Birthday Wishes!

I turned 25 last Monday, and had such a wonderful week with my husband and friends!  My husband, the master planner, made a beautiful veal parmesan for my birthday dinner on Monday, which we paired with some delicious sweet red wine (our favorite)!!

I knew there was something up his sleeve for the weekend, but didn't anticipate such a fun night with lots of surprises!  Wesley invited several of our friends from out of town, including teacher friends I never to see ( :) !!), and reserved 12 seats for us at a beautiful sushi restaurant in Morgantown, "Dragonfly."  If that wasn't enough, they brought out a gorgeous Blizzard cake (Strawberry Cheesecake, of course), which had a huge FIREWORK on it!  Needless to say, all eyes turned to our table as my friends and family shouted out the birthday song, while I sat stunned in front of a huge sparkler threatening to burn my face lol!  I did have a little laugh, though, when one of my best friends thought the cheesecake bites on the cake were croutons...hehehe  It's good to giggle every now and then (at someone else's expense)... :)

We had a fun night out downtown Morgantown!  It was great to have everyone in one place :)  My husband also surprised me with a couple b-day gifts - I have to say, he did a good job hiding them this time!  I think he was tired of my $10 satchel purse that I carry around all the time - because in my birthday box was a cute Coach satchel :)  Beautiful & very thoughtful (as I could never fit anything in my smaller satchel I carried around) - along with a LONG pan for our stove!  We've been looking everywhere to find a pan to fit our middle burner.  Here it is!! (OF COURSE, I made pancakes on it the first chance I got!)

Another cute gift from a friend, which I will definitely have to copy was "Cookie Mix in a Jar!"  Attached with a recipe, all the ingredients are artfully layered in a mason jar - It looked like when we used to do those sand art jars when we were little.  So cute, and definitely an idea to remember :)  I've seen people do it with all types of dessert options, such as brownies, etc. 

My kitty, Crush, decided he wanted a whiff...

What a wonderful 25th birthday.  Thank you to my loving hubby!  We aim to please...(oh yea, I'm obsessed by Fifty Shades of Grey - finishing the last book this week!!)  ;)

The Misc. Section

Student quotes of the day:

Student: Smell my eraser!  It smells like strawberry.
Me: I'm not going to smell that eraser after your nose has been on it!
Student: Here, smell the other side then...

A group of my 5th graders were playing outside in the grass without their shoes on, and I witnessed this conversation - I had to giggle to myself a little (hehehe):

Student 1: Why are you running around in the grass without your shoes?
Student 2: To get more contraction!

My SPL (Support for Personalized Learning - also known as RTI) groups wrapped up last week :(  My year is slowly coming to an end...and I miss it already.  But, I wanted to share a few  activities that I wrapped the year up with.

Silent e is sooo much fun to teach (although frustrating at times..)  I borrowed a great resource from Heather's Heart blog, and added a little twist on it.  Her blog provides (freebie!) a set of "Vowel Muncher" cards that have long/short vowel words on them, accompanied by a monster of course.  I posted these around my room, and made my students "Monster Detectives."  They had to search the room, high and low, for all the vowel munchers; then, sort them by long/short vowels on their graphic organizer.  Of course, all of our long vowel words had silent e (for this activity at least).  We checked our answers by allowing each student show us a vowel muncher they found & where they placed it in their chart!  They had a ton of fun!  Click here to download the "Vowel Munchers" resource from Heather's Heart blog.  Look below to see the detectives in action!!

When one found a new monster, they all rushed over to read/write it!

Being a Title I teacher, I get the pleasure of working with all different age groups.  So, 1 minute, I'm teaching silent e to first graders; then the next, I'm working with fifth graders to interpret Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken."  Our days are crazy, but I love it.  The past two weeks have been devoted to understanding figurative language and interpreting poems in 5th grade.  I chose the poems, "The Poison Tree" by William Blake, and "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.  These were such great poems to work through!  We worked through interpreting each stanza together while taking notes (with cool colored Sharpie pens, of course).  It was really amazing to see how they would relate the poem to their own lives/situations (almost too much at times lol).  Then, they wrote the "story" in their own words.  It was quite interesting to see their takes.  So, here they are:

Keep on truckin'!  The year is almost at an end!

Meredith

Pizza, Cups, & Fluency

Student quote of the day: "I don't think Lily (pseudonym) is here today - Yesterday was her birthday.  She must have eaten too much pizza..."  :)  They always make me smile.

I came across this adorable game that can be modified to fit almost any skill, really.  It's called "Stack the Cups!"  I used it to review number identification to 100 with my Kindergartners.  They read the number on the dixi cup, then begin stacking cups to build a tower/castle (whatever you want to call it).  This not only reviews number ID, but also encourages problem solving, team work, & fine motor skills.  The kids are actually very good at creating the base first, before they can begin stacking cups on top of them.  They realized that you couldn't stack a cup until there were two cups below it as a base.  One student commented on his "fine motor skills:" "I'm trying, but my hand keeps shaking!"  They had a blast.

For the last couple weeks, my second graders have been focusing on FLUENCY!  I actually LOVE teaching fluency - there are so many ways to practice it that the kids love!  They just finished a reader's theater, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff."  We practiced for about 2 weeks before we performed it for a 1st grade class in our school.  Instantly, I can see a difference in their expression & smoothness!  We even used a step bridge & my green shag carpet (for grass) as props for the reader's theater.  Here is the script I used, as well as the mask template they used to decorate their character masks (they were so cute!). Thanks to, Have Fun Teaching, I was able to find several reader's theater scripts & masks to share with my kiddos!

  

Unfortunately, I only have a video of their performance; no actual pictures... :(  In addition to repeated readings with reader's theater, we've been using Tongue Twisters to practice speed, accuracy, & smoothness (this is quite a funny challenge for them)!  We do a few a day, & challenge each other to get more accurate and fast with each reading.  Here is the powerpoint I use on the SmartBoard.

I found these great "Fluency Posters," from the blog, What the Teacher Wants...They offer concrete visuals/comparisons of what different aspects of fluency mean.  I try to use terms such as fluency, accuracy, expression, and rate.  Why can't we begin teaching them these terms? - I feel that they give an actual word to the complex concepts, instead of trying to explain it every time.

Until next time, happy teaching!!  Only a few more weeks left!