Marvelous Monday!

Our Monday was marvelous and we accomplished so much in one day!  

In math we began our unit on division.  We started with a fact family activity so that students could see the commutative property and the inverse operations of multiplication and division.  This was a great activity and lasted only about 15 minutes.  The kids loved it and begged to do another scoot activity soon!  You can find the free fact family activity here.  I used this recording sheet so that students knew exactly how they should record their fact families.  We practiced with several before I allowed them to complete the scoot activity on their own.   I love scoot activities as they allow students the opportunity to get out of their seat and walk around.  If needed, I may assign a student a partner if I feel that they need one in order to be successful.

Our math lesson continued with Skittles and of course the students loved the idea of candy!  We used our Skittles and little cups to divide.  The students were shown a word problem on the Smart Board and then counted out the total number of candies needed.  They used the little cups as their groups and then had to divide them evenly.  A great way to have a hands on math lesson.

We topped off our day by creating a door decoration for Red Ribbon Week.  Although the fire marshal won't let us actually hang it on the door.  I found this on Pinterest and loved it.  The template for the monster can be found here.  My students were so excited to do a "craft".  They enjoyed creating their monsters and we may spend an afternoon writing about our monster.

Hope you had a great Monday!

Beginning of the year and a blog makeover!

I can't believe that we have been in school for about 7 weeks already!  The time has really gone by so quickly.
I have fallen head over heals for my class this year.  They are all so sweet and willing to learn.  I have 16 girls and 4 boys, a combination I have never had before.  We have done some amazing things this year.  At the beginning of the year we Saved Fred.  The students loved this team building activity. There are plenty of Save Fred activities available at Teachers Pay Teachers   Check them out!

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Our district has a county wide fundraiser to bring awareness to reading.  Students, parents, teachers and members of the community take a "fun" walk -a-thon.  Money raised stays at the school it was earned at and is used to purchase additional materials for the media center.  My school has a penny war competition.  The classroom that raises the most money, in the form of pennies, wins a popcorn/bingo party.  My class was so excited to win!  Here is a picture of some of my students at the party.

I hope that everyone is enjoying their weekend!  I am off to make hubby an amazing dessert.

I am so happy with my recent blog makeover.  Megan at A Bird In Hand Designs did an amazing job and she handled everything including installing the designs!  

Currently January!

Well I am clearly late with this even though it is only January 2nd!  I have so enjoyed my winter break this year.  My husband and I usually travel home to see our son and his family, including my two granddaughters but this year we chose to stay home.  The trip is long and we often get bad weather on the way there and back.

Listening-I took the KLove 30 day challenge on the first day of June and haven't gone back to mainstream music since then.  It is very soothing music and now my husband and I can listen to the same music in the car.

Loving-I have so enjoyed my time off this year.  Hubby and I drove to Charleston, South Carolina and it was an amazing place.  We took a carriage ride, a dinner cruise and walked for miles.  We saw dolphins in the harbor-which I had never seen in the "wild" before.  I sure did miss seeing my granddaughters, though.

Thinking-Why is it that I always think I am going to get so much work done during break and that just never seems to happen?  I did get lots of rest and relaxation accomplishment which was great.  I wrote lesson plans for the next couple of stories in our basal, and did math plans for the week we return to school.  I guess that will have to be good enough.

Wanting-More time to finish our master bathroom remodel.  We bought a new house two years ago but it has taken us forever to agree on wall colors.  So far, we only have the master bedroom painted and are working on the bathroom now.  Hubby is having surgery at the end of this week so...it will be completed in about two months or so.  (Hopefully!)  Here is a picture of the chandelier that hubby graciously agreed to put up in bathroom for me.  There was a terribly ugly light there prior so I think he agreed just to get rid of the ugly one!

Needing-to finish the laundry that I started this morning.  Took a break and had a lunch date with my darling daughter.  I promised hubby that I would get the laundry done before he got home and as I write this he is pulling into the driveway.  All my stuff is neatly piled up for Monday, I just need to get into a bag.  

Yes maybe-Although I am going to miss the time at home with hubby I am so much better with a schedule and need to get back to it.  I have gained more than one pound while on break despite my best effort to walk daily.  No excuses going forward.  I need to make time for the treadmill each and every day no matter how much work I have or think I have.  

Hope everyone has enjoyed their break.  I hit the ground running Monday morning!