Taking some time to brag

I know, I haven't written a post in so long that I shouldn't be coming back to blogging just to brag. No worries, I'll post the spelling tic-tac-toe my students are using for homework at the end :)

First up, I heart Daily Five. We are just about to dive into learning about our last station, Read to Someone, so we can start the rotation routine in the few days before our Eid holiday. One reason I super-love D5: check out our Work on Writing stamina chart...

What?! 26 minutes on day 4?! You are seeing that correctly. I don't understand it, but I'm pleased as pie. More than anything, I'm super impressed - these are ESL students! They are able to use their individual word walls to help with spelling, but I love their inventive spelling more. **I do have an updated word wall file where I've tried to put in all the first 100 Fry's words that I will post another time.

Next, "MY HERo is Mis. Amanda because he hlps me and hlps to lrn." Awesome. Love love love this student - he is so sweet and so eager. Yes, we need some help with pronouns, but who can care about that right now?!

Next up, Jeff and I booked flights to Amsterdam for the end of this month and I'm pretty excited about this {even though I was called a travel snob because "we have to go" to Europe since Jeff's passport is expiring too soon to get a visa to visit other countries - haha!}. Anyway, moving on... if you also love the idea of Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe worksheets, feel free to use my combination by downloading below (or on my TpT). There are three pages of ideas.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

- Amanda

Great things!

I'm not one of those teachers that misses school on the weekends. Yes, I go home and do a lot of school-related work, but I really do enjoy having those couple days off. Since tomorrow is Thursday and the last day of our school week here, I find myself feeling a little worried. I'm worried because I actually have such a fantastic class this year that I may (may!) end up missing them just a little this weekend. Don't judge me. They are seriously fantastic.

I am loving the Daily 5. We are three days into Work on Writing, two days into building stamina, and my class has gone from four minutes to fifteen minutes of writing. In a day! Whaaaaa? My mind was literally blowing up for the whole quiet, focused fifteen minutes of actual writing I saw today. Maybe not literally, but you know what I mean. I can't believe I didn't disturb them with my mental mania.

That's right, he's already underlining words he's unsure of. Did they catch on quick, or what?

We glued our heart maps onto the front cover of our journals.

Here's one of my artists. I definitely told them that the picture is last, but I guess he was fresh out of ideas. I am certainly not about to be upset, since our stamina chart says 15 minutes! (Wait, did I mention that?!?) This kid wrote tons about zombies. He has a serious infatuation and it cracks me up.

A robot lover.

Here's our clip chart after a Social Studies lesson about smart and poor choices and how these can have a direct affect on each person in the class. These awesome little monsters come from Kathleen at Growing Kinders. They are so bright and colourful and my group got a kick out of the sad monsters. I will definitely work this lesson into beginning of the year plans for next year. Loved it! 

PS - See all those kids on Amazing? I'm not kidding about this being a pretty fantastic class.

And finally - I could hardly believe it but I won my first giveaway! Yay! Many thanks to Kristen at I Do, We Do, You Do for hosting a giveaway and for choosing me. (Electronically and randomly choosing me, that is - anyway, feeling good!)

I won a few great products that I'm pretty darn excited to use this year. More about that later. Now, to tend to my poor sick husband. Back to school busy-ness, I'm sure. (He must be really sick, though, because he agreed to have KD for dinner tonight. The man hates pasta and loves to cook, so for me to throw a box of pasta into boiling water and call it dinner, well... I'll just call myself a lucky lady and thank my stars.) 

Good night, all!

- Amanda

Come on, TpT

Just a few photos to start:

Daily 5 mini-lessons

My first Wow! Work installment. This little guy has the neatest writing, and not only did he write the most, but he wrote the most sensibly!

Yellow pages to highlight the vowels on our Word Wall

First rotation of classroom jobs

Beginning our Math stations (this idea from Cassie at Adventures in Teaching). I have a forty minute Math lesson period everyday. About four times in our six day cycle, I have a second forty minute Math block. These double blocks are not side-by-side in my schedule, so we do a forty minute lesson and practice period, then in the next we have our BUILD rotation where I'm able to work with my small group. Thanks, Cassie!

We have three simple rules for our school, so in the first week we made the 3Bees at CBS. This idea adapted from Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher - her Valentine bees are super cute!

And now a quick rant - 
Anyone else ever annoyed when TpT won't let you upload a file because "An item already exists with that title. Please alter it a bit. Thanks."? It is the most annoying thing! Of course there are other items with that title, because that title explains perfectly what it is, and no, mine is not the first of its kind. And then, because I've had to alter the title, when I do a broad search for items like it, mine does not show up on the home search. I tried SO MANY variations on the titles and nothing would work.... So now, I have a product called "3 Ways to Read a Book - it's the only title that fits. Please allow it." in my shop. haha It's a good thing this is a free item :)

- Amanda

Hurray for 100!

Thanks to Kelly for letting me know THIS important piece of news: there are just over 100 people following me now!!! Thank you to each and every one of you. I hope to be as inspirational as all of your blogs are to me. 
Now, since I didn't notice the number jump, I haven't planned any sort of giveaway. Instead, I'm just going to share some things I'll be using this year.Click the pictures to download.

3 Ways to Read a Book poster.  I am overhauling my Literacy Centers to start Daily 5, so I've started creating a few introductory lesson supplements. I'm excited to switch, but I'm still learning. 

Book Lovers anchor chart pieces

AND grab my alphabet line for FREE today :)

When I get it finished, I'll post my "Problem Solvers" anchor chart. Last year I had a lot of issues with students having hands-on so this year I'm going to try to get ahead of it while the class is still fresh.

Thank you again to everyone!

- Amanda