Five for Friday .. and a Math Freebie!

It's Friday, it's Friday, it's the end of the week it's the last day..!  Whew this has been a WEEK!  I was exhausted... until I took that marvelous nap!  Thank. God. for. naps.   I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for 5 for Friday!  Here's what's been going on in and outside of the classroom this week:

I busted out my Winter Literacy and Math Center pack this week for some math fun.  It's filled with some REALLY great math activities for those difficult Operations & Algebraic Thinking standards (students have THE toughest time with them).  I put a true and false sort and fact family center in their math bins this week for some review.  Check below for a  freebie!

Check out the COMPLETE bundled pack with math and literacy sources!  

 I have quick 2-3 minutes individual conferences with my kids to discuss glows and grows  before they fill out their data chart.  They feel more ownership with their learning and it's great to here them communicate their own strengths and areas to improve.  This is a picture of a student who scored a 20% on his pretest and just saw that he scored a 85% on the post!! Woohoo for growth!!! 

My Thursday night line up is back!!  I haven't watched Grey's yet this season, but so glad Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder are BACK!  Get the wine ready!

 I needed a new heart rate monitor and something to get me motivated decided to invest in a Fitbit.  It was double the price of my old monitor, but so worth it!  Initially, I thought I didn't care about steps or sleep patterns, I just wanted to know how many of those tiny creatures called calories I burned during my workout.  After having it for a week, I realized that knowing all that information was motivating.  You can set up goals for everything that is tracked and it syncs with MyFitnessPal, which I use to track food.  The best part is that you can challenge other Fitbit friends.  I'm competitive, so it motivates me to get up and moving.  Add me if you own one (Chankyna Aribo)!  I'm also looking for more people to challenge.

 Are you ready for some football?!  I grew up in CT so when I'm not rooting for my beloved Redskins, I root for my Michigan man Tom Brady and the rest of the Pats, BUT I really like Wilson and want him to win back to back Superbowls.  So basically, I'm just hoping for a great game, good commercials, an entertaining Katy Perry performance and fun times with my friends (that's not too much to ask is it?)!

Five for Friday..ish

Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and doing Five for Friday!  I know it's technically not Friday.. but let's just pretend I linked up on time!

 Well if you have visited me before, you can see that my blog has had a MAKEOVER!  I absolutely LOVE it!  Tenille over at Designs by Tenille did an AMAZING job!  I just answered a few questions, made some requests, and she did the rest.  It was such an a quick and easy process (2 week turn around time) if you are looking for a new look, make sure to check her out.

 In Social Studies, we are learning about location.  Many of my students have never had the opportunity to leave their neighborhoods so location can be sort of a difficult concept for them to understand.  I used the books "Where I Live" and "Me on the Map" to help explain that we can be in multiple places at once and they immedielty got it (a lot faster than previous years). I gave them a little book of their own to fill in as we read the book "Where I Live".  It took about 4 days to complete.   Click the picture for the FREEBIE!  Next week, we will focus on the names of all the continents and oceans.  We will also complete a circle map where they will independently identify their street name, city, state, and continent.  Look for a freebie in that upcoming post!)

 I spent Tuesday at a training.  I'm never happy to leave my kids, but this training was actually... really good and beneficial!  It was all about creating valid commen assessments.  I never find the perfect weekly formal assessments for math that align with what we teach every week so I'll usually cut and paste or make my own.  This training was about which questions should be on an assessment, how formatting makes a difference, the benefits (increase of 36% in student mastery) of students tracking their own progress (even at the Pre-K level), and how to differentiate on a test.   I definitely will post in more detail.  For right now, here is another freebie!  My kids are using  this as a DRA Tracker for the year.   Click the pic to download!  I made mine with a 1st grader in mine, but added a couple of blank pages that you can write in.  I also plan to test my kids 4 times this year because I have a smaller class size for EIP, I really think it's important they see their progress as much as possible.  I plan on creating a kid-friendly tracker  for the other subjects soon!

So this is completely not school related BUT I have to say I am in love my spin class. Sometimes its hard to get there after a LONG day, but I always have so much fun and burn so many calories, I don't have a lot of good excuses not to go.  During the school year, it's so easy for me to fall off my workout regime, but I'm determined to not let that happen this year.  I've been getting my co-workers to come with me so on the days I am "too tired", I have someone else holding me accountable.  Check out his class below.. and yes every class is like this!

 

KTX Fitness Instructor: Keith Thomspon

 And on another non-school related note.... I randomly picked a show to start watching on Netflix and now I'm hooked on "Army Wives." LOL yes, I might have picked it because I am an Army wife, but it's actually pretty good.  It will also fill that void until my usual Fall TV line up comes back... (Scandal, Grey's, Revenge, AHS...)

There's my five!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Five for Friday

 I'm not going to lie this week FLEW by, I can't believe Week 2 (and a half) is over! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday with 5 weekly randoms.


1.  I am almost finished with my room... finally!!! I made a committment to get COMPLETELY organized this year leaving no section of my room unturned.  Of course, the first day came and went, and things weren't how I wanted, but I put my curtains (Party City tablecovers) up today.  Very inexpensive way to brighten up your room ( $1.99 for 1).  I had have 6 windows and was able to get 3 curtains out of 1 pack. The curtain helped pull my room together. 

2.  I read "Fancy Nancy" to my students on Monday to introduce the "fancy" words we are going to be using in class (aka vocabulary words), and the next day one of my kids wore this.  She said she wanted to be like Fancy Nancy... her sister in K was wearing the same outfit!  It was tooooo cute!

3.  First year doing the homework club and it is a success!! The kids clap for each other when I announce their name as being part of the club, they are so proud.  Such a simple idea, but so effective - I have 100% hmwk completion (waaay better than last year)! I used a metal baking pan (Dollar Tree) , glitter card stock (Big Lots) and glitter!  Here is a link to the freebie by Fourth Grade Frolics.

4.  I joined Instagram!  Follow me at thefirstgradeformula.

5.  My fiance has wanted to watch Cloud Atlas for the longest... and I have been against it because it just doesn't look good... well our movie night is being spent by me blogging and him trying to figure out what's going on in the movie because it makes absolutley no sense! -_-

Now I'm off to nurse this cold... 13 days in and  I already got kiddie coodies.  I need to go stock up on some vitamins! :(

Happy Friday everyone!  Good luck to everyone starting on Monday!