The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

Reddit Teacher Exchange, Math Night, Donors Choose

Happy Saturday, friends! I hope you are loving your 3-day weekend. 🙂 It rained for most of the day in Kentucky, so it made for the perfect napping weather. With the start of the school year, I know my ‘content’ posts have been few and far between, but I’m hoping to hit my groove this week. Tonight, I just wanted to share some snapshots of our week. Tomorrow I’ll be back to share about our work with 120! For now, though, pictures. 🙂
Last weekend was the first weekend EVER that I did not walk into the school building. It was surreal and a nice feeling. I was able to slip in early Monday morning and make-up the time! A great solution. 🙂 I know it probably won’t work every weekend, but it was still a small victory. 

This Tuesday was Math Night! It was great to connect with our families and share what their students will be learning this year. I blogged about our evening here and you can snag our Parent Handout here! 

After all our families left, I laid out all of my materials for our first sub of the year – EGAD! Our school paid for all the new teachers (who teach) math to attend a District Math Training.  I was nervous, really nervous. It looked like a pile of post-it notes threw-up on our writing center. I might be a *tad* particular, so I left a step-by-step of our day and plenty of extras. When I arrived back, everything was great! The room was clean, there was a positive behavior report, and our normal schedule was followed – woohoo. 🙂
The District Math Training was fabulous! It was all about the resources and curriculums we have access to in our district, and I learned a ton. It was hands-on, and I left with some awesome ideas for building number sense. I was actually able to teach “10 Solitaire” the next day; my kids were pumped! One of my favorites from the training were these awesome, homemade card holders. Our trainer had asked local restaurants for drink tops from kids’ meals and attached them with brads. They are PERFECT for holding playing cards. I’m hoping to visit a fast-food restaurant this week! 😉

 Our first Scholastic Order of the year arrived!!!!!! It was SO exciting to add so many awesome books to our classroom, and my first-grade friends loved taking home their new reads. Plus, with books I purchased for our library, we were able to snag the 10,000 bonus points offered this month!! #nevertoomanybooks

When the Gates Foundation announced they were funding all Donors Choose projects up to 50% of their cost, I added 2 projects to the site. In record time, they were approved and added to the site. With the amazing support of blogging friends, random strangers, the Caring Classrooms community, and Bill and Melinda Gates – both of our projects were funded! On Thursday, we received 2 iPod Touches for our listening center and started learning with them Friday!!!! Additionally, starting in mid-September, we’ll receive weekly Scholastic News magazines. Our classroom is SO excited and so thankful for these resources. 
“This is me giving you a daisy and those are hearts because hearts mean love.” #swoon #1stgradersarereallydifferentthan5thgraders #iloveyoutoo

 We have been making 10 all week, and we are rocking it out! We’ve been focusing on the hands-on this week and will be transitioning to the more abstract this coming week. The subtilizing we did earlier in the year, really helped as we started using ten frames this week. #smallvictory

 Yesterday, I arrived home to 2 Amazon Packages and my initial thought was, “Oh no. What did I buy?!?” Being single and childless, my classroom-spending habits have a tendency to escalate in August/September. BUT….this time it wasn’t me – woohoo! A few months ago, I signed-up for the Reddit Gift Teacher Exchange and was blessed with these awesome listening-center resources for free. It was a fabulous surprise and I’m so thankful. I added these bad boys to our iPods last night and cannot wait to share them with my friends on Monday. We have a lot of thank-you notes to write!

Well, friends, it has been a really exciting week! I’ll be back tomorrow to share about our adventures to 120. 🙂 Happy day!

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    • Kate says

      Thank you so much, Hope! We have definitely hit our groove and it feels good. We still have quite a few 'kinks' to work out, but we are getting there. 🙂

      Reply

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