September Currently!

A new month means linking up with Farley's Currently over at Oh' Boy Fourth Grade! 

I'm enjoying watching a guilty pleasure on a Monday while creating the materials I need for my small groups this week. I can't believe we've been married for almost 2 years, it has been an incredible two years. I'm looking forward to having a small weekend away with my hubby next weekend. We've been in our apartment for almost a month, and the entire time we've had an ant problem even though they've sprayed every week. I'm so ready for the ants to go away. I starting working out in April and was doing really well but with vacation, moving, my birthday, and my Dad visiting I lost my sight of making physical fitness a habit, and I've gained the weight I'd lost back. I'm ready to get back on physical fitness wagon. I love to read, but it seems that once the school year hits I don't read anything at all besides books for work.

I'm looking forward to the busy month of September!

Five for Friday {August 30th}

I've finished up my first week of school. It was a long, hard week, but I it's going to be a great year. I was so tired yesterday that I didn't get around to linking up with Five for Friday, so I'm linking up a day late.

{1} My hubby is incredible! He made me this cute weather guy for my classroom!

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{2} Just another day in the life of a Preschool teacher, making visuals for a making play dough and classroom rotation PECS.

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The Materials

The results

The aftermath

{3} I made No cook play dough with my class on Wednesday. The results were great, and the kiddos loved it.

The recipe: 

1 cup cornstarch

1/2 hair conditioner

 Stir it together and then hand kneed the dough! That's it! It was a very messy project with my 3 year olds, but it helped teach us how to keep the play dough on the table. I'm definitely going to make this again.

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{4} This month I participated in Lessons with Coffee's Slant box exchange. Slant box is a gift exchange with two other teachers. You send a box to one teacher, and another teacher sends one to you. It was a lot of fun getting to know the two women I was paired up with. Plus receiving my Slant Box on Thursday was definitely a great way to end a really hard day. I signed up again for September's Slant box. The theme is: Oh My Gosh I Forgot (blank).

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{5} I came home on Thursday to a wonderful steak dinner made by my hubby. It's great to not have to cook every night when I come home.

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August Currently and Five for Friday and a Freebie!

It's officially August. I have conflicted feelings about August, with my birthday yesterday, moving to our new apartment on Monday, and my Dad visiting on Wednesday I'm excited. Then there's school starting, it's my first official year so I'm both excited and nervous. I have so much to do between packing and back to school preparations. August also means the return of Farley's Currently and Five for Friday!

listening: Sabrina has been my guilty pleasure this summer. :-)

loving: My hubby gave me the most beautiful bracelet from Catholic Bling for my birthday yesterday!

thinking: This one is pretty self-explanatory with school starting before I know it. My school to-do list is a mile long. Plus, I have to finishing packing and cleaning our apartment for our move on Monday.

wanting: We're super excited about our new apartment! I just wish we could skip all the grunt work that needs to happen in order to move in.

needing: I seriously need to buy shoes! I only have one new pair to start off the school year. Eek! 

B2s must haves: 

1. Have you tried out the new Pilot Frixion Pens? They are amazing! They come in multiple colors, and they are erasable! 

2. Last year I had the Erin Condren planner and loved it. This year I decided to upgrade to the teaching planner and I'm not regreting it. I'm most excited for the pages and pages of student checklists to help keep me on top of all my students paperwork. 

3. This year I'm finding the majority of my back to school purchases to be organizing solutions. I find organizing to be a huge challenge and anything I can find to help is worth it.

1. Printables!

This week I opened up my Teachers Pay Teachers store! My first freebie is up, click on the link to get it. I've had so much fun playing around with Photoshop this week. I have some more printables in the work, I'll post on here when I've uploaded them to my store. I would love it if you'd leave a comment if you like my How We Go Home Clip chart. 

I can't wait to get this printed out and up in my classroom!

2. Shopping

I scored some really good deals at the LOFT this week during a shopping trip with one of my teaching buddies! 

 3. Birthday

I celebrated my birthday yesterday with my hubby. We ate so much tasty food and found a great Vietnamese restaurant.

4. Books

I discovered Half-Price Books yesterday. I need to find the time to go back to look for more books for my classroom.

5. Classroom Supplies!

The Read Aloud Handbook

I discovered The Read-Aloud Handbook (7th edition) by Jim Trelease through Vanessa over at Pre-K Pages. 

I just finished Chapter 2, and I have already come away with a tremendous amount of knowledge that I will forever take with me as an educator, and eventually as a parent.

Jim Trelease includes the following research, "In 1985 the national Commission on Reading (out of the U.S. Department of Education) declared: "Reading aloud to children is the most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading."

There is research and anecdotes to impress the importance of read-alouds, and there is a huge read-aloud treasury to use as a guide to finding books to read-aloud to the children in your life.

I keep finding myself sharing the research and anecdotes I have just read with my husband. I  already believe that everyone who teaches and definitely EVERY parent should read this book.

In Chapter 2, there is a section "What About Reading to Children with Special Needs." In the words of the two personal narratives, my heart was captured by how reading aloud to children with special needs can impact their development so dramatically.

I had done read alouds with my third and fourth graders while I was student teaching. I had the opportunity to read two of Kate Dicamillo's novels The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Tale of Despereaux. Now as I am about to start my first full year of teaching Preschool Special Education, I have a renewed commitment to making read alouds a priority in my classroom.

I wanted to share with you this visual created by Vanessa Pre-K Pages of 10 Wordless Picture Books.

Happy Reading!

April Currently

listening: been on a documentary kick lately

loving: Doctor Who. I've loved the Doctor for a while, but the new episode was fantastic. With the work I need to do for school I've decided to run away with the Doctor.

thinking: I'm in charge of designing of an invitation for an upcoming school event.

wanting: I need to buy new pants, and shirts for work. I have not patience for finding clothes. I need a personal shopper to help me find nice clothes that fit. Any takers?

needing: April will be the death of me, I have eight ARDs this month. It's a petal to the metal, get 'er done month. Is it June yet.

advice: I don't have a lot of advice. But linking up like I'm today with Oh Boy 4th Grade really helps to bring traffic to your blog.

Have a great month!

Tell Me Something Good

I'm linking up with Jennifer over at Rowdy in First Grade, it's a couple days late, but after the day I had I need a bit of positive thinking.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something Good at Home:

I'm blessed that after a rough day at school I was able to come home to a wonderful dinner cooked by my husband and for the quality time we spent together to help refresh me for tomorrow. I don't like him having to work on the weekends, since its my only time off but the trade off really helps me get through the week.

Something Good at School:

One of the best things about my job is seeing the small moments of growth in my students. Most of the time it's something that could be taken for granted, like today when a student said "buh-bye" to our librarian. It was small but it showed tremendous growth since the beginning of the year. Its these little moments that make my job so worth all the stress and paperwork.

 

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Stacy

Pre-K Technology

1. I took a screenshot of a PowerPoint I created to make it easy to launch YouTube videos during circle time. Next week, we will be learning about shapes and I found some great videos from Have Fun Teaching! I introduced the circle song earlier this week, and my kids loved it! One of my favorite tools for watching videos in class is a site called ViewPure. It creates an ad free link to YouTube videos, no more worrying about which ad will turn up when your on YouTube in class. I also use a PowerPoint to aid in music selection at the end of the day. It helps my students to make choices, and wait for their turn to make a choice.



2. I downloaded Monkey Preschool Lunchbox on my Nexus 7 for school, and it really motivated my students to keep learning. It covers colors, letters, counting, differences, and matching. It also continually plays, so the kids can keep playing without getting frustrated.

3. Hulu...not for the classroom but for this teacher planning her next week and watching old Sabrina: The Teenage Witch episodes! Greatest discovery, I used to love watching it every week.

4. Teachers Pay Teachers. It's a no-brainer that it's an amazing resource, but I finally broke down and bought some amazing products with the Sunday Super sale. Picked up an incredible cute Owl newsletter for my classroom from MsFultzsCorner, some Chevron letters and numbers and an ice cream graphic (I'm super excited to make a file folder game from the Icecream Pile Up clipart!) from Graphics From the Pond, and a great social story on sharing from Thespecialedteacher.

Have a great week!

Stacy

Five for Friday

1. I got "flowers" from one of my students this morning. I was at the door welcoming my students as they arrived at school. One of my kiddos was playing with toys in the classroom came up to meet at the door and said "Ms. A. I have flowers for you. It was one of the cutest things and totally made my day.

2. We had a lice egg scare this morning. Thankfully, the nurse found no live bugs, but it definitely gave me scary flashbacks to the horrible delousing process, and the horrible haircut from some lady at her house. First thing I did when I got home was to wash my hair and then threw all our bedding and towels in the washer. 

3. Sorry for the bad picture, but snapped a quick photo of  my wonderful hubbies work on boots for my Puss in Boots small group patterning activity. He cut like 60 out by hand, yeah he's pretty awesome! <3

4. We finished up our Ballads, Folktales, and Fables unit with Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. Babe the Big Blue Ox helped us work on size differentiation. They did great, this little one worked on his handwriting skills!

5. My students help make Applesauce  for today's large group activity, and it went really well. "Cooking" is an interesting process with 3 year olds, but they enjoyed it and they actually a healthy snack today.

Lots of Love

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

I'm using the day off to check things off my to-do list. It's definitely starting to be the busy time of year with ARDs and assessments.

When I wasn't busy trying to get caught up on ARD paperwork, I created a new token board system.  I will  be completing a lot of assessments in the next couple months,  and I will need a good motivator to get my little ones to work.

So, thanks in part to: 

Here is what I created (sorry for the glare): 

The hearts are from Kady Did Doodles and the stars are clip art. One of these days I will figure out how to post it for others to use, especially if there's interest.

I also made a Valentine's Day themed file folder game using the hearts. I heart great freebie finds!

I've still got to make the motivator choice PECs, but most of the pictures I need are on my classroom camera. Oh well, more work for another day.

On non-school related topics, this three-day weekend was much-needed. I enjoyed spending as much time as possible with my husband. We enjoyed a trip into the city and great food. After my hubby comment that I needed at new purse, my current Vera bag has seen better days. I'm now enjoying the search for a new handbag, apparently I need a nice sophisticated one.

My dream purse, if I had no budget, would be the MARC BY MARC JACOBS 'Classic Q - Natasha' Crossbody Flap Bag in Cinnamon Stick.

But for now I dream, and add purses to my wishlist for my hubs to buy for me! :-)

Wishing everyone a great week!

Stacy