Just So You Know....

Here is a list of things I should be doing tonight:

1. Report cards. Those are due in like three days. And, I haven't even really started. Good thing we have a planning day with no kids tomorrow. I swear I'm gonna lock myself in my classroom. Not to keep people out, mind you. Mostly to keep myself in.

2. Laundry - It's at the point where I don't even know where to start. And, the large piles of clean clothes and the large piles of dirty clothes have all merged into one big pile. I'm a terrible housekeeper. Thus....

3. Taking out the trash. From multiple rooms. Take your pick.

4. Vacumming. Again, multiple rooms.

5. Dusting. Goodness, it's bad. Sooo bad.

6. Cleaning my bathroom. I don't even have any words.


Here is a list of what I am doing tonight instead:
1. Blogging. Great use of my time. This blog post is just sooo important.

2. Eating Starburst jelly beans like my life depends on it

3. Watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix (mostly epidodes that I have seen before, obviously)

4. Playing on Pinterest... because, when am I not?

5. Laying in bed. Which is my favorite thing to do in this entire world. Not even joking. Which is why my house is such a mess.

6. Daydreaming about my new puppy. I hope it likes laying in bed, too.

Aren't you so glad I shared all that? I sure am...

Gulp.

 
I might have just payed a deposit.

For a puppy.

Who isn't even born yet.

You see, I've been wanting a puppy for a while now. But, I for sure didn't want to get one during the school year. It seems mean to crate up a tiny puppy all day. So, I want to be home the first few weeks so I can train it and love it and enjoy it.

And, my mom mentioned yesterday that if I wanted to get a puppy the first week of June, I should probably start looking. Since that would mean they would be born in April. Oh, yeah. I guess you're right, mom. Ha.

So, I called today and found a breeder that has adorable cockapoo puppies. And, lo and behold, she has a litter that is due April 15. And, when are these precious babies available to go home? Why, June 1! Woo hoo!

So, I'm a tiny bit nervous. It's a big commitment. I'm also a little nervous because I don't love the idea of getting a puppy I haven't seen. I kind of want to pick out the color and all that. But, the litter has five puppies and I will get the second pick... so it'll be fine. I'm just a worrier. My friend told me I will think whichever puppy they put in my arms is the cutest thing I've ever seen. And, she's totally right!

Oh, and it has a name. Finley. Boy or girl. Doesn't matter to me. Finley is its name.

Want to see what a cockapoo puppy looks like? Sure you do...

Again, who knows what color it will be. The breeder thought the puppies would probably be darker rather than lighter. But, they all seem pretty cute to me!

Fair warning: you may get some cuteness overload this summer on the blog. 

All I do is pin, pin, pin no matter what...

I dare you to get that song out of your head now!

I went shopping with my mom today and bought something new for my house. You'll have to stay tuned to see it because I won't get it until next week when she can bring it out to my house. It's currently riding around in the back of her Explorer. But, we're going to do some stuff at my house next week so hopefully I'll have some updates to blog about. But, to hold myself over, I've been pinning lots and lots of stuff :) Here are the rooms I'm loving this week...

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I think this kitchen is so sweet! The open shelves are great... but, even better when you add all the colorful and vintage dishes. And, that sink is to die for!

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I really like this wall color! And, the plates aren't too shabby either. I also think it's a pretty cool idea to put old suitcases into an open dresser.

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I'm not sure what it is about this room that I like. I think it's all the great pillows. And, I know I love that sign above the bed. The room just looks cozy to me.

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This is maybe the most calming room I've ever seen. Those billowy curtains are so dreamy! And, I absolutely adore the pillows on the bed.

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I've mentioned before my love of white with colorful accents. And this is a perfect example! Those pillows are gorgeous.

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This room is really not my style at all. It's a little formal and hotel-ish for my taste.  But, I really like the color scheme. Plus, the rug is great! And, again, I love the pillows. Pillows can single handedly make a room, I do believe.

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This room is fresh, fun and so cozy! Isn't it perfect for curling up on the couch and watching a movie? The lamps are amazing. And, fuschia is really not used enough in decorating.

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Love this headboard and the use of navy and yellow together. If I had a beach house, I would absolutely be re-creating this room!

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I do NOT like wallpaper. But, I think if you took the wallpaper out of this room, it would be fabulous. I really like white and yellow. Have I mentioned that?

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I can't stop thinking about these slipcovered bar stools. And all that shabby chic wood!

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This is eclectic decorating at its best! That color scheme is just so yummy. And, I'm all about some symmetry in a bedroom.

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Another peaceful, dreamy bedroom. With more amazing pillows....

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The warm and bold colors in this entryway are just beautiful. The gray walls, red doors and patterned drapes are what stood out to me.

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I love every single detail in this room.

Every. Single. One.

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These might be some of the cutest built-in bookcase decorations I've ever seen. I just love the mix of old and new!

Okay, I think that's enough.

Thanks for reading!

The Power of Retelling

Buckle up, people.This one is going to be all over the place!

1. Did you notice my new blog design? I have serious blog ADD. (And, regular ADD. But that's irrelevant.) I just get tired of the way my blog looks and never really truly loved my last design. So, when I saw this design at Shabby Creations, I was sold! It was dang cheap, too. Since my blog is not only about school (because, I do NOT want to keep up with multiple blogs), I wanted it to be not too "schoolish." Mission accomplished.

2. Today was Book Character day at our school. I don't think I've ever seen so much cuteness in one place! I'd say my favorite was a little boy in another first grade class who dressed up like Lebron James. Because, you know, we all love that book. Ha!

3. Last week, we learned all about inventors and scientists. This is a unit in our Treasures series. We used Cara Carroll's activites the last two years and I LOVE them! You can find all her awesome ideas here. We made the light bulb anchor charts, we filled out the inventor booklets and we even made our own inventions. Here are a few of their cute little creations:

4. Here are some updated pictures of our teeth writing that I wrote about yesterday. You can find that post here. We used a flow map to write paragraphs about losing a tooth.

5. We spent a lot of time this week focusing on retelling. In years past, I'll admit this was a difficult skill for me because I could never figure out a way to get my kids to tell enough. And, forget about them putting it all in order. Enter this book:



It is amazing!

It's such a great resource for teaching comprehension. One of the main things we use out of this book is the GO chart. This chart is used before reading a story. Here's a sample of what a GO chart looks like:

We do these all the time with our basal stories. We discuss the vocabulary and then the kids predict words that will be in the story. Then, they make predictions about the story. After we read, we use the third column to do some kind of comprehension: usually whatever skill we are working on that week.

The other great thing we use from this book is the retelling chart. This is the one I made last year and still use:

It's basically a triangle, square and a circle. The triangle is the beginning and the three points are characters, setting and problem. The square is the middle and provides the events of the story. Each corner is first, next, then and last. The circle is the end and is where you share the solution to the problem.

We read Henny Penny this week and together we put post-its on the charts to retell the story. And, I used the gradual release model to practice. I retold the story by myself, we retold it together, they retold it in groups with character cards they created themselves, they retold it to a partner and then I had them write it. We did all this over the course of two days. It took a while.

We made a little graphic organizer to go with the chart.

This is the front. It's just a little flip book.

Here's the inside. If you get past the spelling and lack of punctuation, you can see that the kiddos actually did a pretty good job of retelling the story of Henny Penny! And, I know when I assess them orally next week, they will do even better. They still don't have as much stamina in their writing as they do talking :)

Here are a few more:

Then, we read the story Little Rabbit out of our basal. It's very similar to Henny Penny... it just has different characters. We did all of the retelling we did with Henny Penny (minus the character retelling cards... we ran out of time!) But, instead of using the graphic organizer, I decided to give them the flow maps we used in the tooth writing. I wanted to make the connection that we had been retelling stories AND we had been retelling when we wrote about how our teeth came out.

Here is their retelling of Little Rabbit:

If you want some great retelling and comprehension ideas, I TOTALLY recommend The Power of Retelling.

Okay, I think that's all.

See, I told you I had ADD.

Enjoy the weekend!

We're Losing our Teeth!

I kind of realized this week that in my haste to teach my kids how to be good writers... I've missed something. We write a TON! Like, really, a ton. But, since we don't have a science or social studies time built into our day, we have to teach those things through our reading and writing. And, since we have to get 15 grades for science and 15 grades for social studies, I teach almost all of that through writing. Which, is fairly obvious if you've read my blog before. Which is all well and good... except, we hardly ever write personal narratives!

So, this week, I was BOUND and DETERMINED to get my kiddos to write a personal narrative. And, since we have spent the whole week working on retelling using beginning, middle and end (more on that later!), I decided to have them write a narrative with beginning, middle and end about loosing a tooth!

I already had in mind the perfect way to get some good BME paragraphs out of my kids.  I actually got the idea from a fabulous fourth grade teacher at my school! She and I presented a professional development session at our school together about writing... and, I'm fairly certain I learned more in the process than I taught! She uses a flow map to get her fourth graders to write paragraphs. And, you know what? It's genious.

We went through each step together. First we talked about how the first sentence is the beginning and includes the who, what, when/where. I modeled for them the first sentence... but, I basically just said "My tooth was loose."

And, because of this chart right here, my kids nailed me! They were all just DYING to tell me it was a weak sentence, ha! So, together, we made it a strong sentence and it turned into "My little tooth was very loose when I was six years old."

Then, the kids scurried off to their desks and wrote their own beginning sentences.

Then, I brought them BACK to the carpet and we talked about how the middle of the story is where we give the details. We  talked about all the different things you do when your tooth is loose. They helped me write three sentences and we made them strong together. Then, they got to write their own.

Last, we discussed how the end is where we wrap it all up. They all knew it was the part where they could FINALLY  write about those little baby teeth coming out!

I have to say... this was a GREAT way to help my kids write a personal narrative. The flow map just makes so much sense to them! Plus, it's so generic that you could use it for just about anything.

We took our flow maps and turned their writing into a paragraph format. I pre cut-out some lips and let them cut white computer paper to make teeth as a little "decoration" for their writing.

Here's the finished product:

(I took a few more pictures... but, they all turned out blurry for some reason. Sorry bout that...)

Anyways, I'm going to try and blog again tomorrow. But, we'll see if it happens. Stay tuned...

In Case You Need a Laugh

  So, this week has been rough. And, actually, it's only Tuesday! I'm so tired and I've been meaning to blog a few little things going on and I'm just too dang lazy to even take pictures! I hope your week has been better. Really, I do.  But, if not, maybe these little funnies from Pinterest will make you laugh as much as they made me laugh.

I mean, seriously! I do.

This is the root of all meetings. I swear it's true.



This is soooo true! And, funny.

Words to live by.

How nice of him.

Maybe my favorite pin from my favorite movie of all time.

Oh, and here's another one from my OTHER favorite movie of all time.

This is totally me when cooking, ha!

Thank you, internet, for all the laughs.