Thursday, February 26, 2015

Snow Days



  Watching my woods fill up with snow -- today is another Snow Day. Last week we had 2 Snow Days and 2 three hour delays. This week we will only have 2 days of school, because I expect the snow will cause a cancellation for Friday, too -- it's getting pretty deep out there.  Not like Boston, but deep for North Carolina. Snow days are fun at first, but then you remember that we will have to make them up, and that might mean no days off in March, April, May, and June.  That's a long, long time without a break.
      We only have 69 days left, and I still have so much that I need to teach them! But I am pretty proud of all they have learned so far.  Several of them have asked to write the morning message, and I am always a little surprised at how well they do.  Here's my helper this week.


      I am trying to give them more opportunities to practice reading -- the only way to build fluency and vocabulary is to READ MORE.  I love the Daily 5 -- it's the structure I use to teach them to read and write independently.  Here are a few pictures of them practicing to build stamina.




       I want them to enjoy books as much as I do, and I want them to be good readers!
       Next week we celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss's birthday.  I have a stack of books I wanted to read this week, but I guess they will have to wait. I read "The Sneetches" yesterday, and they were totally sympathetic to the poor Sneetches with no stars.  My mother used to read that book to my children when they went to visit, so I have a warm spot in my heart for it. My assistant has been out this week, so it seems like the days pass quickly and I can't get everything done.
       I am glad to have some days to work on my house and practice my music.  I hate to lose our momentum at school.  But the snow is lovely!!!

Friday, February 6, 2015

One Hundred Days Down and 80 To Go!


          Woohoo! We have been celebrating 100 days since day 99. There are so many fun ways to observe the 100h day that it took us 3 days!  One of my kids said, "This is the best 100th day EVER!"
I have a feeling that he hasn't had all that many 100th days...but I was glad they had fun.

         After 100 days, several of my kids have become pretty good little writers. One asked to write the morning message, and this is what he wrote all by himself.

       "I will teach you about the one hundredth day". I love how they sound out the words.

      They worked hard to make a necklace out of Fruit Loops.  I finally got smart after all these years and put the cereal and ribbon in a Baggie so we didn't have so many spills and they could eat the leftovers. Some chewed on their necklaces until there was nothing left but the string! Several made nice patterns -- I was impressed.




I appreciated out volunteer mom who helped!


     
       

   The absolute favorite activity was making a 100 piece snack.  I could hear them counting 23, 24, 25.... As they collected skittles, M&Ms, goldfish, Cheerios, etc.  yum.


   Speaking of food -- I also made 100 pancakes. The kids loved those, too -- told me I should be a chef! 


  And one last sweet activity -- these were not all on the same day -- I hid 100 Hershey kisses around the room and they tried to find all of them to put on the 100 chart.  They found 96 of them. So -- either I am a really good "hider" or someone stuffed them in their pocket!


     Everyone helped make a 100 link paper chain. Today I pulled off all but 80 links, and we will pull one off every day until school is out as we count down to summer vacation.


This was fun -- I gave them 100 red cups to build with. With all the academic requirements, they really don't get to do much building anymore. So they really liked the 100 blocks and 100 Legos and 100 cups.


We did several writing activities, including this one about how they would spend $100.  Sorry, Sweetie, but I am not for sale!!!

    Maybe this was the best 100th day ever -- and my last one -- and now on to Valentines  and presidents!