Teachers Pay Teachers and bulletin boards

Over the weekend I stopped in Target's dollar bin. Boy do I love that section.  I got two whiteboard addition boards, two sets of reading certificates, 2 hotwheel cars, goo-gone, sight word flashcards, plastic coins and paper money. I also made a little bit of a pricey trip to Lakeshore Learning Store. Half the goodies in that store I walk up to them and go, "Oooo I want these! Then I flip it over and see the price and then say never mind I might be able to make those." I did end up buying some fraction pieces just out of convenience. I did start to make my own though using the circle on one of my cricut cartridges. I have since then been slowly doing the manual labor of cutting out the coordinating pieces. It's a very slow process.

Today I stopped in Hancock Fabrics and bought some new lime green and a cool light blue print fabric to cover our two bulletin boards. I also took down the borders finally and put up new ones that was a excruciatingly slow because our bulletin boards were handmade so I the borders were stapled into the wood frame. Previously one of our bulletin boards was missing a piece of border because we were short on it and an easel was pushed in front of it anyways. Now that the easel is somewhere else though I had to fix it pronto. I finally finished it though! I will post pictures tomorrow.

In class we are working on creating goals for when we write. The students filled out a self assessment and then choose one of six goals that they feel they need to work on. They then wrote their goal on a goal recording sheet and then we put a sticky note up on the poster so everyone can see it.  On my teachers pay teachers account I'll be selling my poster pieces and my worksheets I made.

Yesterday we took our students to visit Merrill Gardens Assisted Living for Seniors. We met four ladies there who read with our students. This particular lady, Barbara, was my favorite. She tutors in a local school and has a great sense of humor too! All the ladies agreed to be pen pals with our students. The students were so excited about our visit that they asked if they could go every week. We had to explain to them that it would not always be possible.

On Friday one of the dads came in and taught Super K and first grade how to do some hip hop/break dancing moves. I was participating until it got to the now fling your body in a circle around your one leg while standing on your arm. The kids absolutely loved it though. We decided to have the dad come back again sometime during our music block to teach the kids more.

Karate III now has survived several weeks in our classroom. I feel a little guilty because the kids don't know the original two died for some unknown reason and we have replaced him twice now with a similar fish. The students love him though and I don't want to tell them.