Rain, Rain, Go Away. ..and take my cold with you!

It's funny how being a teacher changes your mind on certain things. For instance, if I have to hear one more person talk about how beautiful a full moon is I'm going to be forced to drag them into my classroom, feed my kids cupcakes (the kind with the swirly twirly glopped on icing) and let the full moon vibes show them how beautiful it really is. Rain goes hand in hand with the beauty of the full moon. A rainy day when you can stay at home, snuggled up in a blanket watching your favorite movie/TV show (ahem. . .Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). . .now that's beautiful. A rainy day stuck inside with kids who haven't had outdoor recess in 5 days. . .now that's not such a beautiful thing. Despite the fifth day of indoor recess (did I mention it's been 5 days since we've gotten to run and scream at the top of our lungs???) today was a pretty good day. Half of us came back sick from the long weekend. . .good to know it's not only me. One declared a "cold" club that I was the president of and he was the vice president of. . .so sweet. But, I'll be the first to admit that while the sound of being the president has a nice ring to it, I can't wait for my term of "President of the Cold Club" to end.

Anyway, onto the things that really matter like how we're going to spend one of the last weeks in February.  This 4 day week is going to be packed with tons of learning and special visits. Today we saw a play on how to stop a bully (I've never seen my kids so confused. . . the actress that played a little boy was actually a woman). Later on in the week we have a visit from the tooth fairy in honor of Dental Health week (I've seen pictures and they wear tutus. . .y'all know I love a good reason to wear a tutu)! Learning wise, we're all over the place. The end of the third nine weeks is rapidly approaching and we're busy tying up the loose ends.

In math we're focusing on telling time to the hour and the half hour. I know for my kids they're really good when each skill is isolated, but when you combine the two they stare at me like I'm a Spanish speaking alien with 5 eyes and underwear on my head. Of course my hate for workbooks (and finding page 336 out of 700 pages) overtook my time management skills and I endulged in my Publisher obsession. A few hours later A Tickin' and a Tockin' (Part 2) was born. It's one day in and my kids are in love with Froggy. All of the activities included in the unit were created around different Froggy books. If you don't know who Froggy is yet, you betta ask somebody! I'll be posting more on what we've actually done as the week goes on (remember I'm trying to be better about this whole blogging thing).

In ELA we're focusing on determining the problem and the solution within stories and of course we're busy editing sentences. I do this every week because it's such a difficult skill for first graders to conquer. There are so many rules of capitalization to internalize and use within their own writing. Practice makes perfect I suppose. Tomorrow my plan is to blog a little more about how my centers work. . .because that's something that always blew my mind when I was first starting out. The district that I student taught in didn't do small group instruction so when I was hired and expected to use them, I was a fish out of water. . .a really scary feeling. Anyway, with Monday being President's day my Honest Abe's Sentence pack was the perfect fit. It's in my TPT store and of course it's only $2.50.

Just to reiterate how beautiful a rainy day can be. . .my furry babies have the right idea of how to spend one. They have their mom's great taste in blankets and shows! (Yes that's Tamra from Orange County. . .I may or may not re-visit old episodes as I anxiously await the new season!)

Until tomorrow. . .live, love, teach!