It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 9/8

I'm linking up with Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers to share my reading this past week.

It was only a three day school week for me last week.  So you would think that I would have been able to read a lot!  Nope!  I had to catch myself up on yard work and house work that I have neglected during the first few weeks back at school.

I did manage to finish two chapter books this week:

Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix (#3 in The Missing series)

Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus by Tom Angleberger (last book in the Origami Yoda series)

I also read the following picture books:

Fireflies! by Julie Brinkloe

The Popcorn Book by Tomie de Paola

This week I plan to read the following chapter book:

What are you reading?

Celebrate! Sept. 6

Thanks to Ruth Ayres at DiscoverPlayBuild for this Saturday tradition.

I am back to celebrate a few things this week!

1. I have to start by celebrating the opening of college football and by beloved Buckeyes!  The game last Saturday against Navy was a nail-biter in the first half.  Thank goodness we figured things out the second half!  I do have to say that rooting against Navy somehow made me feel a little unpatriotic!  So I tried not to be too vocal against Navy!  Tonight we play Virginia Tech.  Go Bucks!

 2. I need to celebrate the ladies in this picture (plus one who was cut out)!  These ladies are training to be intermediate literacy coaches through Literacy Collaborative along with me.  This school year is a training year for us.  In the picture, we are participating in online learning with OSU.  I am grateful for what each of these wonderful ladies brings to the picture.

3.  Our community has started the "Let's Read 20" initiative.  The idea is parents will read for 20 minutes a day with their children starting at birth.  All the schools in the county and city are participating and working together on this.  This week, my district had a Battle of the Books with another district in the county.  Students were to bring in new or gently used books to be distributed to kids throughout the county.  My school collected over 1600 books!  The winning district will be announced at the football game tonight between the two schools.

4. I am celebrating the Popcorn Festival in our town and the Popcorn Parade.  Jacob was in the parade along with his fellow cub scouts.  I also have to celebrate all the greasy, fried food you can get at the festival! It's one of the few times of the year I allow myself to indulge in this type of food!  Bring on the fried veggies!

What are you celebrating?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 9/1/14

I'm linking up with Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers to share my reading this past week.

This week I only managed to finish one chapter book!  It has just been a busy, tiring, second week of school!

I finished Athena the Wise  by Joan Holub, which is the 5th book in the Goddess Girls series. 

 

My read alouds this week include the following:

 

Peppe the Lamplighter  by Elisa Bartone

 

A Day's Work  by Eve Bunting

 

True Heart by Marissa Moss

 

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

 

Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco

 

I am currently reading two chapter books:

Sabotaged  by Margaret Peterson Haddix (3rd in The Missing series)

 

Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus by Tom Angleberger

 

What are you reading?



First Day of School

The first day of school.

Wow!  So exhausting!

Hard to sleep the night before.  I'm awake every few hours.  Too many thoughts running through my head:
Do I have everything ready?
Are extra materials handy for any possible new students?
Is there anything that needs to be copied?
Do I have enough planned for the day?
What if I oversleep?

At 4:30 my alarm pulls me out of my sleep.  I get ready and head to the gym.  During my workout I'm able to get focused and get some good thinking done.

Go home, get ready for school, kiss my son goodbye.  He doesn't start school for another week.

Make it to school and finish some last minute things.  Then finally, they arrive!  And it's a school supply frenzy!!

It's a great class with great personalities.  Morning goes smoothly.  When it's time to focus on reading in the afternoon I am feeling quite at ease.  I read The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires to the class.  We talk about the importance of persistence and not giving up when things get difficult.

And then I introduce my classroom library.  I talk about how it is organized and do a few unintentional book talks.  I have hands in the air from students wanting to know if they can read a book before I am even halfway done.  This.  This is what I love.  I love kids getting excited to read.  I love talking books with kids.

I have a feeling this class isn't going to disappoint me.

Slice of Life Day 14- March Madness

I love his time of year in college basketball. All the different tournaments going all, getting ready for the brackets. 

I've been watching as much of the Big 10 Tournament as I can. My Buckeyes have been giving me near heart attacks yesterday and today. Yesterday they squeaked past Purdue. Today they came back from an 18 point deficit in the second half to win by 4. This is exciting! And tomorrow we take on that team up North. 

It's amazing how much you can bad-mouth and cheer on a team all in one game. I can't imagine all the pressure those players feel while they are on the court. I know they say they can tune out a lot from the stands but I often wonder what some of those comments are that they do hear. I hope it's the positive stuff. 

Some people say that the negative inspires them to do better. I'm not sure if I am one of those people or not. When first thinking about it, I didn't think I was one of those people. But after some thought  I started thinking about times when that has been the case. Interesting. 

I wish my Buckeyes best of luck in the Big 10 Tournament. Hopefully I will be watching them on Sunday!  O-H!!

Slice of Life Day 13- A Long Day

Today was a long day:

Wake up at 4:40 to go to gym to work out. 

6:15 Get home to get ready for school and get son ready for school. 

7:45 Drop son off at babysitter. 

8:00 Get to school. 

7:45 Get home from school. 

Yes, a long day at school with parent-teacher conferences. Since I am not in the classroom, I don't have much to prepare. We were running our book fair this week and I was stationed there for the night. 

I have to say, I loved working the book fair. I had such a good time talking books and recommending books to students and parents. Making new connections with students was certainly a highlight. As kids were bringing up books to purchase I found myself talking to them about their purchases and adding books to my TBR pile.  Those conversations can make an evening pass quickly. 

But now, this girl is tired and ready for bed. Night ya'll!

Slice of Life Day 12- Greg Tang Author Visit

My mom teaches in another school district and yesterday I spent part of the day at her school.  As part of Right to Read Week, they had author and mathematician Greg Tang speaking to the students and later to parents at their Parent Night.

I have to say, I am a fan of Greg Tang.  He makes math seem so easy for the students (and adults!).  What he was able to have them do after a short time was just amazing.  I was able to see him working with K/1st, 4th/5th, and the parents.  Unfortunately, I missed the 2nd/3rd session due to a meeting I had to be at in my district.

In the K/1st session Mr. Tang really focused on two things: knowing combinations to make 10 and when counting objects group them together rather than count individually.  He told the students that each night, for two minutes, they should practice making 10.  When counting, a lot of times we count individual objects that can result in slow counting, which is very inefficient.  Students should be grouping the objects together to skip count.  He referred to his website quite a bit, specifically his books, which you can find HERE.

In the 4th/5th presentation he really worked with decomposing numbers to solve problems.  Mr. Tang said that after 1st grade students shouldn't be using their fingers to solve facts.  He said we typically go straight to algorithms when solving problems with larger numbers but don't really think about the numbers.  For example, when multiplying by 5s, such as 5 x 88, we should multiply by 10 and then halve that number.  So, 10 x 88 = 880, half of 880 is 440, which is the product of 5 x 88.  Much simpler!  He showed the students the game Kakooma on his website, which I HIGHLY recommend playing!  Great game for students and adults!

Greg Tang's parent session really reviewed what he talked about with the students.

If your school is looking for an author who will integrate reading and math I would certainly look into have Greg Tang come visit!  Well worth the money!