We're going with the Field of Dreams, "If you build blog it, they it will come." mentality at the moment. 29 days and counting left in the school year for us, which we are sure may seem like a lot to some of you who are ending this school year much, much sooner, but we will get our payback time come July. ;) We really don't know what it is about the end of the school year, but we absolutely love it! Perhaps it's because the pressure is off. The learning is learned. The books are read. Homework ... VIEW POST
That’s a Wrap! End of School Activities
Visual Reminders That Work
We are firm believers in structuring our classroom for success. We spend a lot of time establishing procedures and then giving them visual, auditory and verbal reminders to get us through each day. Here are a few visual (posters), to go along with a few auditory and verbal (chants) reminders that have been working wonders in our classroom this year... One of our absolute hugest pet peeves is the "No Namer Paper"{shudder}. It's just so simple...WRITE YOUR NAME ON YOUR PAPER! So, we use this chant ... VIEW POST
Class CHAMPS Classroom Management for Little Champions
About this time 5 days ago, the words, "We're getting our butts kicked by 6 year olds" might have come out of our mouths gone through our heads. But fortunately for three day weekends, we did what any teachers who are getting their butts kicked by 6 year olds have a 3-day weekend would do... We devised a plan! We've been using CHAMPS behavior management for a few years now. But, since we were getting our butts kicked by 6 year olds started school last week we decided to kick it up a few ... VIEW POST
Crafting Quality Work for Michaels Create2Educate Sweepstakes!
Setting class expectations for quality work from the beginning of the school year is top priority in our class. But, this isn't our first teaching rodeo, so we know first hand that even 6 and 7 year olds can "mail it in sometimes". We struggle with them just going through the motions, not really understanding the importance of or having the self-motivation quite yet to want to present their best work...especially when the recess bell is tolling. Know what we mean? The Problem Area... When we ... VIEW POST
Throwback Thursday ~ Classroom Morning Routines
About this time last summer something devastating happened...Somehow, someway we managed to delete every single photo from this entire blog of ours. Gone... Fluttered away... Vanished into Cyberspace with no return ticket. It was the saddest day of our blogging lives! Ask Tammy's husband... Picture a grown woman curled up in the fetal position in full blown "ugly cry" mode on the family couch. Yep, it wasn't pretty. It's taken us almost a year to repair many of our posts, and we're still ... VIEW POST
GoNoodle…Brilliant Brain Breaks for the Busy Classroom
We first grade teachers are always looking for ways to keep our class learning while giving them much needed break time...They are still kids after all...Plus, the old cliche "Pay Now or Pay Later" comes to mind. In other words, if we don't let them wiggle, they will wiggle their way right out of our lesson by the time lunch is done. Our friend Kelley over at Teacher Idea Factory really uses her Noodle. As we say, she's got Big Brains! A few weeks back, she blogged about a website she ... VIEW POST
