Vowel Bat!

Happy Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every day after we go to the computer lab for XtraMath, I play a little video that I've found while we're in the lab. I like to break up the intense concentration with a little singing! I typically get my videos from Harry Kindergarten's Youtube channel. The kids sing like crazy people and seem to have no idea that they are still doing school stuff...

For the past few days, there has been a Batman-looking video that keeps showing up in the "related videos" sidebar. Every day, my boys are like, "BATMAN VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!" So finally I gave in and it ended up being the bomb dot com.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, Vowel Bat.

We watched it again today by popular demand.

So today was our first official Homework Club luncheon! Due to some absences, I had 6 out of my 12 kids for lunch today. Everyone got hot lunch, which was grilled cheese, we ate Fruit Rollups for dessert, and we watched 10 minutes of Dolphin Tale.

The Homework Club luncheon got RAVE reviews. I heard such comments as, "This is the best lunch ever!!!" And, "I love Homework Club because we can throw away our trays whenever we want to!!!!!!!!!!!" Haha! Here is a really sunny picture of us enjoying our lunch together.

Last thing - on Sunday we are having a prospective family open house. I was telling this to two of my first graders today at recess, and I asked them if they wanted more kids in our class. They said yes, and when I asked why, they told me that they would "get more candy." When I inquired further, I found that they were talking specifically about the Valentine's Day party, and that if we had more than 12 kids on Valentine's Day, they would get more Valentines and more candy.

I guess that is a plus?

Student Recognition

Happy Thursday, mis amigas! (I'm just assuming most people reading this are ladies...)

So I went in today to school because I didn't bring all of my manuals home and I wanted to plan a little. There were also some housekeeping types of things that I wanted to do also. So I texted my cousin, Lisa, and we headed to school for a little bit!

While I planned, Lisa did lots of stuff for me, like put away some books, set up the April calendar days in the pocket chart, got my April math quilt pieces ready, and punched out some letters for my XtraMath student recognition board!

I have been meaning to make this board for like.... 2 months. I make a BIG DEAL when one of the kids masters an entire operation on the day that it happens but it sort of gets forgotten after they get their certificate. I want them to be proud of themselves! So here we are. I have four little ladies who have finished addition so far. Maybe the excitement of seeing their names on stars will inspire the other kiddos to do the same... I will let you know.

Has anyone found any new hobbies during spring break? I have discovered the amazingness of Draw Something!!!!!!! I am so, so bad at drawing but this game is so fun.

I've also been reading. Right now I am working on two books - Elijah of Buxton and Earth.

Both good in very different ways. :)

12 on the 12th!

I am so excited about this linky party over at Doodle Bugs Teaching! I have been taking pictures like a crazy person today so you can have a glimpse into my super exciting life.

And here are the stories behind the pictures! I'll start from the top left!

1. This is my school bag, purse, and lunch bag ready to go! Do you take a hundred bags to school? I guess it's a problem but it works for me...
2. This is my class doing Adventure to Fitness because it was pouring rain during lunch recess. We haven't done this in a while, since we've had outdoor recess every single day! They loved it and we learned about castles and battlements.
3. One of my girls was crying because she said she didn't feel well, so instead of doing Adventure to Fitness, she read Cat in the Hat to me and she did AWESOME! And she pretended to be me when she said, "I'll wait until everyone is looking at me." Haha!
4. Two of my FIRST graders working on subtraction in XtraMath!!! Some of my second graders aren't even there yet!
5. I give little snacks to the kids who improve in their mastery score in XtraMath. This is because I found that lots of my kids were typing in random numbers to get done more quickly. This has really helped! Today I gave them rice cakes and they died of happiness.
6. We worked on the St. Patrick's Day craftivity from The Teacher Wife! I actually took this picture to show that since we used up all of our glue resources, we have now resorted to pouring glue into bowls and using q-tips like paint brushes. It actually works out really well, surprisingly.
7. If I did a nutrition/healthy choices related lesson, I will get a gift card to Walmart so I did mine today. We learned about MyPlate and made little bracelets to remind ourselves how many servings we needed. I got this idea from Alisha at The Bubbly Bonde.
8. Then we went outside. I drew a big MyPlate on the ground and the kids had little pictures of food. In teams, they had to run and put their food picture in the right part of the plate and then tag the next person. Sooo... a relay race. It went amazingly although the wind blew our food away and we had to finish it inside... oh wells. They all rocked it though! Go kids!
9. I worked on my 5th box of Thin Mints after school. YUM! Sadly I was not practicing the MyPlate philosophy.... sorry MyPlate.
10. One of my girls gave me this wrapping paper tube today. It is decorated and says "Your birthday March 25" on it. That is a true statement. However... I don't know what to do with this. So I brought it home.
11. I finally switched out my hallway displays. These are our Lenten promises. Most of them say, "I promise to be nice." At least they know what we need to work on!!
12. And I put up our craftivities.

Wow, that was a lot of words. I will go into detail on some of these activities at a later date!!