Monday, January 30, 2012

Hey Girl!

So I just saw this on my friend's facebook who is a fellow teacher....let's just say if you like Ryan Gosling, you're welcome. :) Click his beautiful face below to laugh!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

I've been tagged!

Jennifer at Rowdy in First Grade (love her!) tagged me in a fun end of weekend post!

Here are the rules:
1) Post the rules
2) Post 12 fun facts about yourself
3) Answer the 12 questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create 12 questions for those who you tag.
4) Tag 12 people and link them on your post.

So here we go!

12 facts about me:
1. My name is Ffion and is pronounced (fee-on) and no one ever gets it right, but I am VERY used to it.
2. I was born in Wales and moved to Texas when I was five. I *heart* Texas.
3. I was a show choir nerd in high school. Like director. It is the main reason I adore glee!
4. I love breakfast.
5. I am a gluten free chick. No bread for this one.
6. I love Louisiana culture. It makes me feel apart of something. The food, holidays, etc. It will make it hard to move someday.
7. My favorite movie hands down is "Singing in the Rain" My birthday is in it too! March 24th!
8. I love pilates, and wish I had more time and money to do it!
9. I enjoy seeing movies by myself. HA. I did it today, I saw "One for the Money".
10. Ben and I met at a college bar when we were 18. We are still dating. :)
11. I wish I worked for Chelsea Handler. I would like to think I am that funny.
12. I can probably reenact the entire movie of "Ace Ventura" and "10 Things I Hate About You".





And the questions from Jennifer!
1. Are you married and do you have kids?
No I am not married or have kids. My kids are my students and I am pretty sure Ben and I qualify for a common law marriage. (We looked it up once)

2. What is your favorite children's book or series?
Ummmmmm.....BABYSITTER'S CLUB. I was in the club where you got five books a month. I am not lying when I say I have ALL of them. Including the super specials.

3. If you didn't live in your current city where would you like to live?
Dallas, Texas!

4. Do you have any fun vacations planned?
YES. Ben and I are going back to the homeland together in May! We are going to the UK and then over to Italy. Cannot freaking wait.

5. If you won a million dollars in the lottery today where would you shop first?
Neimans....and I would want everything. Something red-soled first of course. :)

6. What was the last movie you saw?
One for the Money, today, by myself.

7. What theme do you have in your classroom?
Jungle!

8. At the end of a long day what do you do to unwind?
Reading a book, and watching mindless tele. Such as: Jersey Shore, Housewives (all of them), Teen Mom, and I always love a good SVU marathon.

9. What meal do you crave the most during a tough week?
A giant baked potato. fully loaded please.

10. What was your New Year resolution?
Be more positive and be more active. Note: I did not stay get in shape. HA

11. What's on your classroom wish list?
Ipads. I want them so badly for my kids. I did just get a donors choose project funded though! A new big book stand and five new big books! Can't wait to get all of it and see my kids faces!

12. What candy would you like to secretly stash in your desk drawer?
Snickers and Nerds

12 questions from moi:
1. What do you usually do on your break at work?
2. Are you married? Any kids?
3. What has been your favorite pin on pinterest?
4. Where do you like to shop?
5. What is the one thing you always have to pick up at the grocery store?
6. Where is your dream vacation?
7. Who is your favorite actor/actress?
8. Do you think Ugg boots are cute? (I am just curious, I have some but some of my friends think they are ugly?)
9. What is your favorite app on your phone?
10. What is your favorite subject to teach? Least favorite?
11. What is the one book you love reading aloud to your students?
12. What is one thing you hope your students master before the end of the year?

I am tagging these fellow bloggers: 
3. Kristin at A Teeny Tiny Teacher
4. Christie at First Grade Fever
5. Mrs. Berg at First Grade School Box
7. Ms. Simoneaux at First Grade Fresh
8. Heather from Heather's Heart
10. Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies
11. Sandra from Sweet Times in First
12. Janae from The Sharpened Pencil

Alright, TAG YOU'RE IT!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

100th day and blubber

So 100th day was yesterday, and I was le tired when I got home. Here are some pics of ALL the activities we did. {Ms. Thomas needs to learn to not bite off more than she can chew}
AKA I shut the centers down due to my inability to tolerate that much noise. :) We did get everything done, but in a more calming manner!







Those 100 year old portraits CRACK ME UP. I am doing them from now on. We did the usuals, with the froot loops and all the ways to make a dollar. I did something new though, I love April Larremore and her amazing ideas! We did the pizza with 100 toppings. Too cute, and it turned out pretty yummy looking.

Today, we were wrapping up our penguin unit and we did the blubber experiment. I made the "blubber glove" AKA crisco inside a ziploc with another ziploc inside of that. Have your kids put their hands in ice water then observe. Then they put their hands in the glove and observe the difference. They realize how amazing blubber is....for a penguin. Me on the other hand, I need to get back on the ellipitcal at the Y. No blubber for this girl please!


 Here is the worksheet I made for the experiment!

Penguin Blubber Experiment

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Some anchor charts and WBT

Every week in Reading and in Math we meet at our whole group area and I usually make an anchor chart with the kids about our skills. Also just a note: I know some teachers are like yes we make it and then I re-do it all pretty. Ummmm, this does not happen in Room 103. I am a big fan of you do it once and it looks okay, then ya keep it. :)
So here are some that I have made in the last few weeks. Some are split down the middle with reading and then math on the bottom. For all of you Treasure teachers you know there is a mess of skills they want you to cover, so these charts are usually how I get the skill across!



Also, I discovered whole brain teaching back in August. Yea. You know when you are like "Yes, this is awesome I am so going to do this everyday!" Well, this girl started out like that and then you know Thanksgiving and Christmas happened and that kinda faded out. :( BUT now I am back on the bus with it! I am serious when I say I realized that when I was doing the techniques my students were not bananas. So, it is going great. Check out the website or google it and you will find a TON of stuff. It really is a great way for management and the lesson format is amazing to watch in action.  I posted a video of my rules in an older blog post. Check out Sandra at Sweet Times in First. She has great video of her amazing students doing whole brain teaching!
Here is my really cute scoreboard! Thanks Ms. Simoneaux for the sassy duck tape!
Basically, they get smilies and frownies for the class behavior. If the smilies win they get a reward. The past few times it has been the wobble {yes} and then the YMCA. We do it at the end of the day. They love it and it is a great instant motivator!

Today is our 100th day! Post to come with all of our activities!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

A main idea freebie!

Our comprehension skill this week was main idea and details. This was a review skill for us. I posted a little bit ago about when we did the main idea chairs. We reviewed that analogy this week and then read our main selection story and filled in a little graphic organizer I made. Here is a little "pick me up" and I hope you find it useful!
Main Idea Chair GO

I did start MY LAST GRAD SCHOOL CLASS EVER today! I graduate in May! HOORAY! That is picking up my spirits!
Happy {almost} Friday!

Monday, January 16, 2012

White Egg and Brown Egg?! And love to Joplin


On Friday I did the egg activity with my kiddos and it was awesome! I posted the worksheet to go along with this the other day in my TPT store for free. It really got an important message along to my kiddos.
First, we had discussion about why MLK Jr. did what he did, and my kids knew why he fought for equal rights. Then, we filled out the first side of our worksheet and I showed them both eggs.


I told them this was like the color of our skin. Then, they made predictions of what it would look like on the inside. I swear they all thought it would be different!
Well, then we cracked the eggs...
It blew their minds! We had a discussion about how we are only different colors and we are the same on the inside. I felt really awesome about this lesson. Anyone else get that feeling sometime?!
Last I leave you with this picture...{it made me smile}

Also, Mrs. Wills posted the other day about sending love to Joplin. I can only imagine what these teachers have been through so she asked for everyone to send along a unit from TPT. I sent over my winter creative writing and I hope it makes them feel good!

Happy MLK Jr. Day!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Oh, writing!

I don't know about all of you but I will admit....

Sometime I have a hard time with writing. 
Emphasis on time. :)

There. I said it. 

I am always reading new books and research on writing. I try different methods and approaches, but I guess I have not quite found the perfect formula! I love the writing process and that is what we use, but I think it basically comes down to TIME. Writing takes a lot of time, and with sixteen little ones all needing help at the same time makes it hard.
Well, my writing workstation had turned into....let's call it a....hot mess. I had to re-vamp it and came up with a little idea. I made a bunch of "mad libs" sheets where most of the writing is there and they fill in the details. I included five of these in my recent Chilly Creative Writing pack. I introduced the first one this week.
They will do one every two weeks, and this is the mandatory assignment they have to do and if they finish they have journal topics they can complete. Here are some pics:


Once they finish this they re-write on nice paper and draw a picture. I thought long about it and know this will be the best way for me to have my kiddos do great writing and they will finally have enough time to complete it! I am excited to see their finished product! I am really loving what they are doing so far, and I am optimistic this will eradicate the "hot mess". :)
And here is a freebie of one of these for you!
Mad Libs Scribd

Happy {almost} Friday!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Geaux check out the sale!

Hey all! I am sitting on the edge of my couch with excitement to head to NOLA tomorrow to cheer on my tigers! It is so exciting that I get to go down there AGAIN to cheer them to victory. I went down when we won in 2007 and had a blast! Even better this time since my beautiful sister is living there with my bestie so it will be even more fun! I am jealous though because the manfriend got tickets and is going with his friend. :( BUT I will be with my friends watching it so all is well!
Mike and B are my favorite!

I know cute right?! One of my friends played on the team in 2007, so naturally I tried on his helmet! :)
Anyway....I am having a sale...so GEAUX check it out! Everything is 20% off till Tuesday where I will be smiling since LSU will be the best in the land!

Really...GEAUX check it out and GEAUX tigers!! Click my buddy Mike to go to my store!


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Time for some chilly writing!

Hello all! Went back today, just for meetings and I had all these grandiose plans to get stuff done......yep....you guessed it. NONE of it happened. Oops?
I did get successful when I got home though. {Even though it is jersday! Yes, I am a fan of the jersey shore. Don't judge!}
Regardless of my awful TV watching, I finished my latest unit! WOOP! It is a pack of FIVE fun winter themed writing activities. I changed them all up around different forms and traits of writing. I also included some thinking maps {our school is looooving these right now, so I figured why not?} There are also five fill in the blank stories {remember mad libs? kinda like that!} I am planning on putting them in my writing work station. Here is preview!
The topics are pretty cute {if I do say so myself}, click the preview to get a look!

First 3 to comment get a FREEEEE copy! 

O and GEAUX TIGERS!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy New Year!


Hello all! I hope this day finds you happy! I am currently drinking coffee on the couch since we don't go back till Thursday! I guess complaining about the extra three days we went before Christmas were worth it!
Now that we are in the new year, I sat down with the planner last night to map out January. Our main theme will be penguins! I know most people are doing this too, and I already am loving all the things people are posting. I will be using Deanna Jump's penguin unit and I cannot wait! The activities look so cute! I will also be doing activities with Jan Brett books. I just bought Made for 1st Grade's smitten with mittens unit. Cannot wait to put those out there. They make the cutest stuff!
I will be doing new year's resolutions with my kiddos on Monday to start the new year off right! I posted about them here from last year. I will be also using Cara Carroll's awesome FREE unit with new year's activities! I will be leaving those for a sub since I will be in NOLA to cheer on my tigers!
Also, MLK Jr. day is right around the corner! I made this after I saw the activity on pinterest. I think it is such a great way to show students that we are not different on the inside!
Here is a worksheet to go along with activity I made!
MLK Egg Experiment
I am currently working on a little winter creative writing unit. Just a collection of fun writing activities with a cute wintery theme! I hope to have it done by the end of the week! 

O and here is a cute pic of me and the manfriend from new year's in NOLA!