Class update!

Phew! I can' believe that it has been so long since I have regularly posted. I'm so sorry. I have been having a fantastically busy school year and, with a son in kindergarten and one that *almost* toddling, it's been quite hectic!

I know I will post more regularly now that we are into the swing of things. I've been trying to schedule some bloggy time on the calendar (which will be easy how that it's football season for the hubs).

I think I have gotten myself into something new- not just a "dip your toe in" but more of a "jump in with both feet" kinda thing. My principal went to visit a school that was using personalized learning and asked some of us at a meeting if we were interested in trying it out in our school. It sounds really awesome! Do any of you do personalized learning? I'd love to hear your thoughts. I really want to do a school visit to the school that my principal went to...I'm trying to get on the list for the next crew to go.

This week we only have 3 days of school because there is an Education Minnesota conference (our union here) on Thursday and Friday. Here are a few things I'm doing this week:

Nate the Great book clubs in reading using this awesome packet by Judy Kvaale on TPT (which is on sale right now!)

Since I couldn't find enough copies of one Nate the Great book I've got about 6 kids reading each Nate the Great title I could wrangle and they are all doing the same packet from this product.

We are also doing some descriptive writing about haunted houses with this packet from Clutter-Free Classroom on TPT. This was the first thing I ever bought on Teachers Pay Teachers and my kiddos LOVED it last year. They did such a fantastic job with the writing and the pictures. I invited a mom who was a realtor to come in and she taught the kids some of the things that they need to include in a description for a house. 

We will also be making this art project to add to our calendars. We make calendars for families for our holiday gift in second grade. I will share more about these when we finish them up. 

We will be busy but I love these 3-day weeks because I get to do a lot of fun stuff that we normally don't have time to do. :)

Friday Free-For-All

It's Friday, the last day of freedom for me. Monday I will be sitting through meetings at school (one of which I have to lead, too).

Today I have two free documents that I have created. The first is a mini monthly scrapbook I created for first grade. You can use the document as is or make it larger if you'd like. It is small because we have a time capsule that we create at the beginning of first grade that we open at the end of the year. This little book will be kept in their capsules and taken out (by me) each month. I chose one important unit or event that represented each month for the kids to write/draw about.

 The second is a list of activities to promote vocabulary acquisition in math. I was on a PLC a few years back and we researched vocabulary and how to encourage the retention of words. These games can easily be adapted to other subjects, too!

Click the image to find them on My4shared site here:

From My Mixed Up Files on My4shared