Honored!

Thank you Mrs. Harris  (  http://adventuresofroom129.blogspot.com  ) for honoring me with this award!


Here is what you need to do to keep the award going:


1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award


2. Share 7 things about yourself


3. Award 5 recently discovered great bloggers


4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award


Hmmm..... 7 things about me:
  1. I have two wonderful daughters (ages 15 and 4!)

 

  2.  I was a classroom aid for almost 12 years before I took my leap of faith into having my own classroom. Best leap ever!

3.  I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in second grade. 

4.  All our pets have the middle name of James - Bentley James, Oliver James, and Dexter James!

5. I lived in Queens, NY until I was 7 then we moved to Leeds, Maine! I went from a tar playground to a school in the middle of a corn field!

6. I love horror movies! For some reason when people hear this about me, they are shocked.

7.  When I look at where I was in my life just seven years ago, I think of the old cigarette add: "You have come a long way baby!" I could not have made this journey without my best friend, my Ed.

 5 Bloggers I have passed this award to:

http://mrsnielson-2ndgrade.blogspot.com/

http://msdurning.blogspot.com/

http://ladybugsteacherfiles.blogspot.com/

http://fabulousinfirst.blogspot.com/

http://frogsbeesundertheseas.blogspot.com/

Homophones!

Yesterday we started working with Homophones. I had one of those right - before - the - lesson - brain - cramps and decided to start my lesson a different way. Instead of me telling the students what homophones were I gave each student a card with a homophone pair on it. Students then got EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) with a classmate and talked about what they noticed about the words. Then we discussed what they noticed. This is what they came up with:
   * They sound the same ( with a little coaching from me... they wanted to say they were just the same)
   * They are spelled different.
   * They do not mean the same thing.

I was amazed and a bit proud of them ( well... and myself!)

We then listened to the homophone song and students had to highlight the homophone pairs in the poem.

Today they took a homophone pair and used a graphic organizer to draw a picture of the word, and use the word in a sentence. We are going to make these into a class book.

Snow day Frustration!

So.... home all day due to "Snowmagaden" and thought I would bake. Went to the fridge to get the ingredients for some peanut butter cookies... No eggs! UGH! Decided to do some updating on the blog - still having issues with Google Docs. For some reason, I can not get the link to show on the right side so I can embed my documents! One more frustration and I may just have to go outside and shovel!

Plurals

Next week we will start working with plurals. I made a concentration (memory) game for making words ending in a consonant +y plural.

Our year so far!

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Visualizing

Today we started learning about how readers make mental images using their schema when they read.  We listened to the Visualizing song.


 

Then, I read aloud the book Bedhead by Margi Palatini. As I was reading, students drew their mental images. After the story was finished, students found a partner and shared their drawings. Then, students adjusted their pictures. To finish the lesson we discussed why all of our pictures were different.... we all have different SCHEMA! 

 

Reindeer Day

Monday, December 20th was Reindeer Day!

A reindeer came to visit us at  school.

We learned:  
  *  Reindeer have wide hooves to help them stay on top of the snow!
  *  Both male and female reindeer have antlers!
  *  People have tamed reindeer to help them to do work!
  * Reindeer live in northern lands where it is very cold.

These are the reindeer magnets that we made with some clothespins, a magnet, a tiny pom pom, glue dots and googly eyes!


Another activity we did was writing a letter to Santa trying to persuade him why we would make good reindeer.