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*~