My Second First Day!

Today was the first day of my second year of teaching! Go me!

We had a half day, and it went AMAZINGLY well. Like, I was boggled as to what was happening in my classroom. They got a little squirrely in the last hour or so, but they're essentially all BFFs who haven't seen each other in a few months... so I wasn't too tough on them. :)

We started Daily Five today, and it went crazy well. Last year when I tried to launch D5, we read to ourselves for 17 seconds on the first day.

17. Seconds.

Today I actually had to stop them at 3 minutes! I almost died. I told them afterwards that I was AMAZED and I couldn't believe what was happening, haha! Then we walked down the hall in complete silence with our hands behind our backs and our bubbles in our mouths.

It wasn't all perfect! I did forget to collect their supplies, which led to general craziness at dismissal time. We enjoyed some Jitter Juice (courtesy of Abby), which was very fun!

 But it was a little too unstructured for us on the first day.  I'm sure it's just the way I taught it, because it was super fun and the activities were awesome! I learned quickly that we need lots of structure in my class. And that's cool, I can work with it. :)

So, tomorrow's another day! We're launching Writer's Workshop (which is new for all of us) and learning the 3 ways to read a book! And some math stuff too. :)

Question for ya - tomorrow we have our Technology special, but our Tech teacher isn't coming in. I want to take my class to the computer lab just to get us into the routine. Any thoughts on what we can do while we're there for 30 minutes?

Monday Made It: Whisper Phones

Happy Monday! I had a great weekend, and I hope you did too!

This week, I finished a project that I started last year - DIY whisper phones!

I was inspired by Mrs. Saoud's tutorial, but I made a few tweaks along the way!

• When you pick out your 1/2" PVC pipe at the store, you'll want to ask a worker to cut it into 4.5" pieces unless you have someone at home who can do this. When I asked the Home Depot guy, he literally laughed in my face and said he'd only cut it into 2 pieces. However, I did not give up! I persisted, he got his manager, and his manager happily cut the PVC pipe! Lesson to you - perservere! :)
• I bought 1/2" elbows and I was just able to shove them onto the pipe. Just make sure you buy 1/2" PVC elbows - they will be white, not beige. No gluing necessary!  That PVC glue smells really bad, so you're welcome. 
• I spray-painted them with special spray paint for plastic stuff. It's Rust-Oleum Plastic spray paint. I don't know if this was really necessary... but it worked for me.

You can use these whisper phones during Read to Self for Daily Five, or for independent reading regardless of your classroom. You will have to teach them how to use them appropriately, otherwise they will scream into them or make them into a long telephone game..... not that this happened to me or anything. :)

My class last year loved these things. It really helped them focus on their reading and block out the outside distractions. It can be hard in my class to focus when I'm teaching half of the class and half are engaged in independent activities. So this was a big help! And the kids would ask to use them, which was great!

Also - if you want to save some money, you don't need to spray paint. I didn't paint mine last year and no one seemed to mind. :)

If you've been thinking of buying commercially-made whisper phones, this DIY alternative will save you a TON of money! And they are super durable!

Fiction Friday

Happy Friday! This week has been so crazy with the fourth. I feel like I am just floating from day to day, haha.

Time for Fiction Friday!

My first book for you today is a picture book, sort of! More like an Easy Reader I guess - Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Partners!

I recently finished No More I'm Done and the author suggested reading this book to introduce the idea of writing partners to the students. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that is WAY more effective to teach things in the context of a read-aloud than it is for me to just sit there and talk at the kids.

Anyway, this was a cute story about Kate and her cowhorse, Cocoa! There were 4 little chapters in the book detailing different little adventures they had - like trying to find a lost calf and getting new horseshoes for Cocoa. You might want to spread this over a few days, reading a chapter a day, when introducing Read to Someone in Daily 5 or when introducing writing partners, like the book said!

My second book for you is a chapter book: Anything But Typical.

This story is narrated by a middle school boy with autism. It basically goes through his day to day life, and you get to peek inside the head of someone who lives every day with autism. It was very interesting and eye-opening, especially because I've never worked closely with a student who has autism. I am just in awe of people who dedicate their lives to teaching students with autism - that is such an important and difficult job.

The only complaint I had about this book is that the author, Nora Raleigh Baskin, didn't mention how she came to write this book. Does she have a child with autism? Did she ever work with a student who has autism? Or was everything she wrote just based on research? I would have liked to know how true-to-life the story was.

Go check out the linky party for other good reads this week!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Before I start, let me preface by saying that this week has been not fun. We had huge wind and lightning storms on Monday which led to a power outage which is still going on now - Wednesday morning! Our house is out of power AND water, because I'm on a well. Luckily, most other places (like my awesome library where I am now) have power, so I have not been totally "in the dark." Sigh.

Enough negativity, onto positivity!!

I'm loving that no tree branches fell on our house or on my car during the storm!

I'm loving that I got together with one of my bffs, Abby, for dinner yesterday in our college town. It was so weird to be back there, but I was so happy to see her!! This picture is of Kate, me, and Abby. Sadly Kate lives far away now so she could not join us for our deeeeeelicious dinner.

I'm loving that I found these super cute paper trays at Office Depot on clearance! They were originally $9.99 and I got them for $1.10 each!! I'm going to use them for "turn in" and "pass back" bins.

I'm loving that my bff Abby's mom is amazingly generous. She gave me a GIGANTIC (and I mean gigantic) box of videos for my classroom. I filled a huge plastic tub with them and there are still more! She also gave me a ton of scrapbooking supplies that I can use, too. A secret treasure in the scrapbooking supplies was a huge box of plastic page protectors! YAY! I need those to make worksheets into dry-erase activities.

I'm loving the Daily Five! I am just wrapping up my reading today and it is pretty amazing. I can't wait to implement it!!

I'm loving my new flip flops from Old Navy! I got some bright colors that make me happy. :)

And lastly, I'm loving my awesome boyfriend who helped keep me company during my power outage! We went out to eat, he let me shower and get clean at his house... he's the bomb.

What are you loving on this pretty Wednesday?