We've got lots of catching up to do!

It's been almost 6 weeks since my last post. Where did October go? And are we really halfway through November already?! (Anyone else looking forward to the upcoming holidays and their breaks?) I've had "Blog Post" on my to do list for weeks now... but it just kept getting pushed to the bottom [side note: I'm loving the new iOS5 software and the "Reminders" app!]. Let's see... what have I been up to since my last post? Well just to name a few things: a field trip to the Dallas Arboretum (awesome pumpkin patch/village!), several phone and face to face conferences, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, a 4 day trip to Sonoma and Napa, a trip to Austin, the Texas State Fair, the (very disappointing) Texas - OU game, attended professional development, taught professional development, had a sleepover at the hospital with my granny (she's fine now!), prepared and practiced a presentation for the school board with Mrs. Claborn (eeeeek!) and... that's in addition to all of the normal things us teachers do everyday! I really am in awe of all of the super teachers out there who manage to get through all of that while taking care of their families and kids too. I just have to take care of me and there are definitely times when I find that to be a challenge! Things have been crazy busy. I probably haven't been getting enough sleep but I have been making myself keep up with my favorite workout (pure barre) and I think it's helped keep me sane! I feel so disconnected from blog world - not only have I not posted since October 5th, but I have to admit that I haven't been reading any blogs either. I KNOW I've missed tons of cute pumpkin and Halloween things! As my title suggests, I've got lots of catching up to do - both sharing and reading!

Today I'm just going to share a post that I started on October 16th and never quite finished - Pumpkin Day! We went to the Dallas Arboretum on October 13th and just as I suspected, the kids were AMAZED by the many colors, sizes and kinds of pumpkins there and really wanted to know more about pumpkins. So we declared October 14th to be our "Pumpkin Day". (It really would have been a bummer if they hadn't been since I had already planned our pumpkin day and traced 22 pumpkin books!) It was a great week for it because it was a 3 day school week, and with the field trip, really just a 2 day week class wise for us. Here are a couple of things we did:

Read pumpkin books and created a class anchor chart

Created pumpkin books and wrote about pumpkins

"Pumpkins grow from a flower on a vine. Pumpkins can be orange or more colors. We saw MANY pumpkins at the Arboretum."

"The pumpkins can be small or big. The pumpkins can be red. When it is Halloween, you can get a pumpkin!"

"Pumpkins can be blue or yellow. They have seeds inside. Pumpkins are round."

Shared our favorite pumpkin facts with other students through our bulletin board in the hallway

We took a lot of neat pictures of bumpy pumpkins, white pumpkins, striped pumpkins, blue pumpkins, giant pumpkins, tiny pumpkins... you name it! My firsties really enjoyed looking back through the pictures the next day and even the next week! If you live in the Dallas area, this is a great time of the year to check out the Arboretum!

I'll be back soon with more things to share - more homework menus, short vowel word sorts, pattern stations... and whatever else I've taken pictures of! Have a great weekend blog friends!

What We Love Wednesday - Writing

I'm doing a little make up work this morning and catching up on my "What We Love Wednesday" posts. Wednesday, March 30, Mrs. Claborn and I decided to write about writing. I left my computer at school that night and wasn't able to finish my post. Since then I've just been too busy and too exhausted to do anything but school and sleep. I am really missing my blogworld though so here I am.

What We Love Wednesday - Writing

(Wednesday, March 30)

I L-O-V-E STICKER STORIES. That is hands-down my most favorite writing activity. I love how this activity is multilevel, open ended and gives the students so much ownership and choice. I have a confession though... I spend a fortune on stickers. You see, I have an incredibly hard time making decisions. Of any kind. So when I see a wall of stickers at the teacher store, I am completely paralyzed - how can I choose between pandas or woodland animals? Or space aliens and transportation? Farm animals or zoo animals? Ok, I'll take them all! Sometimes I give the students parameters - for example, last time we'd been focusing on stories so they really had to make sure they included characters, and some kind of beginning, middle, end story. In the beginning of the year, they simply wrote about what was happening in the picture. As the year went on, they got more descriptive and we'd work on adding in our reading, writitng and grammar skills - using action words, characters, setting, using was/were, is/are, has/have appropriately... you get the idea! The only constant is that they can only choose two stickers. That way, they really have to visualize a scene and create it. In the first half of the year, I give the students a sticker story paper - it has a box at the top for their pictures and then lines on the bottom half for writing. Now that they're writing a little straighter, I just give them manila or white paper (not gonna lie, this started as a way to conserve copies).

My sticker collection - there's something for everyone! The space, kids, pandas and penguins are the favorites.



Here are my little authors working on their pictures and stories. These were all on the same day - I love how different they all are!

Some samples of the final products! I had to do a little editing to remove their names.



What's your favorite writing activity?