Dear Teacher

I see you.

I appreciate you.

-the early mornings, the late nights, the thoughts of...I don't know if I can do this anymore. How can I reach THAT kid? I'm overwhelmed! How will I handle "all the things"? Yes! Finally....a great day!

I see you.

I'm here for you.

You do the most important work in the world-caring for and teaching children.

And while you may believe your efforts are fruitless, please understand...the planting and the harvest don't happen simultaneously-but there is good news! Through dedication, careful nurturing and patience, the seeds you've planted will grow. THAT child will grow! It may even happen long after they've left the 4 walls of your classroom.

-BUT, in this very moment, stop...breathe, maybe even pause to appreciate your own hard work and the work of those around you.

As a teacher, I used to wonder what happened in the halls and offices outside of my classroom. If the administration, and staff weren't teaching, what could they possibly be doing?

NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

The school runs like a busy beehive with EVERYONE and yes, I mean everyone, working....all in support of YOU-the classroom teacher and the kids you serve.

As we head into the months of spring and all the things that come with them, know that YOU are seen. You are appreciated and loved.

Have a sweet teacher you'd like to share a little valentine love with? Click HERE to grab this little set of cards...print, cut apart, sign and hand deliver to share a reminder, a moment of appreciation for an amazing colleague near you!

Thank YOU....for teaching from the heart!

Ready to rock? Ready to ROLL…{dice roll}!

Hi, Friends! How are ya? The sun was out today and warmed things up a bit. I’m in a sharing mood, so I thought I’d stop by to show ya a little of what we’ve been up to in math.



Lots of our lessons start with doodled directions. Like many of you, we spent our Presidents’ Day at school. Well, most of us did. A number of my kiddos were out, so the rest of us spent the day reviewing skills in rowdy, fun ways! During math, we pulled out the dice and got ready to roll. We have a set that is blue and red; they're numbered 1-6 on one and 7-10 on the other.



Students worked together in pairs to roll, build, and compare numbers. Each student created a quick place value mat showing the position for a hundred, tens, and ones. We could have used a premade one, but I like to have my kids create and organize things like this to solidify learning. After we made our mats, students took to the floor {one of our favorite places to work} to roll dice, say the number, build it using base-10 blocks and use comparative language to describe what they’d built. Simple~Roll. Build. Compare. REPEAT. No writing involved; just lots of math talk and building a better sense of what those flats, longs, and units really mean.

Before all of the rockin’ and rollin’…we completed this little cutie to record our learning. It took us several lessons over the course of a week.

Do you fold and learn in your classroom? Here’s a peek inside….

Students used dice to roll and record numbers, represent them using drawings of base-10 blocks and make the jump to 10 more on an open number line. Dice were also used to record numbers and compare them using the symbols <,>, and =.

….and they really felt like big kids writing expanded notation for numbers to 120. Our state standards are changing. We used to only work with numbers to 99 in 1st grade, now we’re going to 120 and the kids are loving it. It’s been fun for us as teachers too because they're getting to see the pattern of numbers continuing beyond 100.

You can find this little set in my TPT shop…..JUST uploaded it! We had so much fun with this, I’m sure it will inspire a few more. Check it out! Get those dice out and get ready to roll!

 

Five for Friday~Love YOU bunches!!!

Hi, Friends! How are ya? Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m linking up with Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching for a quick Five for Friday share. I think I’m just about over the sugar rush from snacking on so many Valentine sweets today. Juuuust about…BUT, I think the Big Red kick will last just long enough to get me through a quick post.



I rarely drink soda, but we had a little with some vanilla ice cream today as our Love Potion and WHEEEEW!!! Let me tell ya…… I have been running around like a hamster on a wheel since my first sip!



I had to take my little valentines to get their chompers checked {at the dentist} on Tuesday, so my kiddos and I only had 4 days to squeeze in lots of learning this week. Every minute counted and we packed each one to the brim. We started the week by working toward meeting one of our established New Year’s goals…….to expand our vocabulary. We explored non-fiction texts to learn about where food comes from and created an A-Z chart. It’ll hang in our writing station next week as inspiration!



Love was in the air as we began to explore contractions. This little foldable was a big hit! Next week….contraction surgery!



You can’t have too many charts, right? Hearts were flowing throughout the room. We couldn’t resist adding a few to our list of yummy favorites. Writers write for a purpose….now I know what to add to the grocery list, IF I were planning on doing a little shopping. Apples and pizza, anyone?



Guided writing was lovely too! Sticky notes make for the perfect sized, quickly assembled graphic organizer! LOOOOOVE me some sticky notes {and sharpies}! Writing about reading makes us HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!!!



FROOOOOGGGYYY inspired our Valentine card holders, but the smiles drawn on those bags didn’t compare to the smiles that were abound in our classroom this afternoon. Be it the sugar, the Big Red or the feeling of love in the room…it was a crazy, wonderful week!

Hope yours was too!

 

Valentine Five for Friday

Hi~ya, Friends! TGIF! It’s been one long, FUN, Ex.haust.ing….week! I’m linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching and Stacy from Simpson’s Superstars to share the love from this week.

 
We started the week by floating along with word work goodies! Most of the skills we worked on this week, thank goodness, were review skills because the chatterbox monster reared his ugly head again! Either that or my parents let their kids into the Valentine’s Day candy a little early! Man….thank goodness, for Daily 5.  Without it, I’m pretty sure my hearing would not still be intact.

We worked on using context clues to determine the meanings of words and naming synonyms. I thought replacing them in sentences might be a bit tough, but it wasn’t! It was actually one of their favorite activities this week.



Frrrrrooooooggy……is always a hit! There were tons of grins and giggles when we read Froggy’s First Kiss. As we were reading the story, I replaced Froggy’s name a few times with one of my biggest chatterbox’s name and the kid’s totally “got” the reference. That brought on an insane amount of giggles that caused us to make connections and enjoy the story even more!
After having so much fun creating our Valentine bags with Froggy, he carried right on over into math. We have six table groups in our room. In the middle of each table, there was a heart with a fact family chosen by the students. We used digital dice on the Mimio to choose our numbers. Remember all that talking, I mentioned? Well along with it, came a bad case of the wiggle worms! Rather than fight it, we incorporated it into the lesson because they really, REALLY, REAlly needed to move.

Each student listened and followed directions to fold and cut out their fact family houses. After doing so, they rotated (when told) to each of the six tables to write the four number sentences included in each fact family. To complete the foldable, an illustration of Froggy and Frogelina’s classroom was added.



My sweeties showered me with a few of my favorite things! *LOVE*! They may have motors running those lips, but they’re pretty observant! Admittedly, I don’t eat much. I graze. I’m constantly nibbling on something. One of my students noticed that I always have the same green water cup, so he brought me a new one. Another brought my favorite trail mix and candies and lots and lots of yummy chocolate. They’re just so sweet!



After recovering from all the overflow of l-o-v-e in the room, we floated off into space to use future tense in our writing and make connections to Science. I love how these simple little astronauts turned out!

The doorbell’s ringing….so that means our Friday night Domino’s pizza has arrived! See ya later! Pizza & pjs, here I come!

My very first little freebie! Please enjoy "write away"!

Click here:-)