Football Giveaway

Four fabulous blogger:Katie from Queen of the First Grade Jungle, Kelly from the Teacher Idea Factory, Susan from TGIF and Michelle from Fabulous in First
have put together a great Football themed GIVEAWAY in honor of the upcoming Super Bowl. The giveaway ends tonight at 7PM, so head over now to get yourself entered. Click on the picture below to get to the giveaway link.

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary who lost their precious children and courageous mothers, daughters and teachers.

What Did He Say?!?

So this post is linking up with Ms. Jessica over at a Turn to Learn. She posted this on Wednesday, but my charming, choking and laughing quote from my OWN SON, did not occur until Friday morning.

Both of my boys come to school with me, one is a first grader and the other is a third grader this year. It's been a blessing to have them both in the same place finally! Anyway, the 3rd grader was heading to a friend's house after school on Friday and would be taking the bus, so he had a note of permission. We get to school early so that I can get work done and the boys take care of their stuff and put it in their lockers. My phone rang in my room not long after I'd taken my coat off and it was the 3rd grader's teacher. She was literally laughing so much she had a difficult time talking.

Apparently, being the dutiful child that he is, my son handed the note over early. Nancy read it and said, "Oh, so you're having a play date after school!" He promptly replied, "No, we're having a HANGOVER!" Nancy tried to clarify (mind you, I'm hearing this over the phone and she's laughing!) "You mean you're having a SLEEPOVER?" "No, little kids have play dates, we have HANGOVERS," and then down to my room he came. Of course I immediately started laughing, but the best part was, was that by the end of the day, most of the staff had stopped by to ask about my son's HANGOVER,  and my principal has added this story to her book-when this thing is finally published, it's going to sell millions of copies!
The best part was telling my husband and then getting to explain what a HANGOVER is to a 9 year old!

So there it is, my darling child's quote. Click above to read more quotes Jessica has gathered.


Have a good weekend!

The Math Coach ROCKS!

Hey everyone! I am on the countdown! 10 more days and my two classes are D-O-N-E! I am so ready to spend the rest of December catching up on my favorite blogs and the recorded episodes of everything I've missed out on watching.

But, speaking of favorite blogs, you have to head over to the Math Coach's Corner. Donna has reached 1,000,000 page views and is having a HUGE GIVEAWAY! She has bundles of incredible materials for K-2 and 3-5. Congratulations Donna! You ROCK!

I've been working in kindergarten and have some great things to tell you about the munchkins and their new math journals! Also, we've got some holiday math cooking in 1st grade...based on one of "the Math Coach's" fabulous ideas!

Have a great week everyone!

I Know, I Know...

I've been AWOL...but it's been for a good (?) reason. I started two Masters classes on the first day of school back in September. To say the least...I've been a little overwhelmed. I even missed returning a BOO! I got from Teacher Kirra over at Maestra Kirra! These end December 10th and I AM READY! I literally whined to my husband last night about not wanting to do my homework:-( (I know, pathetic!)

Anyway, in my spare time (ha!) I have religiously been following Donna over at Math Coach's Corner. With the implementation of Common Core and math not being my strongest subject area, she has been an incredible resource! After reading several of her posts, I purchased some invaluable resources. (Two of which I can't keep in my room, and one other that two teachers have gone ahead and ordered for themselves.) Here's my list, and little bit of what I've learned so far about each.

 The two "It Makes Sense!" books are great K-2 resources that include ways to make the practice of hundreds charts and tens-frames part of daily routines, but also help you walk through using these invaluable tools to build children's number sense and help them think aloud as they solve various math tasks.

The Van de Walle books are set up for K-3 and 3-5. As we combed the internet today in search of states who have already created math tasks for the various math strands at individual grade levels, we found MANY who had adapted or used tasks from these two books. As Donna says, every teacher should have a copy of one of these in their classroom.

Number Talks is a book that one of my first grade teachers came to ask me about as I was ordering it! Thanks to Teresa, we have about 3 additional teachers who want to delve into this deeper. It's all about having 10-15 minute daily conversations about solving math problems mentally. Very excited and can't wait to start!

What's Your Math Problem is all about teaching....problem solving! The component of math that we don't go deep enough with with our students. This has practical lesson ideas and strategies for teachers to follow.

So there it is. What I've been up too, who my new math idol is and some great resources for you. Next semester I'm only taking one class, so I'm hoping to get back on schedule!

Enjoy the rest of your week and STAY WARM!

Another Good App

This will be quick, but I promise to add a little something extra over the weekend. Appearing in my inbox tonight was a FREE download for Telling Time. This is the company that has also created the great Splash Math apps I posted about earlier. Now, like with the Splash Math, you can download a free version, but you can upgrade for the full version for only $1.99. So far from my view it looks pretty good, and the reviews online have been positive... I'll get the 6-year old opinion shortly.

Check it out and see what you think! If you're thinking about it for the classroom, it also has the teacher option allowing for more kids to use and save the info.

Cool Library Organization Tool

Classroom libraries can be tough to manage. This is especially true when you have students shopping from them to fill their book box, but also choosing Just Right books to take home. In helping teachers organize their classroom libraries the last two years, conversations have gravitated to how they manage who has what book. The general consensus seems to be that lower elementary teacher's books typically stay in the classroom, while upper elementary teachers find students wanting to take their in-school reads home. And why not? If they're hooked, we want them to keep reading and finish so they can jump into another great story. So in my travels of trying to solve the check-out dilemma, I came across a really great resource.

BookSource's Online Classroom Organizer-First of all it's FREE! It's a web-based program that allows you to:
-import titles from a BookSource order
-add your existing titles
-import a student roster
-allows students to check out and return books  AND 
-will even run an assessment report on a student that includes their title activity.

They have even put a video on their homepage to tell/show you how this works. Click on the link above or the logo below to take yourself to this awesome find.


Check back for pictures and discussion on how we actually organized many libraries in our K-5 building!
For those of you like me who are wrapping up Day #2, GO TO BED EARLY:-)