Thursday, October 23, 2014

I love.......

Can I just start off by saying I love being a teacher! The past 20 years have been incredible! I have had so many happy moments and sad moments but they have made me the educator I am today and I would not change anything.

I love my kids! They are so amazing! What they accomplish every day is awesome!  They strive to meet my expectations and they are hard workers.  The looks on their faces when they have been successful or learned something new is worth all the blood, sweat and yes tears at times that I put into planning my day.

I am lucky to be in a profession where I have the world's most important commodity all day, children. We make a difference!

Can I just end by saying I love being an educator!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Adopt a Classroom

Adopt a Classroom is an amazing site for teachers to join. It is free! All you do is register your classroom. If you want to create a project, it is up to you. Once you register your classroom, businesses can adopt your classroom.

When they adopt you, you will receive an email. The funds are available immediately.  You can then spend the donation at any of the partners. These companies include Office Depot,  Carson dellosa,  Kaplan, School Specialty,  Beckers, Scholastic,  and there are more!

I have received two donations since I registered my classroom.  Jc Penney donated 100 dollars and Lane Bryany donated 500 dollars!

So what are you waiting for?  Register your classroom today!

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Sunday Savings Circular Linky

I am linking up with the awesome Nicole of All Things Apple for her Sunday Savings Circular Linky Party!
Here is my Sunday Circular!


There you have it! Buy any product get one free from today until Wednesday October 15! then my entire store will be 20% off from Thursday October 16 to Saturday, October 18!

Please click on the little shopper to see some other great deals from some other wonderful teachers!



Happy Snaps Sunday!

Oh my, I did not realize it has been this long since I blogged! I am linking up with Classroom Chit Chat for Happy Snaps Sunday!

This is a linky party where we blog about what makes us smile! Well, this is what makes me smile!


This is my daughter, Emily! I love her more than words could say! She makes me smile all the time! Being a single mom, I get to experience all of her accomplishments and her shining moments as well as her uh oh moments!

I would not trade being her mom for anything in this world!

Please push the button below to see what makes other educators smile!



Thursday, October 2, 2014

October Currently

I can not believe it is already the first of october! Can I just say I am so glad!! I love October! I am linking up again this month with Farley of Oh'Boy 4th Grade for her monthly Currently Linky!

Here is my Currently for October!


So what am I currently doing this First day of October:

Listening...... I am listening to David Letterman! I can not sleep so I am up listening to him banter with Bill O'Reilly!

Loving..... That Fall is finally here! The air is crisp and it is cool enough to wear my sweaters and long sleeve shirts!

Thinking...... I sure am going to be tired in the morning since I am still up and it is technically October 2!!!!

Wanting......  A New Fall Wardrobe!!! Seeing all the cute ensembles on Instagram and what others are getting through Stitch Fix is making me realize that my clothes stik and I WANT new!!!!!

Needing...... To win the lottery so I can get a new Fall Wardrobe!!!!

Trick or treat... A Treat of course!!! Check it out below!!!!

Love this monthly Linky!! Thank you, Farley for creating this Currently and for our monthly Linky!

Happy Fall Ya'll!!

Click the picture below to see what some other amazing educators are Currently doing!!!!






Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Camp Number Sense

Wow!! What a great couple of days it has been in our classroom! We have begun Camp Number sense!



Number sense is such a vital math skill and one that needs to be focused on and insured that the students are able to perform with fluency! If they do not get these skills during the foundational years then they will have great difficulty mastering the math expectations in the later years.

The Common Core State Standards in Math in First Grade focus a lot on Number sense. So the idea of Camp Number Sense was born. The students will participate for two weeks in camp activities concentrated on Number sense. These CCSS will be the focus of our activities.

Campers will follow the following agenda:
Their camp days will be filled this week with:
Potato sack Number line: Mon and Tues, students will roll a 10 sided die and jump in potato sacks down a number line. They will have math discussions over which numbers are greater and less than and how do they know as well as what number comes before and after the number they jumped to. I created my number line using a long piece of burlap I found at Walmart for $3.49, red and blue plastic plates also from Walmart (a pack of 50 for $4.88) and numbers from Creative Teaching Press! The sacks were $1.00 at Tractor Supply.

The kids loved this activity!

  


On Wed and Thursday, they will be jumping and creating number sentences!

Math with their Math Counselor (Me) was fun. They worked on number lines and starting at a number and getting to a number. We did story problems about camp. For example if we start with 6 marshmallows and we get 8 more how many marshmallows all together or if we start at rock number 6 and we jump in our sack forward 6 more rocks where are we? The kids loved manipulating their number lines and writing their number sentences! Some groups used +Mike Pecci  @weveel @scentos and created their own number lines! We also manipulated our giant classroom number line!

 


They love their scentos!!!!!! Here is a video of the potato sack number line:



Tech by the fire is another area they loved to visit during Camp Number Sense this week! They got to sit by the campfire and use the chrome books! They were on the websites abcya.com and dreambox! I made the campfire by taking sticks and tying them together at the top with wire. I place rocks in a circle and place the sticks in the middle so they rested against the rocks. I then added red christmas lights as the flames! Plugged them in and voila an awesome campfire!


Spotlight on the Number is an activity that the campers got to focus on a number and represent it on the camp themed paper. They were to represent it using number bonds, ten frames, number sentence, tally marks, picture, word, tens and ones, domino and number line! They did this by lantern light! They loved the lantern!























The bonus area for those campers who were just having a tremendous experience at Camp Number sense was the Osmo! This is an amazing technological tool. It attaches to the IPad and it watches the moves the kids make and lets them know if they are placing the tangrams correctly to create the object. To check it out please click here and go to their webpage!


The kids brought in bandanas and hats to wear during the camp but due to the high temperatures at camp, they were not worn for long! The camp schedule is monday through Thursday for campers and monday through Friday for the Math Counselors. There is a mandatory camp training program all day on Friday! (a professional development day for teachers)

Camp will resume next week with new activities! Please come back next week to see the activties and then again on Friday to see the highlights from Camp Number Sense Family Day! More details to come!

Before the post ends, please check out the awesome camp counselor shirts we had made from Vistaprint! Groupons sure come in handy! LOL!!!



eek 2 of Camp Number Sense will be blogged about next week! Please come back and see what our math campers will be doing to enhance their number sense skills at Camp Number Sense!!!