Science Week

It seems to be science week here in blog land….I just wanted to share a few things we are doing in science and having an AWESOME time:

first we started out with a gummy bear experiment from Teachers pay Teacher to introduce the scientific method: We placed a regular size gummy bear in a cup of water overnight and the results were amazing! the kids loved it!  I don’t have any pictures from our science notebooks I will try to take some tomorrow.

        

Next we started our AMSTI investigation unit: Variables

We started out doing swingers, then lifeboats, and now flyers:

happy investigating!

I Think I Can Do Better

I feel like I am not doing my students fair justice throughout the day.  I feel like there is a lot of downtime and that when my students are reading silently they are just pretending.  I am hoping to get more motivated and implement some better programs and centers for unit two of our reading series.  What do yall do for reading centers or stations?

How do you motivate students to read for real?

What is your dicipline plan?  I am using a clipy chart but im not real consistent in moving the kids up … just down….

I just need some ideas… suggestions….anything!

weekend wrap up

Homecomings galore this past weekend!  Believe it or not it has been ten years since my senior homecoming game at my high school and six years since I was on the homecoming court at UNA. The hubs and I spent the weekend visiting with old friends and cleaning up the house for my sissy Baking Shower on Sunday!  Can we say jam packed weekend?  Oh yeah and my Brat Pack friend had her precious baby Evan too!  Great weekend that hopefully will run into a great week at school.

this was senior citizens day during homecoming….I prefer a theme so I titled it Knock em in the Nursing Home Day

this is me and little tonya.. my fantublous co-worker…this was crazy spirit day.  Our principals really wanted us to get into the spirit…one of them spray painted his hair red and they both wore crazy socks and a VERY spirited outfit….Every spirit day needs ribbons:

Several of my softball girls were on the court:

very proud of them and their accomplishments! After a long day of the parade and the pep rallly… I went to volleyball and then came home and got ready: thought that I would share this oh so cute belt!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday I met little miss Evan:

and went to the UNA gamethen in all of my spare time ahem..2:00 A.M.

I took my kitchen wall from this:

acutally another picture was hanging here but I didn’t have a picture of it

 

 

 

 

to this:

and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

sub tub link

The sub tub that I posted about during teacher week is from One Extra Degree.  Check it out…shes pretty awesome at organizing and putting her own spin on things.

Happy organizing

Laura

New Blog

Sooo Im pretty sure I found what I want to be when I grow up…. Melanie from SchoolGirlStyle!  Holy Crap!  She is pretty awesome.  I am personally jealous at all of her GREAT ideas. I always try to make my classroom feel like home and she really did it.  I LOVE her bird theme. Yall go oer and check her out!

Also, I am missing being in first grade and going to my go –to blogs and getting great ideas for the next week.  Ive searched and searched for a fifth grade blog and I have decided that I am just going to start posting cutesy stuff I do maybe it will help somebody.  I am super worn out from the start of school and volleyball.  Post will get more frequent when ball is oer… not to mention my sisters wedding, my brat pack friend is having a baby, my ten year homecoming reunion is coming up, etc, etc, etc!  Bare with me.

Heading to AMSTI science year 2 training tomorrow… 8-4 with a working lunch… REALLY that and sub plans????!!!! but Im being positie polly this year and Im going to say it is going to be worth it!

Have a great week!

Remembering

Ten years ago today, I was a senior in high school.  It was homecoming week, but the seniors weren’t dressing up that day because we were going to our local college The University of North Alabama for College Day.  I woke up late as I OFTEN did living less than a min from school.  I threw on some jeans and a pink shirt, put my hair in a bun… realized it was College Day, put my “danceline” hair around my bun {that’s another post in itself}, and slapped some make up on during the 30 sec car drive to school. My classmates and I got on the bus to go to UNA right at 8:00. We made it to the college and our counselor told us on the bus that a plane had it the first tower.  We were all thinking a little crop duster.  We went in and looked around at the potential Greek organizations we could be apart of, thought about whether or not to live on campus and discussed how cool the college kids were.  We were still excited about the upcoming game on Friday.  Meanwhile, the second plane had hit and we heard the news from one of our teachers.  We all took a picture on the step at UNA, still not know the magnitude of the attack.  We then went to McDonalds for breakfast and the TVs were on.  We were all very scared and our teachers were trying to get us in and out quickly so we could get back to school.  Once we returned to school we gathered in the AV room with our teachers and we watched the footage.  We cried and prayed together as friends, classmates, and somehow more grown up 17 and 18 year olds. Our principal let us order pizza and we could check out if we wanted to.  We trickled out one by one once we realized there was nothing we could do but pray.  Our school system cancelled all after school activities..EVEN FOOTBALL PRACTICE.  That’s huge in Alabama.  My best friend and I went to wal-mart for some things that we really “needed” for homecoming.  Living in a community you have to go to TOWN to shop and there were people lined up for miles to get gas… of course I actually needed gas.  It was 94 cents. I remember praying so hard that night that GOD would watch over my family and our nation.  It was a very sobering week with mixed emotions.  That Friday night during the national anthem not a drop could be heard, a foot was not moved, and more than a few tears were shed as they raised the flag to half staff. September 11, 2001 will be a day that NO one will forget and that forever changed our lives and our country.