Snapshots from the Past

I'm joining a fun When I Was In... Linky 

Oh the fun memories of school pictures!

Me at age 3, 5, and 7

And now a more recent teacher photo

How about them apples...go dig out your photos and do some sharing of your own.

 

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Thanksgiving Recap a la Harley

Even dogs celebrate Thanksgiving. My parents call Harley their granddog and they do spoil him like crazy. They even dogsit him most days at their house when I am at work and he has a habit of ALWAYS hitting his dog dish first thing when entering their house to look for treats. Well, fast forward to Thanksgiving Day. My dad played a trick on him, knowing he would hightail it to his dish.

See that wooden pig in the background by the dog dish? That's my dad's recent buy at an antique store.

The pig has a name...Oscar. Oscar happened to be guarding Harley's bowl upon our arrival on Turkey Day. Harley's reaction was classic. He came to a screeching halt, and growled, sniffed and skirted around his bowl trying to figure out the nerve of something else by his bowl. Luckily, he did warm up to Oscar by the end of the day and got some turkey and gravy of his own.

Oh, on a sidenote, I got relieved of jury duty yesterday. I had to call in midday for a possible appearance. But Yay for me, when I called my group did not need to report! So I went to Olive Garden with the whole family instead.

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Sight Word Swat It Games

A great way I've practiced sight words is with my team Swat It games.

Split your class into teams. Display one of my Swat It Sets word cards on your board or under your document camera and let the swatting begin. Call off a sight word and the first student to hit the right word gets a point for their team. What a great way to reinforce mastery of sight words and get some energy out to boot!

 

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

Swap the Squiggle Writing

My class had the greatest time doing Swap the Squiggle writing.

 The idea is to take a random squiggle and create a picture to write a story about. But my twist on this popular idea is to "Swap the Squiggle" which involves a group/team effort in creating the final picture. I have found that this activity helps motivate reluctant writers. What fun! These 15 squiggle writing prompts will be sure to engage your students.

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Here's one of the cutest prompts generated today. 5 people worked on this picture.

A story was written about a girl stepping in gum.


Find more great ideas on my TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Conference Time!

I'm heading into conference week come Monday.

Here's what I did Friday evening.

I collated and organized work samples, benchmark test results and report card data for each student.

I've found that it helps to organize the work by the way it is categorized on the report card. This makes presenting information to the parents easy.  I also have a Trimester Note with important  data to share with parents. It looks like this:

I also plan to share this Apple for the Teacher Poem with parents which is an important reminder of the home school connection to their child's learning.

Click picture to get your own copy:

Find more great ideas at my TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!