First Grade Emergency Plans and giveaway!

Two weeks in a row I have missed 2 days of school!  :-O <---- screaming face!

I felt like I was barley catching up from the week before and then BAM- another stomach flu!  I swear the first one was just a warm up for the second one!  The second one I was so weak that I could barely crawl out of bed.  About 15 gatorades later- I still feel out of it but my husband came down with it.  (I will be kind right now and not call him a baby because he sometimes is so kind to read my blog!)

Well- I have the world's BEST teammates in the world!!!!!  I ended leaving my room a giant MESS and was planning on coming in early Thursday morning to clean it up and prepare for my personal day on Friday. (which turned into a sick day)  I had stacks of fairy tale unit stuff all over and who knows what else!!!

Through jumbled text messages I told them where my applesauce, spoons, video, fairytale video, books, worksheets etc. were sitting (because of course they were not on my shelves designed for my daily work!!!)  Ugh- those ladies must have worked their rear-ends off to make sure that my substitutes could find SOMETHING to do with the kiddos!  I am so grateful for them!!!

Well- I always thought that I was semi- prepared because I have a very detailed substitute notebook with filler items and generic Monday-Friday plans.  However (I didn't have it out- YIKES!) and it often doesn't seem like enough for those BIG emergencies.

So lo and behold between naps and fluffing my husbands pillow (which in all respect I really don't mind too much because he normally does most of the cooking and house stuff so I really owe him!) I created a true emergency plan that can easily be pulled together by me or my lovely little first grade teammates in the matter of minutes.  All they have to do is fill out the first page with important information like lunch time and then choose the instruction pages and put the time it should be taught at the top and copy the resources behind. (Well most I will already have copied- I have had THAT year that I seem to always be sick with Vertigo or a stomach flu!!!)

Here is a peak at it below:

As with all new products:  it will be a giveaway!  I will draw 1 name in about 2 days to receive this for free to share with your teammates!  ;) 

Please leave your email if you would like a chance to win!  ;)

You can find it here on TPT.

P.S. *I ordered 2 small 31 totes for a big giveaway that I'm planning!  It is all about my favorite things- teaching and non-teaching related!  I want to wait for the totes to come in for photos!  If you read a few weeks ago- you probably learned that I love helping and giving away or buying things for others. 

So I am super excited for this!  :)

Back to sleep because it took me about an hour to type this!

Mystery Sticks

A few years ago this idea was in mailbox magazine and a colleague pointed me towards it!

This is a really easy and fun little trick for tough behavior days.

Materials Needed:
-A cup or container to hold sticks
-1 popsicle stick for each student in your class
-a permanent marker

Directions:
-Write a student name or class number on each stick.
-Place them in the container.
-Pull out 3 and read the names secretly. Tell students that you are watching only these three students to make sure that they are following the rules.
-----If one of the stick kids is not following the rules-you put it back (without saying the name- but make a big deal and tell the class, "Oh no, unfortunately have have to put one of the sticks back because I saw that someone was walking around the room when they should have been working."
----- At the end of a selected amount of time the sticks left over will be announced and they receive a prize.

I always will be a little silly and look really wide eyed at certain students and glance at the names on the sticks.  I usually do this right as I pull out the sticks and as I look at my "behavior" kids.

This is just a fun little trick to keep in mind for really tough times! Just don't use it every day. It is more effective when you just use it randomly.

One of my favorite websites

Each week my students are expected to finish pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing on a story. If they finish early during the week they are allowed writing choice.

One of the websites that use for blank and fun writing forms is Sparkle Box.

I accidentally brought my master copies home so I got on the website to print off some forms to copy. I was really excited to see that they had some new templates!

If you haven't been to the website before- I definitely recommend it for k-2 teachers!

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/literacy/writing/frames/#.TzHswP15nTo

I just downloaded blogger on my phone last night and am loving it! I don't know why I waited so long to do it!

Have a happy Wednesday!!

common core math standards

I have started looking at the common core standards and breaking them into quarterly expectations.

I also am trying to add more Blooms type of questions to my lessons.  I think that it is something that I have to write down or I just always steer towards the easier questions.

Here is what I have so far for 1st quarter:

Hopefully it will go well!  Now- tell me why I am working on things for next year and not what I need to do this week?  lol.

Have a great night!

What is happening to me?!?!?! Crafty Sunday! (and Valentine's Day)

Today was a day for the history books!  Please mark it down in history that 2012 is the year that Danielle was will try to do more things out of her comfort zone!

Seriously- I don't know what put me in the mood to try not 1 but 2 things crafty!!!

I still have to put the wall up for my celebration center.  As I was walking around my house today, I came across this:

(I only use my phone to take pictures so they never look that great!) 
My 2 toned wall- I thought- hmmm... perhaps I can make my celebration center two toned as well. 

Then I went to Walmart and found the green and blue wrapping paper as pictured above. 

My plan is to attempt to cover the top part in the green and the bottom in the multi-colored paper.  I think that I might need a strip of white just like my walls to bring them together. 

I'm really nervous about trying it out!  :)  We'll see how the photos end up!!!

On to #2.  I have been hunting for the small muffin heart pans to make the heart crayons that Elizabeth from Fun in Room 4B mentioned a few weeks ago.  I cannot find them so I think I might have to give up on it for now.

I was searching for fun healthy snack ideas and found an adorable butterfly snack bag that you make with a sandwich sized Ziplock and a pipe cleaner.  They use this for snacks but I thought that I'd try it out for my student gifts.

Here is my attempt!

I still have to add a tag!  ;)

You can find the original version of it here:

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/fruit-n-cheese-snack-65188.aspx

For my party I plan on making the Valentine's Day Card Scrapbook again!  It was a hit last year.  I just simply buy the $5 tubs of heart and love bug foam stickers and ask for donations of decorating things.

I got the idea from here from Deanna Jump's Valentine's Day unit. 

It has all of the labels that you need to make the book.

What can you try that is out of your comfort zone?

Have a great week!  :)

P.S.  I'm brewin' up a MEGA Giveaway of my favorite things!  (Thanks for the Oprah inspiration!)

My Behavior System

Today is my second sick day!  I have slept a lot!  I still don't feel great but for the past 2 hours I have felt better so it is back to work for me!!!  I have a meeting next week about behavior so I was pulling items together.  I thought that I'd share them with you!   ;)  I think that I have shared bits and pieces before but this should be it all together!!!

I use the clip chart system.  I changed the colors to go with my school wide system.

If you are not familiar check it out:

http://www.newmanagement.com/products/clip_chart.html

1. My students are paid for green- top of the chart.  They spend the money monthly at our class store.
2. Students have to pay when they are on yellow-red. 

Peace Meeting and Peace Jar

We only have 20 minutes after special and before the end of the day.  We use 10 minutes for a daily peace meeting.  We discuss problems (without using names) and discuss how to problem solve the situations.  (USE YOUR WORDS!!!!)  We also end with compliments.

We have a peace jar.  We discuss how sometimes when you are upset that you will do something mean/ hurtful to that person or someone else.  We have learned to write what is bothering you on a piece of paper and crumble it up.  They place it in the jar and I throw all of the crumbled paper away on Friday to symbolize moving on.  It sounds silly but it actually works for some students!

NEW ITEMS ADDED THIS YEAR!!!!

Accountability Buddy Chart- this is used for 1 of my kiddos.

Privilege Chart- 8 of my kiddos use this

A part of the privilege chart requires students to visit the reflection center:

lol... doesn't it look like "fun?" 



Celebration Center- it isn't finished yet!!!!! (Wall coverings are not finished due to be sick!)

I was so inspired by Elizabeth from fun in room 4B to try something crafy for drawing winning numbers.  (That must be one heck of an inspiration because I don't have an artistic bone in my body!)

I have numbers 1-100 in the can.  I wanted to use a bingo cage but numbers only go up to 75.

I'm headed to bed again just to make sure that I get enough rest to be well enough to go back to work tomorrow!

WINNER!!!

I just gotta love that Rachel- she is always willing to comment!  ;)

Rachel is the winner of my reflection center!

I also sent her my behavior chart that I use with the reflection center!


I'm off to bed again!  I went home sick from school and still have a horrible headache!!!

STAY HEALTHY!!!