Ok, there's late and then there's really late.  I'm on the really late side of joining Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday.  I kind of have a good excuse, maybe.  lol  Friday, I was just plain tired.  It was a good week back to school, but you know how that first week back to school tired is unlike almost any other.  Yesterday, my son and I attended a birthday party for my husband's great-aunt.  {Ironically, my husband didn't attend.  He was out of town.} Then, we had to come home and get the house all ready for a play date/swim date at our house today.  It was a rousing success complete with a surprise birthday cake for me from my friends.  {Today is my b-day, but I'm not saying which one.  haha}  Anyway, as my husband calls me, here is Always Late Lattin with a Five for Friday on a Sunday. 



This was my to do list last Sunday.  I'm happy to say that I completed everything but the crate seats and books by the time I went to bed Sunday night.  I still don't have my books or crate seats completed, but I'm ok with that.



After school on Monday, I stopped by my favorite little cupcake place and picked up a few cupcakes.  I thought I would try some new flavors, but the strawberry ones at the top continue to be my favorite.  Is it weird that I really dislike strawberries, but I love these cupcakes?




I taught my new Kinders my magic one scrap cutting trick on the second day of school, and I have to say it was a success!  So proud of them!



My students made my First Day of School Raccoon craftivity, on the third day of school.  {There I am again, late.  haha}  I can't wait to put the feelings part on the bottom and get them out in the hallway for everyone to see!



I decided to change up my theme this year.  Well, since I am no longer doing a zebra theme, I thought it might look a tad strange to have a zebra themed alphabet up on the wall.  So, of course, I had to make a new alphabet and number cards to match my new theme.  All I can say is that I am in love.  They look great up on the wall!  {I do with the pictures looked a little better.  I'll try to get some better pics soon.}

Thanks for joining me for a super late Five for Friday!  If you are in the U.S., have a nice and relaxing Labor Day tomorrow!

I am excited to link up again with Doddle Bugs Teaching after many, many months of being absent from this super fun linky! {Four out the five are not teacher related, but I guess that's what happens in the summer.  ;) }

 


My son and I have been taking regular trips to our local library this summer.  There is a small art gallery right outside the entrance.  Every time we to go the library, Colton wants to sit on the benches in the gallery.  This time when we sat down, Colton wrapped his arm around me and wanted me to take a picture.  I am not a selfie person {although there is another one a little further down in this post}, but how could I say no to this cute face?



I have really enjoyed all the recent rains here in Las Vegas!  We rarely get rain, so when we do, I love just sitting on the couch listening to it.




My bestie has been coming over to do a little scrapbooking before the new school year begins.  These are the two pages that I recently completed.  {You might recognize the pics from the bottom page from here.}  I am loving my Silhouette Cameo!  It cuts so nicely, and I can make anything I want for my pages!  I am working on a birthday display for my classroom using my Cameo.  I can't wait to see how it turns out!


Last night we took our son to watch his very first baseball game.  Colton had such a great time!  He asked a lot of questions about what was going on.  He really liked his new Las Vegas 51s hat that he got!



Yesterday, I had to go into my school to change a password.  I went into my room and saw this beauty!  I can't wait to learn all the ins and outs of it.  I'm going to have to be a little creative though in order for my students to be able to reach it.  Any good ideas?

Well, that is my delayed Five for Friday!  Thanks for stopping by!

I am linking up with Christina from Sugar and Spice for my very first Wordless Wednesday!


I have had the same theme for the past few years,  and I decided I was due for a change.  This is what I am going with this upcoming year.  I am so excited!  I love the colors, patterns, and the cute clip art birds!  Do you have a theme in your classroom?  Do you change it yearly or keep it for awhile?


Thanks Christina for the great linky!

I am back with my second installment of my I Teach K Highlights.  I really hope you enjoyed the first part!

Wednesday

Session 1 - Morning Meeting Inspiration from Harry Kindergarten with Peter Harry
My students absolutely love, love, love the videos from Harry Kindergarten, so I was excited for this session.  I loved Peter's idea of a scrolling screen.  He uses PowerPoint to make a variety of slides that change daily.  These slides may have anything that is important for the day - field trips, what's for lunch, sight words, etc.  He then has this play continuously as the children are doing morning work.  Great idea!  I also liked his three rules/guidelines for song time: 1.  Stay in your space.  2.  Don't touch your neighbor.  3.  Be involved.  Peter also played one of my students' favorite songs from the past year.  Do you know this one?  Listen to it once, and trust me, you will be singing it all day!  {Don't ask me how I know.  haha}


Session 2 - First 30 Days for Literacy Centers! with Kimberly Jordano
Kimberly shared how she begins her literacy centers at the beginning of the year.  An "ah ha" moment was when she shared that she uses a completed work basket that students place their work in when finished.  I know, I know.  Simple right?  Apparently not for me since I've been doing it the hard way for the past few years.  I think I might try this this upcoming school year.  I usually quickly check center work in between rotations.  This could save several minutes each day that I could use teaching!  I also loved her table displays that she shared with us.  These displays showed what the work should look like when finished.  I may have to think of a way to do this!

Session 3 - Be Cool With Back to School with Cara Carroll
If you ever get a chance to go to a session that Cara is giving go, do not collect $200, just go.  I had so much fun listening to her stories.  She shared tons of cute and fun ideas to begin the school year.  If you have been a follower for any amount of time, you may remember I am the proud resident of a room with eight doors.  Cara shared about putting command hooks around the room and hanging anchor charts on them.  Hello eight doors, you now have a job!  I really don't have a lot of "wall space", but my door space will work quite nicely.

Session 4 - Teaching with Your Interactive Whiteboard:  Real, Learner Centered Fun with Julie Brinkley
 Julie shared how she uses "bundles" with her interactive whiteboard.  She shared how to use the Smartboard Notebook program to link videos and how get videos off of Youtube in case your school/district limits access.  A good website that she shared use is KeepVid.  I had heard of website that could do this several years ago, but had forgotten the name so I was happy that Julie shared it!

Wednesday

Session 1 - Reading, Rituals & Routines:  Engaging Every Child in Literacy with Greg Smedley
Greg shared a lot of great ideas that he uses in his classroom.  I liked his system of practicing sight words and the idea of "60" views of each word each week.  I especially liked the sight word grid that he shared.  I really need to step up my sight word game next year, and I may incorporate some of Greg's ideas.  I also liked how Greg had his students do an activity before they could start their center work.  This would be a great way to differentiate for students!

Session 2 - "I'm Done.  What Do I Do Next?"  Managing Your Early Finishers with Crystal Radke
Crystal shared lots of great ideas to keep those early finishers busy.  She gave a great list of items to have handy such as legos, tangrams, flash cards, etc. especially at the beginning of the year when students are still learning routines.  An idea that Crystal had was to always have counters and dice ready to go so that students can grab what they need when they need it.  Brilliant!  She also shared a ton of fun skills based games for students to play when they finish their work early.

Session 3 - Start with the Sounds: Phonemic Awareness, Activities & Fun with Amanda Bristline
I really enjoyed this hands on session with Amanda.  She made a great intervention bag with a ton of activities to do to work on phonemic awareness that we were able to take home at the end.  Amanda touched on all areas of phonemic awareness and shared basic ideas, hands on ideas, and online resources.  Many of the websites that she shared were ones that I had never heard of before.  One website that I really enjoyed was Professor Garfield - tons of fun games!


Well, that is the end of my round up of the I Teach K conference.  If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend attending.  You will learn lots of great ideas and have loads of fun!

Wow!  I can't believe it's already been a week since the conclusion of the I Teach K conference!  I dug out my notes, and I am ready to fill you in on lots of things that I learned.  Today's post will be about the sessions I attended on Monday and Tuesday.

Monday

Keynote - The Keynote speaker this year was Marc Brown.  He was so wonderful to listen to!  I loved how he framed his presentation in the form of questions that children have asked him.  Mr. Brown also shared a few of his upcoming projects.  I can't wait to see them once they are completed!

Session 1 - Early Interventions:  Just-in-Time Word Work with DeeDee Wills
I was a smidge late  getting to this session.  The Keynote ran a few minutes late, but I still got lots of great ideas.  First of all, I have to say that DeeDee is funny, like really funny.  She seemed to be having so much fun during her presentations.  There were two ideas that really stuck out to me during this session.  The first one had to do with cookie sheets and magnets.  She made a set of cookie sheets that have the letters written on them and put magnets on top of that.  She has these set up ready to go to make words during her groups.  Great idea to have them to ready at all times!  Another great idea that I loved was to have students listen to you say sounds, blend the sounds together, and then draw the matching picture.  Brilliant!  What a great way to assess whether the students are able to blend the sounds or not!

Session 2 - Assessing on the Go! with DeeDee Wills
DeeDee started out this session with the following video.  I thought it was hilarious!  If you've never seen it before, take a few minutes to watch it.  Trust me!


Ok, now that that is over, I'll continue with my post. ;)  DeeDee shared a great app called Running Record Toolbox.  This app is available on both Android and Apple devices for $.99.  I think that it looks like a great way to quickly calculate your students' reading levels.  So much easier to plug in the numbers and let the app do the work!  I loved her writing goals chart where her students picked the goal that they felt they needed to work on.  I am definitely going to implement this idea in my classroom this upcoming school year!  I also liked the idea of putting the skill that you are assessing on an address label and walk around while students are working to see if they are mastering the skill.  Another great idea to implement!

Session 3 - Reaching Gifted Learners with Catherine Kuhns
I really enjoyed this session.  The session description changed a bit from when I signed up to when the conference actually happened.  I'll be honest - I wasn't quite sure this was the session for me, but I learned a lot about the gifted population as it pertained to Kindergarten students.  I know this sounds simple, but a trick that that she gave when questioning in the classroom was to do a high order question, then a low order question, then a high order question, and so on.  That way the gifted students are still challenged and engaged while the non-gifted students can also be successful.  She shared a great list of characteristics of gifted children that I thought was very helpful.

Session 4 - A Circle of Learning:  Differentiated Whole-Group Games for Little Ones with Kathy Griffin
This was a great session!  I just loved Kathy's presentation and positivity!  She is so super sweet!  I just loved that her circle of learning idea took approximately 5 minutes of the day, but packed so much into it.  She shared some great songs and activities with the group.  I loved her idea of Battle of the Bands - so fun!  She also shared her "Did You Ever Have the Wiggles" video that I will be using at the beginning of the year.

 
Tuesday

Session 1 - We're Ready!  Guiding Your Little Ones Through the Writing Process with LeAnna Wolkis Goldstein
LeAnna is a such a fun presenter to watch.  She has loads of energy and tons of great ideas!  I loved her idea of cooperative sqiggle drawings.  Each student has only one crayon.  The students decide as a group what they want to draw.  Then each student draws a different part of the picture.  So fun!  I also liked her idea of have a basket for publishing that students could take back to their tables to complete the process. Great idea!

Session 2 - Language Arts Interventions for Little Learners with Deanna Jump
Deanna is a great presenter and super sweet and humble.  She shared so many great ideas for working on phonemic awareness.  I loved her idea of putting magnet counters down to segment words and then using a magnet wand to swipe the counters as the child blends the word together.  She also shared ideas on how to build alphabetic fluency and how she has her her students help keep track of their fluency progress.

Session 3 - Good Morning, Students!  Starting the Day with Positive Vibes with Kathleen Pederson
Kathleen did a wonderful job in her presentation!  She shared how her class completes their morning routine.  I loved that the students had "jobs" to do when they came in each day.  Her chart she made was so cute!  She also shared her favorite morning meeting ideas such as using cards with students' pictures and names to do a greeting.  Such a great way to have students be able to greet their friends even before they can read!

Session 4 - Dice, Dominoes & Decks of Cards...It's Math Time with LeAnna Wolkis Goldstein
This was another great session from LeAnna!  My pen didn't stop jotting down great game ideas during the whole session.  A great tip that she gave was to cut the tips off of markers so that students can easily make dots when showing a math problem.  She showed a ton of games to play with dice, dominoes, and cards.  I can't wait to teach my students some of these wonderful games!

Wow!  That was kind of long, but I hope you enjoyed my highlights from the first two days.  I'll be back in a few days for Part 2!

Once again I am linking up with up Michelle at Fabulous in First for her fun Sunday Smorgasbord linky.

This morning was a very busy morning.  First , my husband and I dropped off my son at ESY.  His ESY site is my school this year so it's kind of fun for him to be at "Mom's school" for the summer.  {He attends a different school during the regular school year.}  Then, my sweet husband went with me to get my fingerprints done for my license renewal.  After that, we went to the Dept. of Ed office to turn in all of my paperwork.  My husband then had an eye doctor appointment across the street.  I hung out and played on my phone.  We then went home and he may have taken a nap and I may have watched some judge shows {guilty pleasure - haha}.  I think we were both worn out!

Anyway, this evening I decided to get a little organized for the I Teach K Conference next week in Las Vegas. I decided that I wanted to put the handouts from my sessions onto Dropbox so that I could pull them up on my phone or Kindle.