September Currently and School Related News

Wow, how is it already September?!!? No idea how that happened, especially since that means I have been in school for almost a month! Completely baffled by that. 

So I'm linking up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade with her monthly Currently.

Yes you read that right - I got a new puppy! One of the girls on the first grade team found her wandering around on her way to school so she picked her up and brought her to school. She spent two days in the janitor's office before coming home with me! It's funny since Evan and I had decided to get a cat because they are a bit easier to care for than dogs since they are more self sufficient, Marlee kind of just fell into our laps. She's super sweet!

Look at her little face!

She's super sweet and pretty low key...except at bed time. For some reason, she's always super perky and wants to play at bedtime. Last night she was bounding around, trying to jump in bed and squeaking. Originally, we had her in the bathroom and she just barked and barked and barked. Then we tried tethering her with her leash but no gate in hopes that that would make her feel better, but instead, she thrashed around and barked some more. So we ultimately let her have free roam of our bedroom which worked ok. She was still a nuisance during the night, but way better than her barking for hours. So hopefully she gets used to our routine soon...especially since school resumes for me tomorrow and Evan has to go to ASU for class tomorrow too!

I'm really missing fall weather too, even though I feel like it's still pretty hot in Wisconsin. I think just the beginning of September, plus the fact that most schools are starting tomorrow is enough to make me want fall weather. The crunchy leaves, the slight chill in the air, the fall foods, wearing boots and scarves - I love it all! I'm really glad to be going home during my fall break in early October. That's when fall is in full swing! Maybe I can convince my family to go to a pumpkin farm!

In school-related news, our first publishing party is on Wednesday. My kiddos are pretty excited about it (I think mainly because of the prospect of juice and snack), but I think they are also excited to read their stories to their parents. I hope parents can come. If not, my backup plan is to ask kinder teachers or second grade teachers if they wouldn't mind having a few of my kids come in to read their stories. Tomorrow we are adding titles, finishing up the words, and coloring the pictures and on Wednesday, we will be putting the final touches on them. 

I have heard so much wonderful things about Daily 5 that I am determined to do it in my room. We have been Reading to Self for the past few weeks. We finally got to ten minutes on Friday! So exciting! And this week, I'm going to introduce Read to Someone. I hope my kids can handle it, but a lot of modeling and expectation laying out should help. I just wish I could skip ahead to where they are independent.

Math, I am trying to incorporate more number sense into the day. When multiple kids write something similar to 4+0=6, I know there is a problem. So I've been doing a number of the day during Morning Meeting, and on Friday, I started number cards and collection counting. Plus I've been using subitizing cards during five minute downtime to help them build their ability to look at a number of objects and know how many are there without having to count them.

So yeah, we are in for a busy week! Luckily, it's only a four day work week!!! :)