A is for Alligator

I am taking part in Mrs. Perry's alphabet letter exchange.

I was assigned the letter A. I was excited and then clueless. It was like everything I knew flew out of my ear, because I did not know how I would decorate my letter A. What did I do? I stalled for a very long time. Until one day...

While blog stalking I found the cutest idea. A is for Alligator!

I wish I could remember where I saw it. If you know, please leave a comment telling me so I can give the proper credit.

Want to see how they turned out?

 I got 26 of these suckers, just ready to be stuffed in an envelope, stamped and mailed out to 25 other eager classroom teachers.

I opted out of the triangles for the eyes because they just didn't look right but now I feel like they are missing something. I may have the students add them tomorrow.

I think they are just darling. The students wanted to keep them and had a hard time giving them up. Their only consolation was that we are going to get mail from other classrooms. They are eager to see how other classrooms decorated the other letters of the alphabet.

If your part of the letter exchange and have a blog, I can't wait to get your mail. I will get my Alligators out soon.

Have a great weekend.

Writing Conference Notes

I've been trying be more productive during my Writers Workshop this year. I've mentioned before that I don't feel like I do a great job during my writers conferences and it is one area in which I hope to improve on this year.

The problem was where to start. This year I decided to put together a binder with my conference notes. I hope this will keep me more accountable. So I created a conferencing documentation sheet and...

I thought I would share it with you all.

(Disclaimer: I did not create this form, just recreated it and added to it from one my district is using.)

Writing Conference Notes

I hope this is useful to you.

The city, the country and busses. Oh my!

This is WAY late but here is what my students did last week.

We read City & Country Mouse.

Then discussed what a city and country are.

Then talked about the differences and similarities of both.

We then made a mural.

 

Here is a closer look at our country...

and a closer look a our city.

 Later in the week we read the Wheels on the Bus and made Deanna Jump's school buses. We used the initial sound of our names to make a cute little ditty. The students LOVED it!

So then we added them to our murals.

 

 Class B did this a week earlier and here are their buses.

I think it all came out so dang cute!

My school is fortunate enough to have several iPads that we are allowed to check out. I checked out 2 and we played with the Wheels on the bus app all week. It was a ton of fun. Here are some screen shots.

All, in all it was a great week. I hope I get more like it.

On another note...
I got a notice the other day from Donors Choose telling me that my project Sit and Learn now qualifies for a match offer from CenturyLink. Funding is not guaranteed but it does fit the criteria. Now I just have to get half of it funded. The best part is that I don't have much to go. So I am asking a favor from you all. Would you please help me spread the word about my project. Could you post about it on your Facebook and Twitter pages?

In more Donors Choose news Stephen Colbert and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have teamed up to create the Stephen and Melinda Gates Foundation. Why? Well, to get more money in the hands of teachers, that is why. For every photo you upload they will donate $5.00 to Donors Choose.
Click on the image to read more.

I want to once again...

Give a big thank you to the wonderful people who are voting for my Donors Choose project, Sit & Learn, daily on Sonic's Limeades Learning page. It has made a huge difference for me. Did you know that if you vote you could get a FREE Medium Cherry Limeade for YOU! Just a bit of a bribe. :p

I can...

I am a little late with my Friday freebie, but I didn't want to wait a whole week to post it.

I recently created an "I Can..." sheet for my work stations. It was so easy that I thought I would make more and share them with you. I think I got a bit carried away... I made 19! I thought everyone has a different theme why not.

I started out with the super heroes. I told my students that they were super kids for learning all the great things they could do at these centers. Also that they were gaining super knowledge when they worked there. It is amazing the result you will get when you add "super" in front of something.
I Can (super)

Then I wanted one for reading,I Can (Reading)
and you can't leave out math.
I Can (math)

Here are the others.

Movie Theme 

Wizard of Oz 

Pirate 1

Pirate 2

Pit Crew

Pizza Shop

Seuss

Space

Strawberry Patch

Surf

Toga Tots

Watermelon Patch

Detectives

Cook Out

Camo Kids

Aloha

Wow! That is a lot.

While doing these, I realized I had not made an alphabet strip in several months. Soooo, look for some soon. I will resume making monthly/ seasonal alphabet strips with a special one just for the Blog Hop next weekend. What blog hop?

On Friday, Oct. 7th, this blog will be participating in a blog hop.

Here are a few details.

There will be a benefit blog hop called 

'Operation Julie's Smile' 

that will take place Oct 7-9.  

There are a variety of
companies and design teams who will be participating 

in this hop to help raise funds for this benefit. 
So far, over $2000 in prizes have been made available 

and will be awarded for both participants 

and those who donate.

To read more jump over to Julie's Open Window, by clicking on the image below.

Inside my school bag.

I am way late to the party, but hey I made it. 

What party? 

The What's in your school bag linky party.

For 5 years I have a WONDERFUL Colors of Benetton weekender bag. I was able to stow all my teacher items in there and I was happy. Then the leather straps started to ear from the weight of my manuals, and the canvas on the corners started to wear. I was super sad and still refuse to give it up. However, I no longer use it for my school stuff. Want to know what I am using now?

This August I wandered in to Target with a friend and she spotted this beauty.

 I fell in love with it right away. It is slightly smaller than my other bag but, that turned out to be better because it doesn't fall over all the time.

In this bag I have...

My Lands End lunch bag, my water bottle and my other Target tote that I use as a purse.

I also have my...

a spiral notebook for notes, my agenda/ planner and my Doodle Bugs Paper portfolio. It actually says my whole name above K/1 ELL but I blurred it out. I think it is super cute. :)

I can't leave out my...

wonderful Lands End cardigan.

I would be a frozen ice cube without it. It looks awful here. This is what it is supposed to look like.

Disclaimer: This is not me, it is the Lands End model.

I thanks the stars everyday that I work in a district that give each teacher a Mac Book to use in the classroom. It is one of my FAVORITE tools and I use it DAILY. I don't know what I used to do without it.

I keep this baby in a laptop bag inside a Scholastic tote I got a few years back for using their Book Clubs.

 I think I am starting to sense a theme... black, white & red.

I was a little ticked that I left work without taking pictures of my city and country bulletin board with our wheels on the bus buses, but that cheered me up a bit. :) Let's see what else I can pull out of my hat this weekend.

Dry Erase Sheets

Now for something teacher related.

I've been meaning to post about this for some time now but haven't had a moment to take pictures. Ladybug's post the other day about the dry erase sheets made me get off my bottom and take those pictures. (This room is not mine. It belongs to a fab new teacher in my building.) 

She uses those wonderful dry erase sheets too. What she did was attach them to her kidney table.

 What I love about it is that now each space is clearly defined for the students and they will always have a dry erase board in front of them. No longer will they spend hours, ok minutes, but it feels like forever to me, locating dry erase boards and bringing them to their spots.

If I can ever get these sheets for an inexpensive price this is what I will be doing.

Do you use these in another way?

I'd love to hear about it.

Just a couple notes...

Last week went well and I was able to schedule some posts and this week, I had a total of 0. I guess that is how life is going for me these days... unpredictable.

I had a few things to share with you all. First, I've finally got a pre-made Daily 5 Template up for sale on my business blog, A Teacher's Plan. Here is a sneak peek. To read all the details please hop on over to A Teacher's Plan by clicking on the button on my sidebar.

Dru's Daily 5
Pg 1

Pg 2

Bonus Pg

On Friday, Oct. 7th, this blog will be participating in a blog hop.

Here are a few details.

There will be a benefit blog hop called 

'Operation Julie's Smile' 

that will take place Oct 7-9.  

There are a variety of
companies and design teams who will be participating 

in this hop to help raise funds for this benefit. 
So far, over $2000 in prizes have been made available 

and will be awarded for both participants 

and those who donate.

To read more jump over to Julie's Open Window, by clicking on the image below.

I want to give a big thank you to the wonderful people who are voting for my Donors Choose project, Sit & Learn, daily on Sonic's Limeades Learning page. It has made a huge difference for me. Did you know that if you vote you could get a FREE Medium Cherry Limeade for YOU! Just a bit of a bribe. :p

That is all for now, but I will be posting something teacher related later today. I will also be linking up to a linky part and will be sharing what my kinder students did this week. So look forward to more post from me this weekend.

Hang 10!

A couple of weeks ago I asked Hadar, Miss. Kindergarten Love, to make me a "Counting to 100" bulletin board set. If you remember I have a fish bowl that I use to count to 100 in Class A and I wanted something similar but with a surfing theme for Class B.

Here is the fish bowl. For everyday in school we add a small fish. When we make 10 we change out the small fish for 1 large fish with a #10 on it. I do have to say I did not make this, it is a bulletin board purchased at a teacher store several years ago.

However, I wanted something similar to this for my other room.

That is where Hadar's brilliance comes in. She made me this beauty!

 Ok the palm tree is not included, that was part of another bulletin board set.

Here is the board where I add the surf boards.

 There are 2 sets of surf boards. The larger ones that have 10's on them. Just like on the fish bowl, for every set of 10 small boards we switch them out for a large 10's surf board. If you notice 1 of the boards has a 10 on it and the smaller boards are 1's. On this particular day it was the 18th day of school.

 If you look below the board, those two pockets are for holding my surfboards. they are from CTP's Dot on Turquoise set. One is for my 10's and the other is for my 1's.

On the right you can see the 100's chart. My kinder students are counting forwards. I am counting backwards with my 1st graders. Everyday I add a dot to the number we count down next!

When we reach 100 day's I get to add a cute little hula girl that has a 100 on her.

 

I am thinking of adding some other elements to this board, ie: a title that says "Hang Ten" and some cute little bird accents. I will probably update this post or post about it again in the near future, but I wanted to show it off today because Hadar is now selling this wonderful "Days in School" bulletin board set. Oh and don't let me forget to add that it is on sale for a special introductory price. There are 2 sets. One has the boards in an 8x10 size and the one I have shown has the boards in the 11x17 size.

 

Please click on the links below to go to her stores.

Teachers Notebook store 8.5x10

 Teachers Notebook store 11x17

TPT store 8.5x10

TPT store 11x17