Teaching Applications and Interviews

Wow! I just realized I haven't had a post in nearly a month! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacation but also look forward to going back to their jobs in the fall. I hope to have a full-time teaching job come August and I have been busy applying and interviewing. Fingers crossed that all the time I spend pinning, browsing blogs and raiding the Target Dollarspot will be well worth it soon!! :)

Summer Gift Complete

Here is my adapted version of all the ideas I have seen on Pinterest; I changed it to match the needs of my kiddos. I typed the cute little tag on Microsoft word, pasted it onto scrap-booking paper, and attached it to the top of a Ziploc bag. As you can see, inside is a Fundip, 3 Smarties and a bouncy ball. I hope my kiddos like it :) It is so much fun to come up with your own little gifts to meet the needs of your students! Enjoy!

Feel free to email me if you want to print out your own tags; I will give you the ultra-simple template I created!

Sight Word Candy Land

I come to you with more sight word and letter ideas! Can you tell I am a reading teacher? :) I found the following fabulous idea on this cute blog! It is a sight-word version of Candy Land that you create using the original game but substituting the color cards that show you where to move and adding sight words on them. Then the kiddos have to read the word before they can move to that space! Thanks for the great idea "First Grader...at Last"! Below is my finished product! All the words on my cards are from Fry's First 100 Words List, and the "special cards" where you move to certain character spaces and cards with two moves get two words the kids have to read :) The kiddos love it!!

Additional Endorsement Areas..

I have been done with college since November, and as nice as it is to call myself a certified teacher, I am finding that I actually miss taking classes. I am certified in Elementary Education K-5, Cognitive Impairments K-12 and Language Arts 6-8 but I want to add another endorsement. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best endorsement area to add? Thank you!

Sight Word Stars

While sitting around bored today (after having a PAINFUL tooth pulled and having to miss work the day before break :( )I stumbled upon this adorable blog and found the following fabulous sight word idea. It is so amazing that I am going to use it exactly like she describes, so you will have to check out her fabulous blog to get the details! Thank you "Finally in First"!

Sight Word Challenge

Again, I found this idea on my favorite website of all time, Pinterest! The original source of this idea was not listed, but I just really love the concept! My idea (to save time and energy) is to put the sight words on sticky notes along the wall in my room and have the kiddos see how far they can get without making a mistake. I will write their names on the words they end on, and whoever gets farthest along our word path will win a small prize. I'm super excited about it; it is nice to have creative things to do during the ending weeks of school :)

Summer Ideas

I found this cute gift on Pinterest and I am thinking about making it for my kiddos! We were contemplating bookmarks and pencils, but (sadly) I feel that they may get more use out of this on their upcoming summer vacation! I am going to create my own tags, but now I just have to figure out where to buy the bouncy balls! I may have to resort to getting them out of the quarter machines they have at restaurants, but it would be rather embarrassing to buy 21 as a grown adult :)

** Update-Found the bouncy balls at Party City, 12 of them for $3! Woohoo!! :)

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, here are some of my favorite quotes about the best profession there is! :)

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth.” 
Dan Rather 


“Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.” 
Anonymous 


"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job. " 
Donald D. Quinn


"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre." 
Gail Godwin


"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism." 
Colleen Wilcox

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."

Carl Jung

Comprehension-again :)

I found this lovely freebie on one of my favorite blogs, The Inspired Apple! These are simple, yet adorable cards you can print off and laminate for your kiddos to use to check their comprehension of a text after reading.  Add one more thing to my ever growing list..just think when I get my own classroom!! :)

Shake, shake, shake..

I stumbled upon this adorable blog through a post on Pinterest and I knew I had to borrow the synonym shaker idea! I am going to make one with the upper and lower-case letters of the alphabet and also one with sight words in it! I am excited to work on this (along with other projects I previously posted about and haven't quite had time for) this weekend! Thanks "Sunny Days in Second Grade"!

Guided reading-comprehension!

I found these adorable stars and I decided I wanted to create my own, but following the same format. You can sign up for a membership and download the exact ones here, but I hate signing up for things because it ends up being just one more password I won't remember. I am going to make my own prompts for before, during and after reading and have each kiddo in my guided reading group answer a question! I am so excited to get started and I will post a pic of the finished product tomorrow! :) Thanks topteacher!

                                     

I'm lovin' Fry & fries!!

I stumbled upon this bulletin board website and they had such a cute idea for a board based on (in my opinion) the best fast food place in town :) I am planning on adapting their idea slightly, where instead of discussing over-used words, I am going to focus on Fry's word lists. I will have a different fry container for each of the word lists and pull from there when I want to test the kiddos. I am thinking it would be awesome to treat the kids to a small order of fries once they have mastered the lists! I will post my bulletin board once I find the time to make it :)

Door decorating!

In December my mom and I were browsing through some door decorating ideas on Pinterest and stumbled upon this website. She adapted their "reindeer stable" door for her classroom! How adorable for Christmas time :)

Word endings..help!

My kiddos were asking when to add 's' at the end of a word and when to add 'es' and I think these posters will work great in my room! Also, check out the adorable blog I found them on-I'm a big fan!

Reading with expression :)

I was doing a mini-lesson today with the kiddos on reading with expression. Some of my higher-level readers have almost mastered all of their sight words and can stretch out words fairly easily, but they skip punctuation all together, even when they are reading dialogue in a story. I am going to make these for my wall to remind the kiddos what the different punctuation marks' jobs are :) I found the idea on Pinterest..not sure who the original author is but thanks!

Pumpkin Decorating

Every year the school my mom works at holds a pumpkin decorating contest and the pumpkins are raffled off to raise money for the school. The classroom teacher my mom works with came up with the idea of "The Rainbow Fish" based off of the popular children's book and my mom designed this pumpkin! Believe it or not, a ton of the work on this pumpkin was actually done by 1st & 2nd graders!! I loved this pumpkin and just had to share/brag about how my mom is one of the most creative people I know! :)

Classroom Management

Kiddos who turn in their homework should be rewarded! I found this cute blog and saw this idea, and I am forever grateful because I intend to make a "Rock N' Roll"version of this for my classroom :)

Science & Social Studies

Oh my goodness! The following idea made me actually giddy with excitement! How about a twist on the traditional Guess-Who game, using famous people instead of those silly pretend ones?? Love love love this! Thank you to whoever came up with this originally-it fits so perfectly into my American Revolution unit (of course my game would feature different folks then the ones pictured below :) )

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My fourth graders absolutely loved this video-they had it memorized after only a couple days and could sing it without the lyrics!

I have attached the lyrics here so that you can make individual hand-outs for the kids. They loved having their own copy to take home and sing the song, especially those who did not have access to the internet at home!

Math

Are your kiddos having trouble remembering the properties of 3D shapes? Here is the solution! Thank you Lil' Country Kindergarten, for not only this cute resource, but also for having quite possibly the cutest blog name ever! :)

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I stumbled upon this chart and I love it because you can tell the kiddos to use their math strategies BEFORE they ask you for help on a problem. With my fourth graders especially they would tend to say "I don't know what to do" before attempting a new strategy, so I am going to make this as a reference for my future classroom.

*I found this chart on Pinterest and it is only linked to a photo, so if you are the original author let me know so I can give you credit for this awesome idea!

Literacy :)

Using Fry's First 100 Words with your kiddos? Here is an awesome resource, including the list, a checklist for recording student responses, and all 100 words written individually on flash cards! Thanks "Unique Teaching Resources"! :)
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At school we use the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) kits. Sometimes I need to skip around and/or use a book from another level. I found this link that lists all the books in the LLI kits, and although it is intended to price the books, it is helpful as it shows the level, lesson number and title of each book.



*On a side note, I am so thankful that we have these kits! Man are they expensive, but well worth it! :)
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I focus on different skills with every reading group that I see. While one group is focusing on letters and letter sounds, another may be working on beginning blends or other reading strategies. I stumbled upon these two charts and I cannot wait to print them off soon to use with my groups!

The first is a blends and digraphs chart available here.

The other is an alphabet chart given away as a freebie on this adorable blog! Thank you "Kindertastic"!! :)

Here is the link to the chart-I can't wait to show it to my kiddos!

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This week we have been talking about stretching out words while reading and looking for parts of  words that we know with some of my reading groups. This spun off into a mini-lesson about word endings and when I found this cute anchor chart on Pinterest I knew I would have to make one. There goes my Sunday.. :)

(Note: I would like to give credit to the original author of this but the Pinterest link doesn't lead to anything for me, so if you are the original author, then thanks! Send me a link to the original posting and I will credit you for your awesome idea on my page!)

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For those days when kids don't feel like practicing sight words, these cards are a really good alternative. I found them as a freebie on a really cute blog, which you can check out by clicking here.

The link to the free printable is here.

Thanks "I Love 2 Teach" :)

Two videos that inspire me..

This first video was recorded at a back-to-school pep rally in Dallas, Texas! This 11-year-old boy gives an amazing speech about believing in all students and how a teacher's influence goes far beyond the classroom.

This second video is one that reminds me that kids are amazing and that we need to set high expectations for all students!

What Teachers Make-Taylor Mali

I first saw this video in one of my teacher education classes at Michigan State and it still resonates with me today. When I am feeling stressed that my bank account is running low or I need to be inspired I always turn to this video. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! This man is a true inspiration!

P.S. If you get a chance, watch other videos of his on youtube. A couple have choice words in them so they should not be shown in an elementary classroom, but I really enjoy "The The Impotence of Proofreading" as well :) 

Hello & welcome to my blog!

Over the past few years I have bookmarked, pinned & stored a multitude of great ideas that I hope to use in my future classroom. I am using this blog as a way to share these ideas with other educators who have a passion for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking as it relates to the classroom. Click on my links to the right to see some of the things that I love! Enjoy :)