Peek at my 4 day week: 02/17/14

I'm back! Did ya miss me? :P

This week, my students had Monday off, so only 4 days of learning. While I love 4 days weeks, it gets tough to cram everything in, especially when you have multiple 4 day weeks in a row. Yikes.

Kinder
This week my Kinder's will start learning about animals. We will start with a Wild Animal theme. Of course we will still have our letter of the week, Uu and 2 HFW, for and have.

Books we will read include...

Online Resources:
We will use Pebble Go's animal section to look at some wild animals and talk about their "wild" characteristics.

First Grade
First grade will be ALL ABOUT President's day. Well President's day, and R-controlled vowel ar, like a Pirate!

Books we will read include...

Online Resources:
I will use PebbleGo again, but this time I will use the biography section to study President Washington, Lincoln and Obama.

We will also use BrainPop Jr. They have several videos, presidents, Washington, and Lincoln that I think will be helpful in helping my students access the content more easily.

Thematic resources we will pillage through and use are...

In addition to these adorable resources you can also find the links to the resources we will use for our Phonics lessons in the download of my lesson plans. Just click on the images of my plans above.

Feels like a PACKED week. Can't wait to get our learn on tomorrow.
Happy Planning!

Don't forget to check on the button below and check out the other fab plans that are linked up too.

Saturday Night Snippets: Valentine Edition

Wow, what a week. Have to admit my classes were wonky all week because of our ELL testing, but I was able to meet with my students and managed to get some work done. 

Love was definitely in the air in my class this week.

 Even pink pencils!

Here is some of what we did...

I tell my kids that February is a really special month. We have to pack A LOT of learning into a very short month. We talked about how we celebrate Valentine's Day, Presidents day and it is also Black History month. We have be talking about several African-Americans of note each week. I've been using this poster set with both my Kinder and First grade students. I will talk more about it in a later post.

Black History Month Poster Set 1

For our Valentine literature we read...

AND

We had some others but we didn't get to them. Bummer. Maybe next year.

By now you know, or I hope you know I teach multiple grade levels of kids. Some of my ELL students I see 2 consecutive years. In order for them NOT to see the same thematic curriculum on holidays I have been doing different activities with each grade level.  I have done this for a couple years now and I really like that I don't have to hear "I ALREADY DID THAT!" Plus it give me an opportunity to use more of the wonderful resources I find online.

My Kinder Kids created ValenSwines again, with the help of Cara Carols, from A First Grade Parade, freebie. 

We don't have that book, but we are just about to study poetry so I made up a cute little poem for them to use in their heart. It provided a great opportunity to introduce rhyming poems and practice out Phonemic Awareness by listening and identifying those rhyming words.

Here is how they turned out.

Here they are out in the hallway.

I got a bit more complicated with my First graders.

I decided we would tackle Teri's, from a Cupcake For The Teacher, I "chews" you craft, 

with a minor edit. 

I didn't want to cut out a bunch of circles so we used foam candy heart stickers. :)

And then out on display.

This poor little friend just didn't get it.

Together

My level 1 math kids have been working out of Greg's, from Kindergarten Smorgasbord, I Heart Valentine's Day pack.

Chalked full of goodies.

Next week is a short one for my students, but we will still find lots of time to learn about Presidents Day!

Hope you have a wonderful Sat night and lazy Sunday.

Peek at my week: 02/03/14

This weeks plans are a bit of an incomplete hodgepodge. Scheduling for some ELL testing is going on next week and I am unsure of how much I will actually get to see my students. Therefore I might have to move some of next weeks work to this week. Consequently I have left some areas TBD at a later date.

Kinder

Like I mentioned above I am not entirely sure how much we will do with Community Helpers or how much of Valentines day I will do this week. What I DO know is we will watch a Brain Pop vid on community helpers and chart some community helpers that we know. We will also cover the letter L, HFW little and use the fabulous packs I liked up in my lesson plans.

First

I was supposed to cover just reptiles and amphibians, however I was able to cover these last week and I am going to go for a general overview of all the categories this week. I will use Pebble Go to watch vids on each category and then we will classify some animals on a chart. We will TRY to fit in some crafties too. It is a freebie!
http://www.moretime2teach.blogspot.com/2014/01/animal-classification-craft-ivity.html
 Aside from that it is all up for grabs. For Phonics we will once again Use Abby's pack, that is linked up on my plans, and a Between the Lions video learn that y says e.

Click on the image of the plans to download a copy.
Have a great night, I will be hoping for a snow day tomorrow.

Oh before you go...
If your interested in some no nonsense pre-made, checklist, quick fill lesson plans check out,
A Teacher's Plan.

Currently: February

Best way to start the month off is with Farley's Currently.

Listening:

I am listening to my new Joan Jett station on Pandora, what else is there to listen to? Ha ha 

Loving:

So it snowed last night. I was not thrilled but glad it was the weekend when I could take my time before I went out and shoveled. However, I got lucky and it all melted away!

Thinking:

This is something I have been wanting to do for some time now. Instead of waiting for Sunday night and feeling the pressure to get my plans done, to start them on Saturday. Yet, here I am again, avoiding the inevitable. LOL

Wanting:

Ummmm, yeah I am pretty hungry. Probably will go have a plate of fruit when I am done with this post.

Needing:

Even though the snow melted we are still having some pretty cold temps and wicked wind-chill. It is currently 19, feels like 6 with 16mph winds. :/ I am always cold, and even colder at the moment.

2 Truths and a Fib:

1. So true, while it is not on purpose, on occasion my arm gets a mind of it's own and I end up with an iPhone or iPad on the floor. :( No good.

2. Ummm, true. I love tattoos, and have 3 so far. I plan to get more... eventually when I recover from how much the last one cost. None of mine show so I don't get questions all the time, but I know come Monday I will get some. :P LOL

3. Yeah, no, this is the lie. While I do like chocolate VERY much, I am a french fry kinda girl. Actually, I love all things potato. Salt trumps sweet for me every time. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Superbowl Sunday tomorrow.

Click the button below to read everyone else's Currently too.