Happy Turkey Day/Black Friday!

It certainly was nice to have a two day work week. We worked hard on a few more stories that will be published next week. Now I REALLY need to work on geometry.

On the homefront we had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and I shopped till I dropped starting at 3:30 on Black Friday. I need a couple of days to recover from that. However, my Christmas shopping is finished and I can have a stress free couple of weeks. Hahaha.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving :)

Full Week :)

The Coyote Connection is exploding! All it took was a published piece and now the students cannot WAIT for their turn. We have more up since I last blogged and the feedback has been wonderful.

This last Friday, we went to The Nutcracker Ballet. I'm really proud of my students and how well behaved they were. The boys loved the battle between the soldiers and the mice, of course.

As far as my chatty class, I'm REALLY tightening up on them. I'm continually telling them my expectations and holding those that aren't following directions accountable. I'm hoping this isn't a year long thing, BUT...we are in November.

All of my Nutcraker pictures are on my computer at school. I'll post them this week.

Diving In

Well I have set up the website page that our class newspaper will be on. We've named it the Coyote Connection . I thought I'd put the link here so you can watch the SLOW progress we are making. It truly is a work in progress. I'm hoping after the students get their first articles up that it will run more smoothly. On that class newspaper there is also a link to our class website. I'm pretty proud of myself that I have it up and running. A year ago, I would have been too scared to do it.

Fun Day :)

We had a Chiefs player come to talk about character traits with our students. They LOVED it! I'm on a mission to turn my students into journalists. I have to be honest, my teaching writing skills are just not that great. We're wrapping up our huge D.A.R.E. essay and now I want to teach news reporting. Just the facts: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. I sent out my first reporters today and hope to have them podcasting and putting it up on my school webpage. I already have a couple wanting to interview our principal and a couple wanting to report on our field trip to The Nutcracker. I think I've finally given my students a purpose for writing. Hope it WORKS :)

Power Teaching

Power Teaching is something that I've dabbled in the past two years. It's classroom managment during instruction and how to engage students. I've done some picking and choosing from what I like about it and are using the "Class - Yes", "Teach - Okay", "Hands and Eyes". At the beginning of the year I introduce the Yada Yada Voice Meter and think since this class is so noisy, I need to return to practicing it. I might even utilize the scoreboard. It's funny how each class has different dynamics and that some things that have always worked just don't with other classes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTwjFHorQhk&feature=related

TGIF

I think I'm going to BLOG about teaching strategies and reflect on my own chatty class of 27 5th graders. Also, I think I'm going to focus on upcoming units that I want to incorporate more technology with.

This week was a rough one. Just when I think I have classroom management down and procedures in place, I get knocked down a few notches. This class is a REALLY chatty group. In talking with our BIST consultant, I had to think about the basics again. What are my expectations and practice it all once again (since my students seem to have short term memory loss).

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this group. They are the first group I have had in awhile that are truly innocent and childlike. Since I'm in a Title I school of 95% free and reduced lunch, I don't have many kids in my class that DO NOT have issues and there are a few I'd love to adopt and bring home with me.

Grandma's Birthday!

Monday was Grandma's 89th Birthday :) Since I lost a grandma last year, my time with this grandma is even more special. I love her :)

Happy Halloween!

Looking at my last post, it's been quite awhile since I've posted. This doesn't surprise me since growing up I never was good at keeping a diary. Last Sunday was a night for spooks and I took Kailey out Trick Or Treating. She made a very good witch. Emily is too cool to hang out with mom and was a fairy with her friend and ran the streets. Ramsey is enjoying (too much) being out of high school and Brittany is in the real world and had to work. She was able to come home in time for a few house calls with Kailey.