Jeans Day (and a pencil sharpener!)

Ah. Am I the only one who falls asleep a little better knowing that tomorrow is going to be a JEANS DAY?! It's really kind of sad, but it is such a nice treat at the end of the week.

Anywho, sorry for no posts recently! Have been super busy at school with all the beginning of the year assessments and such. Yesterday was DIBELS DAY! I can't stand don't mind administering the DIBELS tests at all. Luckily, the beginning of the year tests for first grade aren't too bad.

We did a super fun craftivity that I hung up in the hall and forgot to take a picture of. DOH. Will take a picture tomorrow. If I remember. Probably not.

I'm still plugging away with Daily 5. I just started deviating from the suggested routine, but not really. I am using my whole group language arts time before reading groups to squeeze in our read to self practice, and tomorrow we will introduce choosing just right books with the "I PICK" method. The only thing I'm changing as of now is the pace at which writing is introduced. I am lucky enough to have a solid half-hour in my schedule that is being devoted to writing, and I'm using that time to begin squeezing in the Work On Writing component of Daily 5. Today we brainstormed a list of topics to write about, and I turned it into a poster.

*Sidenote* The chart paper I used to make the poster was wider than the lamination film. Rather than chop my paper in half, one of our amazing aides suggested running the poster through twice. The first time, have one side of the poster hang off the edge, the second time have the other side of the poster hang off the edge. When it's all said and done you can't even tell that it went through twice. GENIUS.

Tomorrow we will brainstorm a list of types of writing, and I will start to model one or two each day, then give them a chance to do it on their own. My hope is to have them ready to roll for 20 minutes of Read To Self (we did 14 today! I'm so freaking proud of how excited they are by this!!) so that I can start to run reading groups with an "Almost Daily 5" until the rest of the components are in place. They'll theoretically meet with me, meet with my aide, Work on Writing, and Read To Self, until the rest of the components are in place and I can start to let them choose. Right now they're doing lots of seat work (and they're being real troopers about it) but since I really hate am not a huge fan of seat work, I'm struggling to come up with meaningful activities for them to do while I run reading groups.

In other news, we had our digital projectors mounted from our ceilings last year. We do not have smart boards, but the projectors are angled at the whiteboard. We use EnVision math, which comes with an awesome online component that includes the entire student book, which can therefore be projected onto the whiteboard, which means the students can come up and write their answers right onto the board. Since it's a cross between a whiteboard and a smartboard, I refer to it as the "Dumb Board." Only in my head, though, but it still makes me chuckle. Look at how darling they are filling in the answers on the board!!

In other news, it's not too late to enter my Classroom Friendly Supplies pencil sharpener giveaway!!
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