was nice to have so many schools vying for you to teach at their school. I've been to interviews where I was one in who knows how many applicants. After these interviews, I was left with an uncertainty as I didn't know what the outcome would be. I beamed with excitement as each table seemed to be a perfect fit. I'm so happy to say I will be teaching my own classroom next school year! After I signed my contract I thought about all my students at my current school. What am I going to say to these little peaches that won't crush their world? How am I going to explain that I'm leaving? I've already had a couple of nightmares where they end up saying they hate me. So I'm reaching out to you, yes you, have you ever had to tell your students you are leaving the school? What worked for you? Any picture books you would recommend?
-Disclaimer: if you are part of my small school community please do not share this news with them, I have yet to tell them. I plan on telling my kiddos two weeks before schools out!
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| My new school district |
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| The pen I used to sign my contract |
