Clean Critter

Here is a look inside some of my students' desks. It is starting to drive me crazy so tomorrow we are cracking down and cleaning!!!

Their seat sack that is suppose to have their take home folder, agenda, reading book and NOTHING else. (The things they take home every night!)

:(

Come on! This is not a trash can! We are still working on putting our papers in our folder to take home. They wonder why they cannot find their pencils in this mess.

 

 

To motivate my students to keep their desks clean we have a friend Lady the Lady Bug! She likes to find a clean desk to sleep in every night. We will see if she can find a place to rest tomorrow:) I'll keep you posted.
Meet Lady:

What Kind of Influence Am I Being?

It's been a while since I last posted. A lot is going on in 1st grade and I haven't found the time to write and haven't been sure what exactly I should share.

Friday was our our fall carnival. It was a lot of fun and we raised a lot of money for our classroom. Two other first grade teachers and I had 4 different booths. The one I ran was a Cow Patty Toss. I made cow patties out of foam insulation and then painted them brown. It was really funny watching kids and adults pick up the patties. Some loved it while others thought it was rather disgusting.

I was reminded the other day that there are 3 different type of people. There are people who are positive influences in your life. These people you love to be around and when you are around them you are energized and filled up. Then there are people who take energy away from you. These people can come across as needy and suck the life out of you. The third type are people who are just there. They don't give you energy and they don't take anything away from you. They are neutral.

As I was reflecting on my personal life journey and my experiences at school I could pinpoint people in my life who were positive, negative, and neutral. There are friends, coworkers and family members who fill me up with encouragement, joy and love. When I talk to them or am in their presence they make me smile and give me the love and encouragement I need to share with others. On the other hand, there are also friends, coworkers, students, family members who can be draining at times.

All in all, it made me question what kind of person am I being to my friends? students? family members? coworkers? Am I sharing the unconditional love of Christ with them? Am I encouraging them and shining His light over them? Or am I complaining all the time? Am I draining someone else out? Even more frightening- am I doing nothing at all?

"The enemies hope for Christians is that we will either be so ineffective we have no testimony, or we'll ruin the one we have." - Beth More, Breaking Free

I choose to be the one that is shining His light and being a positive influence to others. I hope to be the encourager, even when I'm tired and run down. 

How Full is Your Bucket?

At the beginning of the year we read a story called How Full is Your Bucket?. The story portrayed to students how we each have an invisible bucket that we carry with us. When bad things happen to us during the day, people say negative words, you argue with your siblings or friends, or similar circumstances, our bucket drips out water and becomes empty. When we say negative things to others we spill water from their bucket as well. When it is empty our hearts hurt and we begin to make bad choices. However, when we say kind words, use kind looks and kind touches to one another we fill our bucket up and help fill other people's bucket.  When it is full we are more likely to share these kind actions and make good choices.

As a class we discussed what this looks like in our own lives. As a visual reminder for our class I created a big bucket that we fill with golf balls. Every morning the bucket is full. Our goal is to have a full bucket at the end of the day. I remove balls if they are making bad choices and put balls back in when they make good choices. If they have a full bucket at the end of the day they earn a star. Every 5 stars they earn we get to celebrate with a popcorn party.

24 days later, we finally celebrated with a popcorn party!

It was refreshing to see the students' faces light up when they realized they actually earned all five stars. They were pumped. My hope is that they keep up the good behavior and our bucket stays full!

We will see!!!!!

Until our next celebration we will continue to work hard on doing the right thing.

Never Give Up!

This is going to be short and sweet!

We are still trying to get the hang of things around here. The one thing I keep reminding myself is DON"T GIVE UP! 24-7 we are reviewing rules, procedures and learning how to LISTEN!

However, I can say we are making progress.

Also, it amazes me at how much energy you need to keep up with the little rascals. To keep them focused you need to keep them active. I am constantly making up cheers, chants and songs to keep their attention.
WOW! I am learning a lot this year!

A verse from the hymn Jesus Paid It All that has been on my heart:
I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

The Lord is my strength each day. He gives me the patience, love and words I need to pour out to my kids. 

Singing In the Rain

I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feelin'
I'm happy again
I'm laughing at clouds
So dark up above
The sun's in my heart
And I'm ready for love
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I've a smile on my face
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just singin',
Singin' in the rain

This might be the song I would have sung when it rained on my wedding day, maybe something I would sing if I was playing mud volleyball or playing in the rain with friends. However, today it took me a little longer to laugh and sing along with the storms that came my way!

The rain came down constantly today because of something we like to call hurricane Hermine. I was actually looking forward to a rainy day but what I did not expect or wish to come my way was hearing the fire alarm go off during our math lesson. Yes, you heard that right the FIRE ALARM went off today of all days.
I even came prepared for the weather. I had my raincoat and rainboots ready but did I have time to grab these things? Absolutely not! So we all faced the rain and went outside to our assigned location to line up at in case of an emergency. Oh what fun we had splashing in puddles, laughing, screaming, dancing, and not listening to their name being called off. After I did roll call I was finally able to laugh and think it is what it is.
Singing in the rain is just what we did!

So thank you to whoever decided it would be a good idea to pull the fire alarm!

Dancing and Smiles

Friday was a day that reminded me why I do what I do.

The past two weeks I have had two to three students shutdown and cry during our spelling test. 
One student did much better this week but I  still had one boy who cried and threw a fit.
I encouraged them all to do their best, sound out the word and write down the letters they heard.
The boy wasn't even trying so I talked to him one-on-one and said he could try it now or would come in at recess and take it. That made him even more mad because he didn't want to miss recess.

He came in at recess and we took the test one-on-one at my horseshoe table. He was able to sound out the word but couldn't remember how to write the letters. I told him to look at my alphabet on the wall and see if he could figure it out. It took extra time but he did it! The look on his face was priceless. A wilting boy who was frustrated with himself now lit up with a smile from ear to ear. I passed out the test at the end of the day and he rushed to see how he did. "I only missed two!" he exclaimed, "Will you call my dad and tell him how good I did?" I told him to go home and show his dad his paper. I also wrote a note home to his parents sharing with them how much better he did on his test. Apparently his dad worked with him last night on his spelling words, something that has rarely happened since school has started.

I hope he continues to grow as the school year goes on. He just needs that little extra love and encouragement and that is what I am here to give.


After our tests Friday we celebrated. We danced to Follow the Leader and did a snake dance around the room. The joy on my students' faces throughout the day make coming to work something I look forward to daily.


Now for a wonderful extra long weekend! Time to rest, cheer on the Sooners and treasure the moments with family!

Tootsie Rolls and Glitter Spray

"You just won the million dollar prize!"

This has been my sanity today! I have done my best to encourage students to do the right thing, make good choices and answer questions by raising their hand and not shouting out.

Their reward is either a little tootsie roll or a spray of glitter on their hand. They loved it! We'll see how long that last! (Thanks to my wonderful mentor teacher for the million dollar idea!)

As for the crazies today, our wonderful morning came a tumbling down after lunch.
I had a student with a thumbtack in their mouth. I asked him to throw it away and he got a bad attitude, swung his arm and accidentally hit another student who then started bawling in class. I asked the two to go out in the hall so we could talk. When I was coming back into the room I walked into two of my kids yelling the A** word out loud in class and everyone staring at them like uh oh!
I ended up having to deal with these issues and will just have to pick up on math again tomorrow because we didn't have time to accomplish anything!

Are silly bands driving anyone else crazy? I love them and all but my kids just can't keep them on their wrist. It is either playing with them, talking about them, putting them in your mouth, etc. I've started collecting them. If it distracts them it is mine! I'm determined to collect more than them! LOL!

Everyday brings a new surprise!
Time to rest and recoup for tomorrow.

My Classroom

Senator Visits 1st Grade

At our new teacher breakfast hosted my the district I was chosen to sit by Senator Cliff Aldridge. He always picks two new teachers to talk to and congratulate and I was one of them! He visited my class last Friday and presented me with two beautiful pictures of our state capitol and a gift card to Mardel. He was so generous and my kids were awesome when he came to talk to them! Exciting moment:)

Catch Up!

Welcome to 1st grade class!
We have been in school for 15 days as of tomorrow so I have quite a bit of catching up to do to tell you all about my first two weeks of school.

Let's get started...........
I owe a huge thanks to my family and friends who helped me get my classroom in order. From decorations to helping me supply my classroom with manipulatives, so many people poured out their blessings over me.
THANK YOU!

First Day of School!
For starters, not everyone in my class showed up the first day of school. This means they were here in Kindergarten but didn't re-enroll for this year. I had 15 students the very first day of school. I would say that was a blessing in disguise because first days of school are CRAZY! Even with only 15 kiddos I was running like crazy around the room and getting us all where we needed to go. Everyone was right when they said they don't teach you everything you needed to know in college. There are just some things you have to learn on your own by experiencing it first hand.

As the week went on we finally started to learn how to work together and were also getting comfortable in the classroom. Then came Wednesday and 5 new students in two days! So now I have 20 loving, talkative and hilarious first graders. (8 boys and 12 girls!) Just as things started to go right we were back at square one. The next two days were like the first days of school all over again.

To sum it up, each day brings new challenges and many different kinds of challenges.

Challenges I am facing and working through each day:
1. How to get my class to quit talking and listen.
(I have tried everything I know of to get my students' attention! My goal is to not lose my patience and keep trying!)
2. To reach the needs of ALL my students.
(I have many students who have emotional needs and are going through some rough stuff at home or have had a hard life in the past.)
3. Finding ways to modify my lesson plans for my students in need. ( I have one student who spent the majority of last year with the special education teacher. He is doing an awesome job so far in class but it is a challenge knowing what he is capable of doing. Also, did I mention he gets up every two minutes and wants a hug? I feel bad telling him no but he needs to learn how to sit and do his work.)

These are a few challenges that I face daily and I'm sure every teacher can relate.

Funny Stories:
Second Day of School:
Boy: "I forgot my underwear!"
Me: "Ok...What do you think we should do? Can you go all day without it? "
Boy: "Well, I'm not sure. I've never done it before and it feels weird!"
Me: "Let me write a note and go to the office to call your mom."

I about busted out in laughter because it caught me off guard!

Today:
Girl: "Can I pass out my invitations to my 'S' party?"
(it is a sheet of paper with an S on it and nothing else!)
Me: "Tell me more about this party."
Girl: "It is on the 32. Everyone is invited and you can come too."
Me: "Is this a real party?"
Girl: "Yes! It's after school at my grandma's house."

We continue on with the conversation and I really didn't know what to say! I ended up telling her we couldn't pass them out because I did not want every kid to start bringing 'invitations' to their parties that really didn't exist!

There is so much more to share but I have a feeling if I was to tell you everything that has happened these past 15 days we could be here for a while. In other words, we will pick up on day 15 tomorrow and the start of a new month!

One thing remains constant even when I want to question or have doubts: GOD IS IN CONTROL! He has shown His presence to me over and over and over and over again these past few weeks. He chose ME to be in the classroom I am in and I KNOW that he has a plan and reason for having me there.


A verse that has been on my heart:

Isaiah 61:1-4
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.