Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1
I don't know about you, but my students love Junie B. Jones books!  We just finished reading Junie B. Jones and her Big Fat Mouth by Barbara Parks. The book centers around the fact that Monday is Job Day at school, and Junie B. doesn't know what she will be. I will not give away the ending of the story, but this did spark conversations with my students.  Based on THEIR discussions, they thought that we needed to have a Job Day too! I am loving these text-to-self connections, so I was definitely all in!!!
It turned out great!

Dressing up was not the only requirement for Job Day. Just like Junie B., each student had to get on our class stage and tell about their job. They also had to ask and answer questions about their job.  Ryleigh wants to be a scientist. She talked about the ways scientist mix liquids and solids to create new things for us.

 

Chloe wants to be a doctor. She talked about how important her job was because she had to help keep us well.

Dariah wants to be a dentist. She told us how important it is to keep your teeth and gums healthy. She also told us about her favorite instruments that she would use at her job!

 Cannon told us that his job is to be a counselor to special needs students. This just stole my heart. He told us the importance of treating everyone, that may be different, kindly. He also told us that children with special needs are just like us, and we should take the time to reach out to someone that we may not normally connect with. IT WAS AMAZING!!

 This was such a fun way to meet SO many of the standards! The students didn't even know they were working and learning. 
If you are wondering, my stage is actually made of 4 plastic rectangles. I set two of them side by side and set another two on top them. Normally they would be used for step aerobics, but the P.E teacher wasn't using them and said that I could have them! FREE STAGE for my students. They think that it is great! It is light weight and doesn't take up any space in my classroom.

Hoot #2
We had a student at our school who passed away at the age of 12 named Zoe.  While we didn't actually get the opportunity to be her teacher, her story touched our hearts, much like many others at our school and surrounding schools.  Our school partnered with the middle school she attended to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in her memory.  Zoe was granted her wish of a Disney Cruise while she was in 6th grade through Make-A-Wish.  We wanted to be able to give another child this wonderful opportunity, so we began many different fundraisers to help us reach our goal of $8,000. One of our most recent fundraisers was selling this Gator shirt designed by Southern Belle.  We had over 100 shirts sold!!  We are so excited to be another step closer to granting a wish to a child.  We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to pay it forward in Zoe's honor, and we know this is what Zoe would want as well!  

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Jessica at Mrs. Stanford's Class. 
This holler is right up Jodi's alley. Jessica discusses fonts and having the perfect font pairing. For all of our TPT friends... there are definitely some great pairings on her blog that you could use when designing your next item.  Go check her out!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1 

Ever since Jamie has been using her microphone in her class, I have been dying to get one too!  I finally saw them on sale at Wal-Mart for $14.96!  Needless to say I got it, and I could not wait to use it in my class with my students!  The students absolutely LOVE speaking into the mic!  It has been very beneficial in teaching speaking and listening skills.  I have been allowing students to share their stories, thoughts, and ideas on the mic.  This allows me the opportunity to teach my kids how to properly speak to a group and present information; such as speaking loudly, looking at the group, using complete sentences.  The students are becoming better listeners because they have the opportunity to ask questions to the speaker or elaborate on what has been said.  Every student is engaged and paying attention because, let's face it, everyone wants to talk on the mic! This has proven to be one of the best purchases ever! Go out and get one today!  Your students will love you for it!! 

 

Hoot #2
This week, I decided to do something for the teachers. Thanks to the Desoto County Sheriff's Dept., we were able to have our very own women's self defense class. We had the best time!!  We learned so much about knowing our surroundings and how to protect ourselves.  I love our staff and want to make every effort for them to stay safe and return to our students!

 I invited my mom to join us. It looks like Mrs. Rhonda is really giving it to her!!

 

This Week's Holler...
This week's holler goes out to Emily over at Polka Dots Please.  We love her ideas for using word banks in the classroom. She uses them in so many different ways that could be beneficial to all grades. Go check her out! 

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1
This year Dr. Seuss's birthday and our monthly house meeting fell on the same day!  We learned all about Dr. Seuss and read several of his books in class throughout the week.  On Friday, we got to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday with our house buddies!  Their 5th grade house buddy read a Dr. Seuss book to them, then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Dr. Seuss. Finally, we had a small birthday party in honor of Dr. Seuss.  After 300 cupcakes, 40 tubs of cotton candy, 250 drinks, and lots of Dr. Seuss books, we think these kiddos had a blast! 

Mr. Hickerson, a 5th grade teacher, really enjoyed reading to our kinders!  The kinders LOVED hearing him read and seeing him dance at the celebration.   

 Some kinders read to their 5th grade buddy!  Seeing our kinders reading to their buddy made our hearts so happy! 

Hoot #2

Well, we have been lucky enough to be able to expose our kindergartners to more technology than ever this year!  This week is "Report Card Testing" week. We don't know about you, but usually that also means it is a review week. It is a little more relaxed. In a world full of assessments and rigor that is not age appropriate, it is nice to sit back and show our students how much their brain has grown! ESGI allows us to do just that! Our students are so excited to see how much of their pie graph turns green.

This year, we have been blessed to get ipads in our classroom. We now have 7 in our room. The students love to get on them. If the students are doing individual work, they are doing Reading Eggs. This is a great tool that we recommend for your kinders. It helps with phonemic awareness and other reading skills. During free centers, they love to work together in pairs. We discovered these jewels, and we are loving these new headphones!

What makes these headphones different from others is that you can take any other head phone and plug it directly to the headphone and you immediately have a partner to work with. So now we have the ability to have 14 students working at one time on tablets!!! There is no more fighting over tablet time!

The additional headphone plugs in right under the ear!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Amber at A Smiling Teacher. She is an elementary teacher from Ohio. We are in love with her writing station. Super fun and super easy! She is selling it as a bundle on TPT, and it is on our wish list now!  Go check it out!!