Hi friends!
I just wanted to share this amazing blog hop of freebies with you.
Start at http://www.sharingkindergarten.com/2013/07/kinderlands-freebies-on-4th.html
Enjoy!
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Annnnnd I'm Back...?
Once again, I have abandoned the blog. With the summer wide open, I hope to be able to update this more frequently and get into blogging. I have found so many wonderful sites dedicated to helping teachers that I want to develop my own. I am not very skilled at websites, so please have patience with me!
I am in the process of interviews right now, so in the meantime I have been working on items for my classroom and can't wait to share! My favorite blog linkys are Monday Made It(s) (MMIs), so I have my own. Even though it's Wednesday.
Who doesn't love pointers? They are SO expensive from teacher stores, and the closest one I have found is in Lynchburg, an hour away from me. SO I resorted to creating my own.
I want my kiddos to have a pointer to go with each story, season, or interest. So, I made A LOT.
To start with, shop your local craft store or Wally-World for pre-painted wooden shapes. Then, find small dowel sticks (in the same aisle) to attach them to. Some mod podge scrapbook paper to the sticks. I didn't.
I am in the process of interviews right now, so in the meantime I have been working on items for my classroom and can't wait to share! My favorite blog linkys are Monday Made It(s) (MMIs), so I have my own. Even though it's Wednesday.
Who doesn't love pointers? They are SO expensive from teacher stores, and the closest one I have found is in Lynchburg, an hour away from me. SO I resorted to creating my own.
I want my kiddos to have a pointer to go with each story, season, or interest. So, I made A LOT.
To start with, shop your local craft store or Wally-World for pre-painted wooden shapes. Then, find small dowel sticks (in the same aisle) to attach them to. Some mod podge scrapbook paper to the sticks. I didn't.
Use a hot glue gun to attach the shapes to the sticks. You can even add ribbon below for a little flair (I didn't). Voila! You have your own pointers for a tiny cost! (I will add the finished product later :) )
Also, I am currently reading The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Rosemary and Harry Wong. This book is probably required by many districts for first year teachers to read. Personally, I think ALL teachers should read this book. It's engaging and so helpful with such great tips and reminders for beginning of the year procedures. It's a must read!
Next up, the Daily Five book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser for literacy and writing centers.
Stay tuned for more classroom creations and ideas!
Monday, October 29, 2012
And It Begins...
Wow. Well, I guess I kind of abandoned the journey. The blog, that is.
My journey has been well under its way since August 13th. My student teaching placement is in kindergarten at a nearby elementary school, with the teacher I requested. I was ecstatic about the placement when I found out, and it has been such an amazing experience since that day.
We have a classroom of 21 students. We have eight girls, and thirteen boys. It is absolutely chaotic, and some days we feel like all we have done all day is simply wrangle geese. That is, we have simply reminded them of rules and really not taught anything. But, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE EVERY RAWKUS MINUTE OF IT!
We began the second nine weeks today. Tomorrow we are closed because of hurricane Sandy dangers, but I anticipate we will be back in school Wednesday for our Fall Festival day! We are not permitted to wear costumes to school Wednesday for Halloween, so the school has created a Fall Festival day in which we do all things fall-related. We create hay scarecrows, get our faces painted, (and other things I can't remember), have a Halloween class party, and gather as a whole school to watch It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (or whatever it's called). I hope we are back in school for this day... I am super excited to see the kids' reactions!
This nine weeks we covered SO much!
Language Arts:
Upper and lowercase letter recognition
Letter sounds
Writing, recognizing, and letter sound of: Mm, Ss, Bb, Rr, Ff, Dd, Nn, Pp, Cc, Hh, Tt, Gg
Sight words: a, I, my, like, the, go
Rhyming
Author/Illustrator roles
Front/back cover and title page of books
PALS testing
Math:
Patterning
Counting 1:1 correspondence
Rote counting to 25
Identifying numbers 1-5
Identifying positions
Creating and identifying sets that have more, fewer, or the same number of objects as a given set
Sorting
Science:
Basic life processes of plants
What plants and animals need to survive
Colors
Sorting based on a feature (flexible/stiff, curved/straight)
Social Studies:
Betsy Ross
Pocahontas
Powhatan
I KNOW I have forgotten some things, but this just shows you, our babies have learned SO much since they stepped foot into our classroom.
I love being a teacher, and couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. I will begin to update more and post lesson plans/finished products that our bright little ones have been working on.
In the meantime, here is a Pinterest creation my CT (cooperating teacher) and I made. We are avid Pinterest followers, and we use the website AT LEAST twice a week in our lesson plans or presentations for our students.
Our classroom theme is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to expose students to letters constantly.
It is made from an old lamp, pool noodle, brown felt, an umbrella, and multiple shades of green felt and tulle cut to form coconut tree leaves. We then put velcro on the back of small foam letters, and ask students to spell sight words, spell their name, put the letters in ABC order, spell made-up words, or even try to spell their friends' names. The kids love it!
Until next time, readers.... Be safe if you are in the affected areas of Hurricane Sandy.
Oh, PS- I passed all three of my tests for licensure with ease. They were difficult, mind you, but you should be able to pass if you actually care about the career you are about to embark on.
My journey has been well under its way since August 13th. My student teaching placement is in kindergarten at a nearby elementary school, with the teacher I requested. I was ecstatic about the placement when I found out, and it has been such an amazing experience since that day.
We have a classroom of 21 students. We have eight girls, and thirteen boys. It is absolutely chaotic, and some days we feel like all we have done all day is simply wrangle geese. That is, we have simply reminded them of rules and really not taught anything. But, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE EVERY RAWKUS MINUTE OF IT!
We began the second nine weeks today. Tomorrow we are closed because of hurricane Sandy dangers, but I anticipate we will be back in school Wednesday for our Fall Festival day! We are not permitted to wear costumes to school Wednesday for Halloween, so the school has created a Fall Festival day in which we do all things fall-related. We create hay scarecrows, get our faces painted, (and other things I can't remember), have a Halloween class party, and gather as a whole school to watch It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (or whatever it's called). I hope we are back in school for this day... I am super excited to see the kids' reactions!
This nine weeks we covered SO much!
Language Arts:
Upper and lowercase letter recognition
Letter sounds
Writing, recognizing, and letter sound of: Mm, Ss, Bb, Rr, Ff, Dd, Nn, Pp, Cc, Hh, Tt, Gg
Sight words: a, I, my, like, the, go
Rhyming
Author/Illustrator roles
Front/back cover and title page of books
PALS testing
Math:
Patterning
Counting 1:1 correspondence
Rote counting to 25
Identifying numbers 1-5
Identifying positions
Creating and identifying sets that have more, fewer, or the same number of objects as a given set
Sorting
Science:
Basic life processes of plants
What plants and animals need to survive
Colors
Sorting based on a feature (flexible/stiff, curved/straight)
Social Studies:
Betsy Ross
Pocahontas
Powhatan
I KNOW I have forgotten some things, but this just shows you, our babies have learned SO much since they stepped foot into our classroom.
I love being a teacher, and couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. I will begin to update more and post lesson plans/finished products that our bright little ones have been working on.
In the meantime, here is a Pinterest creation my CT (cooperating teacher) and I made. We are avid Pinterest followers, and we use the website AT LEAST twice a week in our lesson plans or presentations for our students.
Our classroom theme is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to expose students to letters constantly.
It is made from an old lamp, pool noodle, brown felt, an umbrella, and multiple shades of green felt and tulle cut to form coconut tree leaves. We then put velcro on the back of small foam letters, and ask students to spell sight words, spell their name, put the letters in ABC order, spell made-up words, or even try to spell their friends' names. The kids love it!
Until next time, readers.... Be safe if you are in the affected areas of Hurricane Sandy.
Oh, PS- I passed all three of my tests for licensure with ease. They were difficult, mind you, but you should be able to pass if you actually care about the career you are about to embark on.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Praxis II: Elementary Content Knowledge
I took the Praxis II (Elementary Content Knowledge) at Prometric Testing Center yesterday. Friends, if you live in the Roanoke area, it's worth a trip else where to take your test. These people are just so rude and ridiculous. I still can't get over the fact that if you go in with a sweatshirt, your have to keep it on, even if you get hot. At Pearson you could basically do whatever you needed to do. They trust you and make you feel like a trust-worthy adult rather than a child that writes answers on your arms (at Prometric).
Anywho, I was nervous going into the test because people told me that it was common sense stuff, and then I took a practice test and had basically forgotten everything I learned in school. It's basically a review of everything you learned in math, reading, science, and social studies. That's a lot of information to recall. I used a review book to study, but it had so many typos and I don't think I'd recommend it. It did help me recall information, however, so using a book is worth the money, I just won't recommend the one I used. Cliff Notes makes a review book, and several other books are available. Just visit your local Books a Million or Barnes and Noble to find one.
The test wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I passed! The computer instantly gives you your "raw scores" and lets you know how many questions you got right from each section.
So now I can breathe a sigh of relief. I have basically finished my requirements for licensure! (except for those pesky classes that are a breeze compared to the pressure-inducing licensure tests) I am just waiting for my RVE scores now, but I think that they will be to my satisfaction.
Until next time!
Anywho, I was nervous going into the test because people told me that it was common sense stuff, and then I took a practice test and had basically forgotten everything I learned in school. It's basically a review of everything you learned in math, reading, science, and social studies. That's a lot of information to recall. I used a review book to study, but it had so many typos and I don't think I'd recommend it. It did help me recall information, however, so using a book is worth the money, I just won't recommend the one I used. Cliff Notes makes a review book, and several other books are available. Just visit your local Books a Million or Barnes and Noble to find one.
The test wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I passed! The computer instantly gives you your "raw scores" and lets you know how many questions you got right from each section.
So now I can breathe a sigh of relief. I have basically finished my requirements for licensure! (except for those pesky classes that are a breeze compared to the pressure-inducing licensure tests) I am just waiting for my RVE scores now, but I think that they will be to my satisfaction.
Until next time!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
VCLA Grades
Got an email tonight telling me that my VCLA grade will be posted tomorrow between 5 and 10 PM, and they will send me an email with the grades as well. That was super fast!
Stay tuned for the results!!
Stay tuned for the results!!
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
RVE (Reading for Virginia Educators)
Well friends... Today I took the RVE at Prometric Testing Center on Electric Road in Roanoke. To begin with, I had to schedule the time at 9 AM, less than ideal. Soooo I left home at 7:15 to make sure I had enough time to get there since its through a thousand stoplights and in the middle of no where. Then I get there, and the people are less than stellar. You have to write a paragraph in cursive, which, my friends, I have not done since third grade. So that took me about 15 mins (along with everyone else there!).
When you're ready to go in, you stand on an X so that they can video tape you. Then, they wand you to make sure you didn't leave any jewelry or keys or anything on! Next, they ask you to pull up your sleeves to make sure you didn't write notes on your arms. How tacky. Then you go in and sign ANOTHER piece of paper, and they take your ID. I had a sweatshirt on today, and when I walked into the room she told me not to take it off. I mean, what if I got super hot and felt queasy and needed to take it off?!?! Ughhhhh Oh and the headphones there? They pinched my tiny head so much that I had to take them off and put them back on and take them off and put them back on and take them off and... you get the picture.
And the test.... two and a half hours of pure torture. I studied my butt off for this test, and there were things on the test that I had never even heard of. Either Mary Baldwin doesn't prepare you for the test (I don't think that's it because many of my classmates have passed), or I got the most difficult test available that day. It was insane.
So lesson to be learned: STUDY YOUR BUTT OFF FOR THIS TEST! It is not to be taken lightly! I downloaded the text provided by the Praxis website, printed it off, and studied it like crazy. I also studied my class notes and the textbooks for my Language Arts and Content Area classes. Finally, I took the practice test and did pretty well on it. The test this morning, however, did not go so well. Here's hoping I passed!! And good luck to all of you who are working up to taking this test!
When you're ready to go in, you stand on an X so that they can video tape you. Then, they wand you to make sure you didn't leave any jewelry or keys or anything on! Next, they ask you to pull up your sleeves to make sure you didn't write notes on your arms. How tacky. Then you go in and sign ANOTHER piece of paper, and they take your ID. I had a sweatshirt on today, and when I walked into the room she told me not to take it off. I mean, what if I got super hot and felt queasy and needed to take it off?!?! Ughhhhh Oh and the headphones there? They pinched my tiny head so much that I had to take them off and put them back on and take them off and put them back on and take them off and... you get the picture.
And the test.... two and a half hours of pure torture. I studied my butt off for this test, and there were things on the test that I had never even heard of. Either Mary Baldwin doesn't prepare you for the test (I don't think that's it because many of my classmates have passed), or I got the most difficult test available that day. It was insane.
So lesson to be learned: STUDY YOUR BUTT OFF FOR THIS TEST! It is not to be taken lightly! I downloaded the text provided by the Praxis website, printed it off, and studied it like crazy. I also studied my class notes and the textbooks for my Language Arts and Content Area classes. Finally, I took the practice test and did pretty well on it. The test this morning, however, did not go so well. Here's hoping I passed!! And good luck to all of you who are working up to taking this test!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
VCLA
I wanted to add a new update about the VCLA (Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment).
I took it on Tuesday, April 17th at 12 pm at Pearson Professional Center on Williamson Road in Roanoke. The center was so easy to get to, friendly, and the time was perfect for me being that I am not an early morning test-taking type. I took the test on the computer, both the reading and writing sections, and it took me three out of four hours to complete. Be prepared- you cannot take ANYTHING into the room with you- even watches and/or bracelets come off so that you don't make any sound. They did not ask me to take off any other jewelry, though. They provided a dry-erase notebook incase you preferred to write anything down. Ear muffs were also offered to block out any sound-- these were very helpful being that a lady in my room whisper-read everything to herself so I found myself easily distracted by the "ssspshsphpshs" of her reading. FYI- I arrived 30 minutes early, as all sites require, and I was able to begin the test whenever I was ready because the person before me had finished early. I, not being the one to wait, decided to start immediately. You are also allowed bathroom breaks at this center, but your time continues to run if you need to do so. They cannot stop the clock for you to take a break, but breaks are allowed.
While the test is essentially an english SAT, I found it extremely helpful to review before I took the test. I bought the VCLA XAMonline.com book (first edition) to study from. I found it at Barnes and Noble, ISBN 978-160787108-8. I also used the website to take practice tests and read about what was covered on the test. This site is also where you register to take the test, if you are wondering.
For me, the test was relatively easy. I had taken so many practice tests that I was not surprised by any question, and I felt slightly confident in my ability. The main thing for all of these tests is simply to be prepared. If you cannot really study, make sure you at least look at/read over sample tests so you know what is coming your way. Pearson printed off my results immediately. I know my reading score already because it was all multiple choice. My writing tests had the multiple choice questions graded immediately, but now I have to wait on the constructed response scores. I should receive them in the next few weeks.
Next up-- the RVE! (Reading for Virginia Educators- the old VRA). I'm taking it on Wednesday (4/25) at 9 AM (UGH!) at Prometric Test Center off Electric Road in the middle of nowhere Salem. Not looking forward to this all-encompassing test, or the center- I have heard that it is less than stellar. I will let you know how it goes!!
I took it on Tuesday, April 17th at 12 pm at Pearson Professional Center on Williamson Road in Roanoke. The center was so easy to get to, friendly, and the time was perfect for me being that I am not an early morning test-taking type. I took the test on the computer, both the reading and writing sections, and it took me three out of four hours to complete. Be prepared- you cannot take ANYTHING into the room with you- even watches and/or bracelets come off so that you don't make any sound. They did not ask me to take off any other jewelry, though. They provided a dry-erase notebook incase you preferred to write anything down. Ear muffs were also offered to block out any sound-- these were very helpful being that a lady in my room whisper-read everything to herself so I found myself easily distracted by the "ssspshsphpshs" of her reading. FYI- I arrived 30 minutes early, as all sites require, and I was able to begin the test whenever I was ready because the person before me had finished early. I, not being the one to wait, decided to start immediately. You are also allowed bathroom breaks at this center, but your time continues to run if you need to do so. They cannot stop the clock for you to take a break, but breaks are allowed.
While the test is essentially an english SAT, I found it extremely helpful to review before I took the test. I bought the VCLA XAMonline.com book (first edition) to study from. I found it at Barnes and Noble, ISBN 978-160787108-8. I also used the website to take practice tests and read about what was covered on the test. This site is also where you register to take the test, if you are wondering.
For me, the test was relatively easy. I had taken so many practice tests that I was not surprised by any question, and I felt slightly confident in my ability. The main thing for all of these tests is simply to be prepared. If you cannot really study, make sure you at least look at/read over sample tests so you know what is coming your way. Pearson printed off my results immediately. I know my reading score already because it was all multiple choice. My writing tests had the multiple choice questions graded immediately, but now I have to wait on the constructed response scores. I should receive them in the next few weeks.
Next up-- the RVE! (Reading for Virginia Educators- the old VRA). I'm taking it on Wednesday (4/25) at 9 AM (UGH!) at Prometric Test Center off Electric Road in the middle of nowhere Salem. Not looking forward to this all-encompassing test, or the center- I have heard that it is less than stellar. I will let you know how it goes!!
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