Laminating, unicorns, and law school?!

Woohoo! Friday!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching again this week for another fun linky.  As a fairly new blogger, I am really enjoying all of these fun blog things you can do.  There is so much to learn and I am loving this journey!  Anywho, let's get to Five for Friday!

I'm pretty notorious for using my little color printer in abundance... and with all that color printing, I had to invest in a little personal laminator and I LOVE it!  It was my birthday present to myself over the summer and I have used this thing on almost a weekly basis.  (After I download/buy/ fun goodies from TPT of course!)  I'm able to score the laminating pouches from Amazon for much cheaper than from the stores.  Even better, I was also to get a giant pack from my school's School Specialty order.  I love the durability of this laminate and love to have laminating parties with Joel :)  My kids can always tell when  I cut out our new stuff or when Joel has... but I'm still thankful that he helps me!  Anyone else have their own little laminator?

So almost everyone knows that I love anything magical- Disney, princesses, Disney princesses, fairytales, unicorns.... my list goes on really.  Well, our county has only been able to have SIX full days of school since Christmas break.  It has been absolutely nuts!  Delays for ice, delays from wind chill, early releases for exams, throw in a teacher workday and about five-ish snow days and you get one stressed out teacher and some rambunctious fourth graders.... it's just been crazy!  Wednesday was our first full day in the groove of things since the beginning of January and I thought the day would never end!  Well, one of my sweet girls brought in this magical unicorn, we named her Lola, to go in one of my two windows.  Her mom teaches at the school and jokingly explained that her girls had made hundreds of those things over our snow days- what fun!  I need to go to Michael's and find some to make before our next round of winter weather... coming this upcoming week I hear.  So I wanna know, how do you keep up with all the snow/ice/freezing days, schedule changes, and whatnot?! I feel totally overwhelmed and stressed when I start teaching a lesson, only to realize that I need to reteach everything...


Our county just began our third grading period.  Our school uses the Accelerated Reading program for reading accountability.  Our team does a great job of creating fun AR reward parties for the end of each nine weeks to motivate our kids but my group still seemed pretty unmotivated.  For the past two nine weeks, my kids simply moved their individual owl pin up on the AR board as they earned their points.  (It's not really a board, not really a wall... more like a folding partition between me and my fellow teachers.  But, I'm getting REAL walls this Summer- YAYAYA!) It was functional enough but I wanted a change.  So I found some adorable animal clip art from The Learning Site's TPT store (one of my girls requested a duck, so I HAD to find a set with a duck) and made these personal animal AR point holders. (I'm sure I'll brainstorm a more creative name in my sleep...)  I let each of my 15 readers choose their favorite animal and then added a book below their animal. (From Krista Wallden- love her stuff!) One page is for their individual point goal while the other page tracks their point progress throughout the nine weeks.  They love to use dry erase markers so hopefully this will encourage them to earn points!  What do you do for AR, or in replace of AR?  I've never been in a school that didn't have AR so I'm super curious!

Above: AR for the first half the year

Right and left: AR Now

While on the topic of Reading... I really enjoy teaching Reading, well any topic really, but I LOVE how my Reading block is set up this year and brainstorming creative and engaging ways to teach our SOL skills. (You can read that post here.)  When we were learning how to make predictions, I used my recess (Disney Princess) blanket as a fortune teller turban to model how to make predictions with one of my kid's Magic 8 Balls.  It was also "Dress like a Farmer" day at school, so I was kind of two characters in one.... and I turned on some phony weird accent to add to the lesson- my kids referred to me as "Queen Madam Francis," at least I made the lesson memorable ;)  Anyway, I've mentioned before (I think) that I let my kids use one of my most beloved gel pens when they are reading their skills passages.  They know I love my gel pens so it's very special when I loan them out.  They're expected to prove their answers, mark any "magic" or "key" words in the questions, and then hide their answers from the rest of their small group.  It's been amazing to see the details the kids will mark when they're able to use the fun pens.  My awesome in-laws gave me a jackpot's worth of gel pens before school started and the kids love using them!  We keep them in our "mark it, prove it, hide it" bucket.  Over the past few days we've been working on the difficult skill of inferring or drawing conclusions.  To help my kids "imagine" what they are thinking, I whipped up these quick and easy thought bubbles.  They are laminated so they were hard to photograph. :(  The kids held up their thought bubble after they read aloud followed by making an inference statement.  I think these thought bubbles really helped with the skill.   We call this our "power skill" because we have to be aware of the main idea, the facts and details and the context clues to make a prediction before drawing a conclusion... whew.... intense.  How do you help your kids with inferring and drawing conclusions?

"I'm thinking maybe..." "Perhaps..." "I'm assuming..."  "It could be..." "I'm guessing..." "I think..."

Last one.  Over our kooky week, I planned to take today off- my first full day away from my kids! I felt like a mom not knowing what was going on while the kids were with someone else!  (But I knew they were in good hands!)  I thankfully had a "sub tub" ready but I still sometimes stress about creating plans for a sub.  I always wonder, do my plans make sense, will this be enough, what if this or that happens...  Thankfully, I haven't been sick enough to where I couldn't make it into school but I still wonder, what do you teachers do when you can't make it in to make sub plans?!  What happens?  Do you have back ups?  Do you email plans?

Well anyway, today was a special day to take off and well worth the sub plans!  My husband, Joel, is currently applying to law schools in Virginia so we took the day off to tour his top choice- Liberty University of Law and we had an awesome experience!  We sat in an evidence law class (I couldn't keep up, but I did here the word "infer!"), took a detailed tour of their law facilities, met friendly, supportive faculty and left feeling totally excited.  Liberty's program is unique because their whole law program is based off of Christian values and ethics.  They open each class with prayer requests and a prayer, a quick devotion, or a lesson applicable to your faith.  Like Bridgewater, where we both went for our undergrad, they focus on developing the whole person. They really want to support their students in and out of the classroom.  They also have a "club" of sorts for wives of law students. The wives are paired up with mentors and get together while supporting each other.  It seems like a great fit for Joel and everything he believes in- I hope Liberty agrees ;)

Well, that was Five for Friday with plenty of details added in.  I'm a bit of talker so I guess that means I'm a bit of a typer?  I hope everyone has a warm and great weekend!

xoxo farren

My First Five for Friday! And shout-out to local businesses!

Wait, it's FRIDAY?!  Hmm.  Sure doesn't feel like a Friday to me.  Our county hasn't had school AT ALL this week!  We had a work day on Monday and then... bam! Snow, freezing temperatures, ice, ice, ice- brrr!  While I have loovveeeddd sleeping in, drinking coffee on the coach with my bff Robin Meade and leisurely stalking some blogs online, I have missed my kids!  I bet we're going to be in for a rude awakening come next week with a back-to-normal schedule (haven't had one of those since 2013!) on a five day week.  Oh the thought of my alarm clock is just making me yawn...

Anyway, I'm joining up with Kacey and her super adorable first grade blog- Doodle Bugs Teaching for a five for Friday Linky party- my first one!

My first of the five things for today's Friday thoughts is about a few of my favorite local businesses in downtown Harrisonburg. (Catch all of that alliteration?!)  Now, let me start off by saying that I have grown up surrounded by local businesses.  My paw paw owns a well known carpet business in Harrisonburg and my dad worked for himself through his own electrical business for years.  I've grown up respecting small, local businesses and continue to do my best to show my support to them as the world becomes more globalized. My Aunt DD has specifically shown me this appreciation and chooses to shop more local than commercial.  When we were planning my wedding this past summer, we tried our hardest to support local vendors and businesses. My dress, jewelry, invitations, location, decorations (mostly made by me) and nearly all other details were a product of local businesses.  I formed great relationships with many of these small shop owners and am happy to call many of them my friends!

My first favorite store downtown will soon be closing their doors.  The store is called "Mint" and specializes in unique and upbeat clothing, accessories, and gifts.  Many of my favorite pieces of clothing, mostly dresses, come from this shop.  Joel knows that if I have a bad day and need to go retail therapy shopping, that I would probably end up at Mint, snagging a cute new dress :)

About these photos: A top and two dresses from last spring: A VA necklace- a Christmas gift from Joel (he got the hint!) and my latest coral red dress... I paired it with black and tight and black suede cowgirl boots.

The second store is right beside Mint and is called RubyRed Shoe Boutique.  Tracy, the store's super bubbly and personable owner, has an adorable store for any girl who possesses a fond taste of great shoes, fun accessories, and a heart for the Wizard of Oz. My super beautiful wedding shoes came from RubyRed as well as many of most beloved accessories... bows, earrings, headbands, scarves, statement necklaces.... Oh, and she even carries Lindsey Philips ballet flats that are seriously known as "the most comfortable shoe for teachers ever." Not kidding.  One shall not joke about shoes.  (Wedding shoe photo cred to my wonderful wedding photographer, Gayle Driver)

The third store that I adore downtown is right in the same complex as the above two- The Lady Jane. Sara is probably one of the nicest people I've ever met- and she's a former teacher! Her store is perfect for those of us who love romantic, vintage pieces to fill our homes with.  I cannot wait until Joel and I upgrade to space a bit larger than our current one so I can fill it with some of her lovely vintage pieces.  (Oh, and she has a thing for the colors mint and teal, two of my staple colors in life!) The Lady Jane also has a blog you can follow for all of your DIY, vintagey, lovely projects ;) I snagged those super cute flower wall hooks to use by our front door... his and hers... precious, I know! (Note our wedding invitation...)

And my last favorite local store, Polished, sadly closed just last night.  Growing up with my mother and Aunt DD, I have come to love and appreciate great jewelry- especially sterling silver!  Melanie had wonderful, beautiful sterling silver jewelry, charming estate pieces, and began to carry freshwater pearls.  I bought my flower girls' little peach pearl bracelets from Melanie as well as the pearl bracelets for my mom and mother-in-law as wedding gifts.  My sister and I ventured out in the extreme cold (seriously, I'm not exaggerating) to bid the store farewell.  While this isn't the best instagram photo, I bought a pair of gray Honora pearls and spoiled my sister with a pair of pink pearls- I love that girl!

Here is my loot from today's snow day adventure: floral/GIRAFFE scarf from RubyRed, Tuscan/Van Gogh inspired scarf from RubyRed, pleated black and white swan patterned skirt from Mint, and a gray/mint knitted infinity scarf from Mint.  What can I say, I'm a scarf girl!   

  

Okay, back on track. My second five for Friday is about a super exciting whole school writing project we're about to start next month.  My principal asked me to head up a new writing committee to plan more writing activities for our school.  What better month to write during than February?! I'm sure your classrooms are overflowing with secret love notes this time of year! (Unless you've had an umpteen amount of snow days!) The committee and I gathered and brainstormed something fun, Valentine's themed, and special to get the kids writing.  We came up with "Letters of Encouragement."  The idea is simple.  Each student will write a letter of encouragement to a student in the below grade level.  They can offer advice, give them a few "know-hows" or anything else- as long as they are positive and upbeat!  These letters are passed down and then those kids will write a thank you letter response back.  I made these super cute letter templates for each grade level to use.  You can check out the whole bundle in my store.

I don't know about you, but I can't stand to throw anything away.  I don't think I'm a hoarder or anything... yet.  But now that I'm on my own and am getting my/our own mail, (that doesn't include those terrible bills) I had no idea what I was supposed to do with all of those cute announcements and stuff that was stuffed in our little mailbox.  I didn't want to throw away those cards when I knew my friends had put in time, money, love, and maybe even stress into designing them!  Joel's granddad also loves to send us hand written letters, cards, and captured photos so I needed a home for all of those things too! So, I bought a few photo albums and decided to keep one for each year, kinda like a living scrapbook/photo album. (But let's be real, we all know shutterfly is the way to go for photo albums these days!)  So I present below, a living collection for all of those mailed items that I couldn't bear to throw away! 

Fourth, whew, I'm writing a book.  Well just in case you didn't know... I LOVE Disney.  Growing up, I introduced myself to people as "Belle" because, well, I knew in my heart that I really was Belle.  I still love princesses, happy endings, fairy dust, and all of the magical splendor that is known as Disney... But what makes loving Disney even more special is sharing all of the magic with my husband!  In fact, we even went to Disney World for our honeymoon.  We had breakfast with the princesses and dinner in Beast's castle and everything was just so... magical.  (Sigh...) We've spent much of this week watching Disney movies on Netflix AND we just came home from seeing Frozen in theaters- awesome movie, I LOVE Idina Menzel.  (The movie was very appropriate considering our current temperature is 12 degrees outside- FREEZING!)

Five: the finale.  I am finally looking forward to a normal week with my kiddos!  Now, of course we will have a few schedule changes but for the most part, a normal week!  (If Mother Nature can contain herself... or do I mean Elsa?) Anyway, I'm hoping to finally get back into the swing of things and start a bunch of new units- and document them with photos as well! We will be starting geometry in Math, finishing up inferring in Reading, writing one last five paragraph paper before our local Writing SOL in March, and taking a break from Science while we introduce the American Revolution in Virginia Studies.  I have a lot planned, a lot of dust to wipe off my unit plans, and hopefully some smiling kids ready for a new week together!  The only thing I need to do before Monday morning is to finish laminating my math center games for the kids to use as review throughout the week.  

I think that's it for now!  We are off to Joel's parents tomorrow for the weekend.  I love spending time with family.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

xoxo, farren

Snow day!!!!!!

Now that I'm a teacher, I'm CONVINCED that teachers get more excited about snow days than students.  My sister is currently a senior and while she's excited about sleeping in and not doing/completing her homework, I get excited about going to back to bed (we're pretty similar in that sense), having Coco Wheats for breakfast (she probably had those too), drinking coffee from a REAL mug (nothing better...) and getting caught up on cleaning, laundry, and making new stuff for my kiddos-all while Teen Mom 2 reruns play in the background...

I love being creative so whenever Mother Nature blesses me with a snow day (or two?!) I find myself channeling my inner creative self to create or craft or design or...

take pictures :)

For those of you who don't know me, I LOVE photos.  I've been taking photos on the side for close friends and family members for a few years now.  My dad totally surprised me my senior year of high school by trading some electrical work for a Cannon 20D.  That thing quickly became my best friend.  I captured some great memories with that wonderful camera but was so thankful when Joel upgraded my slooowwww, old camera to a Nikon D3100. That was also a HUGE surprise from the hubster.  What a lucky gal I am.  Here are some snow photos of today's snow day! (Okay technically, the first one is from a few weeks ago... but it still fits in with the whole "snow" theme!)

                            

In another news, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside now.  The snow is currently blustering around in ever which way.  I love how the snow forces (most) of us to slow down, take a deep breath, and relax.  Life gets crazy and fast paced, but a good snow storm can remind us to take time for us and our life's needs... like completing report cards, cleaning the bathroom, organizing the kitchen, and of course some snow day baking.  Enjoy the weather my friends!

Time for a SWEET freebie!

Valentine's is right around the corner- hard to believe it right?! I'm a firm believer that the older I get, the faster time seems to go.  Like, when did I turn 23?! I keep telling people I'm 21 because part of me still feels like I still am... oh well.

ANYWAY!  I'm linking up with Mrs. Orman's Classroom to give away this sweet freebie I created with the help of Krista Wallden and her Creative Clips-she has some super cute clip art!  I love, love using her stuff because I know it's TPT safe to use and she is super affordable.  (Did I mention cute?!)  She is also running this super intriguing "special" on her TPT store where you can pay 10 dollars to be part of a clip art club. She will release a new folder of clip art each week for the month you've paid for.  I've only gotten a few week's worth (since it's still January) and so far the stuff she has released has been super cute and useful!  Thanks Krista for your great stuff! These are the book marks I made for my kiddos.  The cute owl is from the 3 AM Teacher who also has some cute clipart.  (I think I need a few synonyms for cute...) I can't wait to give these out to my kiddos- how *adorable* is this clip art?!

If you need some center activities or task cards themed for Valentine's Day check out these Draw and Match Cards I posted in my store.  You can check them out individually or by the bundle!  I made the cards to go with my kiddo's math needs: long division, factoring, rounding, subtraction, multiplication, addition, subtraction, place value, and fractions.  The game that goes with them is pretty easy. There are two stacks of cards: one set with answers (lay all of these out to be seen) and a set with questions that should be stacked in "draw" pile.  Kids take turns drawing a question card and solving it according to the directions.  Then, they look at the cards laid out for the matching answer.  They pick up the answer card, record the corresponding letter onto the sheet provided and keep both cards.  For example if their answer is 12, they would look for the card answered "12" and record that letter on their sheet.  By the end of the game, all of the letters should be used up and all of the cards answered.  I also included answer sheets so kids can check their work or for you to use for quick grading ;)

My kids will use these for centers, as early finishing actives, and for scoot! :)

What do you have planned for Valentine's Day in your classroom?

Sunday Funday and Reading Reflection

Happy Sunday!  There has seriously been so much on mind as to what I've been wanting to write about this week. First of all, what an interesting past few weeks at school!  This has been our first full week back into the swing of things since Christmas break without ANY delays or closings... but yet, we still have had some schedule changes due to our high school's exam week.  That meant early releases for three days of this past week.  Sometimes I feel like our off schedule weeks bring more chaos than our normal schedule does!!  My kiddos have been such troopers this past week with practice testing and it's given me a chance to get caught up on grading, organizing, and reflecting on my teaching. I'm also linking up with Where the Wild Things Are to show our daily schedule and specifically describe my new LA block :)  (BTW, Amelia wears a princess crown during small group rotations and I do too! I'm a total princess at heart and the kids even call me Queen Francis!  Hehe!)

This year I've created a unique way to set up my Language Arts block that was  inspired by the popular book read by many, Daily Five and Cafe.  Last year was my first year teaching so I mostly just went with the flow and taught Reading the way others in the school suggested I did.  I was so thankful for all of the resources and support provided during the first year but I knew I wanted to "spice" things up for the next year.  So this past summer, I spent HOURS (after getting married of course!) to stalk some blogs, read some books, and brainstorm a BUNCH of ideas to help my kiddos succeed.

Our fourth graders are ability grouped for reading and math classes.  I teach below grade level readers and above grade level mathematicians.  I'm fortunate to have two TLC teachers and our special ed teacher as available resources for our reading block.  Last year, I would teach whole group instruction for 40ish minutes with mostly AR reading time and then the kids would branch into small groups for 45 minutes to work on reading skills, fluency, and Daily Language Review (DLR) writing skills.  While this small group instruction was great, I wasn't able to be with all of my kids on a daily basis in a small group setting so I was missing out on what their individual reading needs were.

This year I still teach whole group reading but even managed to jazz that up.  We know learn one different Virginia Studies (our state's history curriculum) vocabulary word a day.  We fold a piece of paper in fourths on Monday (one fourth for each day) and we illustrate the word, write examples/not examples, and the definition.  Then, we put a "cheer" to the word using my favorite, Whole Brain Teaching!  If you don't know what WBT is, just google it.  It is truly wonderful and my kids LOVE it! I'm a super energetic and outgoing person so WBT fits my personality and teaching ways perfectly! Anyway, back on topic... we learn one word a day, review each day's word throughout the week, and have a quiz on Friday.  We also add these words to our "word catcher collection" wall.  You can check out these headers in my TPT store and snag this freebie ;)   After our vocab lesson, we all gather to read a chapter book.  My kiddos really struggle with chapter book comprehension so we have been reading short chapter books as a class which has been great for their confidence and they love gathering on our carpet with all of their book nooks- pillows and blankets to snuggle up and read.  It truly warms my heart to hear them talk excitedly about reading books!  I'll write another post about how I use chapter books in my room another day.  One of my boys even said one day... "Queen Francis, it's like you're the mom and reading us a goodnight story while Joel is out getting the bacon!"  Love these kids!

If the kids still have time after vocab and our read aloud, they have some AR time before we start rotations- the best time of our reading block :) I have my 15 readers split up into three different small groups based on their spelling inventory/Ganske scores.  Each rotation is 20 minutes so the kids are always engaged and moving at a pretty fast pace... something my kiddos certainly benefit from!  There are two group tables in my room, and one across the hall. The first of the three rotations is with one of our TLC teachers. She works on phonics with the kids by using word study and does daily sorts and activities based on their word study lists.  I use the All Sorts of Sorts books but also have used my Words their Way book from my BC days ;) If they finish early, they hop on the iPads and use Lexia for differentiated phonics instruction.  They also do word study for homework.  The love this Tic Tac Toe Homework that we use.

Their second rotation is with our other TLC teacher. (I work with some teachers!) The kids write one paragraph a week with her using this awesome resource, Paragraph of the Week, from Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6.  This has helped my reluctant writers SO much!  Our fourth graders are expected to write five paragraph papers by the end of the year for our local SOL writing test, so getting them to write just ONE strong paragraph has been a challenge, but they are finally getting it!  WOOHOO!  In addition to their paragraph writing, they also work on DLR writing skills or skills from one of our writing skill work books.  We also have whole group writing for twenty minutes after our rotations.

The third rotation is my favorite because it's mine :) Last year I took our reading skills and did one a week... but we (the special ed teacher who is like my other half and myself)  thought that this was too rushed and things easily got messed up if we had a schedule change.  This year, we decided to do one skill for every two weeks and wow-  has that helped! I'm able to do so much more during two weeks to really expand on the skills and make sure my kiddos are getting it!  I usually introduce our skill during whole group time through a BrainpopJR clip or a smart board presentation.  Then we use the CARS and STARS Collection for our practice passages and assessments.  Last year I relied pretty heavily on these passages for time sakes which wasn't much fun.  Now, we do one passage every other day and flip-flop them with small readers from Scott Foresman Reading.  (We don't use the basals for anything, just the small books, and some are AR!) So for each skill, I introduce it, we practice the skill in passages (looking for key words and practicing our strategies), and in real books, and then.... I make sure we always do something interactive and application based.  For example, for making inferences, we played inference charades.  For main idea, we made main idea tables and used supporting details to make the table legs.  This even branched into writing that week- it's great when things just work out like that! :)

Overall, my kids have responded really well to this new layout.  I think that it helps that they are constantly moving and receiving a solid 20 minutes of instruction for each reading rotation.  I know that they are all getting the same instruction from all three of us and we all get be part of each child's reading development.  I love that I'm able to hear each child read aloud every day- this really helps me figure out what each child needs more of.  I know that they learning how to apply each reading skill to reading passages AND real books.  It's amazing when a kid reads a book and then comes to me and says "Mrs. Francis, I made a prediction and I was right!" Or, "Mrs. Francis, I didn't know what this word was so I used my context clues and figured it out."  When my kids make those realizations and are able to apply their lessons to their real world, it makes everything worth while!  My kids are all making improvements and reading more challenging books and demolishing their AR goals. I am SO proud of them and LOVE how we are finding ways to meet their needs.

Well... that's the end of the book for today!  Goodness, I wrote a lot!  My wonderful hubby made me breakfast this morning and now we are both spending the afternoon blogging and listening to some Jesus music on our new Apple  TV (thanks dad!) while our wedding photos play in slideshow.  Aww... He is also studying for the LSATS for next month so wish him luck with with all of his studying!  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, my friends!

My first Monday Made-it!

Woo-hoo!!! I've only been reading about Monday Made It's for I don't know.... a long time now!  Today I'm linking up with Tara and her awesome blog, 4th grade frolics  When I first found out I was teaching fourth grade a year ago, I found 4th grade frolics and was blown away with all of her great ideas! I wrote down so many fun "must do's" from her blog and still check it regularly to see what she's up to.  It's also fun to see what another 4th grade teacher is up to since both of our states have pretty similar standardized tests....

So here I am, trying a Monday- Made it for myself!  This weekend we had a pretty lazy weekend and I spent a lot of time planning some new things for my kiddos like our weather task cards and a super exciting literacy bundle for The World According to Humphrey, which is our book for the One Book, One School this year.  (You can see my current post on One Book here.)

For  Humphrey,  I knew I wanted to focus more on vocabulary and character traits with my kiddos than just comprehension so I've been working on this bundle.  For each chapter, I chose several vocab words to focus on.  Each chapter will come with a vocab poster, vocabulary in context poster, an activity page with two vocab activities (one is always ABC order because my kids need a lot of practice...) and one other activity like fill in the blank, synonym/antoyms, definitions, writing in context, a crossword puzzle, or word find.  Then, each chapter has a page to describe the traits of three characters from the chapter followed by 10 comprehension questions. Whew...

Today was our first day with chapter one and the kids enjoyed it, yay!  I LOVE seeing them all snuggled up with our class sets of blankets and pillows with our reading lamps on in the front of the room. The kids even think of themselves as a family when we do this- it just melts my heart! ("Queen Francis you're the mom, Joel is the dad and he's bringing home the bacon, and we're all your kids!) HAH, I love them! They really enjoyed our last chapter book together, Sarah, Plain and Tall, so I'm hopeful they will enjoy this book too.  It helps that everyone in the school is reading this book so the all students are have been bitten by the hamster buzz!  Our class "Humphrey" even gets to go home with a different friend each evening to write in his journal and read together.  I hope tonight's pal is keeping him warm since it's already (feels like) -7 outside!  Our county has already called us a 2 hour delay, but many say we will get out tomorrow like neighboring counties.  Our kids (and everyone else around here) are just not used to this extreme weather!

One thing I did make (and finish!) was this math scoot activity for my math kiddos.  Each card has either a giraffe or moose clip art from Scrappin Doodles (LOVE their stuff!) The kids know that I love, love, love giraffes (my classroom has a giant growing collection of them) and we are the Elks, which are kinda like moose right?  At least, they look kinda similar.  Maybe I can convince my kids that these guys really are elk (or is it elks?) :) Anyway, these cards are word problems related to Valentine's Day and include long division, multi-digit multiplication, subtraction and addition.  A few cards even include multi-step.  You can check them out in my TPT store.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight folks.  I'm going to make some dark chocolate hot chocolate, grab a few cookies, and continue to stalk read about things going on in your all's classrooms. Stay warm and have a great rest of the week!

xoxo,

BTW,  I just figured out to make a signature, EEK, I love this blogging stuff when I figure it out! :)