Five for Friday....Saturday.....October 4, 2014

Wow! I haven't been here for awhile, I want to share 5 on Doodle Bugs Teaching.

ONE

I want to show you the wonderful clip activity cards that Doodle Bugs has for sell at her TpT store.
You can find them here.

These are from her fall pack. I don't have a color printer available at the moment, so we copied them onto color paper, glued them onto poster board and laminated. It is a miracle the copy machine and the laminator were both working at the same time! That's the kind of year it's been so far. Anyway! I have a plastic cauldron from Halloween and it worked well to display and hold everything. The kids love it! As they entered the room they noticed it and asked "what's that?"

TWO

We are having a lovely fall this year, it is actually lasting longer then 3 days. One of our  favorite fall books is Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man. The students walked around outside picking up different leaves, I noticed they also got into the garden and picked some purple cabbage!

 I also noticed that they choose a lot of green stuff instead of the yellow and orange!

THREE

I attended two days of training this week.  We are doing more and more direct instruction at our school for interventions. It definitely works! I have been using the programs without training, but the class really helped to pull it altogether.

Here are the basics:
Give the placement tests first.
Follow the program with fidelity.
Teach to MASTERY.
It WORKS!

FOUR

Meanwhile, back at the cabin
 (does anyone know that book Meanwhile back at the ranch by Trinka Hakes Noble ..hilarious!)

we are still unpacking boxes and arguing about what my husband should build so we can unpack boxes!

He made us a neat table for the microwave and coffee maker.

FIVE

Shake Shake Shake!

We had ourselves a little earthquake last week but since I didn't do the five last week I decided to share it now!
We were sitting in our classroom (bottom floor) and felt the first shake,  one of the other teachers said "hey, did you feel that?" and about that time a stronger one happened and it was looonnng! and this Okie girl said, "let's get under the tables", the students were calm and cool, they just crawled under the table and sat quiet. My legs were like jello for an hour afterwards, freaky! 

And that's my five!

Have a great week,

Paula

Reward Good Behavior....Pirate Style

I have had a slow start this school year. Printers not working, copy machine stalling out, laminator issues...none of this is any one's fault, it is just a steady stream of blockades.

Today I am sharing my positive pirate reward system that I have slooooooooowly put together!

First I changed my classroom expectations to be shorter and more to the point. I borrowed these from Cindy Golden, author of The Special Educator's Toolkit.

Hallway expectations are posted  and removable, this makes it easier to display and review with students just before they walk out the door. I do this EVERY TIME.  Now they tell and SHOW me what it says.

I found this punch card on Teacher pay Teachers. Unfortunately, I cannot locate it to give the seller credit at this moment. The treasure boxes are marked with a star as the students shows positive behavior during their school day. When the card is full, their pirate moves up 2 steps on the treasure map.

The students choose and color a pirate to represent themselves on the map.

This map is on the back of two file cabinets sitting side by side. The pirates have magnets on the back making them easy to move.

At the top of the map is the Treasure Chest.

This has been a fun and motivating way to reward behavior. The treasure is composed of a wide variety of objects mostly coming from yard sales and thrift stores. There is only one of many of these items, so students are allowed to choose their favorite  and it is placed into a bag with their name. This gives them a more tangible goal.

I hope this gives you some new ideas, please comment and let me know some of your ideas,

Paula

Five for Friday...August 29, 2014

The last two weeks have been busy, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching at last!

ONE

Moving! 

We are officially home owners! It's been 8 years since our last move and wow, do we have a lot of STUFF!

We have moved many times and I highly recommend renting a U-Haul truck for 24 hours, it is well worth it.

TWO

The joy of moving large appliances up and down stairways!

THREE

Helping pets adapt to a new home

FOUR

The mega shindig that every employee of our school district attends was Friday. We had Barbara Morgan as one of our speakers. She is amazing and a great speaker. Barbara is a teacher and an astronaut. Her story is inspiring.

FIVE

Fall is beginning to show......

 

the fireweed is turning to "smoke"

I love the reds and purples together

I haven't gotten very far with finishing my classroom, it is functional and most of my students are taking their lessons in regular classrooms, but next week will be another shift in the entire school schedule, keeps us on our toes!

Later,

Paula

Five for Friday....preparing for battle...ummm...school!....August 8, 2014

Linking with Doodle Bugs teaching!

ONE

Whew! what a week,we began to set up my classroom and then took it apart again! 

I was not surprised that I was moving, but nothing had been said so I thought it was safe...the day afterwards it was MOVING DAY! There was lots of help though, I work with the best people ever!

I am determined to focus on the positives, we are now...

1. Closer to the Nurse's office.

2. Closer to the gym and the bathrooms.

3. I'm back where I started when I first arrived at this school, I feel at home in this hallway!

(this is my 6th move- however, there are others who have moved more times)

Of course, the real work now begins! This room is considerably smaller then my previous domain. It requires careful arrangement and some serious purging of materials. Naturally I checked on Pinterest and found some good ideas! I found a new blog to follow .... The Dynamic Duo
Next week, I'll have some "after" pictures that will wow you! ha!

TWO

Had a really good training today from the Flippin group. Inspirational! It's not that we don't know this stuff, it's that we need reminding that we know it!

THREE

It has been nearly 7 weeks since we made the offer on our house...we are told the closing date will be set any day now!
waiting some more.......




FOUR
Got some new shoes, I think they will be awesome!

It only took 23 tries to find the right ones!




FIVE

Have a great week!

Paula

A Wedding

This post is about what we have been doing the last week...preparing for a wedding!

The Shoes

Flower girl dress and shoes

The Trellis

(My husband is awesome!)

The morning of the wedding, my hubby cut some wildflowers to place on the top. It turned out perfect.

Decorating for the reception

The Food

My daughter made the cake and it was delicious!

The cake recipe is from Cake Boss, with buttercream frosting and raspberry filling....yummmm!

The Grill Master

The Music

My girl didn't want the traditional wedding march, a friend of hers suggested Lindsey Stirling's music, it is so beautiful, words cannot describe it. It was perfect for an outdoor wedding.

After all the anxiety, and so many last minute things to do, the wedding was lovely.

and they will live happily ever after!

Only 9 days until we are due back to school! I am NOT ready!

Later Gator!

Paula

Five for Friday....July 18, 2014...Zoo theme Week

Annnnnnnd.....another week has flown by! ESY is officially completed.

There is one week until my daughter's wedding...


There are 2 and a half weeks (eek) until we officially return to school.

Who knows when we will close on our house, it's a mystery at this moment.

However! today it is time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching, that is absolute and there is NO WAITING.

1.

This week we had a Zoo theme.

2.

Our read aloud books for the week....

3.

We began with "Wild thing" puppets made from paper bags and a variety of items.

The students never disappoint in being creative!

4.

We made a giraffe and Zebra using toilet paper tubes and free templates from Huggies.

5.

On the last day of school, we wrote our final message. At the beginning of summer school 5 weeks ago I wrote the messages from myself to the class. Gradually, the students volunteered statements to the message until on the last week they dictated the entire message. They did well. : )

Here's the last message...

That's it for this week!

Later,


Paula