Beginning of the Year

I forget how crazy the beginning of the year is and even though I am already in my fifth week, yes you heard me right!, fifth week of school, it is still crazy.  I work in a year around school so when it seems that my kids are just getting the hang of things and we can begin moving to the next level, we are about to take our first intersession.  The good and bad of intersession.  I so need a break already, I feel that I have been working for a long time already, BUT we are just getting the hang of things and this week can make us go backwards.  We will see what happens when we come back in September. 

So I have been busy creating some stations for my class and for our first Title Family Night.  I wanted to incorporate technology into the stations, so I have included some QR codes as a self check for my students.  Like I have mentioned before my class is blessed lots of technology.  Before my iPods and iPads were used in a single station, but now I want to use them more as an integration then a stand alone station.  So I created a number recognition station along with some double facts cards.  Click on the pictures below to purchase the packet in my store. 

Have a great school year!

New Blog

So because I have dedicated this blog to technology, I have created a new blog that is dedicated to what I teach, math! Well I actually teach math, science and social studies. Last year my curtain partner and I piloted a departmentalized schedule. Our third graders follow this type of schedule and the administrators wanted to try it out in the lower levels, so they asked first and second grade to pilot the program. My kids went to a school that departmentalized in first grade, so I knew that our kids could do it, so we tried it. I loved it, there were a few kinks to work out, but it was great. So since this blog was dedicated to how I used technology, I wanted to create a blog that was dedicated to the journey of departmentalizing in first grade. Come on over and visit and don't forget to follow me. I plan on uploading some freebies as well as include you in my journey to a full year of departmentalizing. I would love to hear from your experts too.

Summer!

Wow, it feels like just yesterday was my last day of school, but we are actually only 1 month away from returning back to school.  I work at a year around school, so 6 weeks really do go by really fast.  I have been really busy this past few weeks trying to find things to decorate my classroom.  I left with an idea in mind, I actually had already started putting up some things, but I should have know better.  After going through Pinterest and a trip to Mardel, I have changed my mind.  I am telling you people I need help!  I have so many projects I want to begin I don't even know where to start.  And of course in my head I am thinking this is my summer people I should be relaxing or catching up on everything I don't get to do throughout the year.  So what's on my to do list?  Well last year I began a theme of Owls, I really didn't take off with it, I wasn't really sure how to proceed.  I mean I saw so many different things that I wanted to do and really didn't have a chance.  It was my first year in First grade and I was more concerned with learning the curriculum than really keeping up with my decoration.  I kept it simple last year, green and white polka dots with black borders.  I incorporated some baby blues in there.  So this year I wanted to build on it and I had a vision in my head.  Before I left I covered my cabinet doors in colored paper and have it set so I can come in and add the border, but when I went to go buy the border it happened, I saw the cutest owls.  I am telling you people I try my best to stay away from Mardel once I have made up my mind.  I rarely visit once the school year begins, but like I said I was going in to get more border and BOOM! There it was the cutes owls border I have seen.  According to the sales lady they have had it a while.  I don't remember seeing it last year, so they must have gotten it during the school year.  I LOVED IT!  And to top it off I really don't need to change my colors a lot.  I am just adding a 3rd color to the scheme -- TURQUOISE! I mean who doesn't love some turquoise?  The best part of it I had already picked up some turquoise containers I found on a trip I made during the year to Dollar Tree.  (I am in deep people...my co-worker laughs because I have a container of containers)  I mean when you see it you must get it right?!  Right?! Help me out people I need some love here!  I am excited about getting my new vision up, but they are in the process of waxing our floors so I can't go into my room until beginning of next month.  That's alright the hubby is taking vacation that week so OH HUBBY... shhh don't break it to him yet! I will make sure to take pics and post I love beginning of the year pics everything looks so shiny and new. 





Here is the new theme.  Look at those OWLS!!! How cute are they!!

End of year

Wow! This year has flown by...I can't believe my students will be 2nd graders soon. I don't know if I have mentioned before, but this was my first year in first grade and I was lucky enough to be able to bring with me most of my kinder kids, so this year will be a bitter sweet end of year. I love my fristies, they have become a big part of my life. I will defiantly miss this group and I will forever be thankful that the year I had to move up to first with with this group. Don't get me wrong the end of the year is always hard for me I grow to love my kids so much, but I have had these kids for two years. I still remember getting them in kinder and most could not write their own name and now we are at the end of first and they are reading and so much more. {tear} Enough of the snappiness.

So with the end of the year fast approaching us you know what that means right?! T-E-S-T-I-N-G, so much of it my mind is about to explode!!! So to keep my kiddos busy while I am getting this done and to give them time to reminisce I have created a memory book. Click on the picture below to get your copy.

Last Six Weeks

So the count down has begun and so has the first grade "itis" is there such a thing?  I know my senior has senioritis so why can't a first grade student? Well my students started thinking that first grade is over and they are ready to move on to second grade. 

Since my curtain partner and I are departmentalizing this semester, I do get some time away an opportunity to teach my partners students.  I love teaching this way, I guess that comes from my middle school days, but I love the fact that I plan for one subject and get to teach my favorite subject in the whole wide world, math.  I have to admit though that I do find myself teaching ELA and hearing my little ones read, so when I get a chance I still call students to my table and have them read to me.  I just love to see this little ones grow up.  I have had most of these kiddos since Kindergarten.  I was able to loop up with them this year, so I have seen the improvement since day 1 on most of my students.  I am going to miss them next year, but I was glad that my first year in first grade was with a group that I knew and knew my expectations well, in fact they pretty much trained my newbies. 

Anyhoo, our school is STAAR testing this week and we are locked in our classrooms till the testing is all done (we aren't really, but it feels like that to the kids and the teacher at times).  I have taken this time to begin my end of year testing also.  Did I mention I love to see progress it just makes my heart swell with pride in these kids. 

Well with our 3rd graders testing this week, we wanted to send best wishes to our counterparts in 3rd grade, so we made them some STAAR Wars Best Wishes cards and attached a blow pop to it.  I found the clipart from Dorky Prints over at etsy.com to go with our STAAR Wars theme.  Also since this is the last week and like I mentioned before we are having a little trouble keeping kids to stay with me the last six weeks my curtain partner and I have started a little table wars game with our classes.  The winner earns extra recess on Friday while the other students sit and work on AR and earning points towards our end of year Book Bonanza Celebration (more on that later).  I have included the cute boxes I made for each table for you today. 

 Sorry about the side ways picture, I thought I straightened it out...

Oh yes and a link to my Table Wars cards.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Table-Wars

If you grab a copy of my Table War cards, please leave a comment.  Let me know what you are doing to keep you kids focused this last six weeks. 

Looking to Next Year

Today is the last day of my intersession.  I work at a year around school and we do 6 weeks on 1 week off.  With the last 6 weeks quickly approaching us, I find myself, like I do every year, looking forward to the next year and thinking of items that I need to get started this summer for next year. Now because I do work at a year around school, our summer is built into the school year so this means that our summers are a w-h-o-l-e 6 weeks long.  Then if that was not short enough, I decided this summer to begin classes for my principal certification.  So the hubby is asking if I plan on leaving teaching to become an adminstrator.  NOT!  I just think that if I ever wanted to, I was 9 months closer to it than if I did not start the program.  Does that make sense?  Of course it does...

With all this going on my 2nd oldest graduates from high school and moves 5 hours away this summer {sigh}.  My oldest one (who graduated last year) stayed close to home {so close that he didn't leave} he stayed locally, so even though he is my second oldest and many think oh you have already gone through this well I haven't...I am trying to be a big girl and keep the tears back and get him everything he needs to have before he moves away, but it's getting closer guys.  YIKES!!! I AM NOT READY!!!  It feels like I was just walking him to Pre-K... Ok let's get off this topic and back to DENIAL. 

So tell me what's on your mind right now? End of year testing? Next year's class? Summer vacation?

QR Codes & Research

It's been a while, but I am really excited about a research paper my enrichment class worked on this past 6 weeks.  It was an interesting process, I normally work with the struggling students, which I love to work with, so this semester when I was given the higher level enrichment group, I was really excited to try a research paper with my firsties.  Oh man was this interesting!!  We recently took a fieldtrip to the aquarium so I thought what  great way to bring in the fieldtrip, some research and writing into the class. 

So this is how it went.  I had 4 groups.  In each group I had 3-4 kids, 2 iPads, and 1 research packet.  For my research packet, I did a little research myself.  I looked through the web and found some other research papers and read through the questions and picked and modified some questions that I thought would work for this project.  Next, I looked for websites that I wanted the kids to use during their research.  I read through each website and made sure that 1. It had language that they understood.  2. It did not have material I did not want them to use.  3. It contained answers to one or more of the questions on the research paper.  If they followed all of the above, I then added the websites to the home screen and the docked them.  Students were only allowed to use the pages and apps that were on the iPad dock; however, I still had problems, students were finding this too overwhelming.  They were not sure which website answered which questions, etc.  I normally sat down with one group per day, but found the other groups getting very little done when I did not sit down with them.  I decided to change it up a bit, but still did not have any success, so I began to think how can I help my firsties and make it to where I was available to all the groups at once? Then it came to me, QR codes.  I love them and I have been wanting to use them more in the classroom.  So I went in did a little more research and found the answers to the questions and then created a QR code for each question(s) that had the answer in that website.  Students then scanned the QR code, found their answer and then wrote them down.

This worked and the students were so excited in scanning the QR codes to find the answers.  You can see samples of two of the sheets in the photos above.  This was so much more efficient for my firsties.  They really enjoyed using the QR code scanners and it did not take very long to train them on how to use the QR codes and the scanners. 

I used QR Stuff (www.qrstuff.com) to create the codes.  I love this website, it is very easy to use and you can create different color QR codes, which made it easy for me when I saved the QR codes after creating them.  I color coded the QR codes so I knew which ones belonged to which topic.  I saved the QR code pictures using the topic of the question that could be answered using that code.  On our iPads, I use the QR Reader for iPad.  I love this one, it is VERY easy to use. 

Like I mentioned before I LOVE QR codes.  I am trying to use them on my books on CD (a Pinterest find).  I want to upload the CDs to my iTunes accounts and create a QR code to place on the book and then scan it to get to the audio portion of the book.  I love this idea for my struggling readers.  This is for sure a summer project.  Leave me a comment on how you use QR codes in your classroom.