Ready for Spring!

Wow!  What a whirlwind of a week and looks like this week will be the same!  At least Friday I was able to re-organize my math manipulatives and get the bins labeled, etc.  Granted, this is after my hour and a half writing committee meeting which put me leaving at 5pm!  At least I left happy and hopeful :).  Today my class was so chatty I had to keep telling myself I am in control.  Do not respond.  Yeah, still chatty even with clipping down and having a few sign our "minor disruption acknowledgement".  I guess all and all we did get a lot accomplished due to it being Mardi Gras and out of school yesterday.  Maybe I set my expectations on what I want to accomplish in the classroom for the day too high on days like these.  My determination to keep us on task can sometimes be my downfall.  We ate our king cake, but didn't get to our beads today-Oh, well.  We live and we learn. :)

Informational reports

Last week went really well in the classroom, informational reports are finally finished!!!! YEA!!!!!  I so swept them under the rug in December when the kids first started their obsession with reports.  Then, before I knew it this big, enormous "Informational Reports" had evolved.  What could I do?  Obviously if the students' interests led into this teachable moment so to speak, I HAD to roll with it.  As time consuming as it was I think it was worth it.  Now I just have to let those that want to "present" their studies do so.  Next week is a short week so hopefully that will work out well for the sharing.
  I have decided to join the "Teachers Pay Teachers".  When I first saw the site last year-I thought no way!  I'm a teacher.  I don't have the money to be buying activities.  But as I search for new ideas on all the wonderfully awesome teacher blogs, I realized what an idiot I was!  :)  My husband is always irritated with me when I'm doing "school" stuff, why not create, share, and buy with the rest of them.  It's genius actually, no more wasting time searching for specific things, just create myself & then maybe the hubby won't complain if I'm making a couple extra bucks.  AND I won't feel guilty buying up some awesome activities when I stumble upon them.  :) Of course, this all depends on my creating an account and what not.  Here's hoping for a relaxing week with extra time on my hands. :)

Sentence diagramming

I've had some pressure on me from a first grade teacher to diagram sentences.  Well, more like pressure to emphasis sentence diagramming.  So I ask my father (an English professor) for his opinion.  He said with his experience and research it would seem that with emphasis on sentence diagramming all you'll have are really good diagrammers.  hahah!  So true and I wish I had thought of that response.
...he suggest some links this is one of them-

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sentence diagramming: no unanimity among users.-a0165912653

New Webpage

Currently I will be trying to switch our class webpage to a Google page (since weebly contract will be up soon)-stay tuned!

Finishing up with projects and rockin' into February!

We're FINALLY starting to wrap up our non-fiction projects!  I'm so looking forward to the short and crazy month of February.  There's so much going on this month, even the kids were commenting about how many holidays, activities, and happenings there are.  One would think this would be a stressful month, but I so don't see it as such. :)