Peek at my Week!

I'm trying so hard to stay on top of everything in my life and Sunday nights always come way too quickly!  As I prepare for my week, here's a little peek at what's going on.  I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for

 I am working with my kids this week on my very PBL that is an integrated math and social studies project.  They are designing a trip for their October beak.  I learned quickly last week that my kids don't know how to to search on the internet.  I will spending quite a bit of time teaching them how to search and find reliable resources on the internet!

 My team has a planning day on Wednesday!  We get one planning day each semester and I am really looking forward sitting down with my math partner to plan out the rest of our semester.  We have so many resources but haven't had the time to go through them all.  I hope to perhaps be a little ahead after Wednesday!

I'm so excited for Friday and the field trip that I will take my kids on!  Our wonderful PE teacher has written a grant that allows our school to take several outdoor classroom field trips.  My students get to go out into nature and learn about water erosion, make music with stream water, and learn about electricity out in the real world.  The kids love these field trips and I do, too!

What are you up to this week?

Five for Friday

Wow!  It's been a long week!!!!  I'm so happy that it's Friday Saturday! I'm a little late, but better late than never!  I'm linking up the Doodle Bugs Teaching for...

 I can't believe it, but my little girl is now 9 months old!!!!

She has so much personality and is seriously the best baby EVER! 

 I actually cooked this week!  My amazing hubby normally does all the cooking for our family, but on Thursday I was quite inspired to do a little cooking!  I went to my food/recipes Pinterest board to find this recipe!  These were some of the yummiest enchiladas we've had in a while!

 I gave my students their unit 1 math assessment.  My district has the CCSS math standards broken down into 5 units with varying strands in each unit.  This first unit covered most of the NBT standards, plus some metric measurement to help with the concept of 10x as many.  I spent my Friday grading them... we have some corrections to make next week!  

 Our school district asked for a millage to get a 2nd high school this week and it passed!  I did my civic duty and voted of course! We will have a new high school in the fall of 2016!

My dear friends Jamie and David headed to Dallas with their daughter Callie Anne for her first of many surgeries for her Apert Syndrom.  This first surgery is a cranial surgery.  You can read all about the surgery and how pray here.

Here are the girls playing at Connection Group this week!

Lockdown Drill

Today we had our first lockdown drill.  Can I just say that these are my least favorite kind of drills.  The kids had all been prepped for the drill, but that didn't stop them from asking a thousand "what if" questions, some of which stumped me.  I explained to the students where each would go and why it was safe to be there.  For our drill today, we actually our 2nd class, not our homeroom, which added a different level of anxiety for the students.   The students knew the time the drill was happening, and they were visibly on edge as the clocked ticked closer to 1:00.  As my students went to their safe spots and I turned out the lights, I couldn't help but think about what I would actually do in a true lockdown...
During the drill, I crouch down with my students trying to keep them all quiet. I get jumpy just doing the drill as my principal comes down the hall to check to make sure that my door is locked by jiggling the knob.  My heart beats fast and double and triple count my students.

I hate it that we have to have lockdown drills.  I hate it that I have to explain to innocent 9 and 10 year olds that someone might come to our school wanting to hurt them.  I hate it that scenarios like this have actually happened in our country.  I don't want to get all political, and start a gun debate, but schools should be a safe place.  My heart has been heavy all day as my mind drifts to the teachers and students who have had real lockdowns, some that have ended tragically. I pray that I never must encounter such an ordeal.  I pray that gun violence will be brought under control.  I pray that no child will fear coming to school.

Budding Blog - A Linky Party

I started this blog on June 24, 2013 and I have so enjoyed sharing my teaching life with other blogger buddies across the country.  Jess over I {heart} Recess is hosting a Budding Blog linky party for those of us with less than 200 followers.

1. Why did you start blogging?

I started this blog over the summer as part of an agreement with myself that because I got a 21st Century Classroom grant, that I better get on the ball and start blogging.  I also wanted to join the community of teachers that I had watched from afar share ideas, engage one other, and inspire other teachers!

2. What is your favorite subject to teach and why?

I really love teaching science.  It take a little more preparation, but the kids, especially at this age really love it.  One of the reasons I like to teach science is that it is in the world all around us.  Science is real life and it gets the kids excited about learning!

3. Describe your teaching style.

Well, if you had asked me last year, I would have said cooperative learning is my main style of teaching.  I am still using cooperative learning, but now that I have my cart of laptops, I am doing everything possible to incorporate technology into everything I do.  I like to teaching using hands on items as much as possible!

4. Give three interesting facts about you.

* I love to garden.

 I have 2 raised beds in my backyard where I grow a plethora of vegetables. I've already planned a project for my students to plan how to build a raised bed to incorporate my love of gardening into the classroom

* I like to think of myself as an amateur wine connoisseur.  My hubby and I love to go wine tasting, especially at local vineyards.  We also have a wine party every spring where our friends bring wine to share!  It's a blast!

*I love Pinterest and making things from there!  I even have a blog (not very well kept up) dedicated to my Pinterest inspired projects!

5. Do you have a TpT store? If yes, post the link :)

I do have a TpT store, with only a few items in it.  

I'm working on making more things for my classroom that I want to add to my store.

Thanks for visiting my blog!  Make sure to go check out the other budding blogs!

Five for Friday - Septemeber 13

Wow!  It's been a crazy week, and I have been a bad blogger in the process.  But, TGIF and it's time for another Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs.

I've been able to have the kids on the laptops just about everyday this week.  It's usally the first question the kids ask, "Mrs. Webber, are we going to use the laptops today?"  When the answer is yes, man do they get excited!

Here they are working on Scootpad.  You can learn more about it, here!

 Not only am trying to get my kids on the laptops regularly, but I am trying to push my own boundaries with using technology.  One of things I tried this week was using planbook.com.  When you sign up you get a free 30 day trial and after that it's only $12 a year.  Really that's not much more than buying a planbook at your local school supply store.  You can connect all of the Common Core standards to your lessons and it keeps track of what standards you've taught and how many times you've taught it.  You can also attach documents to your plans so you know exactly what you are going to use and then pull them up on the smartboard as we use attachments in class.  I'm still learning all of the options that are available through the site.  Here is a screenshot of my plans for next week.

 I found a wonderful blog this week called Purely Paperless.  Kate has some amazing resources tutorials including lots about Evernote.  I've had an Evernote account for about 6 months and have used it here and there, but didn't really use it consistently. This week, I decided that I was going to give Evernote a try for keeping track of my math intervention group.  I took some pictures with my phone as we were working and created notes for each of my students taking notes as to what they needed work/help on.  Now I have data and I track my students' progress as we work on place value, addition, and subtraction.

 I got out into my garden for a little while this afternoon as we had some nice temperatures in the 80's today.  I finally pulled out all my dead zucchini plants. I need to plant some fall plants in this bed.  I had a little helper as you can see!

I think the highlight of my week was starting a connection group for our church at our house on Monday.  We only had one other couple come, but Jamie (the wife) has quickly become a wonderful friend.  We both have little girls that were born 3 weeks apart.  Jamie's daughter, Callie Anne, was born with Apert syndrom.  She has a fused skull, mitten hands, and feet. You can read more about her story here. She is the sweetest little thing with amazingly beautiful eyes!  While connecting with our friends, Ainsleigh and Callie Anne played with an abundance of toys between the two of them.  Ainsleigh loves to bang toys together and did so for the hour we connected.  Jamie told us that they had been working on getting Callie to bang toys at therapy.  Before they left for evening, Callie was banging toys together after watching Ainsleigh do it all night.  Jamie and I both had tears flowing as we encountered God (our sermon we were focusing on) in our own children.  It was beautiful thing and we are all overjoyed!  Here is Callie banging her toys.

How was your week?

Monday Made It: September (A Day Late)

I've been busy working on all kinds of project this past month, but I was a little behind writing about all of them!  Here is my Made It Monday: September!  Sorry it's a day late!

 I really wanted some kind of whole class reward system for both of my classes.  I found this at First Grader at Last.

Here is my version

I used a little washi tape to spruce up the pans.  I found the brownie image through Google and they look so real!!!!

 My second project was quite the under taking!  My huge wall of windows needed some curtains! This is the final product!

I used lots of math to complete this project and you can read about the details here on my Math IS Real Life post for September.

Finally, here is a little tutorial for making a burlap wreath.

Here all of the supplies I used.  I bought the burlap at Wally world for $3 a yard!

Cut the burlap into 4 inch strips.  This little tip was a life saver for making straight cuts!

Cut squares that are approximately 4 x 4 inches.

This is how may squares I got out of my yard of fabric.

Fold each square so it bubbles.  I tried to pin them on the wreath but they didn't stay.  I resorted to hot glue and that worked great!

Here is the first row complete.

Keep adding burlap bubbles until you are satisfied with the look.  I glued some of bubbles together so you couldn't see the wreath.  

Here is the final product!  I glued some fall colored flowers to the side and it looks so cute!  It is now hanging on my classroom door showing that I am ready for fall regardless of the temps in the 90's!  

Don't forget to go check out all of the other projects for the month!