Back from Las Vegas

Hi all,

I just made it back from the SDE I Teach K! conference about 6:30 this morning.  I know that before I left I said I was going to blog each night to tell you what I learned about during the day.  Well when night came there was still so much to do or I was so tired from a full day of learning it just didn't happen.  So what I decided on the long plane trip this morning/last night (still not sure about my times right now) is that I am going to share each day what I learned and  how I am going to use it in my classroom this coming year.  So tonight I am getting some sleep because tomorrow I have to come back to the real world and get busy with everything.  Make sure you check back this week to find some new ideas.

Thanks,
Leslie

PS.  Not everything was work related.  We did throw in some fun as well.  

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FOREVER

Hi. Everyone,

I know you are all probably wondering who I am and what I do.

First, I am super sorry that it has been so long since I blogged.  Let me take a minute and catch you up on life.

1. I teach kindergarten and had the most wonderful group of students this past year.  This being said there were also academically low.  I ended up spending the last part of my school year focused on them during the day.  As I said they were wonderful and deserved every thing that I could provide them to help them learn.  We made it to the end and only one out of 24 really was not ready for first grade.  Even that one though had come a long way.
2. I am not sure if I have shared this before (I think I have) but I am currently back in graduate school working on my Specialist Degree in Instructional Technology.  Well I love it.  I have learned so much and I am truly excited to get back and use all this technology knowledge to help the next group of students learn.  Now that I have told you about grad school I can tell you that during spring semester I took one class and much of my free time not at school was spent on grad school.  My Spring class was over at the beginning of May and for some unknown crazy reason I chose to take 2 classes this summer.  Well the two classes that I am working on now started 3 weeks before my school got out for summer vacation.  Talk about 3 very packed weeks.  All day at school trying to finish out the year and at night working on my two grad classes.  I made it but still not sure how.  The classes will be over at the end of July and oh wait my new set of kindergartners show up the first week of August.  NO BREAK!  ;) I just keep telling myself I can do this.
3. I have shared with some of you that I also have a business with my brother where we renovate old homes.  Well lucky for me he is doing most of the work, but I do try to help out when I can or have a few free seconds.  Since I am not teaching kindergarten during the summer my time is now split between grad school work and home renovations.  Yes I told you that we do all the work ourselves (painting, drywall, plumbing, electrical, you name it).
4. Last on my life list is that I leave for Vegas and the I Teach K conference Sunday morning.  Yes this Sunday morning and I will be gone a week.  I am SUPER excited to go and can't wait to see what I can learn but I do hope there is a little rest and pool time while I am out there.

Okay now that I have given you the highlights of my life since February (yes I checked that is the last time I blogged) I want to share why I am on tonight.
One of my grad classes had us create a class blog and share about a topic each week on our blog and then our classmates would respond.  Well while doing this grad school blog I realized how much I have missed blogging and sharing on my personal/professional blog.  So I am here to tell you that over the next month before I start back teaching wonderful 5 year old students my goal is to get back to blogging on a regular basis.  I will begin with blogging about my experience at the I Teach K conference next week.  I will pick one thing each day that I learn and share it on my blog that night.  So check back on Monday to see what I have learned (or bought) while in Vegas.

Talk soon,
Leslie

PS. Thanks for listening to my rambling tonight.  It makes me smile to be typing and sharing this on my blog again.

Five For Friday Linky Party

Hi have a snow day again today so I thought I would finally do another five for Friday Linky with Doodle Bugs Teaching.  I want to participate each week but somehow Fridays get away from me and before I know it Sunday has come around again.

So here goes:

We finally began out number bond learning this week.  Here are the pictures of the kids number bonds.  We started with talking about number bonds and how they worked, then each child made a number bond to use for practice.  Since we only had a three day week and Valentine's Day is this week I used red and pink hears that I found at the Dollar Store for the manipulatives on the number bond.  The kids did great and we learned so much.  Especially me since during the lesson I had a visitor from our district office and a math professor from the University of Delaware observing the class.  Can we say nervous?

Here is a picture of our Valentine Party before the eating began.  The plan was that the night before I was going to make and decorate heart shape cupcakes for the kids party.  Well a meeting after school and running late it didn't quite work out that way.  So I went to plan B.  I made the heart shape cupcakes, took the frosting to school and we had a cupcake decorating party before the eating party.  The kids loved it and I enjoy not having to decorate them the night before.  Win-Win as far as I am concerned.

Here is a picture of the kids opening the Valentine gift I gave them.  Before you ask no I didn't take a before picture of the cute bags with the cute tags I made on them.  I went with the no candy gift this year and the kids really enjoyed getting and playing with the fun valentine items I found from Walmart.

What is in the box?

My kids are having trouble with questioning skills so this week we worked on asking questions to figure out the prize in the box.  The kids played 20 questions and with the answers they had to guess what was in the box before I opened it.  It was a stuff gorilla with hearts on his feet.  I gave the gorilla to the kid who guessed correctly.

Snow on Snow on Snow on Snow

Well this has been my Thursday and Friday.  We live in the north east and we were hit with a lot of the snow.  I spent Thursday morning helping my brother shovel our driveway.  It was the heavy type of snow and my arms have been sore for two days now.  Don't get me wrong I love the snow, but it is getting to the point that we have not had a schedule at school in what feels like forever and I think I am officially ready for some consistent teaching days.  Maybe next week???

Thank you for checking out my Five for Friday.  Make sure you check out others links I always find some good ideas from other posts.

Leslie

Currently

Hi this is my first time linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.  I found this little linky and wanted to give it a try.  
Thanks for sharing everyone and the linky.

All these are self explanatory except for the 2 truths and a fib.  Yes I was born in Georgia and now live in Delaware with my brother and we fix up old houses.  Yes I love animals-would have a house full and then some if we had the time and space.  NO I have no desire to go bungee jumping.  I am not afraid of heights but just don't want to jump off of something high either.

Thanks for stopping in,

Leslie

Wow, Where has January Gone?

I don’t know about ya’ll but I just realized that the last time I posted was January 3 and all of a sudden it is January 22.  Where has the time gone?  Oh yea, I know assessments.  Does anyone else feel that way right now?  I mean I barely get through assessing for interims and now we have 2 assessments that the district wants us to give by the end of January.  Now I am like the next teacher assessments are important, but the two the district wants are just for the district.  These district assessment scores will go into the computer and I will not look at them again.  So why give them-I DON'T KNOW!  The items on the district assessment are not things that we have taught yet so I could have easily told them that my kids didn't know the material, but who would believe me. 

Well enough complaining.  I dropped in since we had a snow day I thought I would use today to catch up on things and maybe feel a little better about going back to school tomorrow.  One thing on my to do list today was to blog about some crafts we have made in my class these last couple of weeks.  So here goes with some cute pictures.

Here are two cute art projects my kids have been working on these last couple of weeks.  Above from the story The Hat by Jan Brett.  Below a cute snowman from the stories Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Work.

I don't know about your kids but mine would not write this year without me sitting right next to them stretching out the words.  I finally put my foot down and said you CAN do this and guess what they did it wonderfully.  Here is what they wrote about last week.  The guided drawing is from KinderbyKim's Draw and Write.

Last this is a work area activity where the kids are practicing the letter that comes before, after or between other letters.  There is a question on the computer test that the kids take that asks this so I made a version of it for the to practice.

Well I hope you enjoyed our quick month in review with pictures.  I hope to be back next week with more pictures and hopefully a topic or two.  I was reading on other blogs how they have a blog calendar on what they want to post and I might just try that for this blog.  My kids are doing so many wonderful things that I would like to share and a blog calendar might just help me get it done.

Write soon,

Leslie

Five For Friday

I am doing another linky party this week.  Yes the second but I decided after completing the first on Resolutions with "A Peach for the Teach" that they are fun and with today being a snow day I had time to complete another one so here goes my five for Friday.

1.  

Here is the bulletin board that we did at school yesterday (yes the one and only day we went this week). The kids and I made cute little snowsuits and then they wrote about what the like to do in the winter.  They turned out even cuter than I thought they would when we were working on them.  The kids do such a good job with suggesting ideas and adding details to there snowsuit.

2.

This is my sweet four legged child, Zoe.  Winter vacation and a snow day has given us almost two full weeks to snuggle a little while longer each day.  I love when she comes and curls up in my lap and starts to purr-the most soothing calming sound I know.

3.

Snow day- yes there was some shoveling, but a little bit of fun as well.  

4.

January 1st saw a little rest and a shopping spree to Michaels' to get lots of different paper and materials to use with my new Christmas present.  Already made the ""Let it Snow" letters for my bulletin board, onto my next project.

5.

Starting the day after Christmas until-oh wait not done yet-I have spent mudding and sanding the new sheet rock that will eventually be the new master bedroom closet and bathroom (they are on the other side of this wall-this is the hallway that leads to the bedroom.)  I think going back to school will give my are muscles a break from this and I can finish it next weekend-I hope.  :)  

Well this is my first five for Friday I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I also hope I can do this again next week. Just need to remember to take the pictures and carve out the time.

Click the picture below to check out Doodle Bugs Five for Friday and the others that also linked up.

Talk soon,

Leslie