First Grade Common Core

Long time, wouldn't you say? I'm just popping in for a real quick post. I was wondering if you have seen this amazing workbook for the CCSS? I found it a few seconds ago and I think it's great! This is by far the biggest First Grade Common Core resource that I have found so far....It has over 550 common core ELA and math activities, centers, and posters. Go check it out but clicking here: First Grade Common Core

I've been tagged

GAME.ON. Here are the rules:

1. You must post the rules.

2. Post 12 fun facts about yourself on the blog post.

3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged.

4. Tag 12 people and link them on your post.

5. Let them know you've tagged them!

12 Fun Facts About Me:

1.        I only have 285 days left as a single woman!

2.      My fiancé and I just bought our first home!

3.      I’m having the time of my life decorating our home.

4.      I brought my wedding dress over the Christmas break and I LOVE IT!

5.      I love reading blogs but I have a very hard time finding a way to blog about what is going on in my classroom.

6.      School is kicking my butt, but I’m learning so much!

7.      This Saturday we are going to taste cake at a potential bakery. I’m excited I LOVE CAKE!

8.      My students took the NWEA again last week and my most of them had 15-20 point gains. (that makes me feel like a GREAT teacher)

9.      My primary team has just started doing author studies.  We started with Marc Brown, my students really loved working with one author while still learning different concepts. This month we started with Ezra Jack Keats.

10.     No chip manicures are the best thing since sliced bread.

11.       I could live in the store Home Goods. I swear they take all of my extra spending money.

12.     PINTREST was made to keep me from being productive.

1.        What is your favorite TV show?

My favorite tv show is HOUSE! I just love that man, I really wish I could find a doctor like him.

2.      What is your must have food/drink to keep you going during the day?

I must have a Gatorade and a Sprite. Without them I would be LOST!

3.      Tell us your most recent student story that made you laugh out loud.

Today while visiting the kindergarten class, I noticed a “smelly” situation. I asked the teacher did she notice it. After she said she did we went around trying to figure out who it was. Only to find out it was week old beans from a students science fair projects. We laughed about this for the rest of the day!

4. Favorite stores are The Dollar Tree, Target, Home Goods and Marshalls

5. Fill-in-the-blank: I can't live without my ipad.

6. What kind of school do you teach at? Public, charter, private, independent?

Charter School

7. How many students are in your class?

25

8. Website you visit every day without fail.

This could be the longest list in the world. I visit tons of blogs everyday, facebook, pintrest and gmail.

9. One thing that's on your bucket list.

I don’t have a bucket list.

10. What's one thing you are focused on becoming better at as teacher?

I’m learning to patient. I’ve realized that sometimes I expect my students to learn every skill right after the first lesson.

11. How many teachers are at your school, and how many are male vs. female?

15 teachers

4 male

11 female

12. What's one thing that made you feel lucky/blessed/happy today?

I think that I reached a student that was holding out on me emotionally. It made me happy that she felt like she could trust me J

Guess who I'm spending the day with!?!?

An informative, exciting post to follow!!! I'm super excited about this, can't wait to share what I learn.


BTW- Are any of you gals here?

What I Wore Wendesday on a Thursday/First Day of School 2011

What I Wore Wendesday on a Thursday!

I intended for this post to be made on yesterday but I left my computer chager at work and my laptop died on me in the middle of this VERY LONG POST. Why so long because I realized yesterday that I had yet to publish my post about the first day of school. Sorry, I'm slacking sorry :-(

Here is my outfit from yesterday

This was written on September 9, 2011

Today was our first day of school for the 2011-2012 school year. I woke up this morning at 5:00 a.m. and was out of the door by 6:15 a.m. Talk about AMAZING! I'm never up that early let alone leaving out of the door on my way to work. Needless to say my day started out great, I felt super prepared and ready to give my new first grade friends my ALL.

I had A LOT to accomplish that day. It all started with me planting a small "Back to School Gift" on each one of my team members desk. Wait I should back up and tell you the week before school started I was picked as the Primary Team Leader! Talk about exciting even though I know this postion includes more work for me. My team is group of well educated, dedicated woman that got into teaching for the same reason. We all want to help our children become the best they can be.  Lets get back to the first day of school though. I placed a small token on each teachers desk and each Instructional Partners desk.

                                         

 The idea came from Eigthteen25 and I was able to download it for free. Be sure to check them out because they have GREAT ideas for every occasion.

After getting my gift planted before each of them arrived I made sure everything was set up in my classroom and my shedule for the day was placed around my classroom so I was ready at any given moment during the day. I made a few copies and then it was time for my students to arrive. This year we greeted the parents and students outside and then we let them into the building. This worked out great because parents got to speak to the teacher for a few seconds before intrusting them in the hands of their teacher.

Once we got into the building my students where taught how to line up in the hallway, how to enter into the classroom and they also we allowed to pick their own desk. I always do this because I like to see who is friends with whom. I allow the students to sit next to whomever they are confortable with for the first month of school then I change sitting arrangements, students are then most likely to sit next to one of their group members or next to someone I think will benifit from the arragement.

After all the house keeping things where done we dove straight into Daily 5. Students did an excellent job helping me make a I-chart for Read to Self. I've been a bad blogger and forgot to take pictures :-( 

We took pictures for the first day of school they turned out so cute and I've used them many times since then around our classroom.

On the first day we got out at 12:30 so that was the end of my day.

Because this post is already sooooooo LONG. I'm sure it's the LONGEST POST EVER. I'll be back with a recap of my first FIVE weeks of school.

What I Wore Wednesday-Teacher Edition2

Here is this weeks peek at my outfit of the week. This happens to be a bad picture but hey it's not about my expression or lack of one it's about the clothes.

I'm wearing brown and cream striped slacks from New York and Company along with a cream blouse from New York and Company. This was super comfortable all day long. I was even happy about the long sleeves by the end of the day since we had a fire drill and it was FREEZING cold outside today since it rained.

In other news...

OMGosh, this school year is really wearing me out! I'm not complaining though because I am having a GREAT time with my new little friends. It's only been FOUR weeks and I already feel like we have learned so much and that they have grown to be a tad bit more responsible than they were. These are all GREAT things but they also cause me to be TRIED TRIED TRIED by the end of the day.

I hope you guys are having a wonderful school year also!

Top 10 Award

I'm a tad bit late posting about this topic but I must thank a couple of my fellow teacher bloggers Jess from Rambling about Reading and Chistine from Hopping into First Grade for awarding me with the Top 10 Blog Award. A year ago when I started this blog I never thought I would have people reading about the things going on in my classroom. Heck I never thought people would be interested in ME at all. Lucky for me I was wrong! But more than anything I'm so grateful to have all of your wonderful blogs to read everyday and to keep me encouraged.

What I Wore Wednesday-Teacher Edition

A couple weeks ago a really good friend of mine asked me to start blogging about what I wear to work. I didn't really understand why that was important. After she explained to me that she is a member of a fashion board (she is a merchandise major) and the one thing that always comes up from non members is "What should a teacher wear to work?" So I've decided that I'm going to do her a BIG favor and blog every Wednesday on what I wore to work. Please know that the outfit may not be from Wednesday every week but hey I wore it to work so that's all that matters. If you want to join in on this I'll post a linky tool next week.

Here is my outfit of the week



This dress was super comfortable and the cardigan was the pop of color I needed.