New Year - New Post!

I canNOT believe it's already 2015! I created my original blog (Little Miss Third Grade...from my internship) back in 2012...EEK! I'm slowly growing old.  Already onto my 2nd year of teaching & slowly, but surely figuring everything out. :)

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to blog more! If you've been following, this has obviously fallen off my radar.  Been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! BUT...new year, new ideas, new posts!  

On a side note - Of course I'm blogging while watching The Bachelor...Oh, Farmer Chris how I love you!

Okay back to business...here's a few fun things we've done already since coming back from the break.  I got ALL of these ideas from pinterest, so I take no credit for any of them.  The only thing I'll "take", are the pictures. :)

First up was our science lesson I got from today.  I introduced weather - my favorite! I found a cute creative way to do this from Jodi's blog. 

First, we started with an anchor chart that said "Weather Words".  We began with the seasons & after that any weather word was free game.  They LOVED this & it sparked a lot of conversation!  Many of them learned something brand new just from this part of the activity (i.e. what a sandstorm, earthquake, hail is...etc.)  

After this each child was given their own rain drop.  They had to write 1 sentence using a weather word & illustrate it.  I loved seeing the end result!  I hung these in our hallway & over the next few weeks our hallway will become one big weather project.   I'm trying new things this year & so far I'm loving it & the kids are too!

Next up is math.  Today I introduced comparing numbers with "Mr. Gator".  I saw him all over pinterest & couldn't help myself.  My class LOVED him!

I also had a last minute idea, from a combination of ideas I've seen online.  I created this little guy in about 2 short minutes (a little old school looking...oh well!).  We used him at the carpet along with some base ten cubes (a great review of place value!).  A fun way to introduce this concept & it seemed to really click with the kids.  Tomorrow we'll use him again to practice "less than".

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! If I stick to my new year's resolution, you will be seeing a future post fairly soon. :)

Whisper Phones

Hey everyone!

I've been MIA for a super long time, but successfully finished my first year teaching! I absolutely LOVED it and can't wait to start my second year. :)

Last year I was dying for some whisper phones to help with reading fluency, so I decided to make some today! I've always seen the idea on Pinterest & some of my co-workers have done it themselves as well.  They seem to work great are really sturdy too (way better than the premade, over priced ones)!  I got more specific instructions from the blog http://teacherificfun.blogspot.com/2013/02/diy-whisper-phones.html.  So props to this lady!

And of course, I had to drag good 'ole Dad along with me on this journey :)

Our journey of course began at Home Depot!

I found a 10ft. long 3/4in PVC pipe for around $2.  Then asked this very nice man to cut them for me :)  I thought they had some type of machine for this, but apparently he just had hand held clippers and poor thing was sweating by the end...very thankful for his help!

While he was cutting, I also found the "end" pieces for the phones.  Around $2 per bag.

I made 25 whisper phones, so I bought 5 of these bags (only about $10 total!)

Then I bought some colorful duct tape, checked out, and the grand total for 25 whisper phones was about $16!! I was able to get these items tax exempted as well because they were for my classroom.  Yay teacher perks! :)

Final step...put them together! This is where my dad was particularly helpful.  

 

Step 1) Smash together Step 2) Use decorative duct tape in the middle!

I had a second helper as well, but she was caught sleeping on the job.

After about 45 minutes of building (we were perfectionists with the tape!), viola! Great new tools for my classroom :)

25 new whisper phones!

Thanks for reading & be on the lookout for more posts! Hoping to be more consistent with my blogging this year...but we'll see :)

xo Courtney

The Holidays Have Arrived!

I've clearly been busy....barely any posts this year! I'm going to try to get back into my blog...so I'm starting with a long post tonight to kinda catch everyone up!

I can't remember what my last post was about, and quite frankly I'm too lazy to look! So I may repeat myself some ;) but since the beginning of the school year I've gained 1 new student, making my classroom total a whopping 16!...I'm sure many teachers right now want to strangle me...but please don't!

There's so much I've missed posting about - especially Halloween (my favorite holiday ever!!). But my memory's long gone since then...all I know is I made my classroom as much like a haunted house as I could without scaring my kids, showed my age when I dressed up as a pink lady on Halloween (the kids just looked at me and didn't even acknowledge I was dressed up...I had the jacket, lipstick, scarf - the whole deal!...and then when I asked if they knew what I was they stared at my like I had 4 eyes ;) ), and had an AWESOME Halloween party hosted by my very generous parents. We even mummy wrapped the kids in toilet paper...as a result my room looked like it had been TP'd and you wouldn't have even known there was a floor!). I also learned ninjas and pirates are very popular costumes amongst 6-7 year olds :).

Now for Thanksgiving I was determined to kill 2 birds w one stone. Unfortunately for the kids we don't have an art teacher at our school (I say unfortunately bc they're stuck with my unartistic ideas!). So of course during Nov. we had to make SOME kind of turkey art - it's practically tradition! ;) so I decided to hit an art standard while I was at it. I taught primary and secondary colors using turkey feathers! 

When I was originally planning this lesson I went out on a whim and bought a book off of Amazon hoping it'd be worth then money. Turns out its one of my all time favorite books now!! It's called "'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving" is is SUPER cute and funny! The gist of the story is a group of kids went on a field trip to the turkey farm, only to find out these turkeys were soon to be chopped up and baked for Thanksgiving the following week! Needless to say, the kids were traumatized and when the teacher wasn't looking they hid the turkeys under their shirts and waddled on the school bus back home. And alas, the turkeys spent Thanksgiving with their new, young friends :). My students LOVED this book (...and maybe I did more than them!). 

After reading the book we talked about what they would eat more of in place of turkey.  Then we wrote about it (one super short sentence). It's a spoof on the old chick fil a cow so we said "Save a turkey! Eat more...". There were many popular choices, but "Eat more people." isn't the most humane, so I let the originator of the idea write it and everyone else had to choose something different :).

After writing, we created our turkeys! I'm not going to go step by step because you'll get the idea from the pictures, but they were asked to make primary colored feathers and then secondary colored feathers on their turkeys. Here are some pictures below of justs a few of them!

Save a Turkey! Eat more metlof!

                                      

Save a Turkey! Eat more salid!

                           

Save a Turkey! Eat more hash browns.

                    

I loved this project and would definitely do it again!

Now onto our current holiday...Christmas! I couldn't wait to get festive in my room. Here's a few pictures of my decorations below. I personally think the pictures don't do it justice - it's much more festive looking in person! 

                              

My mom sewed (I poorly painted on their names and year) my students some super cute stockings - thanks, Mom!

                            

Some holiday border! Here is also our schedule...a glimpse in the lives of first graders :)

                                   

My homemade UT wreath hangs right above our brownie points (class reward system).

                                

                                

                      

And of course, Christmas doesn't mean much to 1st graders unless Santa's involved. So of course, I pulled some strings with Santa and we now have an Elf in the Shelf watching over our class! We voted on the name Charlie Sprinkle (okay...I used their name ideas and combined 2 of them, but shhhh they don't know that!) and boy do they love him! They come into the classroom trying to find what silly Charlie Sprinkle was up to last night. Below are some pictures of Charlie Sprinkle's crazy adventures in 1S (1st grade Schletzer)!

Charlie Sprinkle's 1st appearance!

He gave our classroom some new decorations - a countdown to Christmas :)

... :)

Riding our class pet, Brownie!

Sleeping beauty, ZZZZZ...

Littlest pet shops take over!

Charlie Sprinkle is a great new addition to our class! He gives the kids something to look forward to and helps them be on their very best behavior. You'd be amazed at how much easier it is to stand in line when the teacher says "Let's she Charlie Sprinkle a good first grade line." What seems to be a blob magically turns into a pin straight line! Oh the magic ;)

Thanks for reading this super long post if you got all the way down here! I've got some upcoming posts I'm excited to share with everyone soon! Until then, stay safe during the holidays and keep being merry and jolly :)

Love,

"Ms. Schletzer"

Our Heavens :)

So the first week of school went great!  If every week is like this (which of course it won't be ;) ), I'll be one extremely happy teacher!

So far I've gotten great feedback from parents.  One of my parents said she overheard her daughter saying. "I just love school!" at breakfast, another student apparently has been getting dressed SUPER early in the morning so they can leave sooner, and another has been found to be pushing his dad outside the door so he can be the first one in the classroom :)  It's great to hear such great things!  I hope my students' enthusiasm stays this way throughout the year :)

This week I started religion by asking my students to draw what Heaven looks like to them.  It was SO sweet and something I'm definitely going to do every year!

This student's heaven included all of his dead cats :)

This student explained that her mom lost a baby in her belly.  Although her mom's still living, the only way she knew to draw her brother was "in her mommy's belly up in Heaven".  This was so sweet and definitely gave me some insight into their family dynamic!  

This student included an angel, Jesus, and some of her deceased family members :)

We also had our "me museum" on Friday!  I did this with my 3rd graders last year, and they loved it so much I decided to do it with my first graders!  Each child brings in 3 items that can fit on their desk.  These could be anything!  Pictures, toys, trophies, drawings, etc.  For each item they were given an index card and asked to write 1 sentence about that item. They also made a sign for their museum :)  My students were very creative in what they brought in!  It ranged from baby pictures, to trophies, to homemade clay dinosaurs.  I was very impressed!

As we were setting up for the museum we did have some 'tragedies' happen. One child was trying to show me his baseball trophy and tripped and broke it....needless to say that didn't end well.  The trophy was in multiple pieces, and I couldn't for the life of me get it back together!  I explained to him that maybe his daddy could help, and he looked at me (while trying to hold back tears) and said, "Well, maybe we'll win again this year, and I can get another trophy."  It broke my heart to see how much that meant to him, but I was so impressed with his positive outlook!!

I also had a boy who brought in a picture of him from Father Ryan's wrestling camp!  Because their school colors are purple, he was wearing a purple singlet.  He came up to me teary eyed and said, "Ms. Schletzer, someone said I played on a girls team because I was wearing purple!"  I assured him that wasn't true and that it's just FRHS's school colors!  I asked him (because he's a HUGE sports fan), does that mean I went to a boy school because UT wore orange? Nope! Not at all!  Eventually he cheered up and was proud to show off his picture :)

This upcoming week we're also going to start having quiet time!  There's an awkward 10 min span between P.E. and Science/S.S. so I'm taking advantage of this time!  I'm going to allow my students to lay their head on their desk (if they'd like) and listen to me read a story aloud.  I went to the library today (God bless that poor librarian because I was completely clueless!) and picked out 3 books for us to vote on!  We'll vote tomorrow to see which one I'll read during quiet time :)

My guess is they'll vote for Bad Kitty!

And with that, my first week is over!  Here's to starting again fresh tomorrow.  Can't wait to see what I learn from my kids, from my teaching, and to make some more funny memories! :)

First Day of School!

Well it happened...I survived the first day of school!  It was such a great day!...but super tiring so I'm going to try to make this a quick post :)

I started off my morning by waking up at 5:30am (yuck!) so I could get to school extra early :).  As soon as the bell rang I had many parents come walk their children into the classroom.  It was so neat to finally match faces with names.  Overall the children were super shy, but once they found their seats and were reunited with their friends they became pretty talkative!  I also had music playing to make it feel more welcoming for them :)...in the playlist - some disney, some Michael Jackson...needless to say it's a good playlist for both them and me ;)

One of my new students immediately came to me trying to hold it together, but we getting ready to lose it in tears.  He said, "I'm just so nervous..."  I casually pulled him aside (and none of the kids noticed!) and assured him it was normal to feel that way.  I even told him teachers get super nervous too!  I explained to him that I was really nervous, but pretended not to be.  I told him I even had a list of everything I had planned today because when I'm nervous I forget stuff.  Then I gave him a sneak peak at our activities.  He quickly smiled, dried his tears, and after talking to me and laughing for a minute he happily went back to his desk :)

I'm also SO grateful for the parental support I've received thus far!  So many kind words, pictures wanting to be taken with their children, and even gifts!  I had one child bring me an apple (I couldn't help but laugh), one painted a picture of
herself and me (even though she had no idea what I looked like, it was a pretty accurate painting!), and one child gave me a survival kit for the year (complete with chocolate, a coffee mug, and starbucks gift card)!  It feels so great to feel like families are excited for me to be apart of their children's lives.

Student painting of herself and me! :)

With my students' gifts after the first day...so grateful!

My survival kit :)

We started off the morning with announcements (morning prayer & pledge of allegiance).  I'm used to them being over the intercom, but then I realized that we do it over video using the smartboard.  Of course by this point I couldn't get it to work (I forgot to ask how!), and then I thought we missed it.  So I explained to my kids I'd just lead it for that day....aka it's called winging it ;)  Sure enough, in the middle of "our" announcements, the real announcements come on the intercom for just that day.  Go figure :)

After the real announcements, we went to the carpet (which I found to be wayyyy too small for my 'babies') and talked about our first day jitters.  I even saw some glitter in their hair from the jitter glitter I sent home the night before with the parents!  I had one student say she was going to use some more tonight because it helped her so much :).  Then we made a list of our jitters about first grade (some ideas included having no nap time, making new friends, and taking tests), we read a book called "First Grade Jitters" (about a boy nervous for the first day of school), and then we danced our jitters out!  That's right, I showed off my dance moves to some 6 year olds...they thought it was funny :)

Next we did some ice breaker questions (i.e., if you were a sandwich what would you be? if you were a pencil what would you write? etc.).  They loved them!

Then onto the boring stuff, unpacking supplies (which felt like it took FOREVER!) and morning procedures...that was not the most popular part of the day ;) but they stuck through it!

Then we made our first grade time capsule!  They LOVED this.  Each one drew a self-portrait (even though one child just wrote...I love my teacher!...instead of drawing herself haha!), filled out a survey about their favorite things, and I also took a picture of them on the first day of school.  I wrote on the board "Welcome to First Grade" and one by one they signed their name, stood next to it, and held our class pet (a stuffed dog).  These are potentially the sweetest pictures I've ever seen.  Nothing like seeing a little boy squeezing the living guts out of a stuffed toy with the biggest smile on his face :)...ah blackmail for parents in later years ;)  We'll retake pictures and redo the surveys in the last week of school, and on the last day they'll get to see how much they've changed.  I did this with my third graders last year and they LOVED it!  And changed so so much...can't wait to see how much my students grow this year!

Then it was time for dismissal.  I said goodbye and told them I couldn't wait to see them tomorrow!  At the end of dismissal, I had one student hug me and say, "Ms. Schletzer I just love you! On the last day of school I'm going to hug you so tight and never let you go!"...Needless to say it made me feel good :)

And on a funny note, I also had a student tell me, "I thought you were going to be a lot older." :)

And with that, my first day was done!  It was scary, nerve racking, but amazing all at the same time.  Now onto tomorrow! Here's to hoping our first full day goes wonderfully! :)

T'was the Night Before First Grade

Standing outside of my classroom showing off my homemade decorations :)

Well the day is almost here...THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! T - 9 hours to go. I cannot WAIT to meet my sweet first graders! I'm excited for them to learn from me and me to learn from them as well :)

Tonight was parent orientation for pre-K through 2nd grade.  We started by gathering in the gym while our principal introduced the teachers and went over the goals for the new school year :)  I just love my principal by the way!...then teachers headed to our classroom and anxiously waited for our parents to arrive.

I had a full house of parents!  That's right, every single child had at least one parent there...and almost 100% had both parents!  Talk about parental support :)

Needless to say I was pretty intimidated to stand in front of them and talk.  But all in all it went very well.  I introduced myself, went over our orientation packet, etc.  All of the parents were so friendly and accepting, and I can only have high hopes that it stays that way ;)

I threw in some subliminal messaging for the parents as they signed up for things during orientation ;)

Two of my first graders were also there!  One child I've met before, he's a new student and an absolute charm.  The other child ran up to me as soon as she saw me and gave me a giant hug...talk about feeling loved :)  I also had a parent ask to take my picture because her daughter has been DYING to meet me and see what I look like.  Apparently she requested her mom and dad bring back a photo of her new teacher :)  All in all I've heard very funny stories of the children anxiously awaiting the first time they meet me.  So sweet!

There's much more I could go on about, but I need to get rested for the first day tomorrow!  Can't wait to update yall on how it goes.  I'll also have pictures of my classroom coming very soon :)

                                              

So happy to have survived parent orientation!! Phew! :)

I also asked my parents to go ahead and bring in their child's school supplies.  I LOVE the kids' folder choices, and also found twistable crayons are now a must among 1st graders.

Thanks for reading!  Please be sure to send positive vibes and prayers my way for tomorrow (and the rest of the school year)!

Love,

Ms. Schletzer :)

Last Day of Summer!

The past two weeks have been stressful but productive!! Starting your own classroom from scratch is much harder than it looks and extremely time consuming. BUT thanks to my family and fellow coworkers (especially Tammy!!! - the other first grade teacher) my room is finally coming together!! It's actually starting to look like a classroom now ;) Can't wait to show y'all updated photos! But of course I have to wait til it's fully finished!

Kristin helping me in my classroom!! Making sure all the puzzles had every piece :)

Sneak peak of my bulletin boards before they were covered!

Passes I made for my classroom!!! I'm super proud of these :))) (Sorry for the lack of picture rotation!)

I painted some old black night stands and pushed them together for my small group table :)

My sweet pups helped me 'finger paint'.  Each of their pawprints and w initials is on the table to incorporate my dog theme :)

Tammy and I also tested some kids today to see if they're eligible for enrollment. One of them was my future first grader! He was absolutely adorable, polite, and not to mention as bright as a light bulb.  I knew he'd be a great addition to my classroom as soon as we told him to write any sentence he wanted, and he wrote: "I have a dog." And proceeded to talk about how much he loved his two pups at home. I just wanted to snatch him up and take him home w me right then and there!! Of course, I don't think his mom would appreciate that very much...I guess I'll have to wait another week to work with him! :) 

And finally, my inservice starts tomorrow! Can't wait to get started (well, actually I could!...not enough hours in a day), and get to know my coworkers a little better at our retreat. And although we'll have meetings this week, we'll also have a good amount of time to work in our classroom!! Props to my principal ;) Sunday afternoon I'll get to meet the parents at orientation, and next Monday I get to finally meet my sweet first graders! Can't wait to get started! Let the countdown and prayers begin!! ;)

Also...good luck to all of my teacher friends in my cohort who either started school today or are getting ready to soon! You girls will be great!!! :)  Here's to our first year of teaching and about 45 more years til retirement! ;)