Over Due Tag-answers....

Why anyone would want to read my sorry excuse for a blog is beyond me....But sweet Patricia from Primary Practice likes me enough to tag me for a little game.   I'm sorry I'm so late to play along.  I'm actually gonna skip #4 & 5 in the rules because I'm pretty sure everyone I know has already played.


Here are the rules:
1. Post the rules.
2. Post 12 fun facts about yourself.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in her post, and then
create 12 new questions for the ones you tag.
4. Tag 12 people and link them in your post.
5. Let them know that they have been tagged.





12 fun facts about myself....
1.  My first four years of teaching I changed grade levels every year.
2.  I went to speech from k-5th grade.  I remember teachers would find my brother to interpret for me.
3.  I was pulled for title classes in Elementary school.  
4.  I love all things crafty.
5.  I use my cricut all the time.  I love cutting some vinyl.  
6.  As newly-weds my husband and I rented my childhood home.
7.  Now we've bought a house that I'm slowly decorating.
8.  Lots of vinyl in my house.  :)
9.  I love working in my church.  I pray for servant's heart.
10.  My husband and I led the kid's choir at church.
11. My husband recently became treasurer for our church.  I love it because it allows us to be more involved.
12.  My junior and senior year of college, I was in a cohort learning group.  We stayed in one classroom all day with the same teacher for a semester and the same classmates.  I loved it.  I'm still great friends with many of my classmates. 





Here are your questions:
1. Who inspired you to blog?
I'm not really sure.  I read sooo many blogs.  I've had a personal blog for several years now.

2. Do any of your colleagues follow your blog?
I know several read my blog.  I'm not sure if anyone, except for Carly, follows it officially.

3. How did you choose your blog name?
My personal blog is Keeping Up with the Joneses.  So it seemed fitting...and with my track level of changing grades I didn't want any title that contained second grade. 

4. What new skill do you want to learn?

5. What is your favorite resource for graphics?
Scrapping Doodles, DJ Inkers

6. What is your best blogging tip?
Blog more regularly than me. 

7. If you weren't a teacher, which profession would you choose?
When I'm stressed at school I always tell my kids that I should have been a doctor.  Truthfully, I'm not doctor material.  Maybe I'd be a secretary or receptionist. 

8. What is the best advice that you have ever been given?
Not sure....

9. What is your favorite comfort food?
Mashed potatoes!

10. What is your favorite way to relax?
Laying in bed with my laptop.

11. Real books or Kindle?
Real!

12. What's your favorite font?
I have over a thousand fonts on my computer...I'm pretty fond of cheri, digs my heart, all my dj inkers fonts, and a lot of times I like the simplicity of Comic Sans.




Thanks Patricia for inviting me to play along. :)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder....

Has it really been since November that I posted?  I came down from my blogging high with a hard crash.  To sum up everything I've left out in the past two months....

The highlight of December was presenting at the Title I Conference in Gatlinburg TN.  I'm still amazed at how God helped me during that.  You can read about it here....

January came with two snow days...not easy to come by in our county...a real treat I tell you.   Other highlights include a student teacher (I'll be posting soon what I created to welcome this teacher),  and being voted Teacher of the Year.  What a honor!

   I promise I'm still here, still kicking (hard), and still teaching!  My brain is starting to function again so expect some more post coming next week!

Until then here is a math mat I created to use with linking cubes when teaching subtraction with regrouping.  I printed mine double sided:

Place Value Mat

How to show Youtube Clips at School

   Oh Technology is great...when it's working.  I didn't realize how dependent on my Promethean board I am until this past week when my projector bulb blew.  I've been at a loss waiting on the replacement.  I use it through my entire math lesson daily.  I've been struggling trying to show my kids how to do something on a hundred's chart from a small worksheet.   And all that led into a teacher story about how when I was school there were no smart boards.  We didn't even have dry erase boards.  We use to have to go outside and beat the chalk board erasers.  My kids were staring with their mouths open.  At that moment I felt sooo old!  They also asked for more stories like that during read-a-loud.  Hahaha!
    Our school has several (thousands) of websites blocked.  One of which is Youtube.  I understand the reasoning (protecting our children's eyes and minds)  however it can be annoying when there are so many good teaching clips on there.  Such as this one that I wanted to use during an observation lesson on prefixes:





Does it get any better than that?   


A co-worker shared a way to download and share you-tube clips (that are appropriate) during your lesson.  Maybe everyone else already knows this secret.  I sure didn't.


1.  On your home computer (that doesn't have everything blocked) download the free version of Real Time Player.   You can find it here:  http://www.real.com/realplayer
2. Pull up the you-tube video that you want to save. 
3.  Your browser should have a box pop up asking if you want to download that video to Real Time Player.  However, if you are like me and don't get that popup, right click on the video and chose it from the drop down menu there.  
4. Go to real player.  Save video to a disk or thumb drive. 
5.  At school, down load the same Real Time Player.  
6.  Open your saved video and it should automatically play in the Real Time Player.  

Easy Peesy, Lemon Squeezy!

Veteran's Day

We are gearing up for our Veteran's Day Program on Friday.  I always use this time of year to teach my patriotic symbols unit and we do a lot of fun things to accompany Veteran's Day.  I thought I'd post my favorite two projects.  

I love this guy!  The pattern comes from a mailbox magazine.  We use tissue paper to cover the pattern and then place it on a sheet of card stock that has been covered with aluminum foil.  We'll decorate the hallway with these. 



My next favorite item is in my TPT store.  I display the picture cards in my pocket chart.  I then read their description cards and the kids have to tell me which picture goes with which card.  I also have several more sets of these that I let the kids play concentration (the matching game) with.  

You can see more about it here.

Reading Graphs

    I could talk about reading levels (we use Rigby), Fluency WPM, and sight words in my sleep.  I know where all my kids are and where they should be.  I'm engrossed in it.  Sometimes it's easy to forget that the parents' of the kids aren't so engrossed in it.  The teacher terms can be confusing if not well explained.  I created these graphs to help parents see where their kids are and where they should be at each point in the year.  I keep a master copy and then quickly fill out the parent's copy each grading period.  I realize that a lot of teachers won't be using Rigby levels, or our county's sight words but maybe this will give you an idea of how to create your own chart. 



Reading Graphs

Proper Nouns

We have been studying Proper Nouns.  Anyone else ever have problems with their students confusing these with Plural nouns?  Oh my word!   


We made this Proper and Common Noun tree to help out.  The yellow leaves are common nouns that match the red leaf proper nouns they are hung with.  Same goes for the orange and green leaves. 

Plural Noun Pumpkin Patch

 We did this project to review making nouns plural.   This was after a week of practicing in class.

I used a large sheet of brown and blue bulletin board paper to create this hallway display.  I pre-wrote the singular nouns onto the pumpkins which I had just copied on orange construction paper.  The kids had to write the correct plural for that noun.   The brown signs tell the rules for changing singular nouns to plural.  The kids had to put their pumpkin in the right row.  I had twenty pumpkins for each row so that every kid had one of each.