Learning Happens... snow, the Alphabet, and addition

First things first. I really wanted a snow day. I really wanted a snow day. I REALLY wanted a snow day. But in the words of the Rolling Stones.... "you can't always get what what you want...." But we did get some snow. And it was beautiful. So pretty. Here are a few photos. 

The view of our drive and yard from the porch this morning. 

The snow clung to the trees, it had a magical quality.

On our way to school... 

I tried to bring snow into our learning today. I tried to be flexible and put on my "go-with-the-flow" attitude. Because the students wanted a snow day as badly as I did. And today the snow was magical and I remembered that snow is always magical to children. So I did my best to use the snow as part of our day and not fight against it. We read about animals that live in the snow. Interestingly enough, it talked about predators and prey, and the reading story tied together with the Read Aloud nicely. 

I took some pictures of the class doing what they are supposed to and doing the actions to the song when we practiced our alphabet. We practiced by singing along with the Alphabet Song from funwithteaching which you can see here.  Most of my class came to Kindergarten knowing Zoo Phonics, so that is what we use. The ones who knew something else or didn't have actions to do with letter sounds learned these quickly. 

I love that you can see by the blurry arms that the students are moving along and doing the actions.

For math my mind turned to Valentine's. We previewed the Bingo game we are going to play on Thursday. The students have the do the addition to cover the space on the bingo board. The calling cards have the equation on them (3+1) and the Bingo boards just have the sums on them. We are talking a lot about different words that are used in Math when talking about addition. I might say.... "3 and 2 is the same as 5." What is another way to say the same thing? Students are starting to give me the answers I am looking for: 3 joined with 2... or 3+2=5. We made different groups and joined them. Yesterday we did this with marbles. We joined groups and write the equations. We took the end of the unit test first as a pre-test. So I am working on an assessment to do at the end of the unit. I hope it will show growth in leaps and bounds. 

How do you teach math? What is the vocabulary that you use? Is it preparing students for assessments in grades to come? 

Tell Me Something Good.... February 10 edition

Jennifer at Rowdy in First Grade is having a Tell Me Something Good party. She said that after seeing the news about the snowstorm she decided we needed a Tell Me Something Good Linky. She's right you know. The more you focus on good, the more good will happen. How does that work exactly? I don't know. But I know I've had my fair (or un-fair) share of worries and disappointments this week and I need to look at all I have to be grateful for. So... here goes. The rules are: Tell something good from home and something good from school.

Something good from home.... 

Where to begin? I don't love my home right now. But a good thing at home right now are my pets. My cat gave us a scare a couple weeks ago. The animals had dental work done- they got their teeth cleaned. They are anesthetized for this.  Our 11 year old kitty did not come out of the anesthesia very well. It was a long, scary 24 hours waiting to see how he would do. He's been a love since then. Throw in a couple trips to Kansas where he had to be home alone and my gratitude at being back in the panhandle to snuggle with my kitty is growing. I missed him so much. He really is the love of my life. Don't tell the kids, because technically he is Red's cat, she got him for Christmas 11 years ago. 

This is the view from my lap immediately after I typed about how much I love him Sam jumped up and made himself comfortable. He is the sweetest kitty ever.

p.s. let me just add that it is a good thing that I have no drama at home. I have a 16 year old and no drama. Yay. 

Something good from school.... 

Students are starting to "get it" that I want them to sound things out phonetically and do "kid-writing." I've loved reading what they have written this week. We will do more Valentine writing this coming week.

I missed two days of school this week and I haven't been there yet to see how they did for the sub on Friday. I hope it was fantastic. I reminded them that they are fantastic before I left. I hope they remembered! 

It's been a rough week in our family and trusting God to take of things that are bigger than we are has been a necessity not a luxury. So link up with something good or leave me a comment. I'd love to hear about what is going good in life, or the underlying good that remains no matter how messy or chaotic things might look on the surface. 

Hop over to the linky and read and link up: Tell Me Something Good

Love Notes Link Up

These are the instructions that I followed: Create a post with your “love notes” and link up!! It will be a super fun way to get to know more teacher bloggers... and provide some fun reading for the last full month of Winter!

“Lovely List”

Name: Carrie 

Grade you Teach: Kindergarten 

State: Oklahoma (this is the state we currently live in and I teach in, but my state is KS)

Birthday: July 4 

Favorite Colors: Black and ??? maybe purple

Lucky Number: 87 (there's a story here...)

Favorite Subject to Teach: Literacy!! (this is what my friend put, and I can't argue, I love teaching anything remotely related to reading)

Go to Snack: Hmmm... Power snack: cheese stick and apple slices; having-a-bad-day-and-need-help-coping snack: Coke with any form of sugar (brownies rank high here but Hot Tamales will do, or M&M's, or...)

TV Show: I miss everything FoodNetwork (Chopped, tripleD, etc.), but discovered Parenthood on Netflix (and now Hulu since we are caught up on Netflix)
Last Movie You Watched: Pitch Perfect
Music You are Loving Right Now: lovin' the same music I've loved for 30 years: rock: BonJovi, AC/DC, Mellencamp... the list goes on. Boston takes me to a happy place. Oh, opposite end of the spectrum: Chris Tomlin, Matthew West. 
Always shopping at: Walmart and TpT
Word of the day: acceptance. "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today."

“Love Links”

share links to…

a blog you are loving right now:

all of them! I have discovered a ton of teaching blogs in the last month or so and I love reading them and the ideas I get from them! I love them all but here is a new friend I am learning from:It's "OWL" Good in Kindergarten.

Your Valentine or February pin board:

I am not sure. I search Pinterest for everything, but I don't think I have a favorite. *sigh* I'll look, just a minute.... 
I love lots of things online, but I really love how Pinterest have revolutionized meals and made it so easy to find something to eat. Here is a pin I hope to make/bake soon: Cheesy Enchilada Casserole.

A product you adore:

Miss Kindergarten's January Math and Literacy Centers!

This is THE BEST product I have purchased from TpT so far. 

“We’d all love to know…”

What are your favorite hobbies or what do you enjoy doing during your free time? 

I love the stock car races, they don't have them where I live now, but central Kansas is rich with race tracks and we WILL be making time for races this summer. :)

Your favorite vacation destination?

This is tough for me because we just don't go on vacations. We went to DC right before I started working on my teaching degree and visited family out there. It was awesome, educational, and fun. I like vacations where you don't have an agenda and I think I'd love to rent a cabin in the mountains sometime.

The best advice you’ve been given?

Beg, borrow, and steal. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "Don't reinvent the wheel." I was told/taught that teaching is about what works to reach students and if a colleague or other teacher/education guru had figured out what works and is willing to share their insight, use it! Don't make it harder than it has to be! 

Most rewarding part of teaching?

Feeling the love. I have a hard time identifying a "most rewarding" part. Any type of light-bulb moment or occasion when I realize that a student has grown, whether it is social, emotional, or academically, and I had a part to play in that growth, then I feel overwhelming satisfaction.

What are you known for?

I had to ask for help here. I don't know what I am known for that I can list here, so I asked my daughter. She said cooking/baking. And that my grandson is really excited because he thinks he'll be a good cook because his Grammy and Momma are good cooks! :) I'm sure you will be Mr.! 

2 random facts:

I love Harleys. I want to own one one day. :)

I went back to school when I turned 40 to become a teacher. Love it. 

The Loves of Your Life:

Share a picture(s) of your LOVES.

My Punky. She is in 3rd grade this year.

The Redhead. She is a junior this year.

No pics of my oldest and her fam but they are my loves. Love and prayers fam. I love you all. 

Hundley. Who wouldn't love him????

Sam the Siamese. He enriches my life. I can't even explain how much. Love my pets. He was very needy after we got back from a roadtrip to Kansas.

Link up here: Love and Literacy: Love Notes Link Up

Okay, this was time-consuming and involved a LOT of copy/paste. So I tried to make it simpler by putting the copy/paste stuff all-together for you. I hope you'll link up, it won't take you as long as it did me because everything you need to copy/paste/answer is listed below. :)

“Lovely List”

Name:  

Grade you Teach: 

State: 

Birthday: 

Favorite Colors: 

Lucky Number:

Favorite Subject to Teach: 

Go to Snack: 

TV Show: 
Last Movie You Watched: 
Music You are Loving Right Now: 
Always shopping at: 
Word of the day: 

“Love Links”

share links to…

a blog you are loving right now:

Your Valentine or February pin board:

a product you adore:

“We’d all love to know…”

What are your favorite hobbies or what do you enjoy doing during your free time? 

Your favorite vacation destination?

The best advice you’ve been given?

Most rewarding part of teaching?

What are you known for?

2 random facts:

The Loves of Your Life:

Share a picture(s) of your LOVES.

Five for Friday

This week I have more of a balance of rewards with frustrations. Yay! I was a whiner in my February Currently, A Linky Party. So balance is good. My five this week is a little slim because I didn't teach five days this week, only three. :(

Monday I had an appointment out of state and I missed out on teaching and my children missed out on learning because we could not be in two places at once. Okay, that happens.... 

Five for Friday is a linky party created by Doodle Bugs, hop over and link up here.  Include five random things from your week from school or home. One of my favorite things to do is toot my own horn (horn, get it, hahahahahaha), and another fave is to read what others are doing at home and at school. 

1. Rhyming. wow. I still have a lot of frustration. Here's an example of the rhyming center they are supposed to do. Find the two cards that match and write the rhymes, draw a picture and then add a rhyming word and illustrate it. 

fan/man/wig.

Hmmm. I can't figure out if I am not explaining it, if students are not listening to me, or if they honestly don't get it. Because let me tell you, this is not an isolated incident. The only rhyming papers are the ones who copied my example exactly. They can rhyme on the porch after school. So I just don't know what happened!  If you have great rhyming activities that students could do in centers, please send me an email!

2. Valentine's write the room. I printed these before I got new ink for the printer and I just decided that ink is too precious, so I kept them. Anywho... the kids love them! I know a lot of Kindergarten teachers have been doing write the room all year, so I am behind. But I am just glad we are getting started! The first one they are doing is letter Hh. Here are a few. 

This one has fewer than any of the others. 

This one has the most words and this girl has less English than many of my students. I was excited that she understood the assignment and was so enthusiastic. 

I will ask students to go back and count the words they found and fill in the last blank. It was a good beginning. More to come. I love what my teaching partner does with her "write the room" center. She has fancy glasses and big pencils and students use them in the center. 

3. Kids. I love, love, love my children. I love my school family, yes, but I'm talking about my own kids. This week I thought about how precious they are to me when we drove the road back from Kansas to the panhandle on Monday and again last night when we detoured around an accident on the way to Kansas and when we did not get squished by a semi in spite of his best efforts. I thought about how some of the crazy we share is not positive and some is a really good thing. Like when we sang along to the YMCA and did the actions with a long line of cars behind us and they had to see our crazy actions.  Mine were one-handed since I was driving. Thanks Red for doing the YMCA with me!! :) Punky asked us how we got so good at it and we said, "practice." A little crazy might be a good thing.... 

4. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we made an unexpected trip to Kansas. So I was getting ready for a sub while my students did writing activities. First they practiced letter Yy, then they were to find words that had a y in them.  It didn't matter,  the beginning, middle or end. Once they found the word, they wrote it down. One student just made up words. Can I just say.... "love it!" Here it is. 

5. Overwhelming sadness. On the personal side.... I love my family and when they hurt, I hurt. I can't fix it and there's no band-aid big enough. I am spreading around as much "mommy-love" and "grammy-love" as I can, but it's desperately inadequate. Love and prayers my dear family. You are my heart and soul. So I have to say... "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." And I might have to accept that fact that sometimes crying is okay. 

Here is our week so far...

In the last few days I have been asked some of those very pointed questions about teaching that I need to know the answer to, but that I cannot put into words. One of the questions that I was asked was, "How do I build relationships with children and parents?" I think those relationships are so important. I think I do develop them. But I could not answer the question of how. What I said was this: "we build relationship a lot on the porch after school when they can talk to me about whatever they want to." Some days on the porch the students are boisterous and loud and out of control. I took some pictures today.

This student told me she could do the splits and as soon as she said it, she did it. :)

These students are having a conversation with each other. I can't remember exactly what they were
talking about, but I remember there was a lot of banter. 

Here one of my student's is telling me who will pick her up after school and we started talking
about that and how excited she was.

Back to the question of building relationship with students.... some of it is showing them that I love them, giving a hug, a kind word, noticing new shoes, noticing pretty hair, noticing when students are having a bad day.  Students who feel "safe" in the classroom, feel cared about and the relationship blossoms. Students need to feel safe to make mistakes, safe to fail, safe to be whoever they are, and to take risks to test their knowledge.

I was absent yesterday, so I missed out what students learned about yesterday. The guest teacher had them do a writing assignment about the reading story. This week's story is called Bunny Day. It discusses time and what the bunny family does each day at a certain time. This story is also rich with rhyme. I loved reading this story today. Anyway.... Students and the guest teacher brainstormed things that the bunnies might do and then students wrote their sentences. The expectation is that students use proper grammar: Upper case letters when needed (such as the first word of the sentence), tall letters need to be tall (t, l, k, etc.), descending letters need to descend (y, p, g, etc.), finger spaces between words and sentences should make sense. Well, here are few of my faves. They run the entire spectrum. Some don't make sense, but they are favorites. Some have horrendous writing, but I love them for the progress it shows that students have made.

I love this one! 

I feel like the illustration needs more detail and color, but I think the picture and sentence are great! Keep up the good work!

This paper shows SO MUCH improvement. The letters are still not in the lines where they should be, but
I am so excited for this student because I can read what was written and the letters are well-formed. This is awesome.

"A bunny can lisine (listen) to muzic on a i pad."
I love it!

I love this paper! Had I been there, we would have talked about whether or not this could really happen and if the author (the student) wrote a story that could really happen or a story that was not realistic.

"A bunny can walking!" 

I love the illustration. I love the punctuation. I think that this student could have found a way to make the sentence make sense. But it is a sentence that has good capitalization, good spacing between words, and is very legible. And finally, Ms. Horn was not there to ask those questions... "Read it again, does it make sense? Is there a way to change it? Think about it...."

I can't believe that tomorrow is Wednesday already. It is half-way through our week. Can you believe it? I look forward to a weekend at home this weekend. I should start my planning for next week because I really need a weekend!

Five for Friday a little late....

Five random things from my week. Doodle Bugs is having a linky party, so read it and then link up.

1. Redhead was sick all week. No photos. Sad Momma. This kiddo finally got dressed on Friday in time for a trip to Kansas and visiting her friends from where we used to live.

2. CRAzY weather = cRaZY KIDS.  high in the 70's one day, 40's the next day. We don't go out when it is below 40.  If you live where it is cold, that is ridiculous, but it's still okay with me.

3. Our Maria. See the post here. We wrote thank you notes to our custodian, Maria. I love her. I think it is important that my students understand that a school needs all the important adults to make it run correctly. This is true of any organization, this is real life application. Here is a sample of the letter. This little guy got very frustrated but he did a great job and when he was done he was SO proud of his work. He could not wait to tell Ms. Maria that we had something for her.

4. I am trying really hard to do more of letting kids be kids. This is them coloring the paper that the counselor brought and I have a couple who like to work standing up. VERY HARD for the teacher to let them. Small I know. But its rough for me to balance "classroom management" and allowing them to be kids and do what they need to in order to be comfortable at school. It IS their home away from home after all. 

5. This is my BFF being too busy to take a picture with me. She was on the phone with work at 10:30 at night. Bummer. I love her. Her home is my home away from home. 

Currently, a Linky party

Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade! is having her Currently linky. So head over, read other posts and link up!

Sitting here in my BFF's dining room and listening to her children and their friends eat waffles that they made themselves and talk about nothing in particular. It is a little bit like heaven. And it makes me jealous and lonely. I miss my house. I miss my daughter having her friends over and my house being the one where they are free and happy and goofy. But it will happen again. 

I am loving being Kansas with my friends. I drove by my home last night. Heart break. But I can't wait to see all of my friends tonight and celebrate and eat ice cream and laugh and joke and maybe be wildly inappropriate. Sitting here in my friend's house feels a lot like I am home. I love it that I have friends who just let me come and hang out. 

Thinking.... about too many things. I had a bad social situation in my classroom yesterday and I can't "fix" it. One of my students stole from another one. The ELL teacher gave a student a little nail polish, a reward for her hard work, and between 2:30 and 3:10 it disappeared. I searched backpacks and pockets to no avail. I am so sad it isn't even funny. It hurts me that my students would do this each other. And I read Farley's tactic, but I don't know that it would work. I don't KNOW who did this, but I suspect one my little non-english speakers. And he wouldn't understand my ploy.  

Always on my mind is the financial mess I am in and the fact that there are more bills than money. I need a miracle people. Big changes are on the horizon. 

Wanting.... those life changes. Less financial woe. More contentment. Deep seeded knowledge that I am doing my best. 

Needing... more french vanilla coffee. And more time the day.

Pet Peeves.... discourteous drivers. Well, those are the words I came up with, but it's more than that. I hate the drive from there to here on this insanely dangerous two lane highway. Hate, hate, hate it. The last three trips we have not seen any fatal accidents. Good news. But the one where we witnessed a truck pull out in front of a semi, not good news. Drivers are so rude. Pulling out without looking, passing on a hill, etc., etc.

Not feeling good enough... it peeves me. It is annoying that I still feel "not good enough" a lot of the time. But it's more annoying when it is because some super-teacher burst my bubble. Seriously... I think I'm doing pretty fine for a first year teacher. And I am willing to make lots of changes. Whatever changes it takes to be the best teacher I can be. But bubble-bursting is a peeve. Don't burst my bubble. I am just as proud of what my students are doing as you are of what your students are doing. 

Currently rules: post, link up, comment on the 2 before you, come back and spread the love and comment on the one after your link.