It's that time again! Time for Five for Friday! This is probably my favorite linky party! I just love jumped around and checking out what you've all been up to! Plus, it's a nice "idea dump" and great way to decompress at the end of the week. Totally pushes me to reflect on all that's gone on throughout the week!
First of all... the most obvious update! MY BRAND NEW BLOG DESIGN! I am seriously obsessed with how lovely it came out! And it is all thanks to Jana over at Little Web Writing Hood! Please check out my post HERE with details on how to hook up with her for your very own design and also information about my CELEBRATORY GIVEAWAY!
Jana was very patient and put up with my endless questions -- you know us teachers... ask, ask, ask until we know, know, know! :)
Even after the long winter break... and the day off for Three Kings Day... and with the long MLK weekend coming up... you can just TELL that it has been a long couple of weeks! We have been assessing like mad!! Let's just list a few...
- District Performance Task
- AIMSweb math pencil and paper test
- AIMSweb Letter Sounds
- AIMSweb Nonsense Words
- AIMSweb Phoneme Segmentation
- STAR Math
- STAR Reading
- Symphony Benchmarking
- Sight Word Monthly Test
- Sight Word Weekly Quizzes
My poor kiddos have done such a good job putting up with all of it, too! We've been taking lots of stretch breaks... and Go Noodle has saved us big time!
Beginning today, our district is holding a pajama drive for needy families. So... to kick it off, we had PAJAMA DAY! It was a blast! Even though PK-1 got to wear PJs before Christmas, it was a whole lot of fun getting the entire school involved! One of our administrators wore a bathrobe for most of the day... another wearing flannel line khakis cuffed so he could sneak in some coziness during his numerous meetings for the day! HAHA! And, I wish I had taken a picture, but I've got to say... I was one popular 1st grader today in my purple Batman pajamas! :)
Anyone else out there in blogland interested in becoming friends and motivating one another to walk more? I love making new friends! As I mentioned in an earlier post, my husband got me a fitbit for Christmas and I am loving it! Lucky for us, a friend of mine from work upgraded his fitbit and offered to pass his old one along to Dave! I love working on our health together! So now, we've all joined together and have been holding mini-challenges. At first, we tried to Daily Goal... then Daily Steps Total... then the Weekend Warrior. This week, we attempted the Workweek Hustle... and it has KICKED MY BUTT trying (and succeeding) to get into first place! Yay! Seriously, if you're interested in joining us, friend me! (Mrs.LoConte@gmail.com)
We have been having such fun transitioning into reading from our anthologies! I introduced these cute disguises... Or, "attentoscopes" as I refer to them (I may or may not have borrowed the name from an old behavioral program) and the kiddos just love pushing through to earn them! You see, we work to close read our anthology. And, sometimes... we get distracted. Sometimes, we want to focus on other things in the classroom or play with erasers in our desks. Well, these attentoscopes need to be EARNED. Students need to show that they are focused on the task at hand. Some days, I only make a handful available... and that's when things get really good! I just love seeing them read through with these disguises on their faces! It always gives me a good chuckle!
I hope you all enjoy the long weekend! I know that I surely will!! :)
