Five For Friday- April 11th

Happy Friday friends! I am seeing LOTS of teachers that are already on Spring Break posting on Instagram and on their blogs. I might be a tad bit jealous!  We have a four day week coming up.... including Jog-a-thon on Thursday and two IEP's. It's going to be a busy week. But, we've got to push through. Today I'm linking up with Doodle Bug's Five for Friday linky party to show you five things about my week.

We did a little Peep science experiment this week. The kids are very excited to find out what will happen to each Peep in the different types of liquids. We are on day three today and some interesting changes are already happening. We'll see what they look like on Monday when we go back to school.

Speaking of Peeps... we also did a little Peep Poetry. We tasted Peeps, came up with a list of adjectives to describe Peeps, and then wrote a little poem. They turned out pretty cute.

While practicing for our SBAC test, I realized how many fraction questions were on the test. I also realized how unprepared my students were to label fractions on a number line. This is a new Common Core Standard that we haven't really addressed in the classroom. So I found this Fractions on a Number Line Unit and we've been working on it all week. They also created their own giant number lines and labeled the fractions in this activity. I think they are now ready for those types of questions.

This is pretty much what my life is going to look like for the next couple weeks. I sat down this afternoon to map out a schedule for my class. It's pretty much impossible. I have no idea how we're going to get it done. I have to sit one to one with each student. I have one student at each grade level (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th). Sometimes... no... all the time, I realize how hard it is to teach a multi-grade level Special Day Class. This just makes it even more exciting. I will totally be celebrating when we're done!

You know those silly hoops you have to jump through as a teacher? Well, this would be one of them. This documentation is a new mandate this year. Sure, I've seen lots of teacher's evidence binders for their evaluation process, but we've never had to document specific lessons and what not. This year, all teachers K-12 in Special Education had to provide copies of our Digital Literacy lesson plans by filling out these logs. I got my documentation done this week and turned in. Yahoo! Thank goodness for my Basic Skills Computer Lapbook that we used. It was plenty of proof of all the technology goodness we've been doing in the classroom!

It's been a long week and I'm glad it's Friday! Thank goodness for a little down time this weekend! Enjoy the weekend!

Five for Friday- April 6th Edition

 Hello friends! Sorry I've neglected this poor little blog. I've been a tad busy with a million things recently. But I promise you more than one post this week! =) I'm linking up with Doodle Bug's Five for Friday linky party to show you five things about my week.

I spent Thursday through Sunday of last week at the CAL-ED (California Educators of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) conference learning all about Common Core and Depth of Knowledge. Lots of new acronyms and fancy new terms. The technology workshops were my favorite. It was a good weekend, but by the time I got home on Sunday night at 11:20pm, I was exhausted. It took me all week just to recover.

Last week the tech department came and installed my fancy new flat screen 40 something inch flat screen tv, sound bar and dvd player. I love that it's mounted to the wall and can easily pull out and turn towards which ever area of instruction were in. They tried really hard to get it hooked to my Elmo document camera, but to no avail. I will keep trying. It seriously feels like Christmas around my room.

I've nearly spent my $500 tech grant. It seriously feels like Christmas with so many goodies and new things to use. On Friday we opened up the flash drives and labeled them with the student's names. They are so excited to have one of their own. Now it really will not matter which laptop they end up with during tech time.

My students made silhouette signed art for the CAL-ED conference art gallery. I LOVE how they turned out. They look really nice hung above our calendar area.  Speaking of calendar..... I spy Spring Break on the calendar!! It's going to be here SOON! I cannot wait!

We are in full test prep mode around here. California has ditched the STAR paper/pencil test and we are taking the SBAC CAASPP assessment in a few weeks. I've been spending some time each day with the 3rd-6th graders just getting to know the test format and what to click on through the practice online tests. They are no where near ready for the test content, but at least they will understand how to take the test. The reading portion is going to kill them. You have to answer each question before you can move on. You know, in full sentence explanations..... essay style.  It's going to be a fun couple weeks around my classroom. Thank goodness it's just a field test.