Five for Fraturday

Happy Saturday!  It’s raining here so Hibernate, Get Cozy Under Blankets, and Eat Yummy Food is in full effect.  🙂

This little one cut her hair and DID NOT KNOW.

She is the cutest little thing with A LOT of hair, and it is super long and, apparently, she cut some off.

We were cutting out “paper dolls” (this goes with our life long ago unit) and getting hair-cuts at the same time.  I like to teach multi-tasking to my students along with all of the academic standards, as well.  Call me an overachiever BECAUSE I AM.

She said I don’t know where this came from.  And her eyes were really big.  And she was looking at it like it was a lizard or a rat or a piece of trash or something.  She did not want to touch it.

I said I’m pretty sure that came from your head.  Especially since the boy next to you has super short dark hair, and the girl on the other side of you has white-blonde hair so . . . um, yeah, pretty sure it came from your own head.

She said But I didn’t cut my hair.

I’ll translate for you in case you don’t speak first grade.   This could go one of two ways:

1)  She was lying or 2) She didn’t do it on purpose and she was seriously dumbfounded.

For this particular girl, it was the latter because she is a good good GOOD girl and would never do something like that on purpose.

Meanwhile, all the kids are coming over to her and picking up the piece of hair to hold it close to her head to show her that it matches.

Was I proud of my little detectives for being problem solvers and using context clues and drawing conclusions and all other manner of academic vocabulary type of stuff?

Why, yes.  Yes, I was.

She finally shrugged and said all nonchalantly It’s okay, I have more.

That was Monday morning.  🙂

 

Place Value – I LOVE YOU.

The kids love you.

We love Place Value!

We have been having a blast and loving all the parts of it, but especially using our base ten blocks.  This week, we played the Tens and Ones Game which you probably already know about it, but I’ll just drop it right here really quick, just in case.

{The picture above isn’t that great because I don’t know where their dice is!}

You need base ten blocks and a dice.  I like to keep the groups small so I only have two or three in a group, but you could have more.  Each group needs a dice.  (Die?  Who cares.  Just go with me here please.)

Player One rolls the dice and collects that many ones.  Then Player Two does the same.  Once a player has collected ten ones, they go to their “bank” and “trade” their ten ones for a ten.  Play continues like this until the first person reaches 50 or 100 or 120 or whatever the pair decides UP FRONT.

My kids now beg me to play this every day.  Now that everyone knows how to play, it will go into a center.  TALK ABOUT EASY!

A little word to the wise — let every player have their own bank and be their own banker.  Or just have a bank in the middle.  But don’t let anyone be in charge of the bank or you’ll just have drama.

Trust me on this.

I am still experiencing PTSD from a few years ago when I didn’t know any better.

Last year, we played Place Value Races with my magnets and you can check that out {HERE}.  We’re going to play that this coming week and I cannot wait because I know it will be a HUGE hit!

YOU GUYS.

I did a whole Instagram story about this book and the entire time, I was hugging this book and holding this book like it was a brand new baby.  (Then I never posted it because I don’t know why)

To say I love this book is a complete understatement.

I first learned about it from Katie at Queen of the First Grade Jungle and then I saw a little lesson that Catherine at the Brown Bag Teacher shared and I HAD TO HAVE THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY.  Thank you, Amazon Prime.

Every single teacher needs The Invisible Boy by Tracy Ludwig.  EVERY SINGLE TEACHER.  I’m talking EVEN MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS and possibly EVEN HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

I almost asked my principal to get me a sub so I could spend the day reading it to every single class at my school for Read Across America week.  SERIOUSLY.  And I think she would have, but then one thing led to another and I didn’t.  Doesn’t mean I won’t, though!!!

So this boy is invisible because he is quiet, and he doesn’t cause any problems, and the teacher has to deal with the other students who take up a lot of her time, and his classmates don’t invite him to birthday parties, or allow him to join in during recess, and he sits by himself at lunch AND I SERIOUSLY GOT SO CHOKED UP READING IT BY MYSELF and TO MY CLASS.

Catherine’s lesson was a follow up writing activity asking who might be invisible in their class.  I MEAN.

I didn’t have the time for an entire writing lesson so I just passed out sticky notes and asked my kids to write down a name of anyone they thought might be invisible in our class.  I said if they didn’t think anyone was invisible, they could write No or No One.

WELL!

I was so so so relieved to get all of these sticky notes with No and No One written down.  ESPECIALLY because I have had the revolving door (I just got a new student last week and he makes number twelve or thirteen for in-and-out) and I’ve been trying so so so hard to create a family in our room, and a community in our room, and it’s hard with all the students coming and going.

Invisible has now become part of our vocabulary.  My kids will say well, we don’t want him to feel invisible!! Or she felt invisible at recess so I played with her.

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!

That’s what I’m talking about!  That’s what this book is about.

Now.

One little girl in my class asked if she could write down her own name on the sticky note.

People.  This little girl is NOT invisible.  She is popular.  She has a gazillion friends in our class and other classes, too.  Everyone knows her.  She is never alone.  She is smart, she is friendly, she is funny, etc.  She is NEVER invisible because she pretty much NEVER stops talking or needing my attention or my praise for her coloring, her writing, her math, her shoes, her earrings, her hair, etc etc etc.

I said that of course she could write her own name down.

But what I really wanted to say was THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU FEELING INVISIBLE AND ME JUST PLAIN IGNORING YOU BECAUSE WE CHATTED LESS THAN THIRTY SECONDS AGO ABOUT YOUR HAIR BOW, AND THIS OTHER KID NEEDS HELP LEARNING THEIR ABCS NOW, THANK YOU FOR VERY MUCH.

Invisible VS Ignore is a thing.

Just saying.

Keeping it real as a real teacher in the classroom.

🙂

 

 

This is a screenshot of my new desktop!!!!!!

Isn’t my desktop BEAUTIFUL?!

Don’t you just want to look at it all the day long?  Because I do!

I am IN LOVE with my desktop!!!

Jillian at the Starr Spangled Planner is the mastermind behind it and she has these available in her TpT shop for only $3 plus unlimited updates and new designs as she adds them!!  YEEHAW!!!!!!  She also has a tutorial of how to do this on her Instagram (starrspangledplanner) and she walks you through it STEP BY STEP if you don’t know how to do it.

I made the circles on my own (again, this is in her Instagram tutorial) AND I AM JUST SO IN LOVE, I CAN’T STAND IT.

I’m pretty sure I am the teacher who needs to be ignored because I won’t stop bragging about it and showing it to others.  I would say I’m annoying myself, but I’m really not because I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

🙂

I can’t wait to see what Jillian comes up with next!!

 

So.

In the fall, I wrote a post about how I was pretty much heart broken because of a couple of my students and their circumstances.

Thursday and Friday this week were very tough.  My newest student is so fragile and has such a sad story, and has lived through so much in his seven years of life that it is killing me.  On Thursday, when I had him exactly a week, he was pulled out of class and was told some devastating news.

When he returned, the rest of the class was at lunch so it was just him and me in the classroom.  He broke down and I just held him in my arms while he cried and cried and cried on my shoulder.  I had no words to say.  I couldn’t say it was okay because it wasn’t.  I cried too (but he didn’t know) and I cried out to God in my mind I do not understand, Lord!  I do not understand!  What should I say?  How do I help him?  Why?  WHY?!  

He patted me on the back while he was crying.  🙁 🙁 🙁

I do not understand.  I do not!  But I am choosing to trust God and know that He put this little boy in my class for a reason.

I hope I get to keep him until the end of the year.  I pray I will be a bright spot for him.  A safe place for him.  A place where he finds comfort and fun and safety.

At this point, I do not care about any of the academics.  I don’t.  I don’t care.

On top of all of that, I got bad news at the dentist on Thursday.  🙁  🙁 🙁

And my family has hit another rough patch (I’d rather not talk about it on here) with a family member, and I am just here to tell you that I feel a little banged up.

It was a rough end to my week so I am really just counting my blessings.  Trying to stay positive.

1. I can make a difference in this little boy’s life.  I can.  I will love him.  I already do and I will make a point to show him every day.
2. I have an amazing dentist and an amazing oral surgeon.
3. My family is strong.  We are there for one another.  We are believers.  I love my family.

So.

Taking this weekend to rest.  To pray.  To be quiet.

To breathe.

I’m sorry for ending this on a sad note.

In the meantime . . .

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Thank you for reading my blog!  🙂  I am thankful for all of you, too!

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