More giveaways!

Enter the 3 Winner Giveaway at educationjourney. The contest will end on Sunday at 10pm.


The Moffatt Girls is giving away a Graphics Factory membership. Last day to enter will be Friday, July 15th at 6pm (PDT).


Go Fourth! with Mrs. Owens is giving away the "All in One Organizer" bag with your choice of pattern and personalization from 31 Gifts. The giveaway ends on Wednesday, July 13 at midnight.


Teaching Mrs. Lazenby is giving away a $15 Target gift card. You have until July 12, 2011 to enter.

Woohoo!!

Woohoo!!!!!!!!! My teaching license came in the mail today!!!!!! I AM OFFICIALLY A LICENSED TEACHER!!!! :)


Speaking of becoming a licensed teacher, Eberhart's Explorers is having a most fantastic giveaway. It's a teacher survival packet. The basket of teaching goodies includes: magnetic numbers, writing utensils, customized note cards, designer post its, scotch tape, gum, band aids, finger nail polish, advil (ha!) and other fun things to stash in your desk! Being a newly licensed teacher, I soooooooo NEED this!!!


Of course, there are some other great giveaways that I'd LOVE to win as well.


Peace, Love, and Learning has put together a wonderful birthday pack!  Head on over there and check it out for yourself. All you have to do is blog about this and she'll sent it to you. Love it! :)


Teaching and Learning Make the World Go 'Round is giving away a $10 Dollar tree gift card and $5 Starbucks gift card. Winner to be chosen July 11.


First Grade Brain is having an AWESOME giveaway!! 3 winners. 10 ways to enter. You have until 7:00pm CST on July 10 to enter.

Giveaways

A little kinder told me so... is having a giveaway. Three easy ways to win a customized apple teacher bag (canvas tote bag with your name on it) $10 gift cards to Target and Sonic.


Lil' Country Kindergarten is giving away a $10 gift certificate to Scrappin' Doodles along with $10 to spend at Deanna Jump's TpT store (or any store of your choice). This giveaway will end on Wednesday, July 6 at 5 PM CST.


Enter the HeidiSongs Giveaway at Learning with Mrs. Parker. Winner will be selected July 14.

If you haven't already, go get your Miss Bindergarten unit and Chrysanthemum unit (both for FREE) from Kinder Kraziness.


Do you like clip art? What about FREE clip art? Well, check out Frog Spot. On the right side bar, click on the frog that says "Free Graphics."http://kinderkraziness.blogspot.com/2011/06/miss-bindergarten-unit-on-scribd.html

The words to describe the 4th of July

Today we celebrate our freedom. Freedom that has not been free. We have lost sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, and grandparents all in the name of freedom. But freedom is not free. We have fought in wars, have lost battles on inner city streets, and have lost rights in the courts. Freedom is not free.

I was looking for famous quotes or speeches made on this day from years past and although there are many, I thought I would share my thoughts of today while sharing a few quotes as well. First I want to look at the word freedom.

Webster Dictionary - the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

The absence of constraints in choice or action. How many of us can see ways that even in today's world these absences do not exist? I know I can think of quite a few areas where choice is not  free.

There are two quotes that I would like to share today. The first is from President Abraham Lincoln and the second from Vice President Dick Cheney.

President Abraham Lincoln: Those who deny freedom to others
deserves not it for themselves.

Vice President Dick Cheney: It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.

As we celebrate today with fireworks, barbeques, boat rides, beer, and other celebrations let us not forget that freedom is not free. If you want freedom we must fight for it, every day and not always over seas. The freedom of our friends, neighbors, and children comes from granting liberties to them with absence of constraint in choice or action. It means taking back the streets of violence, taking back and gaining the rights of all people, and teaching our future generations that freedom is not free.

We live is an amazing world with amazing people. Fight for freedom and liberty.

Happy 4th of July.

Even more giveaways

Win a $25 Amazon gift certificate and 5 free items from Sunny Day in Second Grade's TpT store. To sweeten the pot even more, if she reaches 250 followers by the end of the contest, she will pick a second place winner who will also get to choose 5 items of their choice from her TpT store! (I just checked and she has 256 followers now!) Ends Sunday, July 3 at midnight.


First Grade Fresh is giving away a $20 Lakeshore gift certificate. This ends at midnight Sunday, July 3.


The Teacher's Market 100 Follower Giveaway ends July 4. Because it is so close to our country's birthday and celebrating is just in the air right now, she wants to do two giveaway prizes: one lucky winner will get a $20 Target gift card and a second lucky winner will receive the Have Fun Teaching Counting Songs DVD, which has been graciously donated by Have Fun Teaching.


First Grade a la Carte! is giving away a Mother Goose game to everyone free and then is having a giveaway for the rest of her Nursery Rhyme games. Ends at midnight on July 4.


Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten is giving away a $10 Starbucks gift card to celebrate her lucky 13 followers (which is up to 42 now at the time of this posting). Winner will be selected on July 7.


Pocket Full of Kinders is giving away a fluency pack to 3 winners on July 8.


Adventures in Teaching is giving away a Scentsy teacher warmer. I love, love, LOVE Scentsy and have seen the teacher warmer. I've wanted it so badly, but just never have actually ordered it yet. I would so LOVE to win this!! Ends July 9.

More giveaways

Beth at Primary Connections had one of the most fun giveaways last night. It was a super quick giveaway. She only allowed an hour or two for it. If you found either of her two cats in previous blog posts, you got an extra entry. So clever! I was one of two winners for a $10 TpT gift certificate! That makes 4 giveaway wins in 8 days. I think I need to go buy a lottery ticket. ;)

4th Grade Frolics is hosting her first giveaway: $15 Target gift card and 410 Starbucks gift card. Shopping AND coffee= LOVE!!

Giveaways

Only a few more hours to enter Erica's Elementary Excitement giveaway for a $50 Lakeshore gift certificate and a $25 Target gift card. She has also added two extra prizes to allow three people to win! The second pick will be a $15 Barnes and Noble gift card and the 3rd pick will be a $10 Amazon gift card. Get in this now because it ends tonight!

First Grade Frenzy is having a giveaway (jewelry, long/short vower activity, and Later Gator Board) that ends July 2. 

My Second Grade Journal is giving away her Making Words Unit. Winner to be selected on July 3.

Plug-n-Plan is having a giveaway for "Hoo's Turn Is It" differentiated file folder game, which is part of her It's Owl Time unit that she recently finished. Just follow her blog, like her Facebook page, follow her TpT store, blog about her giveaway, and leave her a comment and she'll e-mail you the 8 page differentiated center!

A Place Called Kindergarten is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card. Winner to be selected July 4.


Grade 2.0 with Mrs. Adcock is giving away a $15 Target gift card. The deadline is July 5.

Castles and Crayons is giving away a $15 Target gift card. Winner will be selected July 5.

Enter the Trash to Treasure Linky Party and Giveaway. Ends July 10.

Meet some new bloggers: Linky Party & Giveaway

There are so many great blogs out there waiting to be noticed, but none of us  have time to find each and every one! (Even if we ARE all blog addicts.) So Set this Circus Down is having a Linky Party and Giveaway for a $25 gift certificate to Amazon. Go check it out and link up with some great new bloggers!


Also, today is the last day to enter for $25 gift certificate to either Target or Amazon (winner's choice) at First Grade Blue Skies.


PS= I changed my blog design. I want something a little more in line with my blog button. I haven't decided if this is the blog design for me, though, so it might be changing again. I'm not sure yet.

I am on a roll!

Today was a rough day for me. Very, very rough. I almost didn't get on to check out any blogs this evening. I had had enough and was just going to head to bed at 7:30pm. Then, I got a phone call from a friend, which put me in a little better mood (but not by much) so after getting off the phone, I finally decided to go ahead and check my blog list action for the day. Well, I'm glad I did. It cheered me up to find out that I won the Penny and Pals Giveaway from Growing Kinders. Neither of her first 2 winners contacted her so she tried a third time... and it was me. I couldn't believe it!

I have definitely been on a roll by winning 3 giveaways in less than a week. Now, if only that luck would roll over and allow me to get a job, I'd be set! I did have an interview Monday afternoon, but I'm not too positive about it. Granted, I am my own worst critic so you never know! I'd love that job, but I just don't feel like I was on the top of my game at the interview so we'll see what happens.

I have an interview... and I won!

On Wednesday evening I found out I won one of the items from the Newbie Teacher Team Blog Giveaway that Little Miss Kindergarten was hosting. I won the $25 Target gift card from Primary Connections. Can you say, "Hello, Dollar Spot!" :) SO EXCITED! I am obsessed with Target.

On Thursday afternoon, I finally got a call requesting an interview! So I am driving to a small school about an hour and a half away from where I live on Monday. My interview is at 2:00pm (Central Time) on Monday. Therefore, if you think about it, say a little prayer for me. I REALLY want to be able to find a teaching job for this upcoming school year. School here starts in mid-August with most new teacher inservices starting the first week of August so I basically have one month left to find a job for next year. Ah! So... hopefully Monday's interview goes well for me!

Today, I went to my cousin's wedding. I came home and checked out my blog roll from the past 30 or so hours and found out I won another giveaway. I won the Anti-Coloring Book from Life Isn't Always Frogs & Cupcakes.

I'd say the last 4 or so day have been pretty good! :) Maybe this will continue into the start of next week and I'll get the job I'm interviewing for on Monday.

The Art of Teaching: A Kindergarten Blog: Letters H-Z Giveaway!

The Art of Teaching: A Kindergarten Blog: Letters H-Z Giveaway!: "Alrighty, I have done things a little differently this time...Instead of creating each character and making individual units I have created..."

Daily Challenge

I made another poster. Your challenge for the day? Find something good in everyone. How easy it is to forget this, especially when someone gets on our nerves. But, we are all human and we all have weaknesses, quirks, and negative aspects. On the other hand, because we're all human, we do all have strengths and positive aspects. So today I challenge you to find something good in everyone you encounter.

Click here to download.

The great teacher inspires

I found this quote and decided to make a poster with it. I could not think of any good clipart pictures to go with the quote though, so I simply used a cute font and put a border on it. Although, I discovered that I need to look into finding cute borders to use in documents too. I have figured out cute fonts and cute cliparts, but need to search to try to find cute borders. One more thing to put on my "need to research and figure out" list. Anyway, it's nothing special, but I liked the quote so I'm sharing it with anybody who reads my blog.

Click here for the download.

I figured out how to take a screenshot of it without having the gray box around it like in the picture from the Space Mission writing prompt picture. However, I am still trying to figure out how to link the picture, instead of having to link it in my writing or as part of the caption.

Space Mission: writing prompt

Before I started our Space Exploration unit, I created a writing prompt for my first grade students. I partly wanted to get an idea of what they knew already about space and I partly wanted to give them time to write and draw creatively. Unfortunately, I made it very quickly and before I had accumulated new fonts and graphics. So tonight, I decided to revamp my space writing prompt. This is the very first thing I've used special fonts on so please let me know what you think! Having just graduated less than a month ago, I'm still new to the world of creating classroom activities, especially with cute fonts and clip arts so I'll take any advice, comments, or critiques you have.


Unfortunately, I do not yet know how to put up a picture of the document to link the download via a picture of the activity. Actually, I think I can handle attaching a picture and linking the picture. My problem lies in how to go about getting a picture of it when I only have it on my computer. I could print it and then take a picture with my camera, but that requires a printer, which I do not have at home. I'm thinking I can probably take a screen shot of it, but I can't recall right off how to take screen shots on my Mac and I'm too tired to figure it out right now. So that's my next goal in terms of creating activities for the blogging world... I will learn a way to include a picture of it. I have all summer, as I also look for a teaching job, to figure it out. I can usually figure it out myself with a little bit of time so hopefully soon I'll have it figure out to make it easier for everyone to see the activity before having to click on it. Anyway, click here to view and download my space writing prompt.


Update: Here's a snapshot of the document on my computer. I'll keep working on discovering how all the other great teacher bloggers put up pictures of their documents and then how to link to the picture. But for now, this is better than no picture at all, I guess.

Miss Kindergarten: Back to School Kit giveaway!

Miss Kindergarten: Back to School Kit giveaway!: "Summer has just begun and many of you have already started to get ready for the new school year! And people say teachers don't work over the..."

Blog button is up!

Woohoo, I finally got my blog button from Ms. M up!! I am so excited about it!

I have returned from 2 weeks of traveling. I drove from Wichita, Kansas to Nags Head, North Carolina and stayed a week on the Outer Banks. It was beautiful! The beach house we rented was awesome, the weather was great, and a wonderful time was had by all. A dear friend of mine drove down from New York to spend 4 days on the beach with us and then I rode up to New York with him. He lives near Rochester so most my time was spent in that area, but he did take me to Niagara Falls one day, which was absolutely gorgeous! If you ever go, spend the extra money and ride on the Maid of the Mist. From New York, I finally flew back to Wichita... 14 days after I left. I've been home 2.5 days now and I'm already ready to travel some more! Ah, I love traveling!! But for now, I'm trying to find myself a teaching job for next year.

Giveaway and Exciting Things

The Teacher Wife is having an awesome giveaway for $15 to HeidiSongs and winner's choice of any 3 items from her TpT store. How awesome!

In other news, I won my very first giveaway earlier this afternoon. I won "Furry Forest Friends" from Teacher Bits and Bobs. It looks awesome. I'm so excited to use it in a classroom soon! Go check it out!

I was also able to get a blog button from Ms. M. Unfortunately, I probably won't get it added to my blog for a few days. I am super excited for it, but unfortunately, I am pretty busy right now. I leave at noon Thursday (13 hours from now!) to drive to North Carolina. My entire family is renting a beach house in Nags Head for a week. SO EXCITED! Because of that, I've been shopping and packing, need to get at least a little bit of sleep tonight, then have to run errands and pack the car. Then, I'll be on the road for 2 days and without internet. Who knows if I'll get the new button put on my blog while in North Carolina- hopefully, it's warm enough and sunny so we can sight see and enjoy laying out on the beach so blogging might just have to wait. We'll see how things go once I get there.

I changed the name of my blog. I originally had Staying Young With Children because it's the ONLY thing I could think of at the time of setting up my blog. I thought of what makes up a teacher's heart and qualities of good teachers... so with those thoughts came the idea to change my blog name to The Teacher's Heart. I already like this blog name better.

I went to help clean out a Kindergarten classroom today for a teacher I worked with last semester. Today was the last day for the teachers! Woohoo. I've been going into one classroom or another ever since finishing my student teaching so I'm just as excited as the teachers are. Other than still not having a job for next year, it's been a great and exciting day with exciting things to come on my trip for the next week and a half!

The Lesson Plan Diva: A FREE Give Away For My Followers!

Woohoo! Check out the adorable dictionary skills and guide words activity pack you can get. All you have to do is post about is follow The Lesson Plan Diva and post about this free activity pack. Easy Peasy Nice and Cheesy (as my first graders says).

The Lesson Plan Diva: A FREE Give Away For My Followers!: "Here is a Free activity pack for all of my followers! All you have to do is post the message below on your blog in a post and add me to your..."

Giveaways

1.) Education Journey is giving away $10 to TpT!

educationjourney: Giveaway Time: "It was such a nice surprise to find that I had my 50th follower this morning! I'm pretty excited considering just a few months ago I barely..."

2.) Runde's Room is hosting her first giveaway.  She bought a premium membership to Graphics Factory. As part of her membership, she gets to giveaway one premium membership to a friend so she's having a great giveaway for it. Awesome!!


3.) A Special Kind of Class is giving away up to $10 worth from her TpT store. Winner's choice. She has some mighty cute-looking activities for sale!

Primary Graffiti Giveaway

Primary Graffiti is giving away her Diary of a Ladybug, Camping Alpha Line, and Camping with Books Resources. Check it out:

Primary Graffiti: Diary of a Ladybug + Giveaway: "I'm really excited for my annual Camping with Books Unit during the last week of school. Each year I choose different insects to explore..."

A bowl full of lemons.: May Silhouette Giveaway!!

Check this out: a giveaway for a Silhouette. Awesome! Of course she already has over a thousand comments, but there are numerous ways to enter many times.

A bowl full of lemons.: May Silhouette Giveaway!!: "Im so grateful to be able to give away Silhouette SD machines on my blog. This week, I am offering another chance at a giveaway! This set ..."

Last Day of Student Teaching

Today was my last day of student teaching. THis means that I am officially done with college- well at least in terms of my undergraduate studies! This sounds like a GREAT thing... but to me, it's sad. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to be finished with college and be able to have my own classroom FINALLY.... but I had to leave a great bunch of first graders that I adored teaching. Not only did I leave a great class, but I left one of the greatest teachers I've ever met and a most marvelous and amazing team of teachers as well. I left there with no idea where I'll be headed next. I've had one interview so far, but have not heard back from them yet. It's scary leaving my student teaching class not knowing when, where, and even IF I'll ever teach again. I desperately hope that I am able to find a job. I already feel like a piece of my heart is missing and I haven' even been out of a classroom for an entire day yet. So I'm torn about leaving for many reasons, but I got some great gifts from my class. Take a look:

The cutest gift bag I've ever seen, a scrapbook they made for me filled with notes and pictures, calendar headings, magnetic clips, push pins, pipe cleaners, craft pom poms, plastic shot glasses (my CT clarified that she thought they'd be cute for small manipulatives such as dice or coins), craft sticks, cards with little fairies on them (my CT's idea was to use them for the desk fairy), star stickers, a star pointer, an adorable flyswatter with a flower attached, and huge sunglasses (my CT's idea was looking glasses to look for punctuation or sight words).

This ADORABLE poster. It says what children are A-Z and gives an encouraging word on how to treat them. Then, each student put their handprint on the edge and wrote their name on the handprint. I about balled my head off when my CT came out with this. SO PRICELESS!

Each of my first grade loves got a page to write a note to me on. Then, they attached their school picture and used the fancy letters to spell out their name on the page. SO CUTE! In the back of the book, there were random pictures of my students that had been taken throughout the year.

A little better view of my gift bag and all the goodies that were in it.

The whole shebang- poster, scrapbook, and all the purchased goodies. LOVE IT ALL!

If and when I get a job, I am going to have fun thinking of uses for these things and the many other numerous books, posters, and goodies I've accumulated during my college days!

Teacher Created Materials FREE ebook

How awesome is this! I just picked up a free ebook with 30 graphic organizers for K-3 content areas. There were other choices too, so it was hard to decide, but oh my goodness, it is awesome. I now have ideas flowing on using these in my units next year!

Book Giveaway!

Teacher Created Materials is giving away a FREE book ($39.99 value) to every teacher who registers online during our Every Day in May Giveaway promotion.

Step 1: Register online at http://www.tcmpub.com/free/books/ Step 2: Choose your title (shipping free for U.S. addresses only) Step 3: Enjoy your book

$500 Prize Giveaway!

Be one of four lucky winners who will receive a $500 Gift Certificate good towards Teacher Created Materials products. When you register online for your free book, you will automatically be entered into our weekly prize drawing. One entry per person, per week. Visit http://www.tcmpub.com/free/books/ for rules and details.

Frog and Toad: Writing a summary

My firsties read The Kite from Days with Frog and Toad. While doing so, we worked on problem and solution. Therefore, our writing about the story was to write a summary to tell the characters, the setting, the problem, and the solution. I created a simple writing page with a picture of Frog and Toad. Since the copy machine only prints in black and white, the students were able to color in their picture of Frog and Toad when they were finished.


We made a list of possible titles for our writing, rather than just The Kite. I told them that this is not the actual story, it's just a little information about The Kite to make other people want to read the story. As a class, we discussed and made a list of titles we could use for our writing assignment and then the students picked their favorite for their writing page. Then, we discussed how the by is not the author's name, but their name because they wrote this particular summary (whatever they chose to title theirs).


The requirements for the paragraph were to give the name of the story, the author's name, the main characters, the setting, the problem, and the solution. They each had a web to fill out, which they worked on themselves before we gathered as a class to complete the web. Then, they turned their web details into sentences. Finally, they organized the sentences into an order that makes sense and wrote on their writing paper. It's pretty simple, but here is the writing paper they used.


*UPDATE: I am SO excited that I finally figured out how to put up a document on Google Docs and actually have it appear how it is supposed to and therefore be able to post it onto my blog to share! Yay for learning more about this whole blogging thing!*

What a week!

My last week of actually teaching lessons is finished! While it's nice to not have to do so much planning, it's also sad. It means that my student teaching time is almost over and I will leave there with no idea of what will come next for me. I've submitted a handful of applications, but have not heard anything about any of them yet. I really hope a get a couple of calls about interviews! Several people I know have gotten jobs, which is encouraging because it shows people are hiring, but it is also nerve-racking because it means positions are being filled and I haven't gotten a single interview yet. Anyway, even though, I'm technically done teaching, I'm still spending lots of time on blog land getting ideas of things my CT can use still this year or things I can use in the future. I am in the mood to be creative to make new activities, but I know that's not wise for me to spend my time doing that right now because I have no idea what grade level I will need activities for in the near future. I certainly hope it's kindergarten or first grade, but at this point, I just want to teach so I'll take any grade level I can get.


This week we learned the short oo sound, as in look and wood. I have to grade our spelling tests still, but as I was circulating the room while giving it, it looked like my kids did very well, despite only having a 4 day week and being with a substitute the first day. The 3 days that they were with me, they learned it as being their sick sound. They were able to give me their sickest sound. They loved that!! To practice writing their spelling words, they used the colorful dot stickers for their oo. Then they got to rainbow write the first and last letter of each of their six spelling words. My CT was commenting on how cute it was and said she's going to use it again next week for the long oo sound words. I allowed them to draw their sick eyes on their dot circles, if they wanted as well. The ones who did that were SO creative with making their eyes look sick. The rainbow dot sticker words turned out super cute for just being spelling practice! The students seemed to have a lot of fun with it too! The reading them this week was Space Exploration. We watched a video of a tour of the International Space Shuttle, which they enjoyed. We viewed many pictures of the planets, sun, moon, stars, etc. We read about an interview with an astronaut. We read the book A Day in Space. Throughout the week, students found books in the library about space and the planets so on Friday after quiet reading time, I opened up the floor for them to share what those students learned by reading other books in our library. You could see their face light up as they got a turn to share what they learned from reading on their own! Of course, we also watched Magic School Bus Gets Lost In Space.


In math, my CT was teaching fractions. She was absent Friday so I helped the sub teach Math. We looked at the book Eating Fractions. Then, they had a worksheet with different fruits cut into different fractions. They did an AWESOME job writing the correct fractions on each piece! Of course, they enjoyed coloring the fruit too. Then, we had a fraction candy page in which candy pieces were divided up into pieces and they had to color the candies by the code for how many pieces each was cut into. I thought this might be pretty tough on some because the fractions on the page went further than what the CT has taught so far. There were halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, eighths, and even twelfths on this page! It amazes me how good they are with fractions!! I didn't hear the word fraction until I was in third grade. Here they are in first grade, doing an excellent job of being able to write the fractions for a given picture. One of our centers this week was a fraction picture in which they got 16 foam squares in which to design any picture they wanted. They glued their foam squares on and wrote fractions for each color of square they had. We did this as an exploration a couple of weeks ago, but we all created a man together. The center this week allowed them to be creative and design whatever they wanted with their foam squares. They did great on their fractions for this too and they created some super cute pictures!


Since my CT was absent Friday, I ended up teaching writing. It wasn't in the sub plans for me to, but the sub never even bothered getting out the writing folder to see what was there so once the students were sitting in their seats after lunch recess, I ended up just grabbing it and taking over. I used the document camera to model writing an acrostic poem together as a class. Then, they had to write their own acrostic poem about SPRING. We've not ever done an acrostic poem before in our class, but boy did their poems turn out cute! For S, many people chose to write using the words sun or sunflower. A popular P line was about protecting the plants from animals. Playing outside in the warm weather was another popular P idea. For I, some students chose the word insects. Several students chose to use the N to write about nectar and its purpose. Many students ended their poem using their G to instruct the reader to go outside and enjoy the lovely spring weather! We spent 2 weeks growing and discussing plants in writing, one week of which plants was also our reading theme. Then, we discussed bugs in both reading and writing, which included how bugs affect plants. Then, this week, was our district writing assessment, which was about plants. So to say the least our SPRING poems included lots about plants, but it showed how much they're learned about them the past few weeks.


I really wish I kept a camera at school. There were several times this week that I wanted pictures of their work. But, I'm hesitant to take pictures of them since I'm not their full-time teacher. I'm only a student teacher. So I'm not sure how my CT and my students' parents would feel about that.

HELP!!

Does anybody have any ideas for teach 25 first graders (many of whom are ESOL Hispanic students) about the short oo sound (i.e. book, look, took, good, stood, etc.)? My brain is thinking of very little. Tips, strategies, activities, etc. are more than welcome and greatly appreciated!!

Excitement! :)

I was looking at kansasteachingjobs.com last night. When I went to the site, the very top job advertised as being the most recent post at that time caught my attention. It was: Third grade teacher at St. Joseph Catholic School in Conway Springs, KS. Why do I write this on my blog? Well, you see, I grew up in Conway Springs. I attended elementary school (grades 1-6) at St. Joseph. Since first grade, I've wanted to teach there. Even as I've neared the completion of my bachelor's degree, when people ask me where I'd like to teach, I tell them that my top choice is St. Joseph's in Conway Springs. I really did not think that would be possible for several years, though. Conway Springs is one of those small towns where people come and rarely leave. However, I will say that since I was in third grade, they actually have gone through a handful of teachers in third grade and above (they had a lot of out of town people come teach there and then they moved out- most of them to Wichita). However, the primary grade teachers have mostly taught there for YEARS.
In some ways, I get put in a dilemna now because of this. I definitely prefer Kindergarten or First Grade. However, this is my top choice school. So... do I take my top choice school or my top choice grade level into higher consideration? AH! What to do, what to do...
Anyway, here's my plan: I'm going to mail my application to St. Joseph's by this weekend at the latest. Hopefully, I'll get an interview. However, I'm going to apply for other jobs, in particular Kindergarten or First Grade positions. Hopefully, I get an interview or two there as well. Then... whatever school offers me a job first, as long as I see the school as a good fit for me, I will accept that position. I do NOT want to turn down a position in hopes of another position and then end up not getting a teaching job. I have dreamed of being a teacher for far too long now to allow that to happen. I am SO ready to be in a classroom, teaching students. So my plan is to apply, apply, apply! Since I have Friday off school this week, I'll work on mailing out applications at that time. I have and will continue to entrust it all to God. He will lead me to the position and school where He knows I'd be best and would grow the most. He is in control here, not me. I'll do my part to get things moving, but then I trust Him to open the door that He desires for me. Then, I'll go with that and follow Him whereever He leads.

In other news, yesterday Karla (my CT) made me present Settle On In (there's tons of videos related to the Treasures units, which is our Reading program) and some other teacher blogs to the rest of the first grade team. I LOVED sharing some of the great blogs and activities I've found. It made me feel valuable. I realize how much of a team player I am. I love the activities I've found and love sharing those to better help ALL of our students learn, not just my class. The other teachers seemed to really enjoy and like the things we found on the blogs. I'm hoping they'll spend a little time on some and find lots of great activities for their students!

So close

Well, I thought I'd be able to post my first teaching activity on here. This past weekend, I created a Scout the Hound word sort using /ou/ and /ow/ words. Then, I also ended up creating a WOOF game (like Pop, Bam, Gotcha, or whatever else you call it with different words in a bucket that you keep if read correctly and lose all your cards if you get the special name card). I've been trying and trying to figure out how to attach the document in this blog post. No luck. I tried Google Docs. When I upload the document to that so that I can just use the url link in my blog, it changes the format of my document and doesn't look the same in Google Docs as what I created. So that's frustrating. I'm going to have to do some researching and experimenting this weekend to figure out how to do all this.

New Adventures

I've been inspired lately by some very creative teachers who have blogs. I haven't planned out exactly what I'm going to do yet, but I think I'm going to start doing some blogging about teaching.

I am currently student teaching a first grade class in Wichita, KS. I'll share stories and lesson ideas, as I have time.

Stay tuned for upcoming education posts!