Management Linky

Miss T is having a linky party on anything management related.

I did a post a while ago about my management system.  Click here to check it out.

I left school on Friday primed for vacation and a little evening with work friends.  Of course, I left a whole bunch of things behind.  I went in this morning to pick up some stuff and ended up working for 2 1/2 hours in my classroom. I was dedicated to doing the clutter free thing, but just could not get myself to follow through at the end of the day.  I am so tapped out at 3:00 that I just clean up a bit and go home.  It worked to go in early, but that is so not happening on a regular basis!  It was nice just to go in and work.  I took a picture of all the stuff I purged, but did not bring my cord home to download the pics.  Picture three copy paper boxes full, a medium size garbage can and an overflowing recycling bin!  

I started going through a cupboard and realized that, not only had I not really used the cupboard since the beginning of hte year, but I have stacks of papers in there.  Sadly, there was some student work from last year that was squirrelled away and class sets of copies.  Lots of recycling!  I hate throwing things away, but I feel like you have to balance conservtion with sanity sometimes.

On a personal note, it is winter break week and I am busily preparing to host a baby shower for my SIL.  Somehow I have to fit 25 people in my little hosue and make it appear as if I am always ready to host a crowd.  I have an endless bathroom project underway and am making my storage room/craft room/office usuable by human beings. 

Oh, I also have a BIG event tomorrow afternoon...and report cards go home in a week.  No pressure of anything!!!

Well, off to bed - I hit zombie mode about 2 hours ago!

Ahh! Winter break!!!

Finally!  It’s winter break!!!  Time to recharge.

Here’s what I’ve been up to with my class this week:

In Science we have been learning about nutrition.  These are a few great resources which have saved my bacon this month!  The Sweet Life and The Bubbly blond have created some awesome resources.  Fizzy’s Lunch Lab has been a great hit and ChooseMyPlate.gov has some great teacher resources.  Little D has been awesome!  I have used this resources for 3 years and love the lessons!

Fuel Up to Play 60

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We have been working on place value in math.

The4se are 2 great games from Leaning Box: Manny Rumba and BT Bear

 

Harry Kindergarten on YouTube has AMAZING resources!  My kids love the videos and they make for great transition activities.  I have a 4 hour morning once a week and these clips give the kids a great movement break without derailing the day!

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My kids have needed to review digraphs.  In general, they are just not hearing the sounds.

Cara Carroll’s Digraph Kids unit was a huge help!  Along with See N Spell from Primary Games, we had a nice review time!

     

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I didn’t do too much with Valentine’s this year.  I am having a hard time doing holiday things this year and creating a fair environment.  For our “party” we opened our valentine’s and watched Franklin’s Valentine.  This way, it was only a half hour of Valentiney stuff.

 

Well, that is about it for now.  Hopefully I will remember all the thing I thought of writing about during the week, but promptly forgot about when I left school!  Have a great weekend!

MIA

I’ve been MIA for a while!  Goodness things have been busy!  I just realized yesterday that report cards are due a week earlier than usual and we need to rewrite our math assessment because of the new CORE curriculum.  We also have February break coming up, so the assessments needed to be created like…yesterday – so everyone could squeeze them in before break! 

Oh, and then there is the TINY personal matter of throwing a baby shower for my SIL.  Not to get into all to gorey details, but thinking that report cards did not go home until the second week of March, I was okay with doing the shower on the 3rd.  However, reports go home on the 7th…what?!?  Oh and then…AND THEN, our venue for the party never called back.  We needed to send the invites out ASAP.  So, I am having 25-30 people in my itty-bitty-so-not-ready-for-company house!  Can you guess what I am doing over break???

We had the 100th day today.  See my amazing pictures of all the great stuff I did???  Yeah, me neither.  Honestly I had one of those days when the kids were working independently so that I could play catch up on all the other things that make our job crazy.  Please tell me I am not the only one who has these days every once in a while!!!  I stapled all the 100 day stuff in a packet and set them loose, with a healthy dose of recess.

Picture my classroom door covered with 100 mini gift bows. 

We did a picture made out of the number 100.  I die cut the numbers and the kids will write a story tomorrow.  I saw this in blog land, but can’t remember where.

We are working on these projects from Finally in First (this picture was on Pinterest, but is from her site):

My new favorite 100th Day activities were found last year at Fabulous in First.  I love The Wolf’s Chicken Stew because it connects but is not specifically about the 100th Day.  Perfect when you have kiddos who might not celebrate holidays.  We did several activities from her packet on TPT. 

      

I didn’t do too much today with all of this.  Yesterday I spent the day with grade level reps k-5 writing and aligning and creating writing graphic organizers.  It was a great day, but my brain is like mush.  I even had to reschedule a planning meeting that I had this morning.  I was running late and the other teacher showed up and I seriously think I uttered “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I was out yesterday and show up for 100th Day today – there was no way we were planning anything this morning.  I really wanted to say my job is having meetings and I teach on the side!  Where is my secretary?!?

On another note, I would also love some ideas from anyone out there who wishes to share.  I kind-of volunteered to do a workshop on “hands-on grammar” and would love some ideas on how you teach grammar in a hands-on way.  Any ideas?

Have a great one!