What I'm Pinning Wednesday!

                                               

I have been dying to do one of these, but I usually blog at school and Pinterest is a blocked site and so I can't create a blog post using Pins. So now I am off for the summer and blog posts are coming during nap time! So here they are Pins of the Week!!!

I really want to do a better job at teaching writing. Part of my struggle is that I don't give effective feedback, so I found this great rubric to use with Kindergartners with their writing.

Source: docs.google.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

One of my goals for this summer is to change my bulletin boards in my room. I want to add a focus wall next to my word wall and move my letter of the week board to this area also.

Source: firstgradefresh.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

At the end of my focus wall to go with my encouraging more and better writing I want to add this set to my writing center.

Source: acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

And a quote of the week:

Source: cafepress.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Head on over to KinderKraziness and link up with us!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Freebies!

So our first story with our new pacing guide is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I have been working on a few things for it. First off I have a class book

Click on the book to get the entire pack which includes book page, cover, and letter home explaining the project.

Then I have a PowerPoint I created to go with it

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Scribd changed some of my fonts and moved some things around, which make it look really funny, but you get the idea. If you want a copy leave me your email in a comment and I will send it to you. You will need LD Elementary Font which is offered by several free font sites.

Now for one last freebie. (I am in a giving mood today!) I also made a game that will can be used in small group and then moved to a word work or ABC center. It is an upper case/lower case matching game.

Hope you enjoy these Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities! Next up on my to do list is Chrysanthemum!

One last thing. All my graphics that didn't come from Microsoft are from these two wonderful people who offer so many freebies! You should check them out!




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Big Goals

This summer is full of big goals I have for myself!! I am such an awful housekeeper during the school year, then the summer comes and I am a neat freak. The problem is the time between getting out of school and getting the whole house cleaned. My nerves are an absolute wreck just looking around thinking how did I let it get this bad! So there is goal number 1, get my house cleaned.
Also have you all seen what Laura over at KinderKraziness is doing? She has picked all new stories for her reading. She is following the basic line of the SF series but changing the books they will read. I fell in love with this idea and took it to my team. We agreed that a lot of the stories were horrible awful not good, and we needed new ones, but we liked at lot of the stories too. The problem with the ones we liked were they didn't match the letter of the week or really make sense with the time of year we were teaching it. I mean really lets talk about butterflies in the middle of winter, that makes perfect sense to a five year old! So we took Laura's wonderful new pacing guide and our list of current stories, sat down together, and made a new pacing guide. It was great, but it gets even better. While trying to decided where to get our books the librarian walked by. So we pitched our idea and he said have $$$ to buy your books!!! WHOOHOOO!!! So that brings me to goal number 2, working on this new pacing guide and getting everything together. With our old stories someone in our county had created PowerPoints to go with them, so I promised if they would change things up a bit I would create any new PowerPoints.I have the general outline of our pacing guide done and the first PowerPoint ready to go. I still have so much more to do, plus I had planned on making intervention packs this summer for each story, so maybe I will just conquer the first 9 weeks of stories!! I will post anything I do here, and Laura is posting a bunch of great stuff over on her blog to so check that out!!


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Here is my first freebie with all of this. It is our pacing guide. I didn't include math because our county hasn't decided our pacing for Scantron testing yet. As soon as I get that I will update this for you.

We still have some holes to fill in the Science/Social Studies area. We don't really teach Science and Social Studies in K-2. So we have no real curriculum for it, which leaves it up to us pretty much. The problem with that is there is no real time allotted for it. I get very envious when I see everyone in blogland doing their fun theme units. I am hoping that changing the stories will give us a little more freedom in what we are doing!

Goal number 3 will come later in the summer. I just completed that Debbie Diller book study and in July I am going to a three day conference, two days of which will be with Debbie Diller. One day she will talk about reading and one day on math. After that three days I plan on redoing my math instruction!!!

I also have a bunch of other stuff I want to get done for school, such as crate seats and creating a reading focus wall.

Stay tuned to see how well I do at completing my goals

I made this checklist to help me (and you) keep up!

 I got the frame from:

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Summer Linky Party

There is a linky party going on! I love a good linky party! This one is even better because it is all about summer, which is only 7 student days away for me!!! YAY!
Check it out here

Now the point of this linky is to share what is on your summer bucket list, so courtesy of Pinterest here you go:

Source: theboutons.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Create these with black crates and red fabric for my new kidney shaped table we got this year!

Source: jerome.northbranfordschools.org via Markeeta on Pinterest

Get really familiar with the Common Core and begin making items to use in my classroom!

Source: mrswilliamsonskinders.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Create some new centers for our reading block!

Source: 27.media.tumblr.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Continue to progress with my running! I have run/walked 1 5K and have another one tomorrow! I really want to keep working at this and be able to just run a full 5K!

Source: Uploaded by user via Markeeta on Pinterest

And my biggest thing of all is spending 1 month in a rental house with my sister and her kids in Florida at Venice Beach!

Common Core

So TN is one of the states adopting the Common Core. In TN counties are choosing whether or not to go ahead and adopt them before the official state adoption. My county has decided to begin the adoption K-2. We have been exploring them this year. This summer the county is forming a team to implement and train others for the Common Core switch. I have applied for that team, hopefully we will find out soon who is on it!  I was sent yesterday to a focus group for East TN teachers using Common Core. We  got to discuss our success and difficulties. We made suggestions for things the state could do to help us and train us. I am really trying to explore the Common Core and find some useful resources as we continue through this process. A great website that was given yesterday was from North Carolina. I look forward to using it. Check it out:

NC Public Schools-Common Core Tools

Anybody else have a great Common Core resource they want to share, comment on this post!

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

In honor of all the great teachers out there who encourage and inspire me! Thanks Erica from Erica Bohrer's First Grade for the adorable graphic!