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..."
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
I loved this post! Liberty does sound like a great fit! At Southeaster we pray and read scripture before class too and I have to say it has been such a blessing to add that into your academic life! p.s Love the Unicorn :)
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