Six Days with my Kiddos!

        Today was day six with my kiddos.  Can I just say how much I love my class!  I looped with 2/3 of my class and the "new" kids are excellent additions.  I would love to say that I have taken so many awesome pictures but for those of you that know me you know I am the worst when it comes to actually capturing those Kodak moments.
  
        My goal is to actually take pictures of my room because I love my word wall.  As a little teaser I'm sure that you will also think that it is "toad"ally cute.

        I hope everyone is having a wonderful year so far and that the best is yet to come!!!

Fiction Friday (Finally)

        It's been a few Fridays but I am finally ready to tell you about one more of the SSYRA books before I go back to school on Monday.  This week I want to tell you about Floors by Patrick Carmen.  This book is super cute!  It is about a boy named Leo and his adventure as a resident and employee of the Whippet Hotel.  The Whippet is an extremely unique hotel in New York built by bajillionaire eccentric Merganzer Whippet.  Merganzer designed the hotel with wacky designs and tons of secrets after hearing his father's last words, "You will prosper in the field of wacky inventions."  This book is fun right from the start with interesting characters (I wouldn't want to meet all of them in real life but I liked reading about them).  Just in case you are looking for another reason to pick up this book, it's the first in the series.  This is a must read!!!

        If you are looking for more great reads don't forget to head over to Andrea's Reading for the Stars and Amanda's The Teaching Thief. 

Work Stations

        All this week (and tomorrow too) I have been attending professional development hosted by my district.  We have a new superintendent (he came on board half way through the school year last year) and yes, you guessed it he wants to make changes.  The biggest change that I have seen is the implementation of work stations. 

        I'm all about differentiation and doing what's best for my kiddos but I am a little concerned with the amount of time that it will take to create and rotate work stations that are all based on student need for my reading, writing, and math blocks.  I think that I would feel differently about this new change had I heard about it back in June as opposed to the week before pre-planning. 

        So-now I am wondering about your awesome "go to" work stations?  I have found so so many great math games that could easily be work stations.  Unfortunately not as many ideas for my reading and writing blocks.  If you have something that you would be willing to share I'd love to hear it.  This would actually be a great linky party but I haven't figured how to host one of those bad boys yet.  Maybe that will make it to the to do list one of these days . . .