IT’S RECESS TIME ALREADY?!!

Hi, Friends! I’m still alive and kicking!

It’s been a whirlwind of a start to the beginning of this school year! We’ve had a fantastic first 3 weeks and began the 4th today! I, however, had no idea how ex.haust.ing it would be!  Well, I did sort of…beginning the year is comparable to going into labor.  If teachers actually remembered how painful beginning the year was, we might never come back to start another, lol!

The pressure in the weather changed a little and blew in the Chatterbox Monster, but we quickly banished him back from whence he came! Firsties have a lot of work to do! We’ve got “turn and share” time incorporated into the day so all of that miscellaneous lion roaring can drive a teacher on a mission a little bonkers! Lol!  He had to go!

So, let’s catch up!  What have you been up to?  Here’s a little of what we’ve been doing! I know I usually share things that we do during our reading block, but I’ve got a little math madness lined up for you today! My kids have really been enjoying learning the routines to start the year and were super excited to get their hands on some math station fun!

We reviewed ways to show numbers and write number names. 

            

We’re still linking, counting, comparing, and introducing the concept of addition….

              

Filling in missing numbers and putting them in order…..AND fine tuning classroom routines! Today, I completely tore down the supplies on one of our shelves and reorganized the entire thing!  Its funny how we plan for the students ahead of time and see things in a totally different way once they’re actually in the room.  This is how I will be storing our station activities this year.

See the missing numbers activity above?  It’s all stored inside the little envelop below.  Now you see it! Now you don’t! (The number lines are from Lakeshore Learning.) *LOVE!*

Last year, I housed most of our station activities in gallon sized ziploc bags, but am trying to start the year off just a tad more organized and went with manilla envelopes instead for this year.  Using them has also made for a quicker clean up and a place to put the directions sheet! I’m hoping that all of the pieces to each activity will make it back into the bag and the filing cabinet to begin the year, next year. {Fingers are crossed, so far…..go good!} A girl can hope, can’t she?

The little sign with the student’s table number is our simple management system for the rotation. 6 activities. 1 for each table. The students rotate to one each day after our whole group lesson. The rotation includes 6 activities that include a rotation to the computer for math games. Every 7th day, activities are changed or extended to add new learning. Voila!

We used our new best friend to create our first picture graph.  Can you guess who it is?  I’ll give you a hint! He’s blue and doesn’t cry over anything! Goodness, no! He just walks along, singing his song and rocks in his new school shoes! The great thing about this activity?

We extended it from graphing, to reading, to community building…all the way to writing at the end of the day! Pete is one amazing, little, groovy dude!

With the exception of our friend, Pete, all of these little activities are up for grabs in my little TPT store! Click the pic to go check them out!

I’ve really missed my bloggy buddies and would love to know how you balance all of this with your “day job”! It feels great to share again and I’ll be catching up on my email and other current happenings before posting again on Thursday.  Stop by then! Please forgive me, if you’ve reached out and I have not yet responded. I will get back to you ASAP! We’re having a ball in room 113 and I can’t wait to share more with YOU!

We’re having such a good time that when I told my kiddos that it was time to line up to go out to recess today (even after days of rain) they asked….Is it time for recess ALREADY!?! and then said…..Mrs. Dwyer, we’re having way too much fun! {What?!!}We didn’t even know it was recess time!

Now THAT’S when you know you’re having a GREAT DAY! I love my firsties! They’re simply the BEST!  ANNNNND because my class just plain old rocks, guess who was recognized as one of this week’s Rock Star teachers at my campus?

 Yep! This chica! BUT, you can’t be a Rock Star teacher without a Rock Star class, so I told my kids it was for all of us! And because you’ve read through my rambling all the way to the end, YOU ROCK TOO!

Have a great night and I promise not to be a stanger! Be back soon! Real soon…