A Very Exciting Package Arrived Today! and other randomness

Okay, so no other person on the planet is going to celebrate this like I am, but my school yearbooks finally arrived!!!  This was my first year as the yearbook sponsor (aka- school photographer, nag, and pretty much entire do-er of the entire stinking thing... grumble, grumble...) and while it was hours and hours (and MORE hours) of work, they're finished and published and look amazing! (although I might be a little biased.) Now, if someone comes up and tells me they found a mistake I might have to knock them out, but for right now I'm going to enjoy the feeling of opening a big box of a project that was pretty much completely mine and watching my little readers dive in and enjoy being engaged in text. And then I'll start knocking people out.

Do any of you do the yearbook? What shortcuts have you found? I am looping up with my class (heaven help them) and worried about time requirements.  For real. These bad boys took me about 150 hours! Yikesers... I'm going to pretend I never figured that number out.  

I'm selling some of my kids' old toys at a consignment sale this weekend and took it to drop off tonight. Here's what my car looked like when I opened up the back.  Hee hee.  This picture makes me laugh just because of how crazy I know it would make my very OCD husband.  I'm such a dang disorganized mess sometimes.

Lastly in this very random post (which I am just realizing has absolutely not one iota of classroom stuff in it... opps!) I leave you with one of my school darlings.  He loves his cowboy boots and wears them with everything- as you can see in this picture.  The day before he tucked his sweatpants in to them. Love him.  Lots. (And btw- that is not a passed out child behind him. They are rolling down the hill. Don't ask.)

 I'll be back soon to post our Ocean stuff!

Currently- April

This is my first EVER currently!  It was super easy!

I linked up at Oh Boy 4th Grade. Go over and check her out!

Oh Olivia... You Really Wear Me Out but I Love You Anyway!

Oh holy night.  What a week already!  I ALWAYS stay late on Fridays to plan/make copies/ prep centers. Well, last week was Spring Break and I decided to just mail it in.  I am paying for that b-i-g time. I just can’t function this way. I’ve been living out of a big pile of papers and it is driving me nutso. Lesson learned.

Anyway, amidst the disaster that is my desk, this week in Treasures we focused on Olivia by Ian Falconer.  Don’t you just adore that little pig? She cracks me up, and my class this year has pretty good listening comprehension so at some points they were hystercally giggling at her antics.

As far as their comprehension goes, I’ve noticed that they often struggle to identify problem and solution so we took an Olivia book a day, read it, discussed, and listed all the problems and solutions we could think of.  Here’s what that looked like. Not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever done, but it worked. 

Then we made an Olivia craft that sorta turned out looking like a bunny…  and added a Problem and Solution foldable. 

 

 

We listed adjectives that describled Olivia (this knocked my socks off- persistent, creative, and onry were my favorites.) I think the bubble map I made for this was attrocious so I’m not sharing. :)   It’s embarassing but I put it together in two minutes. My teammate played a fun little game where each group thought of adjectives together and the group with the most won a sticker. Isn’t it amazing how har they’ll work for a sticker? Gotta love first graders.

Have you read the newest book in the series? 

 

Ha!  I’m raising your typical pink fairy princess girl so this book cracks me up.  “There are alternatives.”  If you haven’t read it- run to go find it. It’s amazing. 

 We compared it to David Shannon’s Alice the Fairy to meet those CCSS about comparing characters and they really liked it!  Even the boys participated. :)  Here is a link to the GO if you’d like it. 

Did you make it to the end of this? Impressive!  Here is my Olivia positive behavior note as a reward. Thanks for coming by.

One Grumpy Bunny

Oh Friday. I've been looking forward to you all week! I'm posting this stuck in traffic (don't worry- voice to text!) and Andrew has to work ALL weekend so I'm already a little grumpy this morning but I thought I'd swing by and let you know that I'm putting my stuff on sale this weekend too. And I know you're supposed to just pick five items, but since I only have about five items I just decided to put everything on sale. And I know I've been the most negligent blogger ever lately, but I have a post in the works about all the stuff we've been doing with Olivia this week. Check back later for some fun with that silly piglet.

Click below to go to my store because I can't figure out how to link the picture from my phone. Oh geez. I need coffee...

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jeremie-Tharp

Holy Assessment Time, Batman!

Have you guys been assessing like crazy lately? Does it make me strange that I actually sort of like the assessment piece of the job?  Besides those few kids who get stuck on the format and who need it modified for them, I've found that good, kid-friendly assessments can give us awesome information about what they still need and even where we can begin the reteaching process.  On the other hand, I've been staring at a stack of papers to grade all weekend and that isn't so exciting, but it is a means to an end.

Here is a link to the set of assessments that I created for my district to use for Quarter Three, although they really could be used at any point throughout the year. They are all short little two page assessments, with a few rubrics, writing samples, and checklists thrown in.  I've just given them in my classroom and tried to work out any kinks or change any wording that was confusing but would love to hear feedback. I also made a set that we used to assess at the beginning of the year, a set for Quarter 1 and a set for Quarter 2.  They're almost all different, but a few of them- Sight Words and Speaking and Listening- stay the same.

Here is a link to their listing.

And here is a free sample of one of the assessments so you can see what the assessments sort of look like.  This is the Past Tense Verbs Assessment. What do you think? Just click on the picture to download it.

Happy testing friends!

Character Adjectives FREEBIE

As I've been assessing my kids with all of the new assessments I JUST finished (more about those later), I'm finding that they straight up STINK at giving adjectives that describe characters that are actually supported by the text. What the heck? I totally thought they had that. Double dang.  So, since we're deep in the heart of all things Seuss this week, we're gonna choose our favorite character, list some adjectives that describe them, and then write how we got that idea.  I thought maybe someone else could use it, too, so here it is. Just click on it to download it. If you do find it useful, tell me how it worked so I can use it that way, too!

Look What It Only Took Me Months To Figure Out!

I am so proud of myself!  Look what I made this morning... My very first product preview! It only took me, like, three hours (hopefully I get better at it with time...) and I'm sure I did it in the most complicated way possible, but I'm happy with it and I knew that only the world of bloggers would understand why I am so excited. There are some things the husband just won't ever get, and this is one of them.  Just click on the picture to see the actual product on TpT. Hopefully Part Three of these assessments will be out soon. They're a work in progress and my lovelies are impeding the actual progress.