Winter Assessments

Well, we just received the results from our AIMS web assessments.  We administered the Nonsense Word Fluency test (NWF), Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, and the reading passage assessments.  My students did great on the reading passages but not so hot on the NWF!  Does that happen to your kiddos?  It's usually my highest readers that score the lowest on NWF.  Go figure!

We formed our new intervention groups and are set to go for next week!!

I went ahead and created a couple of games to play with my kids that really need the practice with nonsense words!  If they look like something you could use, I'd appreciate some feedback!  I'm trying to come up with some fun ways to encourage practice!

And then for my little froggies that need to work on sight words (I have a couple that are still on the first 20), I have this little game ready to go!  I'm lucky to have parent volunteers that come in daily.  I'll set them up with this little game for my kiddos to play.  Hopefully we'll be moving on to the next 20 soon...they are receiving extra RTI services!

That's it for today!  Happy Friday!!!!!

Long Weekend!

This is a personal post today!   I am trying to create more balance between teaching and family! I spent some good quality time with my friends and family...and had a great weekend with my daughters and friends!


We started with Dinner our with the family on Thursday evening!  Just my hubby and my girls!  It was nice.  We went to our family's favorite local Italian restaurant and sat in our favorite booth!  Aaron Rodgers is from our little town and this signed jersey is framed and hanging in the booth!

 On Saturday we all got together with friends and enjoyed a BBQ with yummy smores!  We had this lovely campfire!

We took a hike in our lovely city's treasure,  Bidwell Park.

My oldest triplet daughter and two great friends and teaching colleagues!

Poor California is experiencing quite a drought, but usually the background would be greener!  Also, we would not normally be wearing short sleeves and enjoying 75 degree weather in mid--January! What is up with the weather?  We enjoyed the beautiful weekend!

My youngest daughter found this gorgeous weather to be just the right time to clean the bunny cage and let the bun-buns run in the yard!  Then there was still some time for bunny cuddles!  So cute...doesn't she look exhausted?  She worked out 2 hours today...her first day of practice on the gymnastics team!

I'll try to have a post from the classroom this week!  We have been busy with our penguin adventures and learning about my favorite little birds!

Enjoy your week!

Penguins!

I think I say this every time we change units, but THIS.ONE.IS.MY.FAVORITE!  I absolutely love penguins!  This is what makes our profession the best...we get to teach what we are passionate about and share that with little ones!  If I'm excited about what I'm teaching, they'll be excited, too!

Last week I introduced our unit a little differently than I have in the past.  I'm using this unit to also introduce mapping.  We discussed the North Pole vs. the South Pole and what makes a continent vs. an ice cap.  

Our Anchor Chart

We watched this great video on vimeo...

I love Dudley Moore as"Spin" the Earth.  He is entertaining for the adults watching, as well as the kiddos!  I learned a lot along the way!  We actually broke the video up into two days of viewing, so we could digest all of the information!  We watched and learned about the North Pole on day 1 and the South Pole on day 2 and completed our anchor chart each day as well!   I liked introducing it this way! We will be able to refer back to this Anchor Chart as we study the other continents in our upcoming units.

Next week we will jump right in to our Penguin Unit with a literature study featuring my favorite little penguin, Tacky!   I have lots of fun activities to use in my centers this week!

This is my newest bundle which features four of my center packs for the price of three!

Check back later this week for updates from the Antarctic Adventures of Room 4!

New Year's Resolution! Is it too late?

Oh my goodness!  I have been a bad blogger...but, I have also been an attentive mother!  I truly enjoyed my holiday break with my husband and daughters!  We took a family vacation to remember...all six of us!  It is so nice to have my oldest home from college (and boy am I thankful she is on the semester system because I get her until the end of January!).  We took a trip down to Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth...unless it's New Year's Eve!  It was a little too crowded for my comfort, but it was still amazing.  Just seeing the holiday decorations and the characters dressed up for winter was so magical.

I think First Grade teachers are just big kids at heart...at least I am!  I also think it might be a great retirement job...the kids are all so happy! (Well, maybe not all of the kids).  Speaking of big kids at heart, my oldest daughter, she's 18, waited in line for an hour and a half to meet Elsa and Anna, the new princesses from the movie Frozen.  

I love how excited she still gets about these little things!  Her sisters had lots of fun, too...Look at me cozying up to the big guy!

So again, I apologize for my long absence in the blogging world.  My resolution for the New Year is to blog more regularly...so I'll be back soon to share what's happening in First Grade this month.  I'll give you a hint...

I've been working on a new Tacky the Penguin Sentence Scramble....and it's finished!  

Check back soon...follow me on bloglovin for updates...I'm working on a Giveaway and you won't want to miss it!