Five for Friday

I haven't linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her awesome Five for Friday posts in forever!

So here's a look at our week.

1.  We've been practicing partner reading in my intervention groups (yes, we're outside but that's for another post).  I've been using these Text Based Evidence Reading Passages by Miss Decarbo.  They're perfect for struggling 3rd graders.  We get to work on fluency and comprehension at the same time!  There are nonfiction and fiction passages that go along with the seasons.  Perfect!

2.  My Fluency Task Cards have been a big hit!  We've been working on reading with expression.  They love listening to how their voice changes.  Did you download your freebie November Fluency Task Cards Reading with Expression yet?

3.  I do progress monitoring on my intervention groups ever Friday.  My kids did GREAT today.  Almost all of them showed growth since last week.   I love seeing those graphs go up!  Remember how I mentioned we were outside?  Well, it does make it difficult for some kids to read well when there are Navy jets flying overhead.  :/

4.  Do you subscribe to the Daily 5 Weekly Tip Newsletter?  If so, you might have recognized some Hawaiian bloggers in it!  I was so honored to be in the newsletter, along with Teaching in Paradise, Tonya's Treats for Teachers, Teaching with Style, and Surfin' Through Second.

5.  I have officially removed all candy in the house from Halloween!  Were you kiddos crazy?  I found my daughter asleep like this last weekend.

Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday - August 16th

I've been slacking on the blogging issue, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.  I've been so tired since I started back to school.  Any other teachers dragging right now?

So I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to show you a glimpse of my week.

Last weekend, I got to meet up with some of my favorite blogging friends!  Tonya from Tonya's Treats for Teachers is on the left and just moved to Hawaii and lives right near me.  Courtney from Teaching in Paradise is next and her school is right near Target.  Here in Hawaii that's a BIG deal!  I'm next.  And then sweet Sarah from Smiling in Second Grade was here visiting for vacation and got to come meet up with us.  So fun!

My students have been reviewing beginning sounds last week.  Come check out my post {here} on A Special Sparkle about how I did an easy accommodation for one of my struggling students.

We also worked on counting on from numbers other than 1.  Look for this to be added to my TpT store in the near future!

At our Wednesday faculty meeting, we all looked at our students reading level and made a visual chart of where they fell on the Tier Level.  Here's my first grade students based upon their F&P level from the end of kindergarten year.  We also wrote where we want our students to be by the end of this year if they make a year's worth of growth.  I have 3 preA students who need to be a level D by the end of the year and 2 level B students who need to be a level G.  I have my work cut out for me!

I'm super excited about the big sale about to start on Teachers Pay Teachers.  My wishlist is FULL and I need stuff for my classroom!  My store {here} will be 20% off so you can get 28% off if you use code BTS13 at check out.  

Five for Friday ~ May 31

I've been pretty absent lately.  We've wrapped up the end of the school year here in Hawaii a week ago.  I can't believe how fast the first week of summer has gone.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to show you what we've been up to in sunny Hawaii.

1.  We spent Sunday at our favorite beach with our crazy dog and awesome neighbors.

2.  On Monday, we spent the day snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.  It's an awesome place and a must see if you visit Oahu.  You can check it out more by going {here}.

3.  By Monday night, I had a sick little girl running a fever and in a lot of stomach pain.

4.  We ended up in the ER on Tuesday.  The docs at the local ER were pretty sure it was appendicitis.  We had resolved ourselves to the fact that our little girl would need surgery as we were transferred to the Army hospital here.  Once we got admitted, they questioned the appendicitis diagnosis.  Turns out she just had a really bad stomach virus but we still spent the night in the hospital and she got lots of IV fluids.  It was pretty traumatic for everybody but at least we avoided surgery.

 5.  I was so happy to get my new Eric Condren Teacher Planner in the mail yesterday.  I LOVE this thing.  It was almost too pretty to write in!  I need to get some new fancy pens in different colors for sure.

Five for Friday - May 3rd (or 4th)

Yay for Friday!!!  I'm currently at home and lounging on the couch.  It's glorious!  My husband wants to go watch Iron Man 3 tonight, but I really just want to sit right here.  So happy that it's Friday, and I can link up for Five for Friday.

1.  This is our crazy dog, Harley.  Lately, she's gotten a little moody.  Very upset with us to the point where she won't even look at us when we pet her and she's sulking all the time.  At the new house, the kids are outside playing ALL from the second they get home.  I think she feels left out.  Who knew dogs could be so moody???

2.  Let's just say that Tuesday SUCKED big time.  Wow, it was a rough, rough day.  This was a super long week.

3.  After Tuesday, I really had to reflect on what I could do differently so that these types of behavior could be prevented BEFORE they get to this point.  Although, I'm not really sure if anything would have helped on Tuesday.  I'm working on some new stuff to help deal with anger and frustration.  I used the thermometer chart today with my student, and he really was able to identify where he was on the thermometer.  I'll be back to let you know when it's all complete.

4.  Despite all the behavior problems, I've been "trying" to get some curriculum and assessing done this week.  We've worked on composing and decomposing numbers with this awesome pack by Kindergarten Smorgasboard that you can check out by clicking {here).

5.  We also started working on place value Friday afternoon.  I had over half of my students absent Monday - Thursday.  I was hoping to start working on this earlier in the week but had to keep pushing it back.  So Friday afternoon, I got to introduce place value during an observation at 1pm.  Seriously, observations on a Friday afternoon at 1pm?  That's just not fair.  To help us practice building numbers with tens and ones, I used this awesome Constructing Numbers unit by A Differentiated Kindergarten.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Five for Friday - April 26

I'm finally back with my favorite post of the week, Five for Friday by Doodle Bugs Teaching!

I missed the past 2 weeks, because we moved onto base housing!  Sometimes base housing can be not that great, but ours is really nice and brand spanking new!  Here's my new kitchen.

Which is only 1,000 times better than the very small kitchen in the very expensive, very small house we were temporarily renting before.  

We're still not all unpacked, but honestly, that's going to have to wait till summer.  Until now, we're just enjoying this fabulous view when we drive out of our neighborhood (did I mention you can see the ocean from all of the bedrooms?).

And I have to take a moment to brag, my sweet Kylie was Citizen of the Month.  So proud of her!

We've started working on word families and I'm using materials from this Ready 2 Read Unit by The Moffatt Girls.  I love her stuff!  So many great activities.  We started with just the -at family.  

That was going pretty well UNTIL I introduced the -an family this week!  Oh my!  We're gonna needs lots and lots of practice working on reading these skills.  I decided my students need practice just listening to the words and deciding if it's an -at or -an family word.  Right now, I'm working on this mini-unit to help them out.  I hope to have it done this weekend, because they need to get busy with the extra practice ASAP!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!  I'm mostly ready to sleep.  Sooooo wore out this week.

Five for Friday - April 5th

Another week down means it's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my favorite linky party!

Another week down means that I only have 30 teaching days left this year.  Not that I'm counting on anything.  ;)

Last Sunday, we spent Easter at my favorite place.....the beach!  It was a little untraditional, but we had a great day.  We brought our eggs to the beach and did an egg hunt there.  Old coconut shells make great places to hide eggs. :D

Did anyone else feel like pulling their hair out this week?  I've had pencils thrown at my head, an aide that can't come to work on time or even at all (what's up with that?), students rolling around on the floor for 40 minutes in a temper tantrum, and sat through too many hours of meetings. :(

So the only solution some evenings was to take this giant dog to her favorite place and let her chase a ball.  She's a maniac and loves playing fetch.  If you don't bring her ball, she'll find a nut and actually fetch a nut.  :/

Does anyone else play Candy Crush?  If you don't play it, don't start!  It will suck you in so quick and then you'll want to pull your hair out even more. But it is fun! :P

Meanwhile back at school, we actually did work on some skills this week.  We've been working on segmenting sounds in words.  Boy is this a challenging skill!  The Elkonin boxes with chips are definitely helping.  I'm hoping to make some progress next week with this skill and move onto word families the following week.  Wish me luck!

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Five for Friday - March 29

Normally, I'm so excited link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday.  I'm not as excited today, because it means my amazing spring break is almost over.  Boo!

This has seriously been my most enjoyable spring break ever.  I have sooooo many pictures, but I'll try to limit them to the most important things we did.  I guess I'll have to save the other pictures for another post.

Our first stop was Waimea Falls.  It's such a gorgeous place!  There are so many really cool plants.  They have Hawaiian huts that you can explore and see how people used to live many years ago.  You can swim to the waterfall at the end (or if you're lucky a very fit lifeguard will give you a ride on his surfboard). 

We've been meaning to visit the USS Arizona Memorial since we arrived on island.  I'm so glad we took the time to visit the memorial.  If you visit Hawaii, I highly recommend going here.  You do need to get there very early though or make reservations through their website.  They only give so many tickets each day.  We were fortunate that a Park Ranger had 6 extra tickets and gave them to us for a tour right after we arrived.  Otherwise, we would have waited about 3 hours before we were able to go on the tour.

Before you take a ferry to see the memorial, you watch a 9-minute movie that does a great job explaining the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the damage that was done so quickly.  Can you imagine a whole battleship sinking in less than 10 minutes?

The USS Arizona is still leaking oil, despite it being over 70 years since it sunk.  Not only can you see the oil floating on the water, the smell was incredibly strong.

I was also surprised to learn that many of survivors of the USS Alabama have chosen to have their cremated remains placed back inside the USS Alabama with their fallen comrades.  What a tragic day on December 7, 1941, and those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country should be remembered.

We also did some hiking at one of the kids' favorite spots.  They love hiking up to the pillboxes in Lanikai.

We explored some new beaches at Bellows Air Force Base, which is right near where we live.  It's gorgeous there!  We're already planning a trip back for this weekend.

And finally, it's time for some spring cleaning!  Not only does my house need to be cleaned (you won't believe how much sand accumulates in here), my TpT wishlist needs to be cleaned out!  I'm having a sale on my entire store for Saturday and Sunday.  You can get 20% off the entire store.

I'll definitely be cleaning out my wish list, because there are some other great bloggers joining in on this sale!

Five for Friday - March 22

Happy Friday everyone!  I've been on Spring Break, so this last week has been sooooo nice!  This was exactly what I needed to get out of a funk I've been in lately.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday.

Since I'm on Spring Break, I'm going to share with you guys how I've spent the last week.  We've been in Hawaii for 3 months, but I honestly feel like I haven't been able to enjoy it until this week.  As soon as we arrived, we were slammed with looking for a house, job hunting, and getting settled in.  Then I started work right away, and it's been very exhausting.  I needed this break for a lot of reasons!

Here's some of my past week.

1.  First thing to do was get stocked up with some good reading material.  I've read 2 books (Daddy Love and Collateral), and I'm almost done with Something Wicked).  Daddy Love was disturbing.  It wasn't necessarily bad but too disturbing (kidnapping, child abuse, etc.).  I don't recommend it.  Collateral was really good if you like Ellen Hopkins style of writing (poems).  It's about a girl's relationship with a Marine as he goes through deployments.  I could definitely relate to parts of the book and felt like she did a great job.  I'm almost done with Something Wicked, so I'll hold judgement till I get done.

2.  This is how I've been spending my days!  

3.  Everyone wears collared shirts to the beach, right?

4.  This might be my MOST favorite picture of me and the triplets ever, even if Brody's not smiling.

5.  I got to hang out with some other awesome Hawaiian bloggers!  This is Nicole from Teaching With Style and Corinna from Surfin' Through Second.   Such a great time visiting, eating pupus, and having drinks!

I have a whole other week of Spring Break left and lots of stuff planned for the next week.  Make sure you check back next week to see some more pics as we play tourist here in Hawaii.