Where everybody knows your name...

Today was our first day with everyone!!!!  We had a great time!!!  We are all learning each other's names, which most of us know, but more importantly our personalities, strengths, and weaknesses.

This has been very helpful as we have been implementing math workshop.  We are learning new math games to have as a choice, we got on sumdog today, ipads, and then time with me. Some math games that we have done include power tower, addition jenga, and addition top it. All of these games are focused on learning math facts. This will not always be the same but we will introduce new games gradually. Power tower is with flash cards and dixie cups.  Every fact that you get correct you get to put a cup in place to start your own tower.  Addition jenga is jenga with math facts on the blocks.  If you are able to successfully able to pull one of the block out of the tower and answer the problem correctly then you can add that block to your own tower.  Addition top-it is like war but instead pulling two cards and adding them together the highest gets the cards.  We are using number grids to check each others facts. 

I do want to comment to say that I did not make these games up.  They were all seen on other blogs; guided math, chasing cheerios, and then everyday math introduced me to addition top-it.

Try some at home.  I will try to post some pictures next week during math workshop of the children enjoying these games!

Happy first day!

We had a great day today and I'm sure tomorrow will be just as much fun for all of us! 

This is the start of something new...

Last night I uploaded all of you to this blog so if you were able to log on please post a comment to confirm. Thank you, thank you!

This morning I uploaded my power point that I had playing during open house to google docs.  I had not used this before but had watched a webinar and thought that it looked pretty cool.  Let's see if I can actually work it correctly.  I am trying many of new things this and if they don't work then work with me until I get it right!  Also, I am not too proud with ever getting any helpful suggestions to get things working!!!

Enjoy your Sunday and I look forward to talking to you soon! :)

Hello parents!

It was great to meet so many of you at open house and I look forward to a year of lifelong memories!  if you were unable to attend, I understand, and I'm sure we will meet sometime soon. 

I know all of you are just all joining me, but I have many posts as I have been eagerly awaiting my new class this year.  Please go through and read to see what has been going on with me at school the last few weeks.  There are links and resources available to you as well.

As you read through the blog, please, please ask any questions that you may have.  You can post questions or email me privately whichever you prefer. 

STEM Workshop Day #2

This was mostly an outside learning experience which was amazing!  Our friends MAD Scientists who specialize in Ecological and Wetland Consulting came to share with us.  We got out our boots and mucked around in the wetlands. While mucking around I learned some new things.  Take a look at some of our journey...

Wetlands Fall 2011

This was shared with us. Take a look at how well our wetlands have done!

Wetlands August 2012

Marsh August 2012

Wetland with a funnel trap in the middle

We use this to temporary and safely trap in organisms to see what species are inhabiting our wetlands.



Stream that is located West of that yurt actually flows into Blacklick Creek at some point

Some plant life

These are called Corn Flowers.

BEWARE:

Plant life to avoid!!!!

Poison Ivy, our three leaf friends...

While we are talking about plant life...

There is a great amount of ragweed so if allergic please take precautions before we visit.

Velvet leaf

Can you guess why it is called a velvet leaf?!

As you can see, so many things to learn and experience!!!  An exciting year awaits us!!!

STEM workshop Day #1

I spent the day with Robert Claymier, our presentor, as well as teachers within our school district and others from around the state who wanted to learn more about STEM education.  It was awesome!!!!  I learned so many new ideas of how to teach STEM lessons, create new lessons, and the importance of STEM learning.  Today was STEM in the classroom and tomorrow will be STEM outside of the classroom. 

Go to this link for some information about STEM; http://stemiselementary.com/What%20is%20STEM%20(ABOUT).html.  If you are unable to get through to this link then just go to the stemiselementary.com.  This is Robert Claymier's site and it is great! 

Looking forward to what learning lies aheads tomorrow....

Classroom progress continues

As promised here are some more pictures of my classroom in progress...

math manipulative's

Book baskets

Reading table