What’s Megan Been Up To? And What About Kim?

Do you know how much I miss this? I loved being able to pop into Megan’s room anytime I wanted to get my “kid” fix. She often sends me pictures of things her kiddo are doing and here are a few from this week. These hats are nothing new, as I found out this week. You know how you have an idea, you really think you were the only one to think of it, only to find out that several other teachers do the same thing? Well that was true of these. HOWEVER, we did change how we do them! Here is how we did the silly hats—common core style! The kids had to spin a spinner 0-10 (included in the Day 100 pack). They put that many dots of one color on one of their strips. Then, they had to determine how many more to make a ten and put that many of another color dot. They did this for all 10 strips. We also had a recording sheet where they put their number combinations to make a ten!

Here is another idea that Megan used this week. I teamed up with my super sweet, creative teaching partner and friend, Wendy Gilstrap, to do the Day 100 Pack. This was one of her ideas in the pack. Just loved it! They made a Zero, the Hero glyph. These photos show Megan’s class doing their analysis of the data! Click on the photos to find the pack on tpt.

So that’s what Megan was doing this week, what about me? Well I was in West Virginia working in two different districts. On Wednesday, I did classroom observations to get ready for Thursday when I was going to do some model lessons and some presenting on Reader’s Workshop. Noticed I said “Was Going To…” Well, that’s because it snowed Wednesday night and school was cancelled for Thursday. Really? There was an inch of snow and school was cancelled? I thought we only did that in the south. Come to find out, the ice on the narrow, rural roads makes it unsafe for the buses…good reason to cancel school.

So my good friend Kathy picked me up at the hotel and we headed to the outlet mall. I have gone absolutely baby crazy! We hit all the baby stores, but these were my favorite find. Are you kidding me? Baby swim trunks? Well, since his Gammy has a pool, we had to get a few pairs. And what about those sunglasses? Have you ever? (Can you tell I’m just a little excited?) I did finish the week on Friday in West Virginia presenting about Writing Common Core. We were also going to work on the reading foundational skills. We were only getting started when we found out that they were on early dismissal for ANOTHER snow event. So, we packed up a few hours early and I headed back to DC. The hour and a half drive took me three hours! Roads were closed and I don’t know my way around to know any alternate routes, but thanks to Kathy’s husband he helped me navigate--through the phone!

While in the hotel on the snow day, I also had time to finish up on the Valentine Party Pack that Wendy and I put together.

Here is one of the activities from the pack.

This game is played like cootie. It always amazes me the number of people who have never played cootie. It is a “sure-enough” game that you buy in toy stores. I like to take that format and turn it into all kinds of games. To make the love bug they roll the dice to determine which part of the bug they get to add. The patterns for the parts are included in the party pack so that all you have to do is put it on the copier and copy! No tracing and cutting for you! The kiddos can cut their own or you can cut if out for them to speed it up! Click on the photos to find the pack on tpt.

Later this week I am going to share some of the great ideas I saw while doing my observations. See you then….