The End is Near!! (Five for Friday)

Hello ladies and gents! It is the end of yet another week and time for yet another link up. I will be joining a good 'ol fashion Five for Friday party with Doodle Bugs! (Yes, I posted this on Thursday. Approx. 2 hours and 28 minutes before Friday arrives. EEP! Sorry.)

 Living History Museum

The fourth graders in my current building put together one of the best research projects ever! They have to pick and research a famous Missourian, write a paper about them, and then put together a presentation. The best part of the whole project is that their presentations required them to BECOME the famous Missourian! 

During this "Living History Museum" other students, teachers, and parents pick a "famous Missourian", push the button on their hands (which is a sticker) and off they go.

Most (but not all) students memorized the facts about their famous Missourian and used posters as guides.

These kiddos are always SO creative and excited for this project and I have a BLAST seeing and hearing everyone portray their famous person. Some students put together presentation using other resources such as emaze.com and prezi.com instead of taking part in the Living History Museum. However, they still had to present and show their work to guests.

Art Show!

This week is the annual art show in my building. I love seeing all of the work that they are most proud of. Plus, our art teacher does a fabulous job putting together a great show

Rockin' the Rainforest

Bringing the focus down to my specific class (ELL)... Our second graders read the fiction and non-fiction Magic School Bus Books about the rainforest (we even let them watch the actual episode).

After we finished, we had them pick a rainforest layer (Emergent, Understory, Canopy, & Forest Floor). They had to find out what types of plants and animals reside in that layer and put it together in a poster. Each poster is a piece of one isolated tree in the rainforest.

Now, it took a little work on my part to help them draw the tree in a way that would allow them all to puzzle piece together, but the rest was all on them!

Despite the coloring being a little wack-a-doodle, the giant poster came together quite nicely. They were 10x more excited than I thought they would be to see each piece put together at the end. The lead teacher and I were proud of their work.

SUMMER PARTAAAAY!

Our last day of school is the 21st, but the last day we pull kiddos for ELL was this week. That means it is PARTY TIME!!

We decorated the room in a Summer/Beach/Hawaiian theme to get the kiddos excited and ready for their upcoming break. We also watched an episode of Magic School Bus while they had fruit snacks, juice, and popcorn.

 The lead teacher and I wanted to give our students the opportunity to keep their reading and comprehension skills sharp over the summer. So, as a part of the party, we had each student choose 3-4 books from our classroom library to take home and read over break. We gave them all a couple of addressed and stamped envelopes with a sheet of general comprehension questions. We asked that after they finished each book, they mail us their responses throughout the summer. They were THRILLED at the idea of sending us mail! I am overjoyed by their motivation.

Now, before everyone's stomach turns, we did not spend all of our money on these books. A lot of them were donated and the lead teacher set up a donation fund on DonorsChoose.org to raise money for them. Also, we asked that they please return them to us next year. (The ones who were graduating out of the building or moving next year just got to keep them for good.)

WHOA! Gettin' Fancy Over Here!

So in my last post I had a comment from this lovely lady name Deb Maxwell, who runs the Not Very Fancy In First blog (Go check out her blog. Now. Do it now. Please?). She pointed out that I did not have a visible BlogLovin' button so she couldn't follow me.

WELL DRAT!

I hadn't realized that my novice little blog was missing these social media links. So, of course, I was on a mission to add them! Sooooooooooo....

VIOLA!
(Scroll up to the top of my sidebar to find the actual buttons!)

You can now follow me on BlogLovin and Pinterest, you can shoot me an e-mail, and you can visit (and "like') my Facebook Page. Now, if you go to the Facebook page, don't judge it too hard. I just recently created it so its pretty barren. Bare with this wee-little newbie! :-)

Now, my next order of business will be to create a blog button! Don't worry, y'all, it's comin' along nicely here at this Dog-Gone Good Blog! :-)

Don't forget to visit the DoodleBugs and Not Very Fancy In First blogs!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Dogs Don't Brush Their Teeth (Wordless Wednesday)

I'm Linkin' Up with the lovely Miss. DeCarbo  today for a Wordless Wednesday. This is my first time linkin' up to this party. :-)

The photo(s) I chose for this wonderful Hump Day... Er, I mean Wordless Wednesday... Is a photo of a book that another teacher donated to me for my classroom library next year. Since my classroom will be dog-themed, it is just perfect! Plus, it is just too darn cute.

I am considering reading this cute book on the first day of school and then having the students help me make a chart of what "Good Learners Do and Don't Do". It's just an idea, though. Knowing me, I will change my mind between now and August.


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High Five (for Friday) To All You Teachers!

What a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week it has been! My current school is very enthusiastic and selfless during this time of year. We have a phenomenal group of people working in our front office and in other supportive areas around the school that makes this week very special.

Therefore, this is my very Teachery-Appreciationy Five for Friday! :-)

Rainbows, Flowers, and GOODIES!

The wonderful office ladies, PTA, and other fantabulous people around the building decorated our teachers lounge for the whole week. Each day there were some gifts either spread out on this table, or stashed in our mailboxes. My favorite gift on this particular day was some bright pink nail polish! :)

Snacks Galore!

One of the special days came with a delicious snack bar! All day long we could sneak into the lounge and grab some snacks, and, of course, we could pig out during lunch. My personal favorite was the bowl of Reeses. I ate two, or three, or six...

Rout-44... All Over The Floor...

Thursday the principal ordered us all Rout-44 Sonic Drinks. YUM! I got a delicious Vanilla Dr. Pepper! On the hard days, a good fat soda is really what makes a difference. ;-)

However, a good fat soda all over me and the floor can be what makes me bonkers! *face palm* 

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

Steering away from Teacher Appreciation Week... The third graders in our building are studying life cycles and they have the wonderful opportunity to witnessing part of one themselves! Throughout the whole week they got to watch little chicks break out from their eggs and turn from a collection of weird little wet feathers into the cutest little balls of fur. The whole school loves this time of year because even other grade levels get sneak peeks here and there.

Aren't they just SO stinkin' cute!?!?!

Nothing Beats Free!

There's a teacher in my building who taught first grade for about 13 years. Next year she is transferring to our behavior specialist building. Therefore, she is cleaning house! She is giving me all of her first grade books so that I can add them to my classroom library next year. SO excited and SO very thankful!

That's the end of my Five for Friday. I would like to wrap things up by thanking any and ALL school personnel for what they do every single day, not just teachers! It is the overall academic atmosphere and the love, passion, and perseverance of teachers that made me who I am today, as well as inspired me to become a teacher myself.

You all inspire the world!

To Do List...

My ever-growing list of things to do and things I want in my room...

1. Create my behavior clip chart (and my clips for that matter). It'll be dog-themed of course. Something like this perhaps... (compliments to Katie Mence over at Little Kinder Warriors).

Click to see this item in the TPT Store

2. Create coupons and sticker charts to compliment the clip chart. Stickers will be earned depending on the location of the clip on the chart each day, and coupons will be earned after so many stickers are put on their chart.

3. I also want to use brag tags. I absolutely love the idea of brag tags. They will just be another way for me to positively reinforce behavior, academic accomplishments, and simply celebrate other special events. Here are a few screenshots of my tags...

And I hope my Brag Tag board will look something like this... (Compliments to the Lucky Little Learners blog for the image and idea!).

Click the image to see this item in the TPT Store

4. I am thinking about using "Challenge Capsules" or "Mystery Missions" for when students finish work early. I got the idea from this image on Pinterest... (Compliments to the Mrs.Golds Class blog).

I will need to figure out what tasks to put on the strips of paper and what my capsules will be.

5. I am going to have "Sharpened" and "Un-sharpened" pencil buckets. Need to label those.

6. I need to gather, organize, and print file-folder games. TPT has done well providing me with some of those.

7. I need to print my Teacher Binder Sheets and put them into this cute three-right binder.

8. I need to create a Common Core Standards binder for first grade.

9. I need to find, print, and organize the "I Can" statements written by the district.

10. I need to create and print clock time labels.

11. I need to purchase, print, and organize these wonderful intervention notebooks I found on TPT. (Compliments to Miss. DeCarbo over at Second Grade Sugar And Spice)

Click image to see this item in the TPT store

Click image to see item in TPT store

12. I need to create and print class job labels. Still figuring out how many and what jobs to have.

13. Class pet? I want a class pet. I want a little fishy. Or a turtle. But its not priority. Don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

14. I need to find and purchase a cute classroom rug. Absolutely dreading the money I will spend on that.

15. Purchase an easel. (Getting one for 5 dollars off Facebook swap and shops. WOOT!)

16. Create and print table labels to hang from the ceiling. Hope they look something like this... (Compliments to School Girl Style)

17. Level every book I have for AR (Accelerated Reader). Dreading that because I have already spent so much time leveling them for DRA and GLE, but I didn't anticipating needing to do AR. *sigh*

18. Decide how to organize my classroom library and create/print those labels.

19. Find and purchase plastic bins for classroom library.

20. Find and purchase other bins for student Book Browsers.

21. Do I want a set of plastic drawers at each table for organization? Yes. I think I may purchase those. This is where my interest came from (Compliments to the First Grade Teaching Lady)

22. Purchase plastic drawers for my day-to-day plans and other teacher organization. Something like this... (Compliments to Erica over at Erica's Ed-Ventures and to the Conversations in Literacy blog).

23. Purchase drawers for file folder games.

24. Create a filing system for master copies.

There is more, I just know it. But this is a start. Anyone got any ideas or advice? PLEASE share. I welcome and cherish all the help that I can get.

p.s. here are the buttons (IF they had buttons) to all of the blogs I visited and got these ideas from. :-)