Today's Look - 8/28

It was hot today. WAY too hot for a jean jacket, long skirt, and a scarf. But hey, I guess you learn the best lessons the hard way. Love this outfit anyway!

Jean Jacket: American Eagle

Maxi Skirt: Jc Penney

Tank: American Eagle

Scarf: Old Navy

"Can we call him Rick?"

Wednesday of a 4 day week means one more day until a long weekend!

Starting this week, I will be adding one daily activity per week that I will take over for Mrs. Hoffman. Week by week I'll be adding another portion of the day that I"m in control of the classroom until eventually, it'll be all me!

This week's activity was the morning routine. It's pretty basic, which is a good starting point for me. We do the calendar with the students; What day is it? The Date? How many days have we been in school? Plus a few other wake-up items to kick off our day. M

Mrs. Hoffman has a tradition in her room that at the beginning of the year, one of the students will be chosen to be the King or Queen of the day. Each student will be the king or queen until everyone has gotten a chance. They get to wear a cutesy crown and be the line leader all day. The King or Queen is chosen by pulling a name out of a hat. That special person comes forward and as a class we practice spelling their name and ask them around 10 questions about themselves (age, birthday, favorite food color tv show toy etc.....).

Well.........

I may have left out one teensy tiny part between spelling their name and asking questions about the King/Queen.

Mrs. Hoffman does one other thing for the king or queen of the day.

She draws them.
On the whiteboard.
In front of the class.
For everyone to see.

Did I mention that this week I'm now in charge of King/Queen and the morning routine? Oh, I did? I was hoping you'd forget and we could move on.....

I now have to draw the King/Queen, just like Mrs. Hoffman did, on the whiteboard!

Okay seriously, I was a nervous wreck the first day. I mean how awful would it be for them to get to see Mrs.Hoffman's adorable cartooney drawings of the first 5 king/queens, with precise detail and ease, and then, they get stuck with me, and I make them look like a monkey?! I would feel terrible!

So I went home and I practiced drawing. No joke. I practiced drawing just like Mrs. Hoffman draws hers!

Below is a picture of 1 of Mrs.Hoffman's king/queen drawings:

 Now here is my first time doing a king/queen drawing:

 Not bad right?! I wasn't worried at all ;)

One more quick story!

 We are introducing base ten numbers and using a ten frame to represent the 10 in teen numbers during math lessons. As with most elementary based instruction, there is a character that goes with 10 frames. Mrs. Hoffman introduced him the class as "Tommy ten-frame! Everyone Say 'hi' to Tommy...." In which one of our most commentary filled students replies:

"aww! Hi! But can we call him Rick?"

Haha! For some reason, I don't think Rick Ten-Frame has as nice of a ring to it!

Monday Funday and Bulletin Boards!

Wowza, Mondays are exhausting! Shouldn't we have a weekend to recover from our weekend?!

Today actually went very smoothly! Either the students were feeling much like I was (Sleepy!) or they are finally getting the hang of being back in school (fingers crossed!).

I wanted to post some pictures of the bulletins Mrs. Hoffman and I have been working on with the class the past few weeks and the activities that correlate.

Last week, Mrs. Hoffman read the students a story called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault. Such a cute story about each letter in the alphabet climbing up a coconut tree. The students each got to make their own coconut tree with step by step instruction by Mrs. Hoffman, and then were set off the hunt through a few boxes of sticky foam letters to find all the letters in their name. 

See how it looks like the letters climbed the tree and are making it lean to one side? That's how it happens in the story :) 

They turned out great!

We also did a taste test of 4 kinds of M&Ms and each student got to vote which they liked the best. Mrs. Hoffman's room "theme" is M&M so this activity was a great way to start the school year. 

Luckily, there are no serious allergies in the room this year so all the students were able to participate in the M&M taste test. We passed out 1 of each type of M&M to each student and tried them 1 by 1 as a class. 

1. Plain M&Ms

2. Peanut m&Ms

3. Peanut Butter M&Ms

4. Mystery (Coconut)

The students got a slip of paper to write which number they liked the best. We then created a graph representing the votes for each type of M&M. This was great to visually represent 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most liked flavor. The students could connect that the flavor with the most votes, meant that was the flavor most people chose. Creating graphs and talking through them is a great activity and this was a fun (and tasty) way to introduce a basic graph.

Each student also created their own M&M person to hang outside in the hallway with our graph. They got to choose which color they wanted and then we created them together step by step, like the coconut trees.

Because we only have art class once a week, we do a lot of art activities in class. It's great seeing Mrs. Hoffman walk the students through drawing and being precise, especially when drawing people. She talks about shapes and actuality of creating figures. She breaks the activity down so that it really is an actual art lesson. Art is easily incorporated into a lot of activity and I think it's really important to have art lessons in school, so it works great to tie it in with math and literacy!

Plus, the art projects always turn out so darn cute!!

Student Teaching Outfits

           Okay this may be my favorite thing to post about! Before summer was over, my mom, sister and I went on a serious student teaching wardrobe shopping spree. We luckily found the majority of my wardrobe in the clearance section at JC Penneys! Seriously, cute stuff. I bought a lot of basics so I can make tons of outfits from the clothes I bought. It's still in the 90's until at least December in Kansas so I wanted to make sure I was comfortable, but always professional. The dress code for teachers allows dressy sandals and tailored shorts, so I picked up a lot of those, which helps to beat the heat in a classroom with 26 other bodies. I felt vERY successful after our trip and will do my best to post about my school outfits as much as I can remember :)

Top: Jc Penneys

Skirt: JC Penneys

Necklace: Forever 21

The outfit above and below feature my favorite shirt I bought from Jc Penneys. It is so comfy and looks great with anything!

 Top: JC Penneys

Cropped Pants: Jc Penneys 

(These are SO cute and fun! They have pockets at the side and cuff beautifully mid-calf. Perfect for the classroom where you're constantly getting up and down and squatting to tie approximately 19 pairs of shoes per day!)

 Flats: Found these babies at K-mart for $4.99!!!! I got them in 2 colors! I'm telling you, hit up k-mart for their summer shoe sale! I bought 6 pairs of dress shoes for $32!

This entire outfit was constructed from my favorite place to shop: Closet de Desi

aka. my sister's hand-me-downs

She worked at Jc Penneys for 3 years so she bought a lot, which resorted in her passing along a lot to her fantastic little sister :)

sweater: jc Penneys

Cropped trousers: Jc Penneys 

(these pants are fantastic. They are business pants that are cuffed mid-calf. Perfect for late summer and fall and look very professional!)

Beginning of the day....

Each morning, the students come in and check to make sure they have 2 sharp pencils in their desk, 5 books from Mrs. Hoffman's classroom library. I need to take a picture, or multiple pictures, of her collection of books. I hope to one day have a classroom filled with every type of children's book imaginable. After these 2 jobs, they often do an activity page left on their desk and then have the choice of coloring, reading, or doing a puzzle. School begins at 8:05 and by 8:15 Mrs. Hoffman plays this song to "cue" the students that it is time to clean up, put away whatever they are doing, and have a seat on the floor space.

This song is so wonderful! I have never heard it before but the words are so fun and uplifting for kids. Plus it is performed by Will.I.am. from the Black Eyed Peas and the cast of Sesame Streets! I love watching the kids sing along and put up their muscles when Will.i.am talks about being stronger. I recommend this for any kids' playlist!

 Last year Mrs. Hoffman found those stretchy book covers on sale for 49 cents a piece at Dillions and happened to pick a bunch up. She saw on pinterest an idea to attach them to the back of the students' chairs to hold their whiteboard, marker, and eraser for practicing math and numeral writing. She had a lot of markers and erasers become lost in the students' desks throughout the year so we crossed our fingers this would work.

I love them! They turned out soooo cute and fit perfectly over the chairs. This gives the students easy access to their supplies without having to dig through their desks looking for everything when we're ready to start math. They look like little super-hero capes on the backs of their chairs. It's especially cute when they're sitting down. It looks as if Mrs. Hoffman is holding the staff meeting of all the Marvel superheroes! These are definitely something I would love to have in my own classroom one day.

First Day of First Grade

In the words of Billy Madison "I got my bag all packed, my boots tied tight......back to school!"

I haven't been able to start my posts for my student teaching blog prior to now because I didn't have internet hooked up until Thursday! Now, I am hoping to post more frequently on my student teaching experiences :)

I am in a 1st grade classroom with a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Hoffman, who has been teaching elementary grades for 32 years. She really walks me through things and keeps me in check with the process of planning, preparing, and executing lessons. We have worked out the calendar for the semester and by November I should be leading the class solo every school day. I am required to lead the class for at least two weeks out of the semester on my own. Mrs. Hoffman will be in and out of the room throughout the day, but she really wants me to get the feel of being in total control of the lesson and the activities while managing the classroom.

There are 24 kids in our class and they are a hoot! I can't tell you how exciting it was watching them walk into 1st grade on that first day of school. To them, the step between kindergarten and first grade is enormous! They are officially big kids now and they know it. The most difficult part of the transition is really getting the student back into a routine after being off for summer break. By 3:00 each day they are beat (and so am I!).