Writing, Monsters and Justin Bieber

Have I mentioned lately that I am LOVING third grade?

Because, I am.

I mean it.

I think kids in third grade are kind of at the best age ever. They are sooooo fun and sweet and independent and into learning.

And, they get my jokes.

That's huge... because, I joke a lot.

Like, for instance, my kiddos are CON-VINCED that I'm obsessed with Justin Bieber.

 A few years ago when these kids were in first grade, a certain teacher who shall remain nameless  told her class that she and I had watched Never Say Never (the Justin Bieber concert dvd, for those of you who actually have lives).

Which may or may not be true.

(Okay, it's true.)

And wouldn't you know it that I would have the one kid this year who not only remembered this information, but is bound and determined to work it into every conversation he partakes in.

Today, we were making bucket lists in writing. I was making my list and putting all my life ambitions and this kid goes "Well, dontcha' want to meet Justin Bieber??"

So, of course I played along ( I ALWAYS do because, as I said, I like to joke around) and added it to the list while the kids just screamed with laughter. Because, it's totally hilarious when your 27 year old teacher is crazy about a dorky kid musician.

I would laugh, too.

 And, maybe I did.

Maybe.

We are officially on Fall Break as of right now. It's very, very exciting. We have to go to school tomorrow but the kids won't be there so it doesn't count. And, we're off all week next week... woo hoo!

Since it was the day before break and the kids were all excited and we had finished all our assessments yesterday, I decided we need some F-U-N. So, we made monsters.

Multiplication monsters.

Basically, the kids roll dice to make multiplication sentences about how many eyes, arms, legs, teeth and horns their monster will have. It's all very exciting.

Then, I just dumped all our paper out onto a table and let the kiddos go to town. We VERY RARELY get to do stuff like this in third grade so the kids were pretty much giddy with excitement.

Their monsters turned out soooo cute!

Well, let me rephrase that. MOST of them looked cute.

And, luckily, I only had enough room to hang up 12 anyway :)

My kiddos also worked hard this week on publishing their first writing pieces. They aren't perfect but they are a great starting point for the year. It was mostly just good for us to get through the writing process and just see what it's all about.

We also discovered dictionaries. Let me tell ya: those suckers have changed my life. I taught the kids how to look up words and spell them correctly and that is another reason why I LOVE third grade! They can totally do it!

And, they want to do it. That's what is exciting. They are currently obsessed with looking up words. And, there are a LOT worse things you can be obsessed with.

Plus, I don't like spelling words for kids so it saves me a lot of headache.

There, I said it.

Anyways... I wanted to find a way to make their personal narratives a little more cohesive since they were all writing about different things. So, I quickly cut out some "frames" using scrapbook paper. And, I let the kids draw a picture in the middle. You'd think I'd told them we'd all be taking a field trip to Disney World if you'd heard the shrieking and excited gasping coming from their little mouths.

It doesn't take much, folks. 

Here are their narratives.

(And, I just noticed that on the bottom row there are basically four frames that are exactly the same and now I won't be able to sleep tonight and I will have to fix that ASAP tomorrow on account of the OCD...)

I love this guys illustration of the fair. We had a LOT of stories about the fair and stories about getting a puppy.

I enjoy the title on this one :)

So, yeah.

That's our week.

 Monsters and writing.

Oh! And, running records until my ears bled.

And, main idea graphic organizers. Lots of those.

And, assessments. Lots of those, too.

But, it's all good.

Cause' whenever I'm overwhelmed, I just come home and snuggle up this little creature and how can you be stressed then?

And if that doesn't work, I just crank up the Justin Bieber tunes...

 



They're Hitched. Part Two.

Here are two pics from Instagram that were too good not to share!

 

 

Love, love, love.

 

 

 

They're Hitched.

It's official. Matt and Blakely are now The Ridings!

 

We had such a fun weekend and the wedding was BEAUTIFUL!!!

 

I tried to take some pictures with my phone but it was a little hard. Here's what I got:

 

This is the flower girl (my cousin's daughter, Abby) and the ring bearer, Gentry. They were best buds this weekend and they were sooooo cute! The bat was Gentry's gift from Matt and Blakely.

 

After the rehearsal dinner Friday night, all the bridesmaids and the bride's family stayed at the house where the wedding was. So, we had Blakely a little lingerie party!

 

Oh, and I shared my bed with this little creature. And her mom. Not much sleep was had, to be honest.

 

We walked in to the reception area Saturday morning and there were the cakes! They're obviously not finished in this picture... but, they were both really neat. Matt's groom cake had three hats with all of his teams on them: BGA, WKU and the Royals. And, there was a bride and groom playing baseball on top. And, the wedding cake was AMAZING! I was just a little nervous that these cakes sat there on a rolling cart all day - risky! Ha.

 

The dress!

 

I love the hanger!

 

This is where they got married. I took this during the day so it obviously wasn't finished. But, it was all sooo pretty!

 

Oh, I guess I did get a picture of the groom cake!

 

This was the reception area... obviously, about halfway done. The tables had huge flowers and candles and the lights were a lot darker.

 

Blakely and I

 

Me and Abby. She looked so cute in her flower girl dress!

 

Blakely and Abby

 

This was so cute! They took some pictures of them holding hands before they could see each other!

 

Matt and I

 

It was a perfect day.

 

Congrats, Matt and Blakely!

 

Wedding Prep, Harry Potter and Cheese Blobs

Catchy title, huh?  

 

There is a lot going on around here. It's been CRAZY town the last few weeks. So, I haven't been doing too much blogging because I don't have a lot of time. Oh, and because of this little invention called Netflix that I'm completely addicted to. That's partly to blame, honestly. But, I have some stuff I wanted to get down on the blog. So, I'm going to make another of my world famous lame-o lists. Here we go...

 

1. Have I mentioned that my brother is getting married? In ONE WEEK? Yeah, he is. It's all very exciting and I couldn't be happier for him. And for Blakely. They've dated for seven years so I honestly don't feel like I'm gaining a sister... I feel like she is one already! But, I love them and it's a really exciting time in our family.

 

Exciting and crazy. We've been to 3 showers in the last two or three weeks. And, I've been helping my mom plan and prepare for the Rehearsal Dinner. And last night, my mom and I helped Blakely tie ribbons on 300 Tiffany boxes!

 

A little daunting, to say the least.

 

My mom only knocked three boxes off the table. Which wouldn't be a big deal... except, each one contains 62 chocolate pearls. And, we had two puppies right under our feet. And, little balls roll... alot. Ha! We all dove for the dogs first and I pretty much scared the ever-living daylights out of Finley when I screamed and grabbed her. But, isn't chocolate supposed to be poison to dogs? I don't know if that has been confirmed... but, better safe than sorry!

 

So, the Princess spent the rest of the night supervising from my lap.

 

2. For one of the showers, I had to bring an appetizer. I've seen a recipe on Pinterest where you use string cheese and bread crumbs to make mini cheese sticks. So, I gave it a whirl. Seems simple enough, right?

 

I got a bowl of milk and a bowl of breadcrumbs. And, I cut up a HUGE bag of string cheese into bite size chunks.

 

I dipped them in the milk first and then the bread crumbs. It seems so simple but it took FOREVVVVVVVER (said like the kid from Sandlot).

 

I put them in the oven for like 10 minutes, crossed my fingers and ran upstairs to finish getting ready. When I came back down, they looked like this:

 

Sexy.

 

They were no longer cheese sticks. They were cheese blobs.

 

But, what's a girl to do? It was like 15 minutes before the shower started. So, I stuffed em' in a bowl, plopped some marinara sauce in the middle and called it a day.

 

 

They honestly didn't taste bad at all. It was just awkward answering all the "What are these?" questions. Ohhhh, well. I tried.

 

3. Big news for Finley: almost every one of her teeth have fallen out! She looks a little crazy because when her mouth is open all you can see is gums. At least I know why she's been chewing like a maniac lately. She has destroyed about 20 toys in the last two weeks. So, I bought her some new toys that I thought she couldn't destroy. HA! I've already had to throw two of those away! It's terrible. I don't want to keep spending money on toys but if she doesn't have toys she chews on my sheets or me. And, I can't let her play with toys that have stuffing hanging out of them because she'll choke on it.

 

RIP, little toy. We hardly knew you.

And, all that chewing has worn the poor dear out, apparently. She's been falling asleep all over the place:

 

on my shoulder,

 

on the arm of the couch,

 

and face down in my grading basket.

 

Good times.

 

Oh, and this is how she watches me when I'm getting ready in the mornings. I just know she's thinking "Turn the lights off and get back in bed, crazy!" Hahaha.

 

4. Third graders are made of awesome. I am really, really enjoying my class. We have a class blog and a bunch of the kids post on there. But, my favorite is when they comment on each other's writing. Sometimes they write stuff like " AWWWWEEEEEESSSSSOOOMMMMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" And, sometimes they say stuff like "You're story made me almost cry!!!!" But, either way, I LOVE it that they are encouraging each other!

 

We finished reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8 last week and the kids were so excited to start another book. So, I picked Superfudge by Judy Blume. I'm trying to expose them to some books that they wouldn't just pick up on their own. Plus, it's fun for me to read books to them that I read as a kid! They are LOVING Superfudge! They pack their backpacks up and get me their agendas in about 4 minutes flat so that they can snuggle up on the carpet and listen to me read for about 10 minutes before the bell rings. I'm making time for it everyday because I honestly don't think there is ANYTHING more important than getting those kiddos excited about reading.

 

5. Speaking of excited about reading, I'm doing Soaring Eagles again. That's an after school enrichment program for the third and fourth graders at our school. My friend Kristin and I did Reading and Art last year. It was sooooo fun! But, we decided to scale back a little this year since I changed grade levels and we're just doing Reading. Last year, we read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the kids and they were absolutely obsessed. So, this year, we decided to give them a choice. We made ballots and everything and let them vote on which book they wanted to read. We only read the backs of the 6 books so that we wouldn't influence their decisions at all. The books were Maniac Magee, Holes, Pippi Longstocking, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Great Gilly Hopkins and Peter Pan. I'm happy to say that Harry Potter won with an overwhelming vote of 16 to 4.

 

So, we decided that this year we're going to go all in. I've spent the better half of the week making graphic organizers with discussion questions for each individual chapter. We're going to stop after each chapter and have a little dialogue!

 

(I sent this pic to Kristin earlier in the week. And, I'm too lazy to take a real picture now. So, it'll do.)

 

We're going to take all their graphic organizers and put them into a booklet. With covers and everything! And, when we're finished with the book, then they're going to do a big project. I'll post more about this stuff once we get going and/or when it's finished. It may take us forever. But, the kids are so pumped and I honestly can't wait to experience the book again through their eyes.

 

 I'm a dork. There, I said it for you :)

 

Well, I think that's about all I've got tonight.

 

Hope you have a great week!

 

 

Ohhhh, Baby I Love Arrays..

That's not really true.

 

But, I DO love using song quotes for blog titles.

 

And, you're totally singing that song now, aren't you?

 

This post is going to be all kinds of random. And, when you're being random, I think lists are the way to go. They make it look like you have it all together.  When you really don't. And, I DO NOT have it together, people. DO NOT.

 

1. Arrays

 

So, yeah. We've been all about some multiplication this week. Which has gone muuuuch better than regrouping. Regrouping is hard, I tell ya! I can't talk about it. I may start crying again.

 

We started off multiplication with equal groups. We did circles and stars for a day and the kids had it. No problemo. So, the next day, I tried my best to "firm it up." Our school provides fruit for every kid every day. Like, they bring it down to our room in cute little farmer baskets and everything. That's not true, they don't bring it down to the room. But, there are farmer baskets. They look very authentic.

 

I found a picture for you!

 

Anyways, we get fruit every day. So, on Tuesday, they gave us strawberries. In individual cups! Yep, you guessed it. We used those suckers to practice equal groups some more! My kids' excitement level was at about a ten. They were positively engrossed in the lesson. We all sat in a big circle and practiced finding out how much fruit there was in groups of strawberries. Then, I forced allowed the kids to eat their three strawberries in two minutes and we used the cups to start talking about arrays! And, guys? We've been using those cups all week!

 

I obviously didn't take pictures of my kiddos making arrays cause I was busy. You know, teaching them. But, they did well. We've been just sitting on the carpet a lot and working through problems. You know: like, "Oops, I just lost six of the cups from this array! How can I find out how many I had to begin with?" That kind of thing. And, we've been practicing writing multiplication sentences multiple ways.

 

Today, I just wanted them to get some practice making alot of arrays. And, I saw an idea on Pinterest that caught my eye. But, I didn't pin it. I just remembered it. So, I can't remember who came up with it. So, just know, it wasn't my idea.

 

 

I gave every kid some graph paper and a dice. I gave some kids two dice, actually. To differentiate. Because, that's what we do. They had to roll the dice twice to find their array and then they had to color it in. Then, as they finished each one, I had them bring them to me. I checked EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. And, obviously, helped out the friends who were a weeee bit confused.

 

*Edited to add: Um, maybe I didn't see every one because there is a glaringly wrong one in that picture above. My bad. Just pretend 6 X 5 does equal 9, okay?

 

 

Then, during writing, I let 4 kids glue it together. I picked 4 kids that were efficient and calm - you know what I mean! And, they finished this sucker in NO time.

 

Here's what they made:

 

 

I loved it because they all made about 15 arrays and I checked every single one of them so I know they were doing them right and that our time was well spent.

 

They loved it because it was a "project" and it was "fun."

 

Win/win, friend.

 

2. Writing

 

We've been doing an AWESOME writing program where the kids do basically all of their writing in journals through minilessons and mentor texts. I really like it so far and I keep meaning to take some pictures of their work. They're writing complete pages every day and are asking me to take their journals to lunch and home at night so I could not be happier. However, we had to screeeeech to a halt for a few days a couple of weeks ago and go back to some basics. Because, they were not all writing sentences. Or using punctuation. It was scary.

 

So, I pulled out my trusty old writing web from first grade and I walked my kiddos through a little writing. I pretty much took them way back and had them circling the capitals and the periods. And, I even made them think of their sentences before they coud start writing... the horror! But, they needed the referesher. Trust me.

 

They wrote some cute stuff, though.

 

 

 

 

That one intrigues me.

 

Where did he go in Memphis that smelled like food, smoke AND a bathroom? (Wait, don't answer that.)

 

I'll be sure and post some of their more authentic writing when I can remember to take pictures of their journals. (I probably wouldn't be holding my breath - not that you would...)

 

3. Want to see the cutest puppy EVER?

 

 

I'm missing her tonight because she's at my parents' house. And, she's been there since yesterday afternoon. I'm so thankful they're keeping her for me but I can't wait to get my hands on her tomorrow.

 

I'm sure she doesn't even miss me.

 

My mom texted me this picture of her a little while ago:

 

 

She said "Finley's trying to escape!"

 

My response?

 

"Well, you COULD close the door..."

 

Ohhhh, Mom.

 

But, seriously Mom, if you're reading this.... thanks for keeping my little escapee!

 

I think that's all I've got.

 

 Season 8 of The Office is calling my name.

 

 Have I mentioned my love of The Office? Because, I love it.

 

I really do.

 

Remember when Andy sang "Oh, Baby I Love Your Way?

 

 

I hope you're as impressed with that tie-in as I am right now :)

 

 

 

She's Cute.

  Sorry, I've been an absentee blogger lately. School's making me exhausted, I've been travelling on the weekends and little Finley takes up most of my time when I get home.

 

By the way. Finley? She's adorable. She drives me crazy some times (like right now, she's completely under my covers and digging like her life depends on it). But, she's so darn cute that I can forgive her pretty easily.

 

Here are some pictures of her:

 

She's getting sleepy....

 

and, she's gone!

 

This is where she sleeps. Between me and the headboard. I'm fine with that because otherwise I would probably kick her off the bed! Accidentally, of course.

 

I bought her her own bed and she used her mad digging skillz to destroy it in a week. Money well spent, huh?

 

Last weekend, we headed to my Grandma's for Labor Day. Finley was just so excited about the trip, clearly.

 

Every where she went, she had two little followers.

 

Sometimes she had to get up on the swing with me to get a break :)

 

On Saturday, we went to the parade.

 

I love, love, love her!

 

And, so does this guy. He kept saying "I take her? I take her?"

 

Saturday night, she was EXHAUSTED. And, yes, she's wrapped up like a burrito. I did it as a joke and she didn't even budge! That's how tired she was....

 

Then, we came home on Monday and I spent the whole day watching The Kardashians on Netflix.

 

Finley was NOT a fan...

 

 

But, me? I'm hooked! I've watched it off and on for years but was never a big fan. But, I'm becoming one rapidly. It's soooo funny!

 

Need proof?

 

Oh, Kim.

 

Oh, Scott.

 

If you don't watch this show, you should do it. It's aces for snarkiness.

 

Well, that's all I've got tonight.

 

Thanks for reading!