Best Field Trip EVER!!!

I HAVE to share some of the awesomely ADORABLE pictures that we got from today's exciting day! We were invited to go trick-or-treating which was organized by our local news station and sponsored by local businesses around the area, and I had NEVER seen some of the smiles that we saw today. This trip was so well worth every bit of hard work we have put in during the school year...

^^ First, a picture of the awesome bulletin board my para made us last week during our half day :). She was able to pull them individually to decorate a fall shape of their choice, and she put names on the other shapes. She is SO awesome. I wouldn't trade her for ANYTHING. :D

^^ After face painting, I tried to get all their pictures outside... next to the door... I forgot one. But we were going to be late, so OH WELL.

 

^^The AMAZING Ms. K doing some face painting, next to the MOST HANDSOME-looking were wolf EVER!!! 

^^ Here we have two triceratops dinosaurs. Poor boy on the left REALLY wanted to be the INCREDIBLE Hulk, but poor Ms. K couldn't figure out how to make a Hulk hat! :/ Lucky for him, we ran into (whaddya know?) Mr. Hulk himself at the event.

 ^Soooo tickled by his favorite hero! :)

 ^^Our boys love any kind of reptile. Dinosaurs, lizards, alligators, you name it... So OF COURSE we had to get a picture with the crocodile. Nobody really cared for Cap'n Hook, but he never left Mr. Alligator's side.. so we took a picture with both! LOL

 ^^Most amazing part EVER!! They had STUDENTS setting up round tables with cake, rice krispies, and juice!! Our class LOVES snack! Better yet, you would not BELIEVE the service! They had young kids, (I mean 11 years old) coming around with trays, asking politely if they could "...take any trash out of your way for you ma'am?" Like WHAT!? I don't know who trained them, but they were TOTALLY amazing. They even came around offering teachers cans of Sprite and bottles of water. I loved them. I wish I could take them home! :D

^Not sure I've ever seen them so happy in my LIFE!

 

^We even went to the playground afterwards! The weather was perfect, and it was super fun to play on a different playground. 

So that's it... My chicken soup for the day. I love fun days. Funny how polar opposite some of our days can go. Sometimes they are too good to be true, and other days, well, we just have to keep on ...keepin' on, as I like to say :) Either way, I LOVE my class, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world! Days like this remind me that this is definitely the best year of my life!

FIRST FREEBIES EVER!

I LOVE three day weekends!! They're my favorite. So we had a furlough day on Friday, and they decided we can go to a professional learning to keep our money for that day - but I had already planned on having my nice day off! :) And Thursday was cool because we had a half day, and I spent the afternoon rearranging furniture and getting more organized. I can't WAIT to come back with pictures on Monday. Anyways, I've been working on some things to share all year, so here it is... MY VERY FIRST FREEBIES EVER!!! I'm so excited! I just hope you like them as much as I do!

 

Remember my fabulous clip chart? Well, I've finally just edited it to have pretty borders! 

Click [here] to download the file, including the THINK-O-METER sign. 

 

Well I got SO many compliments on my Reinforcements poster, I decided to finally post them for you here to print out for your own use. I mainly just listed the main reinforcement categories that would be available in my classroom, and I found clipart in Word, and google images. This is what I came up with. Let me know if you would like the word document to edit it yourself, and I would be happy to send it to you!

So, you're probably wondering how I use it. The truth is, I don't actually use it right now. But here was the idea.... I have these "I CAN DO IT!" token reinforcement boards, and the students are supposed to choose which item they want, get it from the pocket poster, and they can add that picture to their board. 

 

The token system came with little velcro stars, which was perfect, but they can be a little pricey. So I made some to share with you :) Click on the picture below to download your own reinforcement board and pictures.

 This year, I decided to create a strict morning routine checklist to help students get settled more quickly. I never actually used it, but here's a copy if you're interested. Let me know if you would like the editable version!

So I worked really hard to produce an effective calendar system this year. Well, this is how I set it up at the beginning of the year, but I actually have done some rearranging since then, so I need to update the picture... However, I'm going to tell you a little bit about our routine, and then you can get the last freebie at the end :D....

So the VERY first thing we do during Calendar time is... count the number of days we've been in school....

So we add the number card to the pocket chart (above), and then we add another craft stick to our ones cup (below). You can see we have a cup for hundreds, tens, and ones. Then we write how many tens and ones on our Place Value chart! (Notice- the students do all of it! I just ask the questions!)

So then we add another day to the month, and talk about the complete date:

 

 ...Then the kids take the purple days of the week cards and place them in the correct "today" "yesterday" and "tomorrow" pockets..

.... and we get rollin' with the rest of the routine. It goes by very quickly, because we add "one" for each "day" on each of the colored sheets...we correct the code date,  add another tally, add another coin, and then we check over all our work!

When all is done, we transfer everything to our calendar journals...

  

This is what it used to look like ^^^

 However, this is what it looks like now... it's alot less messier. And, it has TRACING pages! It's great for differentiation, because some pages are blank, but some have numbers to trace, so I am able to use BOTH sets in my classroom :). I got this template from Jennifer Tilton from www.kindertrips.blogspot.com. You NEED to check out her blog, and if you're interested in this awesome calendar packet, you can find it in her TPT store, here.

So, now for the FUN STUFF!! If you were at all interested in the signs that I had, I updated them to be a little more organized, and you can download them for yourself [here]

Well, I REALLY hope you enjoyed learning about some of our routines, and I hope you will able to use some of my freebies! Please leave me a comment with your email if you would like the editable version of any of these documents!

Happy Saturday!

<3 Sarah

Handwriting Practice

So, I've been wanting to update for a while, now, but things have honestly been crazy between getting a new student, losing another student, and testing SLO's, mClass and Dibbels and CogAt, and soon Aims Web... the poor kids barely have time to learn. So it REALLY shocked me this week, when my kids were using some free time to play with play dough and cookie cutter letters. One student first sorted the letters by color. Then she randomly put a few together to make a spelling word, and spelled it out. I was SO surprised, that I HAD to snap a picture of it RIGHT then :D It was so exciting!! :D

We are practicing how to sound out letters as much as possible when reading.. it'll help us with the Dibbels down the road. And how much fun is it to spell words out with cookie cutters? :D I was SO glad to find these in my garage last weekend!

We have also been working on handwriting for this research project I have to do for class. It turns out to be a weakness for everybody, and Handwriting without Tears is great, but the sayings are kinda boring. So I tried to design a fun handwriting intervention (with fun letter rhymes!). It started with modeling how to write the letter on either a chalkboard or dry erase board. The student had to trace the letter with their fingers (which would automatically erase it) and we did that a few times. Then the student traced the letter with the chalk or dry erase marker a few times. After that, I let them free-hand the letter with only verbal prompting.

Then I had them practice the worksheet using dry erase marker. Have you ever slipped worksheets inside the front sleeve of a three ring notebook? My co-teacher last year taught me this trick and it is SO genius! So I have them do the worksheet with my help using the dry erase markers. Then we take out the worksheet, and they do the whole thing independently with a pencil. I don't know about the kids, but I LOVED IT! I'm considering scanning them so share with everyone! But it's so simple, you could make them yourself in 2 minutes. I created most of these at breakfast duty.

Each page had a top row of the target letter highlighted for the student to trace. The middle and bottom rows had plain boxes. The middle row boxes contained starting points, but the bottom row squares were blank to promote independence. You can tell it got a little harder at the end! But it was great practice! 

**If anyone has any handwriting practice tips, please leave a comment and share them! I love getting ideas from other teachers!

*~Sarah