Can you believe that we are already starting week 11?!? It's already NOVEMBER and this is our very first post! I feel like this school year is flying by and I keep neglecting this blog. Time to get back to the grind and try to blog with more consistency...maybe it'll attract followers (hahaha). Our school year has started off pretty great! I have 18 students and Cindy has 19, compared to last year when we had 25 and 28 this feels like cake. What a difference! I already feel more productive with them and less stressed. Time to be a blogger!! Before blogging about classroom stuff I wanted to share this wonderful story about my former student Mya. She turned 8 this year and for her birthday she received 2 tickets to the Katy Perry concert and could invite one friend to go with. Can you believe she invited ME?!? I was so shocked and appreciative. I love her so much! I can't wait to see her grow up and accomplish so many wonderful things. Katy Perry was AMAZING!!! What a show she put on...I loved it!! Thanks for letting me share, now back to business lol. I was so excited to get my new lesson plan book for this school year. I absolutely LOVE it. It has so many cool features and I'm glad I decided to invest in a new one this year. Both Cindy and I bought our lesson plan book at erincondren.com. This is my second year using this lesson plan book and I couldn't wait to get it and start using it. This year we switched our class theme to Superheroes. I found this cute bulletin board idea idea at Queen of the First Grade Jungle blog and translated it into Spanish. I think it turned out really cute and I love it. It says Superheroes in Training. This school year I started the year with an idea I found at A Cupcake for the Teacher called Magic Playdough and the kids really loved it. The recipe and poem can be found at the link above. I gave the students a ball of white play dough and said if the ball changes color we are going to have an amazing year. They squeezed and squeezed it (in a baggie so the dye wouldn't stain their hands) and it slowly changed colors. The kids thought it was so cool!! I will be doing this activity every year. Here's a little activity I always do at the beginning of the year. We cut pictures from a magazine that is the color of the day and glue them onto a crayon that I'll post in the room with the color words. This is a really great activity because it lets you assess so many skills. I check their cutting skills, color knowledge, use of glue and working with partners, etc... We also do this little activity with each letter that is introduced. I have my students come to the carpet with a small dry erase board and marker and we discuss the capital letter and lowercase letter, letter formation and then we practice writing it. Then I have them turn and talk with a partner to discuss words that begin with Aa. As the students call out the words we add them to the chart. We say the word, break it into syllables and then stretch the word to write it phonetically. Later in the year the students will write the words on the chart themselves. The kiddos use these charts to make the book of the week, to write the room and during writing. Here are a couple of morning messages from this year. We have started calling them SUPER News because of our Superhero theme. We are dual language teachers and do the morning messages in the language of the day. I love the "What Does the Shape Say" one that I found on Pinterest. It's so adorable. I also included 2 anchor charts: Carpet Rules (how cute is our super girl?!?) and How to Color. One last shout out to my wonderful mother who sent me these beautiful flowers. I just love the colors! Thanks for always remembering my first day of school (like I'd let her forget it) with flowers. I love you so much!! Thanks for stopping by!!! - Sandra and Cindy