Friday, June 28, 2013

Five for Friday

1. I am so excited to celebrate my husband's 30th Birthday this weekend! I could not be more blessed to have him!


2. I have been prepping for my new classroom theme. I seriously stay awake at night because I will get a new idea. Eek! Next week we are allowed back in our classrooms, so I can finally put my vision to life! Hopefully it all comes together. 


3. My new planner came in! Holla!  

4. After my planner came in it was totally necessary that I go to Office Depot for a special trip to get new pens right? I am obsessed with these pens! I started using erasable pens last year again. Can we say 3rd grade flashback. We had to use them when we were learning how to write cursive, and we loved our big kid pens! I forgot how amazing it is to have the erasable feature. Nothing bothers me more when I mess up writing in my planner. Then the page is doomed to be ugly. Supper annoying. Well, not anymore! These pens are amaze, and they even come in cool colors. Score! 

5. Is anyone going to the Debbie Diller Conference at the end of July in Houston? I will be there and I would love to know to look for you!

And please follow me on Bloglovin' if that is how you read blogs! 
 Button by Melissa


Have a great weekend!


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Throwback Thursday

Hello Lovelies, 

I am excited to link up with Cara over at The First Grade Parade for a little Throwback Thursday Linky Party! I love to look back on activities I have done with my littles! It's also nice when you need a refresher on previous activities you did with you students. 

My throwback post is from January 17, 2012. This was before I moved to another city and had to change schools. Therefore, it was a nice little walk down memory lane of my old school! :)

Workstation Revamp! {& Silly Sentences}

It's about that time of year again where my students {and I} feel *blah* about workstations. Although the kiddos are still excited to go to workstations (duh), their attention span is minimal and some of them seem to forget the rules. 

What to do? 
 - Introduce some new and exciting things into the workstations.
- Review rules of workstations.
- And if it's not working... change or omit it.

Enter here Silly Sentences!

I always like to introduce these into the pocket chart when my students are independently reading! The kids go *bananas* for this work station! 

I keep all of the parts of the sentences in one container. {Now let me be honest, this took a while to cut and laminate, since its such a big packet. However, you could pick and choose which words you would like to add to your Silly Sentence Work Station*

My directions are hanging beside the pocket chart and, I place the colored numbers at the top for students to use to make their sentence! This makes it SUPER easy to follow the directions! Which is what my bambinos need!


Below you can see some pictures of the constructed sentences using the color coded strategy! 

So simple, yet TONS of fun! It's a great opportunity not only to construct the sentences, but to read as well! My students create the sentence, read the sentence and then record the sentence! The best part about this is their are SO many possibilities for sentences! 

If you would like to check it out at my TpT store click here!

I also finished up my new writing station re-do. There is now a must do sheet which you can learn more about at First Grade Jungle. Ms. Thomas shared these fill in the blank pre-writes with me which I LUSH! The Littles have been having the HARDEST time staying focused and producing quality work from this station. It was time for a change! 


 Monthly words for writing via Busy Teacher Cafe

 Do you have the writer's eye? via Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade

Now I have NO idea where those charts came from or the ones below! But whoever did them, THANKS I love them! If you know please let me know! They have been saved on my computer for a while (before pinterest)! 
*Update: these posters can be found here: 
http://mrsgilchristsclass.blogspot.com/2011/08/writing-center.html


Now I have more for my revamp of my ABC/ Word Study, Work Work, Word Wall Station…. check back for that tomorrow! But here is a sneak peak of one of my new Word Work Stations, found on pinterest! Hopefully this excited the littles! 
 
Hope you enjoyed my Throwback Thursday!  You can link up with me by clicking on the picture below. 
 
 
See you tomorrow for my Five for Friday! 
 

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Five for Friday... Summer Break Style

It is so nice to finally feel like I have "free" time. For a hot minute at least. 

1. All cleaned and ready for summer break and a popcorn treat with my littles on the last day of school. 

2. My sweet first grade team at the end of the year crawfish boil.

3.  Enjoying being able to hang out with the hubs!
My boy and I celebrating the end of my school year with a fancy dinner!

 
Memorial Day at the beach.
 
4. Being domestic and cooking dinner.


5. Planning for my classroom next year! Trying out the new goods. 
(And yes that is my husband making fun of me with his comment on instagram. Funny.)

Happy Summer!!
  
Link up with me at Doodle Bugs Teaching: Five for Friday!