The Sunday Before Spring Break

I know it must sound terrible of me to be excited for spring break but we haven't been off (aside from weekends but those don't count since we're still doing work for our kiddos) since MLK but that was only a day! I am looking forward to relaxation and possibly doing lots of exercising because I can feel myself packing on the pounds. I honestly don't know how some people manage a family and work and still have time to work out. Kuddo's to them, seriously! 

Okay back to teaching! This week we were finally introduced to adjectives, I LOVE adjectives.  I think the kiddo's do too!  Well I totally got this off Pinterest (where else) and I had the kids make pictures of themselves and write at least three adjectives about themselves. Well some of them went above and beyond because well their first graders and they are ego-maniacs, ha ha! Below you can see the children's pictures and what they wrote. I think they turned out really stinkin' cute! 

This here is a long view of my classroom. See my beautiful reading table. It was designed and made by my dad. Gosh, I am just a lucky girl to have the men in my life be so crafty with woodwork! My dad also made a children's computer desk and different stools for the kids to sit on.  :)

 Here are the adjectives the kids came up with for me. Aren't they too kind! 

I love the lips on this one. She claims to be stylish, my kind of girl! 

This is a completely unrelated picture. Our school had a fundraiser and the children who sold the most chocolate got to throw a pie in the principal and two other teacher's faces. The kids were SOOOOOOOO excited! I had a good chuckle myself! I can't post pics of the pie covered ones because they would probably kill me!

This week we are moving on to controlled-r with ar words. We are going to be doing the Pirate Mark lesson from the wonderful Babbling Abby! I know the kids are just going to be ga-ga over it!

Well fellow readers and bloggers I need to start getting ready to go out. I'm going to the teacher store (love it) and Central Market for lunch with my mom. Sunday is always Mom and Daughter Day. Maybe if I'm good she'll buy me something! (I kid, I kid, errrr, maybe!) Ok see ya!

Meet "Poo-Poo Teacher"

There are days in teaching that I refer to myself as "poo-poo teacher". I know how mature of me right? I just don't feel on my A-game or that I've done enough to reach out to the kids. If you haven't noticed I'm very hard on myself and part of the problem is, is that I'm going to bed VERY late. Not because I'm staying up watching television or doing random nothingness, I'm planning for the next day. Thinking how I'm going to get my kids motivated. Some think I'm crazy but I truly *love* what I do. And when I get passionate about something, watch out! I  mean, I seriously have the best job EVER! My kids love me (darn I forgot to take a pic of the adjectives they used to describe me, SO CUTE). If anyone ever needs an ego boost, come visit first grade.  HAHA!

Anyway going back to my tiredness, see exhibit A: Here below you see my coffee table filled with only school stuff. Grading that I need to catch up on, updating my teaching portfolio and more things to plan. By the way, isn't my coffee table lovely. I told prince charming I would post about it and being the kind and humble person he is, he just shook his head in disapproval. Well of course I didn't listen and I posted a picture anyway. He made me this beautiful table as my Christmas present since I just moved into my apt. in December and didn't have much furniture. It's really detailed and I just <3 him all the more for it.  Best guy hands down! :)  

 Exhibit B: This has nothing to do with teaching at all. I went to IKEA on Saturday with charming and I picked up this adorable little lamp. Okay if there's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I love the color magenta. Do you see my headphones, super magenta! And my Hello Kitty! Bookmark, (I'm totally not into her at all, I just love collecting bookmarks!)

Okay I think that's all I will post for this evening. I need to make an "er, ir, ur" sheet for tomorrow. A teacher's work is never done. Before I forget, I'll do my best to take pics of the kids' adjectives pics from tomorrow and the one they did for me.  Again, totally not my idea, (I <3 Pinterest!) Night!

Oh and one final thing I promise, First Grade Delight is having  a wonderful giveaway for reaching 200 followers! Isn't that wonderful! Please go visit her page for great teaching tips! She's also teamed up with her blogger buddy for another great giveaway. Click on the pic to see :) 

The "Can I Crusher"

So over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits she has this thing called "Dream Squasher". This is in reference to how she destroys her students' dreams. And by dreams she means any way a child can get out of class.

So I have decided to make my own type of "Dream Squasher" and call it the "Can I Crusher." For example, "Can I get an ice-pack my hand is swollen" "No, I just saw you playing basketball with that same hand and you were laughing." "Can I go to the nurse, my head hurts?" "Well I guess if your head hurts then you can't go outside for recess and play, right? "oh I'm feeling better Ms. Campos!" "Can I bring my BeyBlade to school tomorrow?" "Umm, no" This particular one isn't a "can I" but you get the same effect. "Ms. Campos, when is school over?" "On the last day of school, now put your hand down!" "Can I do computers today? "Is it your day to work on the computer? Oh it's not? Then no, sorry" "can I go to the bathroom?" "You didn't do the signal, we don't call out, and YOU just went 20 minutes ago!! Do you have anymore bathroom tickets?" "no" (Child does pee pee dance and giving me sad puppy eyes" "Fine, but you owe me a ticket tomorrow!"

Well you get the general idea, these are just SOME of the things teachers get to deal with on a daily basis and I'm not complaining I often find myself laughing at the things they do and how they think I will fall for them, well HA I'm too smart for those little ones..:)

On another note, TWO MORE WEEKS TIL SPRING BREAK! I'm sorry, I love teaching pretty much more than anything (except family and prince charming <3) but all us teachers need a break! It's been non-stop since we got back from Christmas. It's hard enough to find subs at our school when we need to be out when we get sick, so in we march, sore throats and all. I don't think I'll be doing much of anything, I think I'll just be sooooooooooo lazy and maybe get a workout in here and here (I said maybe)!

As usual we have another busy week ahead. The kids will be learning R-controlled words like "er, ir, ur" fun stuff. I have lots of games and things to get them interested and involved :D

Well I have to write my weekly newsletter for my parents and then get ready for work tomorrow. It's times like these where I wish I had my Pinterest board on clothes in my closet, boo! Goodnight mundo!

So I fibbed a little and two posts and the week's not even over...go ME!

Remember when I said that I was going to put my usb cord into my teaching bag..well I lied. OOPS! So I finally put the cable in this morning and in a hurry I didn't realize I grabbed the wrong one, seriously, sometimes I'm so on my A-game and other days I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body. Anyway, being the worry wort/Type A personality I am, I started to panic and thought I may have lost the cord when I moved. Silly me, I only moved about three blocks from where I used to live. That's just me being paranoid and thinking the worst possible scenario. Well when I finally got home today I found my charger in my "junk" drawer. Yes, Ms. Campos has a junk drawer, I'm usually very organized with my things but EVERYONE needs a junk drawer!!

Fortunately, my camera's battery still had some juice left in it from the fall (as in October) so I was able to grab some quick pictures. For your viewing pleasure here some pics of my class and my kiddos who were ever so busy putting the one syllable and two syllable "y" ending words in their corresponding area and then putting the "Y Bandit" behind bars, because don't you know he loves to steal "e's and i's" ;) I grabbed this lesson from both Ms. Leslie over at http://lifeinfirstgrade1.blogspot.com/ and http://awesomein1st.blogspot.com/2012/01/little-bit-of-this-and-that.html. Enjoy!

This is most of my Daily 5 area..and with some other little nooks that the children love to read under. They can't stop reading..it's a beautiful thing!

My new sound board thanks to http://lifeinfirstgrade1.blogspot.com/

After we read Frog and Toad we learned about real frogs and toads!

My kiddos really into their work!

Firsties working hard! Grabbing that Y and throwing him in the slammar, haha!

Well that catches me up, tomorrow gumball machine with words that end in "ied" oh yes, it's happening and It's my very own idea!!!!!! Pics to come! Night bloggity blog world!

Finally a full week of school!

Yea, that's my title for today's post. I feel like we haven't been in school for a full week in so long! That takes a toll on me and my students. It means that I have to cram everything in into three days because my kids have tests on Fridays.

This week is going to be NUTS! We have Presidents' Day tomorrow (which I just found a cute lesson for on TPT, phew), then Tuesday is Fat Tuesday and since I work in a Catholic school, it's kind of a big deal. I bought my kiddo's some beads at Dollar Tree (I love you DT) and they will be super excited to wear them because first graders get excited for anything! We will also have pancakes for a morning snack...can I get a yum? Then we have Ash Wednesday which means going to Mass first thing in the morning.

All in all, it's going to be a Crazy week. Oh yea almost forgot, we have our school's biggest fundraiser in two weeks and I haven't even started it! Sorry getting my kids to read is just way more important, but that's my opinion. So I have to take loads of pictures to make a first grade photo book so it can get auctioned off. Teachers are also asked to donate their time to be auctioned off. For the past two years I've done "go to the movies with Ms. Campos" but it's getting old. I REALLY want to do Manicures with Ms. Campos but that leaves out the boys in my class to get a chance to get that auctioned off. BLAH! I think I'll do the manicure this year and do something geared for everyone next year.

Speaking of the fundraiser, guess what I did on Friday. I actually brought my camera to school but left the charger at home. Way-to-go judy! It's okay, I'm going to put the charger into my bag after I finish posting.

So this past week we finished up Frog and Toad which they enjoyed. We compared and contrasted Frog and Toad then I read them information about real frogs and toads and compared and contrasted them. They then did a quick little writing assignment and craftivity to go along with it. It was great, I stole it off Pinterest. So it totally wasn't my idea. I'll take pics of those and post it.

We're moving on to adding 10 to a number this week and I'm excited because the kids always enjoy learning something difficult or as I say..Second grade math..it always motivates them to try harder. I'll have to find cute ways to teach that.

I think i've been living under a rock because I just started reading http://lifeinfirstgrade1.blogspot.com/ and she's Uh-mazing! I've stumbled on it before but never really honed in on her blog. She just posted something on "sound boards" as opposed to word walls...way cooler if you ask me. I want to do this so badly. I'm going to see where I can get pretty colored paper like hers and apply that concept in my classroom. So simple and unique, I love it! Well, I guess it's time for me to get ready. I need to find that paper and pick up my mom to have a mom/daughter hangout day. See you tomorrow with pics? (I hope)

My New Layout!

So it's been a while! A really long while!!! I can't help that I'm a teacher with a classroom full of wonderful little firsties!

So do you like my new layout? I'm really loving my new layout, It's so me!

Anyway, life in first grade has been super duper busy, I mean we've been adding two digit numbers, learning our long vowels, and all those wonderful spelling patterns. I love how when the kiddos come back from winter break you just see how much they have blossomed, it's like, who are you and what have you done with my little first grader? Ha! Well I have been terrible at keeping up with taking pictures of all my students' hard work. I seriously need to just leave my camera at work because there are days where I'm just like 'geez, why don't I have you pretty pink camera?'

We've been learning about dental awareness this week and I talked to the kids about taking care of their teeth and showed them how long and how they should be brushing their teeth for. Then I whipped out the pink paper and marshmallows. And they lost it! I love how excited they get for the littlest thing. It's one of the reasons why I love first grade so much. So I showed them how they were going to make their own little mouth diagram (grr, wishing I had pictures right now to show you). Well they came out too stinkin' cute!

As for right now, I need to make a long o test up for tomorrow, since we are pretending it's Friday in my classroom (we have in service on Friday) Goodnight and wish me luck getting this thing done.

Christmas is in the air...

Well here they are the turkeys in disguise. Although in the rush that I was in I forgot one more Santa one. I will upload that one tomorrow! Aren't they just the cutest little things?

So it's been a while that I have kept up with this thing but in true teacher manner I have been so-very-busy...NO JOKE!

This week the kids started learning about long vowel A. It's been a bit of a transition for them but I know they'll get there.

We are excited for our upcoming gingerbread houses. The local baker comes and everything. It's probably one of the most exciting times in first grade.

Fridays are my writing days so I wanted to something with rhyming words since our basal reader this week had rhyming words at the end of each sentence. My goal is to create a short little poem/story where the children can fill in their our rhyming words. Wish me luck cause here I go! If it comes out well I'll post it on here and TPT. Good night world!