It's Sunday - And The Weekend Isn't Over!

I don't want to brag, but I got to run 3 errands IN A ROW yesterday. And today, I am going to 2 places in a row! (Unless place #1 has everything I need, in which case I will just come home.) Last weekend I was the recipient of a lovely baby shower and next weekend I get to reciprocate by throwing a shower for her! I also  found out on Friday about a really awesome opportunity in library land that I'm trying to fast track in the 7ish weeks I have remaining before the baby gets here. Hopefully I can fast track without losing quality so that I can make it happen. I have a thousand work things to do for Tuesday morning because I also have to fit in my year's worth of observations into not-a-year. Missing 12 weeks of work takes out about a third of a 180 day school year (almost exactly, because my 12 weeks falls into a time frame where there are almost no days off!) and that means squeezing a lot in. I'm also working on projects for next weekend so what's a better way to procrastinate than to spend time writing here?

And here: http://jlsh935.blogspot.com/2013/01/well-theres-new-phrase.html

Year 3 - Day 229 - August 16

Here we are, on the first school night of the year. Tomorrow when the alarm goes off, I have to stay up! Oh the horror. Luckily I have a day to break in the alarm and my 5:45am days don't start until Monday. Whew. I got these paper globes at Target this summer and I'm hoping to make the Very Hungry Caterpillar out of them like this. Lots of people had it pinned on Pinterest and when I saw the globes on clearance I couldn't refuse. Of course we just got the email saying we can't hang things from the ceiling, so we'll see if I get in trouble. That'd be a bummer!

Year 3 - Day 220 - August 7

If you look at yesterday's picture, you can see the preview of this. I'm carless today for the 2nd day in a row, and feeling bored. I honestly didn't do anything interesting today so I walked back over to the end table where I took yesterday's picture and turned the page. :)

This is her visual representation of our library. Alphabetical shelves, some people, and of course a SmartBoard. :)

Year 3 - Day 219 - August 6

Another bag from the end of the school year emptied and another end of the year gift. :)

Year 3 - Day 198 - July 16

I cleaned out my school bag in preparation for a work thing I'm doing all week, and found some end of the year gifts and notes inside. This is one of them.

Top Row: a picture of a book with a tree, complete with standard little kid style squirrel hole. (I used to do that too - I know that every tree doesn't have a big squirrel hole, but I always drew them) I think the 2nd picture is a house with a pool and someone swimming

Middle Row: Me (complete with glasses), another book of some sort, and a mini Smart Board

Bottom: A declaration that I'm the #1 Library teacher and the other box says "Awesome teacher."

Kids are cute. :)

Year 3 - Day 139 - May 18

I hopped over to the local-to-school farm with an ice cream shop tonight to support our PTA. (Hey, I do what I can!) ;)

After that, we took a group of 2nd graders to an Integrated Arts showcase. It was ADORABLE. They did a skit and rap about the water cycle. Even though today was field day, all 15 or so of the kids showed up on time. They all remembered their lines even though they were nervous and performing on a big high school stage after just doing it in the classroom. The music pooped out on them while they were rapping, but they just went with the flow and made it work! It was super cute and they were super proud of themselves.

Year 3 - Day 129 - May 8

It's Teacher Appreciation week! This was our gift from the PTA today. It's one of the insulated cups with the straw that doesn't pull out! (It can come out the other direction for cleaning, but can't pop out the top.) Very snazzy! Thanks, PTA!

Year 3 - Day 125 - May 4

As part of a refresher in 2nd grade, my kids have been doing a scavenger hunt to get quicker at finding things on the shelves. I differentiated the game by making sure certain kids got certain cards. The cards on the bottom (without the underlines) match exactly to a shelf label. (Some are the first number or letter on the shelf label, some are the last number or letter on the label.) The "bonus round" cards are underlined. They exist in the room (and in the case of the letters, there are a whole bunch of books with that call number to make it a step easier.) But the shelf might just be labeled "BLA - BYA" so they have to figure out that's where BRO goes.

Even the kids that took awhile to get going eventually got speedy with the bonus number cards. Those bonus letter cards are hard. That's tough, since that's 99% finding a book in the library! Luckily they get to practice all the time. :)

Year 3 - Day 123 - May 2

This is one of the Black Eyed Susan books for next year. It's about the man who figure out how to design giant balloons for the Macy's parade. I love the invention aspect - he starts with marionette puppets and basically goes upside down! I also look forward to paring the book with Milly & The Macy's Parade which is fictionalized.

While I'm looking forward to both of those things, I am in no hurry for November to get here for the lesson to be timely. ;)

Year 3 - Day 110 - April 19

This happened to an outside pane of glass in the hallway at school today. Nobody knows how it happened. The leading theory is that it was hit by either a rock during the lawn mowing/weed wacking, or that a bird hit it and then flew away. There's nothing nearby to give any clues. Luckily, it's safety glass. Also luckily it's the outside pane.

Year 3 - Day 72 - March 12

(Picture cropped beecause it's my kiddos from school!)

A couple weeks ago, a fellow LMS emailed an idea she came up with. She gave all the kids in her classes a job. Some of them are more classroom related (like handing out papers or collecting the pencils.) Other kids had library jobs (like straightening the drawing book shelf that is continuously a disaster.) I liked the idea and stole it. :)

I have only implemented it with my little guys because I had a space in the schedule where I had time to teach them how to do their jobs. The big guys are all in the middle of a project right now and I didn't want to lose the momentum. The first graders are stinking adorable. One of the jobs I have is to "help" with book checkout. I want to work towards letting them check themselves out to free me up to help kids hunt for books. Therefore in first grade I start modeling the process very slowly. "I'm zapping your name. Do you see your name on the screen? Yes? Good, then it's ok to zap your book."

So my helper sits in the spinning wheely chair (a reward in and of itself, it appears) and double checks for me that the name on the screen is the face in front of us. (In actuality, I really do check that because my scanner has been known to do stupid things like skip a number, transpose numbers, etc, and therefore we wind up with books out to the wrong kids.)

Today, I was off helping kids find books and getting ready to go over and zap books when all of a sudden, I hear the zapping start happening. It was the right pattern of beeps (you librarians know what I'm talking about - there are so many beeps but we know which ones we should hear in which order!) and the kids were heading back towards their seats. Turns out my little helper in this class decided that 3 weeks of being a helper was enough, and she was all ready to take over.

At first, I was going to tell her to stop. But I didn't. I walked over and looked over her shoulder while she worked, and she was doing it right. She was also talking out loud so I knew what she was thinking.

(Kid walks up)
(She scanned their name)
(Looks at the monitor to ensure it scanned correctly)
"Yup, that's you! Let's scan that book. Oh! Good choice!"
(Book beep)
(next kid)
etc.

So I let her do it. It was so funny.

Now I *really* don't know how there are so many problems every time I have a sub. ;)

Year 3 - Day 57 - February 26

After a birthday brunch at the golf course this morning (cause we are apparently all true suburbanites now!) I headed down to AACo for a meeting. I was really excited about this one because it was in the media center of my childhood elementary school. The school opened when I was in 4th grade so I never really spent time down in the little kid wing, but I was familiar with half of the building and all the specials areas. I was surprised that it didn't really seem bigger or smaller than I remembered it. Maybe because I was already 4th grade size when it opened? I don't know. But it was a nice afternoon and fun memories!

Year 3 - Day 26 - January 26

I spent my planning period today doing this. They're just old book ends being used to hold up paperback books. I can't believe I never came up with this idea. I totally stole it from my mother and the book shop she works at. Usually I just lay the paperbacks down but this looks more fun. It's working, too, because I had to fill in a ton of holes at the end of the day and I just did it at lunch time!

Year 3 - Day 25 - January 25

One thing I like to do once in awhile when I know my kids are going to need a book for a class project is a lesson called "speed dating." Since they're 5th graders, I call it "hot potato" but it will always be "speed dating" in my brain since that's what it was called when I first read about it.

Each of the 6 tables gets a large stack of books about the theme, topic, genre, etc. (Whatever the teachers need them to leave with.) I make sure to have as many boy books as possible, since that's harder, and then fill in with girl books. When I was pulling them off the shelves, I made piles of "leaning towards boys" and "other." Then I sorted each of those big piles into 6 smaller ones. I try my best to spread out a variety of reading levels, too.

I put the online stopwatch up on the screen and they have 1 minute at a time to get to know a random book from their table. Pick it up, read the back, read the inside flap, read the summary, read the first page, heck they can even read the middle or the last page if they're one of those crazy readers that likes to know the end first. Just one minute. At the end of the minute, they write the title down on their scrap paper if it seems like a book that would work. They do this 3 times at each table and then we rotate between all the tables. They get to see 18 books of their choice before making a selection to take home.

I've been doing this during my 5th grade class for the past week. I wish I had a hundred more books of historical fiction (this week's selections) because the "WOOHOO's" die down after the first few classes. I do set up a computer with the county library's catalog so that we can search for titles if someone grabs my only copy of a book and a kid is dying for it. That has been helpful as well.

There are this many books left, and only 25 more kids to choose. I hope a bunch of them can get what they need.

Year 2 - Day 335 - November 22

A few weeks ago, I had a foul proof plan to make my life schedule work today.

I needed to make a doctor's appointment to check in with a doc I hadn't seen in awhile. Luckily, they were able to make me a super early in the morning (8am) appointment. This worked out PERFECTLY because the Turkey Trot was scheduled at school! That meant that I could get to work ASAP but wouldn't need to get a sub because the kids would be running around outside with the other specialists. Perfect! It's hard to just adjust your work day as a teacher since the subs can only be scheduled half or full day.

But then - it rained. That meant I would have my regular classes and so even though I'd be at work shortly after the kids, that doesn't exactly work! Since I had to schedule a sub, I didn't have to be at work til noon. That gave me time to grocery shop with the grandmas of town in the morning rather than fighting the crowds tomorrow!

So anyhoo, when I saw these giant bags of popcorn, I couldn't help but think about that logic problem that asks what's heaver, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead. I guess because these bags were HUGE (more than a foot across) and were just 2 pounds. I wanted to buy one, because it looked like fun, but really what does someone need with 2 pounds of popcorn. :)

My other exciting discovery at the store today was that they added an option to the spend money and get a free turkey deal. Rather than just turkey or ham, we could choose a giant fresh pork shoulder! Yum. If only we had time to cook it this week!

After dealing with some tough stuff this evening along with our HP3 viewing, my vacation can finally begin! I'm even staying up to watch Parenthood because I don't have to get up in the morning! WOOHOO!!!!!!

Year 2 - Day 329 - November 16

After being out of my classroom for 2 days at a meeting, I came back to a big pile of mail this morning. On top was a nice, linen envelope with my district's return address. Inside was a letter on nice, linen paper thanking me for being their employee for 10 years.

The first thought I had was snarky and related to our refinance - "Think they'd take THIS as proof of employment?"

But overall, it's nice to be recognized for sticking with my job even when times are tough. I have one from my 5 year anniversary too, and it's in my folder. I guess they're assuming I'm not going anywhere between now and January, since that's my actual anniversary date! :)

Year 2 - Day 299 - October 27

My 4th graders are working on a mini project about the Hindenburg. It's not really research since they're not making a lot of decisions, but they're enjoying learning the facts. They read about the Titanic in reading class, and that's pretty overdone, so we do an alternate disaster. The added bonus of the extra 25 years in history is the various versions of video footage. They laughed when I told them that people used to see the news in the movie theaters instead of commercials for Coke! :)

Year 2 - Day 285 - October 13

How can you tell it's rainy?

Look up at the sky.

But if that isn't an option, just check to see if there's a worm in my classroom. They come in droves - sneaking under the door along with the puddles. Today I had a few big books next to my rocking chair that we were using for activities. When I picked up the last one, there was a worm under it. The second graders were in awe. "Hey! That thing's real!" Luckily one of my darlings was willing to rescue the little guy and put him outside.

Where he belongs.

Year 2 - Day 278 - October 6

We ordered a newer version of Soar To Success this year that I'm sharing with another teacher. The difference is like night and day! There are finally non-fiction books included, which is going to make all the difference in the world (hopefully.) Cross your fingers!

Yes, I'm a nerd, but I'm ok with that. :)

Year 2 - Day 264 - September 22

Now that I've gotten through the first few weeks of "intro" lessons, we get to get into the good stuff! I made hundreds of copies of this year's Black Eyed Susan nominees paper so that we can get started with the reading. Woohoo! The kids have been asking for a couple weeks, so they will be super excited on Monday when I pull out this paper. Throughout the year, we read several of the books on the nominees list. The kids use this paper to keep track of the ones they like. Then in the spring they get to vote for their favorite. It's one of the activities they really look forward to.