Jesus is the Light!

     This past year I had to go to Denver, Colorado for a few months and get a second stem cell transplant because my cancer, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, had returned. It was hard to be away from family and friends and the kids. I hated not being able to teach. I also had to stop teaching the kindergarten Sabbath School class at my church. I missed the kids a ton and was so excited when I was asked to record a children's story on video so the kids could see me. 

    

Here is the link to my video on my YouTube channel if you can't view it on my blog. 

My Mom's Polio Interview

     When I was teaching 5th & 6th we read the book Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret. This was an interesting book for me because my mother had polio as a child as well as my grandmother. When my son had to read the book, he did an interview with my mom about her experience. You can't hear his questions very well, he was being shy and quiet, but you can hear my mom tell her story. 

    I thought I would post the YouTube video here if anyone could use it as a resource while teaching this book. She was a good sport. 😀

Here is the link to the YouTube video on my channel if you can't view it from my blog. 

Plus Sign, Minus Sign, and Equal Sign

    Of course my goal as a teacher is for students to learn, but my father once told me that all teachers should inspire students to want to learn. I love that idea. I want my students to want to learn. School should be fun and exciting. 

    I used to visit Disneyland with my parents during the summer because my grandparents lived near there. I remember the rides, smells, food, and most of all the fun family memories. Disney knew how to attract kids and make an experience for each guest. When I think of wanting to go somewhere, even as an adult, I think of Disneyland. 

    What makes me want to go back? I had an experience. I got to laugh, scream, and be a kid. I loved the smell of all the sweets, the music that I knew every word to, the stories for each character, and where all my favorite rides were.  

    Can I take a tip from Mr. Disney as a teacher and create an amazing experience for each student? That's the idea. Fun and learning at the same time. If I could memorize every song from my favorite cartoons, can I create a classroom where experiences help students remember? I'm gonna give it my best try. 

     Planning for the beginning of next year has been fun. When I was able to get a hold of the curriculum, I sat down and created a year plan (It's a work in progress). This will probably change over time, but the goal was to align the social Studies and science curriculum to match a theme that we will be going through in language arts. 

    My first theme is space and it all goes so well together. We will be studying Creation with the Encounter Curriculum, Ellen Ochoa in language arts, and By Design (Science) chapter 8 and then 7. I've discovered in science and social studies we can move chapters around a bit, not like math and language arts where the concepts build on each other. 

    I want to decorate my room completely space themed (will post when done) and felt like my math needed to match the theme. I am really big on teaching math vocabulary to students as I feel like if they don't know and understand these terms they will have a very hard time when deciphering word problems. 

    The first three vocabulary review words for 1st grade are plus sign, equal sign, and minus sign in Big Ideas Math, the NAD curriculum. I want the kids up and moving as much as possible so I have created rockets with each of the three math symbols that I will print on cardstock, laminate, and attach a tongue depressor. I need to make a set for each student. I'm going to call out vocabulary words that go along with each sign and have students hold up the correct rocket. 

    I plan on extending this activity by adding words that they would hear in a word problem for each symbol. I would like to call a student to give words and maybe see how fast everyone can get their sign up. 

I have put this up as a FREE resource on TPT. You can find it here. 

    The kids could do this with less work but I want to make them feel like they are in space or at least imagine that they are. I imagine that I will use them again if I need to review or refresh their memories. 

          

Meet Bob

          Meet Bob. When I was pregnant with my youngest son I was a teacher's aide to an amazing mentor teacher. I don't know how many years she had Bob. The year that I taught with her, the kids named Bob and he went on adventures with different members of the church and school community. They would take him on vacation or just small adventures around town and take pictures so the kids could see where he went. They loved it. Some people got really creative and had him pose by signs. It was fun. 

         

           For me, the greatest adventure Bob went on that year was coming with me to meet the new baby, my youngest son. 

         

           Boy, I love that kid. He has grown up way, way to fast! 

          When my mentor teacher retired, she gifted Bob to me. He is precious to our family now as he is in so many pictures from my son's birth. I had intended to get him out of my son's room and take him to school so he could begin his adventures again, but I couldn't find him. Today, while I was at the school, I stumbled across him and was ecstatic to see him again! 

           I plan on putting together a scrap book of Bob's adventures starting with the birth of my son. If I can keep it up, he should go some fun places. I'm so bad at being consistent with things like this, but I am hoping with planning and organization I will do better. 

File Folder Games

          Except for my student teaching, I have always taught in a multi-grade Seventh-day Adventist classroom. This year I will be teaching just 1st grade. I'm so excited to have a one grade classroom! I've been looking through the NAD (North American Division) standards and the set curriculum and my creative side is just bursting with ideas. 

         

          I was out of school all year last year due to a reoccurrence of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which I have fought twice now, so I feel like I've had a lot of free time to dream and plan. Now that school is out for the summer, I have been sneaking into my classroom and dreaming away. 

         

           I hear I have quite the group headed my way....lots of energy. I love that! (Maybe it will rub off on me!) That being said, I feel like I need a lot of prep for this year. 

         

           One of my retired teacher mentors gifted me several of her teaching books and I decided to look through some of them for inspiration. I found a book on file folder games and I was super excited. I have always used centers in my classrooms to help kids stay engaged while I work with small groups. I love the idea of file folder games that kids can take back to their desks, especially when we are still COVID shy. 

         

            I decided to use the Pathways 2.0 Unit 1 on Ellen Ochoa for my inspiration for the first months theme. We are blasting off to space on day 1 and I can't wait. Since space is my theme I decided to take the Unit 1 concepts for language arts and make file folder games out of them so my students can practice them independently after they have been introduced. I wanted space themed file folder games with the concepts we are reviewing at the beginning of the year. I have only made two so far as I am drawing my own pictures because.....I want to. 

        

            The first game I created is Rhyming Stars for rhyming review. I haven't decided yet if I am going to make this a center or use it as an assessment. Those first few weeks are so cram packed with assessments I want the kids to feel like they are playing. Less stress. 

You can find this resource here. 

        

             The Pathways 2.0 program has students begin with identifying beginning sounds and the first two are /s/ and /m/ so I created a game for that as well. 

You can find this resource here. 

          What I love about these file folder games is that they are so easy to store! I already have an empty file cabinet in my storage closet. They will stay organized in the order they are taught. I did put the NAD standard on the tab as well, so I can also search by standard. I hope to make many more! 

        

           I have had so much fun dreaming up things for our space unit. I am not at the school currently, but I will have to post pictures of all the things I've collected. We are going to be playing in moon sand, riding in a pop-up tent rocket with space helmets I found on Oriental Trading Company, doing math with glowing stars and glowing dice, and so much more. 

        

           It's funny how this last year people have really appreciated teachers. Yes, our job isn't always easy, but who gets to say they play with kids all day and get paid? TEACHERS! I love my job!