11 of 2011

A Teeny Tiny Teacher and Miss Kindergarten are hosting an Eleven in Eleven party.  Here is a look back at 2011.

11. Favorite movie you watched: 

Have to put two here.  The baseball fanatic in me loved Moneyball.  Billy Beane, also played in Portland, so a little piece of my hometown added to the charm.  Also, the final Harry Potter, the movie was great, but seeing it at midnight with all the fans in costume made the experience all the better!  

10. Favorite TV series:
Leverage!  Oh I how I love it.  The characters crack me up and it is filmed in Portland.

9. Favorite restaurant:
Spaghetti Factory!  Yum! Yum!  The pesto dressing is my favorite.

8. Favorite new thing you tried:
Blogging!  I have blog stalked for a while, and finally started my own blog:-)
7.  Favorite gift you got:
Students know me so well! 

6. Favorite thing you pinned:
Not in any way educational, but it was one of the first things I pinned....before I was an addict.

5. Favorite blog post:

Our photography art residency was such a great experience.  Arts are so important for kids!  My chickadees' final projects are masterpieces and I am still trying to figure out how to get copies for my house.

4. Best accomplishment:
During the summer, I challenged myself and my students to read a book a day, during the summer.  I got a little behind at one point, but caught up and completed the challenge.  During 2011, I read 112 books!  Sarah Addison Allen has become one of my new favorite authors.

3. Favorite picture:
Every spring, I coach 4th and 5th grade volleyball.  This picture was from our last game day.  Such a fun group of girls!   A couple of them, I started coaching in 3rd grade and taught some of them as 1st graders!  Bittersweet last game:-)

2. Favorite memory:
Camping at Timothy Lake...the whole weekend was so fun...even without real toilets!

1. Goal for 2012:
In all the reading I have done, I do not read much "classic" literature and nothing by Jane Austin.  So I am going to read at least 4 novels that fall into that category, and one of them a Jane Austin novel.

 

Bring on 2012!

Laurie

Festival of Light Success!

Today was finale to all our hard work over the past month.  The whole night was magical!  We started out in our classroom.  We read parts of our Festival of Light Book. 

We wrote 2 stories.  One was a true story about winter or Christmas.  The other was a fiction story.

"If I Had a Bright Shiny Nose"

True winter story

We added poetry to our writing collections.  A Hakiu, a concrete poem, and 5 Line Poem.

Illustration for the 5 Line poem.

We used fancy scissors to put borders around our Haikus and their illustrations.

 

 After everyone finished reading, we went to the cafeteria to see the lanterns.  

It was a great night!  Two former students played a harp and the piano for background music.  22 our ot 27 students and their families were able to attend.  Everyone got all their work completed.  Way to go Chickadees!  Onto tomorrow's Christmas party!

Gifts Galore! No Peeking til Christmas.

We have finished creating and wrapping our gifts to our families and our gifts to or fabulous classroom volunteers! 
For our volunteers, we put our thumbprints on a glass jar, with acrylic paint.  Then we used toothpicks and pencils to turn our thumbprints into reindeer.

Our parents are getting a new ornament for the Christmas tree.  We started with regular old puzzle pieces and glued them into a circle. (Then us teachers spray painted them green.)

Next we added our picture to the middle.  (Then us teachers hot glued on ribbon and a bow.)

And finally we wrapped it all up and, hopefully, put it under the tree.

Happy Gifting,
Laurie

Story Problem Math with a Problem

Students who complete a story problem with a single number answer frustrate me to no end.  Our current Investigation Unit is story problem heavy.  Last week, I was a broken record repeating, "Where is your thinking?"  and "How did you get that answer?" over and over and over again.  So today, determined to solve this problem, we made a chart to help us remember what to do!  It isn't the prettiest chart, but now we have a starting place to work from. As the week progresses, hopefully we can add to our list and begin doing this every time a story problem occurs.

Here's to hoping for some amazing math thinking.....on the paper!
-Laurie

Weekend Excitement!

This weekend has flown by, but so many fun things occurred! 1)  My house is about a two minute drive from school.  So each year, I invite my students over for a Christmas party.  18 of my 27 kiddos came over for an hour and a half.  We ate treats, played games, and had lots of fun.  Just a couple of photos to share.

Wii Games was a popular activity!  They are all WAAAAYYY better than I am !

Group photo!

2)  My blog got an award!

Thank you Miss T, from Journey of a Substitute Teacher.

Here are the award rules:
The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers.
*copy and paste the award on your blog
*thank the giver and link back to them
*reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers
My top 5 are:
1.  Life Lived Unknown
2.  A Teacher's Bag of Tricks
3.  The Teacher's Cauldron
4.  I Do, We Do, You Do
5.  Second Grade Two Step

Five more days to go!
Laurie

Festival of Lights Sneek Peek

Oh I can't wait for next Thursday's Festival of Lights!  So I had to light a few just to see what they look like so far!

Materials Needed:  Starch, balloon, tissue paper, and wire

 Materials Needed:  Milk jug and acrylic paint

 Materials Needed:  Clay and glaze

 Materials Needed:  2 Liter bottle, tempera paint, and black paper.

Check back next week, for the final product......a cafeteria FULL of these amazing lights!

3 Kinds of Readers

One of the things we did this week was learn about the 3 kinds of readers:  Pretender, Dutiful, or Engaged.  We made a chart about what each of the readers does during read to self.

 Then we made our own chart (sorry for the glare) 

Engaged reader is thinking, "I like this book.  It is cool."  The dutiful reader is thinking, "I don't like this book, but she told me to read it."  The pretender is thinking, "I like dogs."

And then we acted out what each of the readers would look like during read to self. 

Observers were to put their thumb up if they thought they could identify what type of reader each student was.

Festival of Lights Edition 1

It is the time of year for my favorite event!  Over 300 lanterns and luminaries all lit and placed throughout the cafeteria!  The Festival of Lights was started, at Sunnyside, a few years ago by the third grade team.  All of those teachers have now moved to new schools, and this year, 2nd grade is taking on the amazing-ness that is the Festival of Lights. 

Each student creates 4 different lanterns.
These are the first steps of each of the lanterns:

2-Liter Bottle Luminaries

We paint the inside of the 2-liter bottle with tempera paint and wait for it to dry.

Starch/Tissue Paper/Balloon Lantern

After covering our balloon with starch and tissue paper, we hang it up and wait for it to dry.

Drying Starch/Tissue Paper/Balloon Lanterns

Drying Clay Lanterns

Roll out the clay.  Wrap it around a pop bottle.  Design the top edge and add details to the middle.

 Stay tuned for step two.......