Summer To Do list

I have been so ADD! I have way too much going on! My friend is getting married tomorrow, next week is VBS. And we only have a month left in summer vacation and I feel like I won't be able to finish everything I wanted to do. Here is my summer to do list:

1. Finish reading CAFE by the 2 sisters (finished Daily 5 on Monday)

2. Put resources together to present Daily Cafe to my Principal. (I really want to start the Daily Cafe this year but not sure how it'll go.)

3. Finish making tests for Math Common core for the new SMART Response. (I went through LA Common Core and tied each standard to the Daily CAFE so I've decided not to make tests for the clickers in Language Arts.)

4. Organized my library into genres

5. Convert my books on cassettes into mp3 and load into my iPod Touch

6. Organize my technology ideas for this year.

7. Start decorations for classroom (that's like a bazillion things in it's self! lol)

I think that was it...

I was trying to decide if I would use math notebooks this year when I texted my grade level partner. (There's only two classes per grade in my school.) I asked her if she had sent out the supply list while I was on Maternity leave to the office to send during the summer. She reminded me of some very crucial information. We can't ask for supplies this year. That is just PEACHY! So I'm hoping the parents ask for one. And I'm going to go to the Dollar Tree and buy a sample student supply list for (hopefully) no more than $20. Probably will end up being $30 but better than last year's that was almost $60-$80 depending on where you went.

I'm not supposed to want anything for my birthday because I got an iPad for Mother's Day/Anniversary/Birthday but..... I'm dying to have a label maker for my classroom! I've had to avoid Wal-Mart so as not to buy it! I'm pretty sure I saw one once at either Big Lots! or Family Dollar for less than the $25 Walmart price.

Possible Themes for '12-'13

Last year, I decorated with Apples. I think I want to do a new theme this year.

Here are my possible ideas:

1. Super hero theme

2. Bookworms theme

3. Bird or Owl theme

4. Polka-dots (not really theme but decoration)

5.Stars (I did this last year so kinda eh about it.)

6. Movie Stars (ooohh could be fun.)

And that's where my list stops... Any ideas?

Update 6/28/12: I've decided on a Garden theme. :D We shall see how it goes!

My first creation/freebie!

Hello to all my readers.... which is pretty much just Gabe, my brother. I'm hoping to get a few more followers after this post. I'm working on a project that I am going to put up on Teachers Pay Teachers or maybe TeachersNotebook. Last year, my school bought SMART Response clickers. (These ones!) The really fancy ones! I'm so excited! I've been dying to have clickers since I first heard about them in college. I can live without a SMART board but give me my Airliner and clickers!! Unfortunately we only had enough funds for two class sets. So I'm hoping the schedule I submitted works out so we get to use them every day. ANYWAYs, my project. I'm working on making SMART Response tests for the Common Core. So far for math it's been going well. Reading is a bit harder. But not going to give up. So stay tuned for that.

Yesterday I found high frequency word posters for sale but they were not from Harcourt Trophies, which is what we use. So I sat down to make high frequency posters. Now, this is my first (of hopefully many creations) but my computer doesn't have Microsoft Publisher. We have OpenOffice so I made these on OpenOffice Draw. It was my first time even opening the program, so considering that: I'm pretty proud of myself. So even though they are not PERFECTLY straight. I'm going to use them this year to conserve space on my walls. Well not conserve... but have more room for other things, like anchor charts.

So here is my freebie. It was on tabloid format (11 x 14) in OpenOffice but Google docs sees tabloid as 11 x 17. But I think when I converted it to pdf it changed it to 8x11. SO if you need it bigger let me know.

Guess Who

Catch a Dream

Here and There

Time Together Part 1 and Part 2

Gather Around Part 1 and Part 2

I'm back!

So I forgot I had this blog. But today I started going through different blogs on the Teaching Blog-o-sphere. And it made me want to blog again. So first up, personal update:

1. No longer Ms. M, now Mrs. M. Yay! (I thought about changing my blog to a different one but decided to keep firstgradewithmenendez, even though I am now Mora.

2. I am now a mommy!! My beautiful baby boy was born April 9th. Had a c-section since he was breech and a whopping 9 lbs 12 oz! He is now 2 1/2 months and has the blues eyes ever! 

I am still teaching first grade at that school in Nogales. I've been off since April on Maternity leave and am now itching to revamp my room, change my daily routine. The AZ Dept of Ed has all the districts working on a new Teacher Evaluation Tool. Unfortunately for the first grade teachers in my district, the only data that they have that is standardized is AZELLA and Diebels. AZELLA in First grade is way too hard. The passages have to be Second grade reading level. The directions are given too fast. Thus, many students stay in the same category or regress. Then Diebels goes from letter sounds, letter naming, and nonsense word decoding in Aug to Full passages and 35 words per minute in Dec. Passages that have LONG and short sounds. My grade level partner and I were deciding that since we usually spend the first 9 weeks reviewing short vowel sounds, we are going to go a little faster to make it to some long vowel sounds before Dec. 

So long story short, we needed something that would help us with those tests. I started going through pinterest searching for ideas to help us with fluency. (Isn't Pinterest amazing?!) And I stumbled upon 3rd grades a hoot and The Daily Five. So I bought the book from Amazon last night. And am now a quarter way through it and am IN LOVE!! So I'm hoping to set it up in my class this year! 

Hope everyone is well and enjoying Summer break! 

Mrs. Mora