Back at it with a new reading system

Well hello everyone! I am back after a very long time. Sorry I haven’t been around. Last year I started at new school and had planned to blog all about it, but ended up getting wrapped up in learning all the new things that the school had to offer and time got away from me. It was an interesting year and I learned a lot. I have the best teaching partner and I am so excited to get to work with her again this year.

This year my county is starting a new reading program. We are taking on American Reading Company otherwise known as ARC. This new system has changed a lot for our reading program so far and it’s only week 2! This program has kids reading books all the time. We are reading a core novel, a core nonfiction text and the students are reading books they are interested in. Kids actually seem excited about reading, which is so exciting! We have also started our new reading assessments. Before we did mClass and I was never really a huge fan. This new assessment is very different and I feel it will show us different things to help us help our readers. I have done just a few so far and already have a better understanding of what I need to work on with my kids. I am super excited to get more into it and really build readers this year!

Last year, my group of kids acted much older than I felt 4^th graders should. They were very interesting and tried to be very grown. This new group does not seem this way. Both groups bring something interesting to the classroom. I am excited to watch this new group grow and see how they are similar and different from my kidos last year. So far they are a very sweet group and I am enjoying them so much. I have loved getting to know them as people and as readers so far!

This is going to be a great year and I am so excited to do better about sharing my journey with my new 4^th graders and with ARC this year. Hope you all have a great week!

Week 2 This or That

Welcome to August friends!

I am linking up with The Tattooed Teacher for week 2 of Assess Me! This week it is all about this or that!

I am going to talk about a few but not all. Homebody or busy bee- It really depends on my mood so that is why I circled both. About half the time I just want to hang out at home and relax and the other half of the time I want to go out and be busy. Next, tea or coffee- I am a southern girl and I LOVE my tea, but I really like my coffee too! I just don't think I could choose one or the other. I am really enjoying these Assess Me. It is fun learning about everyone and getting to share! So why do you go link up and tell us about your this or that.

~*~Lena~*~

Assess Me!

So one of my good friends Mrs. Ashline posted one of these great new linky parties called Assess Me! I thought it looked for and decide to play too!!!

Go link up!

~*~Lena~*~

Five for Friday

Hey everyone!!!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday today!

So, let's get started!!

I had to figure out where my girls were going to go for after school care. My best friend, Jana, and I decide on the YMCA. With this we each got a family membership. So, since I had it I decide to take a class this week. On Monday I did Turbo Kick! It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it and cannot wait to go back this coming up Monday. Now, I just have to drag Jana up there with me!

I love my dear, sweet husband! Today he completes his first full week of work since he finished school. I am so proud of him. Two years ago when we switched places and I went to work and he went to school I was not sure if we would survive, money wise. Well we did and he graduated in May at the very top of his class! He got a job last Thursday and seems to be finding his groove. I know he is glad to be back at work bringing money in since he has been working since he was like 16. It also means our family will be free to do more things together!

These little guys will have a home in my new Erin Condren planner soon. It went from in production to in process. I figure that means it will be shipping soon. I cannot wait to get it in my hands!

Tomorrow, I am trusting my amazing hair stylist with my hair. Normally this is not a big deal for me. I love Jessica and she is amazing at what she does. However, we are going to be brave and do something a little different tomorrow. I will edit this post with a before and after picture tomorrow! So, come back to see what we did and let me know what you think!


****Edit*****
Here are some pics on my hair!!!

Last but not least I will be doing a night, foam glow, 5K tomorrow! I am very excited. Also check back for some pictures from that!
****EDIT****

Here are some pics from the run!

 

So, what 5 things do you want to share this week?

~*~Lena~*~

Monday Made It!!!

Good morning!!!

I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. This is my first one of the summer and I am super excited about it.

So, made it number 1- I found these little chalk boards attached to close pins at Target. *I love Target* I picked up like 40, I will probably need a couple more packs before all is said and done. I got to looking at the little chalk boards and thought they are so cute but they are boring.

See, boring right? Well I could not leave them this way. They just need to be cute. So I found some different types of Duct Tape and got to work!

I am not done will all 40 yet but these are some I have finished so far. I think they are much cuter now. I will write the kids numbers on them and then hang their work with them. I think it will look super cute and it will make changing the kids work out super easy!

This next project I saw another teacher do on their blog. I can't remember where I saw it but thank you for the great idea.

Let me start by saying that I am horrible about keeping up with a planner. With everything I have going on between, school, my girls, my husband and myself I really need to keep up with it better. Well, I started looking around trying to find something that will help keep me using my planner. One thing I came across was paper clips with tassels!  I loved the idea!!! They were super cute, I could personalize them, and they will help make my planner my own.

I started with these paper clips that I found at Michael's. They were different and just made me happy. I then found some cute fabric for the tassel part. I then cute the fabric into strips. Put a couple of strips together and put them through the middle of the circle.

Then, I put the two sides together and sewed them.

They ended up like this! I think they are quite cute. I can't wait for my planner to get here so I can use these. I might use them on other things than just my planner too!

What things did you have time to make this week?

~*~Lena~*~




 

Sunday Scoop

Good Sunday Morning Friends!
I am linking up this morning with Teaching Trio for Sunday Scoop!

 3 Things I have to do...
1) Take my oldest Madison to camp. This is her first time going to camp and I will drop her off around 2:30 today and pick her up at around 10:30 on Saturday. She is so excited and I am to. I am just have a mommy moment because I did not think she would ever be old enough to go to camp and now she is. I am so glad one of her best friends is going with her and I know they will have so much fun and make a lot of new friends. They will have a lot to share on the trip home!

2) I have not done much for school this summer. One thing I know I need to do is print out task cards and get them ready. I am going to try to get my self in gear and get those done.

3) Finish organizing my teaching stuff. I have been working on that since I brought it all home. I don't think it will ever be completely organized till I get back in my room and get it where it needs to go.

2 Things I hope to do....
 1) Read some more professional development books. Again I have been slack about teaching stuff this summer. I have started Learn Like a Pirate and I am enjoying it but binge watching certain t.v. shows and playing in the pool have kind of taken over my life. I want to get some more reading done and hopefully I can this week!

2) I have seen some people having their hair done with what I call the peek-a-boo color on the underneath of the hair. I think I want to be bold and do this! I am hoping to figure out 100% what I want and get in to see my amazing hair dresser! Hopefully I can do it in the next week or so and I will post some pictures!

1 Thing I am happy to do....
Well since Madison and her best friend Chandler will be gone to camp for the week I will just have my youngest Lacie and Jana's youngest Allen. We have plans to do some really fun stuff because the two of them are sad they aren't old enough for camp. Hopefully I can keep their minds off that fact this week! It will be fun with just the two of them though and I am looking forward to it!

I hope everyone has a great Sunday and an awesome week!

~*~Lena~*~

July Currently

Good Morning dear friends!

I am linking up with Farley for July Currently! I am sad it is already July. It doesn’t seem like we have been out that long but we will be going back soon! I will be sharing a lot in the next few weeks so keep an eye out for new post. Let’s get started!

Listening- Again this summer I have my two girls and my friend’s daughter and son. It proves to be very helpful because they keep each other busy. It is becoming an everyday thing for them to play Skylanders first thing in the morning. I don’t mind so much and listening to them talk about what they need to do and have to do can be very funny!

Loving- I am loving the sunshine and the pool! Some of my parents gave me Target gift cards this year and I finally put them to good use and bought myself a lounge chair. I love it and it has been nice to have somewhere to lay out during the day. Jana’s dad was nice enough to help us out with a pool for the kids. It is a great size for the kids and they have loved having it. I have even gotten in and played with them!

Thinking- As my husband says, I am so a teacher! I have been looking at Pinterest and browsing blogs looking for new ideas for my classroom. I can’t wait to really get to working on it. I know I need to print stuff such as task cards to get ready. It just seems like the days are slipping by and I am getting nothing done.

Wanting and Needing- My wanting and needing are one in the same. I need/want to get in a routine for working out and use my Dailyburn. This is a tough thing for me because I like results and I get discouraged about this type of thing very easily. I just need to start doing it and just make that my result, that I did it for the day, instead of how much weight have I lost. Has anyone found anything for weight loss that they really like?

All Star- Allen (Jana’s 5 year old son) hates green beans. I mean he really hates them! It has been a fight to even get him to eat a couple. Both our families are firm believers in you have to eat a couple even if you think you don’t like it. Well I have grown to like green beans more as I have gotten older but I prefer French cut of other types. I gave Allen some French cut ones at lunch the other day with some ketchup and he ate them without any fuss. We tried again last night, with cut green beans and he ate them again. Now I know we would all rather not have him dip them in ketchup but let’s fight one battle at a time.

I know July is going to be filled with a lot of wonderful things! I can’t wait to see what is in store. I hope you all have a great first day of July!

~*~Lena~*~

Getting back to blogging with some ideas.....

Good morning everyone!

I hope everyone who is out on summer break is enjoying it! I have had two weeks out without the kidos and then one week being at home full time. I am starting to think about things that I want to put in place for next year. However I would love to get some ideas and advice from all the wonderful people out there that have great advice and ideas to offer. Hopefully I will get some good things that I can put together this week and get a Monday Made It put up next week.

Brag tags- I have seen these through others blogs but I want to know who uses them, how you use them, and do you have a set you like the best and why? I would love to know how teachers are using them in their rooms. The ones I have seen are super cute but my husband likes to pick on me and say I have great ideas that I don't always follow through on so I want to make sure I can really make it stick!

Guided Math- I worked on this idea some last year but would really like to make it a bigger and much better thing in my classroom this year. How do you use guided math in your room? What has worked and what has not worked? 

Anything else- What have you used in your classroom that has worked well that you would like to share? 

I am hoping some of you will open up and share what makes your classroom great! I would love to hear from everyone.

Have a great Monday!
~*~Lena~*~

Week before spring break!

Hello All!!!!!

We are on our last full days before SPRING BREAK. We have Tuesday, Wednesday then a half day Thursday, then we are out till April 13th!!! The kids are excited and so am I. Need a little down time before we start gearing up for testing.

We are finishing up a few things before we head off to break though. Today we finished our second novel, The BFG. The kids loved it! I loved it! Dalh is a fabulous writer and keeps the kids entertained. 

Tomorrow students will be presenting their own fairy tales in class. Since I have been helping them edit their stories I know what is happening in most but cannot wait to see how they present them. I love when they get a chance to be creative.

We are also wrapping up adding and subtracting fractions. We will go in to multiplying them when we get back. Today the kids got to play fractions games. It was a blast watching them use their knowledge and really get into the games. We will continue this for the rest of the week too!I am new to the whole world of 4th grade so I have a question for all of you out there. What should we focus on and what great resources do you use to review for the test? I want to get my kids pumped up and have them go in to the test knowing they can kick its butt!!! So help me out friends!

I hope everyone has a great Monday and a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~*~Lena~*~

Learn2earn.org

Hey all!!

It has been awhile since I have blogged. It has just been crazy like you all know. But, lets get to it.

So, my students have an option for reading homework each night. They can use our online reading program or they can read for 20 minutes and write a reading journal. I want to make sure the kids are reading and are getting something out of it but the paper was starting to pile up. I didn't feel like I ever had enough time to read it and all in all I just felt like I was having them write something so I could 'tell' they were reading. Heck, they could have written- Today I read yada, yada, yada, it was really great- and I probably wouldn't have really noticed. Well, then last week we started our first novel study. With this came a quiz. The kids didn't do so hot on the quiz. I could not believe it. We spent time talking about the reading and discussing it and answering questions about it, why did they not do well? I probably will never be 100% sure. Then I ran across this post on facebook about learn2earn.org. I decided to click on it because it looked cute. Well let me tell you the site looked AMAZING! I am a huge lover of owls so the fact that the kids avatars were owls made me super excited. What I really loved is that the site gives students different types of comprehension questions to answer. I thought this might just be the way to really get my kids thinking about their reading. It also has an option where you can add in your own questions (How great right?). So, I set up my kids accounts, showed them the site and told them we would be starting on Monday.

Today, they had to read 2 chapters for homework from our novel and I told them they had to answer one of my questions and one of their choosing. I have been checking the site every so often tonight and have been very happy with what I have seen. The kids are answering the questions, they are liking each others post, and they are responding to each others post. We are starting to have some discussion about what they are reading. I also am able to comment and give a score. I am loving it so far. I have passed it on to my admin team and offered to show it to other teachers how to use it. I am excited to see where this goes.

Below is a screen shot of one of my students responses. She has already got some cute things for her owl.

So, do you use learn2earn.org? What other cool teacher friendly websites have you found that you love. I always like learning about new things I can use in my room.

Talk to you all soon!
~*~Lena~*~

Mixed Up Monday!

I am linking up with The Sunny Side of Second Grade for a new linky party called Mixed Up Monday.

I wanted to spend this Mixed Up Monday just talking about some fun things going on in our classroom. We have been doing a lot of learning and having fun while doing it.

 First is my very cute door. We have a lot to gobble about! The kids colored turkeys during morning work that are up on the door. Plus, we really do have a lot to gobble about. We have been spending a lot of time talking about our government and Native American tribes in our state.

 Next, is our post card wall. The kids are loving getting the post cards! We have really enjoyed learning little bits of information about different places. The kids love the funny facts we learn. I know it is going to look really cool once we have all of our post cards!

 So we have been talking about Native American tribes in our state. The students then have to look through all the information they had available to them to find out specific information about the different tribes. They looked for information about the tribes housing, family life, clothing and more. They then had to take the information and create pictures that made sense. Once this was finished they put them on a brown paper bag that they crumpled up. The kids have really enjoyed it and I think they did a really awesome job. I have also loved seeing other students and staff stopping by to view them.

Lastly, I have awesome kids and wonderful parents! I had a parent surprise me with this ADORABLE mason jar. Last year she had sent me one and a few weeks back I knocked it off my desk. I was devastated. So when this came to me I was very excited!

So, that is my mixed up Monday! A little bit of everything but a lot of GOOD THINGS!!!! Hope everyone has a great week and Happy Thanksgiving!

~*~Lena~*~

A little bit of everything!

Wow we are 11 days into November. When all is consider there is not a lot left of this month and December flies by because well it's December. At my school we have 10 1/2 days till Thanksgiving break and 21 full days and 3- 1/2 days before winter break. The 4th grade team has a lot going on in that time to. Right now my kidos are working on Native American scrolls. I think they are going to turn out really good and cannot wait to share them with you all. We are getting ready to start working with lines, point, lines, and measurement or angles. I enjoy these things and for kids who struggle with math I feel this is a nice kind of break. I have a lot of ideas that I can't wait to try out with the kids.

We are also going to Raleigh! The kids are excited and so is my team. It should be a good time and really educational. Since we are going to the capital we are going to start talking about the government in our state. I can't wait to really get into our government and have my students thinking about how it effects them. I think it is important that they know what is going on around them.

The next 20 some days should be fun filled and action packed! It should be a lot of fun and we are going to be working really hard. My plan is to post more and share with you all the exciting things going on in my room.

The last big thing I want to talk about is my decision about my career. I have decide finally what I want to get my masters in!!! Starting next summer I am going to begin working on getting my AIG licensure. I will hopefully have my add-on by the end of my 3rd year and fill strong enough to enter the masters program going into my 4th year. I think it will be good for me and I am very excited. So look forward to hearing about this new step as I work on it!

Hope everyone has a great evening!!!

~*~Lena~*~

Sunday Scoop and Novemember Currently all rolled into 1!

Hello All!!!

Hope the new month is finding you well. I am linking up with two great blogs today. Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade and the Teaching Trio.

So, Sunday Scoop!
I need to finish my kids book reports. I have all their oral presentations grades done just need to finish the written part. I also have a new student starting tomorrow! I got to meet her Thursday and she is a doll. I just can't wait! Lastly, I have to figure out what we are doing for dinner. That's always so hard.
I have a stack of things I have used over the past 10 weeks that I need to get filed away for next year hopefully I can get that done. I also need to get to the gym more this week.!
Lastly, I am just going to enjoy spending time with my family! Nice relaxing day, yep I will take it.

 

November Currently

Listening- I am listening to season 7 of Gilmore Girls. I just love this show! It is so funny!

 Loving- Everything- Things are just really good right now. I am loving my job, I love the nice crisp weather. It's just great right now.

Thinking- I have got to make a list of what I have bought for Christmas so far and what I need to get. Black Friday and Christmas are right around the corner.

Wanting- I need to start emailing my husband Trashy crafters site so maybe he will get me something for Christmas. I just love her stuff!!!

Needing- I need to get my Donor's Choose project funded. It would just make things great to get it funded sooner rather than later. Here's the link if  you would like to help! Help Make Us Technology Savvy! 

Reading- I have my guided reading groups going and 3 different novels are being read so I am reading all of them to. It's been a lot of fun so far.

Well that is enough for now. Have a great Sunday all!!!!

Much love!!!

~*LENA*~

Donor's Choose

So, I have known about Donor's Choose for a while and after setting up a project and getting all the approvals I have finally posted my first project. I have a great group of 4th graders and I am wanting to get some iPad mini's for the classroom. I want to put some technology in their hands that can be used to create videos, help enhance one on one instruction and give students another educational outlet. I hope to get this project funded and get these iPads into my students hands very soon! I would love  if all of you great follower can help me get this funded. Thanks in advance for the help!
Have a great Sunday everyone!

Hi Friends,

I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed, so I just created a request for my classroom at DonorsChoose.org:
Help Make Us Technology Savvy!

Give to my classroom by November 1, 2014 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code SPARK on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100).

If you chip in to help my students, you'll get awesome photos and our heartfelt thanks.

Thanks so much,
Lena

P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my classroom, please pass this along!

So much going on!!!!

Wow these first few weeks have been CrAzY!!!!! I don't feel like I can slow down or catch up, but they have been wonderful. We have been doing a lot of great work and learning awesome new things. So this blog is just a hodge podge of everything that has been going on so far.

We have been learning all about matter and we have been doing centers to explore the different states and the kids have been loving it! It has been a real blast watching my 4th graders work through their stations and gain a better understanding of matter.

 We have also been learning all about the 3 regions of North Carolina. The kids have been working really hard on their code of arms and are really enjoying learning about their state. They also turned in the first 3 pages of the NC  ABC Notebook and they were really awesome.

We have also been spending a lot of time on the idea of place value. Deb Hanson has created some wonderful fall projects for math that my kids just loved. Can't wait for the parents to see them at open house on Thursday!

I am really enjoying 4th grade. I have an awesome group and I am loving every minute I have with them. I was so sad when I missed yesterday due to being sick but felt so loved when I came back and got hugs and was told how much they missed me! 4th grade is turning out to be everything I had hoped it would be!

Hope everyone has a great evening!

~*Lena*~