Linkies Galore

Hey Y'all!

 

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper and Teaching (Powered by Caffeine) for their weekly linkies.

 

 

 

I'm trying to eat more dark green vegetables. In order to do this, I have invested in a NutriBullet!

 

I am in love with this thing!

 

Every morning (and some evenings) I make a smoothie with spinach along with some other things...

 

It doesn't even look green! It blends everything up so smooth I can't even taste the spinach. Wonder if I can trick my boys into drinking these?

 



 

 

We have been very fortunate to have had a very mild winter.

With that being said, Mother Nature can not make up her mind what she wants to do.

 

One day it's sunny and 50 and the next day it's snowing and in the low 20's or below.

 

Yesterday was one of those snow days...7 inches!

 

(I tried to capture the blizzard we were having...this picture doesn't do it justice)

 

I'm ready for the sun to make a steady appearance!

 



 

Last week my class made Paper Mache hot air balloons inspired by Buggie and JellyBean. I blogged about the Paper Mache balloons {here} and as promised here is my step by step.

 

 

Water balloons covered with strips of newspaper coated in a flour/ water mixture.

 

Let them dry overnight

The next day we painted them a solid color and added stripes or polka dot accents.

 



To resemble a hot air balloon, I used a pipe cleaner and a candy holder with the handles cut off that I found at the Dollar Store for the basket.

Wrapped the pipe cleaner around the balloon...

 Poked the pipe cleaners into the basket...

 

Voila!

 

Hot glued them to the bulletin board...

I still need to add their little smiling faces to the baskets.

 

Happy to report none have fallen down yet. I think I will be leaving these up for awhile!

 

I'm sure I can think of some way I can tie them into a spring theme...hmmm???

 

In the meantime, I'll be participating in TPT's 3 Million Teachers Strong Sale!

 



 

Head on over to Pinkadots Elementary to link up your store.

 



Tried it Tuesday

 

I haven't actually tried this yet, but decided to try it starting today so it counts right?

 

I spent the day at a math cadre meeting.

 

We were given the opportunity to look at CCSS progression documents.

 

If you haven't seen these, you are missing out!

 

You can take a look at them here.

 

These documents lay out the natural order that each standard should be taught for student understanding.

 

One of the other 1st grade teachers and I looked at the progression document for NBT and aligned it with our current math curriculum.

 

In doing this we discovered that there is A LOT in our current GVC that we DO NOT need to teach!

 

We took everything out that was not in the progression document and created a document with the lessons we will teach, in the order we will teach them, using our current math curriculum.

 

By doing this we will be jumping from ch 8 to the 13, back to 8, then back to 13. Of course we will need to supplement to meet all of the standards in this domain.

 

Our current curriculum is not very logical in it's layout and doesn't do a very nice job of covering one concept before moving on to the next.

 

There are only 14 lessons that we will be teaching starting now until March! We will be able to spend 2 or 3 days on each lesson before moving on!

 

It makes so much more sense to teach this way, building upon skills and spending much needed time going deeper within each standard!

 

Hopefully their understanding of the NBT CCSS will be more rigorous.

 

I am so excited to give this a try and wanted to share it with you all!  

Tried it Tuesday {Stick 'em up}

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday.

 

 

We had been focusing on short vowels when I read Kelley's post from Teacher Idea Factory.

 

She shared about a little controlled chaos that was going on in her classroom.

 

She had me at CHAOS!

 

I downloaded her freebie and let the craziness begin!

 

 

 

I placed word family headers around the classroom. I divided my class into four groups. Each group was given a word list. On my count, they turned the word list face up and got to work.

 

The noise level went up, lots of giggling and laughing was happening, teams were working together and learning was going on all at the same time! LOVE!!!

 

 

 

 

They had such a fun time with this activity and were begging to 'play' again! I love how they didn't even realize they were learning.

 

This activity is great for all learners. Everyone felt successful in the end!

 

To read in more detail how to use the activity in your room click {here}.

 

I plan on using this idea frequently in word work.