Life Happened.

Wow! So much to share, friends.

It's been awhile. I guess that life just happened. But, I'm back and feeling very reenergized. I have just 8 and a half days of school left. I have to box up and move my entire room by the last day of school. I have report cards to do. I have end of the year summer workbooks, awards, and gifts to prepare. I have just started my Master's. And yet, I feel energized. This must have been why I kept so busy with classes, activities, work & my sorority in college. The busyness just keeps me going.

Here's what I've been up to. We are having SO. MUCH. FUN. lately. We are doing Reader's Theatre until the end of the year. Here are some cute anchor charts I whipped up for my firsties:

This first one is from Pinterest. Not sure who came up with it originally (sorry!), but it's genius. It totally MAKES SENSE to my kiddos. Fluency has been a big focus for Reader's Theatre in the past few weeks so this is perfect.

This one is actually an original. Shocking, I know. 99% of my anchor charts are copies from Pinterest. This is allllll me :) We refer to this everyday. My firsties totally know what 3 things they need to do to become their characters in their acting. I have quite the little actors in my class, let me tell you!

This week we will audition for parts for our plays and begin practicing them. The past few weeks we have been just working with our partners on being characters in books from our book boxes. They have been doing a great job with it. They're ready to make the leap to reading scripts! So proud of them!

We ALSO had Teacher Appreciation Week. GLORIOUS. Our PTA was incredible! They went with a  Movie Star theme & went above and beyond with decorations:

^apparently I'm married ;)

^I die. 

You can tell they let any kids write on these; my firsties wouldn't write anything with a hashtag haha!

I received so many gorgeous flowers from my friends!

Speaking of flowers. Here's ME in flower form! Haha.

We wrapped up our flower/plant study with this cute craftivity from the lovely Cara Carroll. You can find it on TPT here.

We made these cute, simple crafts for Mother's Day. It was one of my teammate's ideas. Simply have each student trace their hand on green paper and use die cut flowers and baskets to make the bouquet. I also didn't get any pictures but my kiddos also made Haley's free All About Mom booklet. They turned out SO cute!

Anyone else's laptop look like this all the time? We are living the Go Noodle life in Room 102. It has been SUCH a lifesaver. We did Flow the other day and it was AWESOME. I keep testing out new ones with my kids to see which ones I like!

SADLY I haven't been doing very good at taking pictures of my outfits lately. I did splurge on some Tory Burch Reva flats with my tax refund and am dying to get some pictures with them on. It's been rainy so I haven't been wearing them too much & am still trying to break them in!

I also purchased my teacher planner for next year. I have (and love) my current Erin Condren planner but went with a different cover this time around. I can plan a blog post later about how I use mine if some of you would like to see how I use it! I know it seems weird to still write it out but that's the way I remember everything! I would be lost if I didn't write things down. Here's the NEW one I ordered. Get 20% off ALL MAY on teacher items with the code: LIVELOVELEARN.

Annnnnd I signed up for Stitch Fix! I am dying of excitement. After seeing Maria post about her Stitch Fixes, I just knew I had to sign up. It's coming Tuesday so expect a blog post about it!

I'm hoping to keep everyone posted over the summer about my preparations for next year. I'm planning some reorganization of my math manipulatives AND adding a leveled library to my classroom. It's going to be a LOT of work, but I am so excited! Here's a sneak peek of something new coming to my classroom. I snagged this beauty for just $20 at a yard sale (a total steal!):

When does YOUR summer start? What changes are you planning for next year?

A Whole Lotta Nothing!

So…it's been awhile.  I got shingles.  And I missed some school.  And I basically spent 5 days watching Grey's Anatomy, writing sub plans & praying-to-God that my kids wouldn't be setting my room ablaze.  When I finally got back to school, I was up to my elbows in papers and grades.  I spent the weekend getting caught up and I finally feel like I'm back to my usual prepared self.

So I have some random things for you.  A sort of update on my life:

First, here's a top/necklace shot:

Top: Express, Necklace: Francesca's (no longer available)

This was inspired by MK of Outfit Posts (she's fabulous - go stalk her immediately).  I loved how she played with a top and necklace of similar colors.  I own an obscene amount of cobalt blue so that was my go-to.

We also did a fun reading/writing activity two weeks ago.  And by we, I mean my students and the substitute teacher (bless her!).  We are focusing on characters in Reader's Workshop and opinion writing in Writer's Workshop right now so this was perfect!  I had all the kiddos pick their favorite character and then I made some outlines so all they would have to do was color them:

If you can't tell, these beauties are Pigeon, Moose (from Z is for Moose) and Froggy.  We had a wiiiiiide range of favorite characters also including Arthur, Skippyjon Jones, Pete the Cat, Junie B. Jones, etc.  NONE of my firsties picked Llama Llama (can you believe it?!) so I picked him and (luckily) created this model the day before I got sick.

I wish I had taken pictures of the kiddos' work - they are hanging on the bulletin board in our hallway!

We also celebrated the 100th day yesterday!  My team & I are very tight so we decided to have 4 different activities for the 100th day and have the students rotate by class to each room.  So I taught the same lesson 4 times to all the classes.  We did a writing activity about what we would be like when we're 100 years old.

They. Loved. It.  We had a nice talk about things that happen when you're 100 and they had some HILARIOUS ideas for what they would be like.  These included things like: being retired, having no teeth, sewing, gardening, being the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, having their own house and have a walker.  Soo precious!  I especially loved some of the details in their drawings.

What are YOU doing for the 100th day?

Schedule Linky Party!

YES!  I am so excited that Amelia from Where the Wild Things Learn is hosting a linky about schedules.  You can bet that I will be cyber stalking everyone participating.  I LOVE SCHEDULES.  I don't know why but they make me happy!  Click the button below and link up too.

Here's our daily lives in Room 102:

Morning Work: MWF will complete a math spiral review, Tuesday/Thursday we take a timed test of basic addition/subtraction facts.  We grade both the review and the timed tests as a class.  This is also when my students work on their morning jobs (sharpening pencils, preparing math games for math, logging into the class laptops, taking lunch count and attendance).

Reader's Workshop: We open with a morning message that the students help correct.  Then we have a mini lesson, the students read in their book boxes, I work with students one-on-one and then we share.  We are beginning spelling this week so this fits into the second half of our Reader's Workshop block.  Our spelling words are based on a certain patterns (this week is silent e) and each day we do something different: introducing the words Monday, doing activities/games Tuesday-Thursday and testing on Friday.

Math: My favorite part of the day!  We do EnVision math so we begin with students working with manipulatives.  Then we watch the learning video.  I have my students split up into math groups.  My 2 higher groups complete their math work without me.  Half is done with a partner and the other half is done independently and checked with a partner.  Then they go to either math computer programs or math games.  These alternate everyday.  While this happens, I meet with my 3rd group and we work through the math assignment together.  After completing the guided practice, independent practice and problem solving, they go to computers.  When I am done with them, the other 2 groups come to the carpet and I lead them through the problem solving part of the assignment.  Then I look at all of their papers.  I HIGHLY recommend math groups - I love it!

Recess & Lunch: This is my lunch break!  Noms :)

Daily 5: This is when some of my students work with our reading specialist or ELL teacher.  My students that stay with me are engaged in Daily 5 rotations.  I will have to do a separate post later to explain how I lay out my rotations because I don't fully follow Daily 5.  This is when I pull my small reading groups.

Writer's Workshop: This is our writing time.  It's my firsties favorite part of the day!  We do a typical workshop model with a mini-lesson, students working while I confer with students and sharing at the end.  We have a letter specials schedule and on C days we have computer lab at this time.  On those days we don't have writing, but my students work on it during their Daily 5 rotations.

Specials: As I mentioned above, we have a letter specials schedule and rotate between art, music, library and PE.  This is my plan time.  We have 1st grade collaboration on Tuesdays but my team is so tight, we usually meet twice a week.

Recess: More planning for me - yay!

Social Studies/Science: We alternate if we are doing science or social studies.  This is the toughest part of the day because my kiddos are still wound up from recess and tired from a long day of learning!  To try and resolve this, I have been reading a chapter from our class book to let them settle down before we start :)

After that, we pack & stack, gather our belongings and we're off to buses!

I can't wait to see what your schedule is like! :)

Please leave a comment with what you think of my schedule or questions you have.

Shelby

I Love Anchor Charts, Anchory Anchor Charts!

I realize anyone reading this is just getting to know me.  But!  If you knew me, you would know I love anchor charts.  In fact, I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to anchor charts.  Definitely check it out if you're an anchor chart enthusiast like myself.

I have never considered myself to be a particularly talented artist (putting it nicely).  However, I can look at an picture and draw based on looking at it.

We started working on Author's Purpose today.  Our lesson only allowed for one day of this but I felt my kiddos needed more topic on this important topic.  I decided to take 3 days and focus on different purposes authors can have (to inform, to entertain and to persuade).  I was inspired by Amy Lemons' gorgeous charts.  Here are hers:

Here are my recreations:

I'll admit my kiddo drawings are a little on the hefty side.  How do you think I did?

Shelby