Teacher Goes to Court! Valentine Freebies!

Today I had to officially testify in court about a SPED case. It was the most nerve wracking hour of my life! For almost a whole hour I was being questioned, cross examined, and redirected. I felt like I was on a boring episode of Law & Order. My case really wasn't exciting, but it was still such a weird experience!

It made me so anxious to have the student's family right there and knowing every word I say can hurt or help them. I answered every question honestly, but it was still SO stressful to know my every word was being recorded. Plus every paper, report card, and document I ever wrote about the student was called into question. It really made me think twice about all my future report card comments I ever write!

They took my resume and put an evidence sticker on it, which was kinda funny actually! The judge was super nice thankfully and told me not to be nervous and nothing was going to happen to me. It didn't really help, but it was nice of him. I had to laugh on my way driving to the hearing because I realized I still have purple fingernails from my trip to Colorado this weekend! Ooops! Haha! At least my clothes were professional!

After this crazy day and being pulled out of my class, it was hard to get my class to act normally after I'd been gone for the whole first half of the day. I made myself go to the gym to cheer up/calm down my nerves. Then a trip to Lululemon...oh boy that store is dangerous for a girl in serious need of retail therapy! My logic- It's gym clothes that motivate me to keep working out, so shopping is good for me! haha!

Okay, here are my silly Valentine things:
 
We made critters out of hearts today. They are far from perfect, but the kids get to be creative. They use a heart as the body/head/ears etc. We read the book The Night Before Valentine's Day and you can look at the illustrations to see examples. I didn't make any samples because I wanted the kids to use their own brains. Here are the pics of today's creations:

A Frog

A Pig

A Mouse (I think)

A Frog (the scribble at the bottom is the feet I'm told)

On Valentine's Day we'll be doing some conversation heart graphing. Feel free to download this little freebie!

We're also working on Valentine letters. I made some stationary and one of my kindergarten boys blew my mind with the amount of words he wrote! He filled the entire page!!! This is a freebie too!

My favorite new creation is my addition and subtraction puzzles. These kept my kids busy for soooo long this past week. They are working on common core math skills and loving every minute. Awesome!

Last but not least- Alphabet matching freebie!

Oh the Dangers of TPT Awesomeness!

I'm going a little crazy with clipart now! My kids love when something new I give them has my name on it, because it means I made it *just for them.* They've especially started looking on the emergent readers I give them. All the things I put in my TPT store are things I really need/want in my classroom lessons. So I went crazy buying new clipart for my new lessons!

So I'm counting both my TPT and Teachers Notebook purchases... One of my favorite artists is actually only on TN right now and she had a HUGE 50% discount! It's KPM Doodles! Look at her adorable stuff! PS- There may have been a few more of her things in my cart...


Another addiction: Graphics from the Pond! They had the BEST Valentine set ever! Look what I've already created with it! Don't even ask how late I stayed up perfecting these math puzzles last night... I have some serious cutting and laminated to do tonight!
Valentine Mega Pack

Puzzles Mega Pack


My first creations since my purchase:

FREE Letter Stationary for writing a friendly letter:

 Math Puzzles!!

PS~ This is my first year on TPT, will they be sending me some sort of tax document? How do we file this for taxes??

Addition Subtraction Valentine Puzzles + Freebie Stationary

I've been working on addition and subtraction with my kinder boys and they are really getting it! They have been zipping through the curriculum and I've really needed to find things to keep them busy! I went a little crazy during the TPT Super Sale and bought a bunch of super cute clipart and I couldn't wait to use it!

I probably stayed up WAY too late tonight making this, but it's so adorable! It might be my favorite creation ever! I can't wait to cut them out and put them to good use as a math center! It's already up in my TPT store and 20% on my extra day of the Super Sale!

I also want to work on letter writing during Valentine's Day. It's the perfect time when we're making cards for our friends and loved ones. I made this simple stationary to help the kids with the proper format. Go ahead and grab a copy for your class! It includes both a boy and a girl version.

Candy Heart Graphing & Report Cards

So right about now I should be working on report cards and updating my students progress on the common core skills... but that just doesn't sound like much fun on a lazy Sunday during a 3 day weekend.

Instead of real work, I picked up conversation hearts at Target and made a new version of the heart graphing activity I do with the kids every year. I give each kid a box of conversation hearts and they have to graph how many of each color were in their box. You can also buy a big bag of hearts and pour some in little dixie cups for each kid (The boxes were $2.50 for 8 boxes at Target this week).

Then we compare our graphs to see if we all had the same or different results (it's always different). Then we combine our graph totals to make a whole class graph to see which was the most popular color.

You can grab a graph for your class too! Just click on the image for my TPT store, or HERE for a GoogleDoc.

My most bouncy (and attention demanding) little guys was out sick with a cold/flu this week. While I'd never wish illness on any kid, it made it a much quieter class this week and I used it to my advantage. I did a ton of one-on-one testing to monitor my kids' progress this quarter. I was amazed by how much a couple of them had grown. My kinder kids couldn't even write the whole alphabet in capital letters in October, and this week they were able to write almost every letter in both upper and lowercase! Also, they could only write numbers to 6 before and one kid made it to 100 now! (I'm counting number reversals of course, but still!)

I've also done a bunch of cumulative review math assessments for all of the kids, but I haven't scored them yet. I'm procrastinating until later this weekend :)

One little guy has been really struggling lately! He's having huge confidence issues and not finishing first has become a major trigger. At one point another student finished an assignment 3 seconds before him and he kicked, screamed, and tried to run away. It took a very long time to calm him down and resulted in me laying on the dirty ground hugging him in the hallway of our school for 15 minutes until he stopped crying. This kid loves super tight, squishy hugs and it turned out it's the only thing that will calm him down when he gets into his irrational tantrum mode. Do any of you have any great strategies to use with kids who insist on always being first?

This week I started rewarding him every time he wasn't first and didn't complain/cry about it. I also intentionally made him dead last in line and gave him a prize when he didn't get upset. During work time I switched up the assignment order for him and his learning partner so he never knew he was ahead/behind. Ironically, when he wasn't freaking out about his classmate getting ahead, he actually finished quite early. When I gave him free time he actually asked me if he could stop and come back to the table to learn some more! I about died of shock because usually this kid tells me how much he hates working! I told him he just asked the a teacher's favorite question: Can I learn some more? and the answer is always YES!!!

So now comes the real question... Do I keep mixing things up so he works harder and without tantrums because he never competes for first? Or do I force him to learn it's okay to not be first by praises and prizes for accepting second/last appropriately? I discovered this week it's become so bad that it's affecting his learning. He hasn't been able to learn our most recent sight words because of all the tantrums. So which is more important? The life skill of not being first all the time? Or the learning? Should I do 50/50?? Keep the work order mixed, but make him learn he can't always be first in line, games, and other activities?