Typical Friday

     As I write this, I feel unbelievably exhausted.  It's Friday night and I'm still at school.  I have everything organized and ready to go for next week, but now my daughter is "playing" school.  She's having a ball organizing papers, charts, and lists.  How could I tell her that she has to stop?  How can I get stressed about how my finally clean classroom is now getting all messed up?  I can't.....

     Now, I'm starting to wonder how many opportunities do I give my students time to enjoy school?  We are so hyper focused on their reading levels, goals to meet, and scores to prove growth.  It's sad that these poor children don't have time to love and enjoy school.  

    Hopefully, my students are having fun as we are learning vocabulary, reading, adding, subtracting, exploring new ideas and concepts, etc. I know that First grade has changed a ton over the years, but I pray that all my students love (or at least appreciate) learning and growing.

    The lesson that I have learned?  Don't worry, just pick up a pizza for dinner on the way home and watch a movie on the couch!  

    I pray that everyone has a long and boring weekend!  Ha-Ha!   

Vocabulary

After rethinking my guided reading groups, I have decided to focus more on vocabulary! Sounds scary, right?  My goal is to not only be able to use these words and understand them throughout the week, but to truly be able to use them in their daily conversations and journals. Kind of a tall order, but why not have big goals and expectations?

I found a fabulous resource from Fun-in-first.com.  Jodi has monthly guided reading stories that already have three differentiated levels (below, on, and above).  I got them on TPT.  I''m over the moon excited about how my munchkins are responding!  We finished up a week of studying Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr.  I had one of my lovelies come to me and tell me that she was going to "boycott" another student in class until they were nicer.  Wow!  I'm so proud of you that you made that connection, but now I need yet another mini lesson on social skills.  Sometimes there is a double edged sword.....

Overall, I am completely excited about how my kiddos are advancing.  At this time of the year, I have everyone on grade level or above.  I only use the below levels during the first semester.  So far, I'm loving vocabulary.  I will say that I am mostly verbal with the teaching of vocabulary.  It just takes too much time to illustrate, etc.  However, I still have them give my examples and we can have some fairly deep conversations going most days!

Any other thoughts, ideas, or suggestions???


Thanks and have a blessed Monday!