In the Merry, Merry Month of May

May was quite an exciting month in the Cashatt household. First of all, I got my new awesome job after searching for over a year. We also got to spend time with both of our moms on Mother's Day weekend, AND it was my birthday! (which will be a whole other separate post) In addition to that excitement, we also had a few other things going on:

If you know anything about TV, you know that ratings are what determines whether a show gets to stay on the air or not. What you may not know is that the ratings are run by a company called Nielsen. Well, I was contacted by the company back in April to keep a TV diary. So, for one week in May I wrote down EVERYTHING I watched. Now, I already knew that I watched a lot of tv, so I wasn't too surprised to see my diary quickly fill up during the afternoons and evenings. Anyway, it was kind of fun, and I would love for them to send me a Nielsen box so I can be a permanent part of the ratings, like my mom!

Our friend Tara has a Cornhole Tournament every year near Memorial Day weekend. Jamie is always my partner (duh) and this year we won two games, which obviously is not much, but it's the most we've done! So next year our goal is three... we'll see how that goes :-)  There are no pictures of us actually playing, but here's April and me (and doggie Ren) waiting for our next games.

And this is the cornhole board that hated me: at least half of my bags slid off the back of the board!

Although we didn't win the cornhole tourney, I DID win something else last month. One of my favorite blogs (see my name here!), The A Cappella Blog, did a bracket contest for the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). They have quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, somewhat similar to March Madness. Anyway, I filled out my bracket with who I thought would place in the top two for each competition. I did so well I got second place! And so, I won a copy of the Best of College Acappella (BOCA) 2012. It's a compilation put out every year of the top recordings from around the country and I haven't gotten one in several years, so I was very excited to receive a free one! Here's the tracklisting, in case you're interested:






I also got to go to the End of Year Author's Celebration for the class I was the long term sub for. It was so fun to hear all their amazing writing and how much growth they've had even just from when I was there. I loved seeing their sweet little faces and am so excited that I will get to see them around school next year!


So, as you can see, it's been a busy past few weeks and I enjoyed every minute of it!

The Meaning of Oviparous (and other Kindergarten tales)

This time last year I was questioning whether I even wanted to teach anymore. After being back in a classroom for the past seven and a half weeks, I can unequivocally say, "yes! I do want to teach!" I spent this time in a kindergarten classroom while their teacher was on maternity leave and got the opportunity to work with some really wonderful kids.

I'm not quite sure how to frame this post, so it might not be as cohesive as some of my previous entries. I just wanted to share some things I learned, I taught, and experienced.

One of the most exciting draws for me (other than that it was kindergarten) was that I would finally get to see true Balanced Literacy in action. We read one big book a week for shared reading, had small groups for guided reading, worked in literacy stations (no more must dos and may dos!), and did word study that made sense for the group (as opposed to a certain order).

As part of Black History Month, each class decorated their door with relevant people. Our class had chosen Gamecock football players. Most of them were very excited, except the handful of Clemson/Georgia/Kentucky fans :-) Thanks to my lovely assistant Sue, she helped the kids make this awesome door:

During President's Day week, we learned lots of facts about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In one of my Guided Reading groups the next week, we were doing a storywalk through a book about hugs, and why different people need them. The child on the page looked sad and the student said that maybe he was sad because someone died. He then told me that "my brother died. He stopped breathing. Now he's with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln because they both died." Talk about a text to self connection! We sat there for a second, taking in what he had said, and then the girl next to him commented, "Maybe George Washington gave him a one dollar bill!" :-)

For St. Patrick's Day, one of the experiments we did was putting food coloring in water and then putting in a white carnation to see what happens. Unfortunately, as you can see, the green coloring did hardly anything! Maybe next time I need to put more in it...

As part of the Everyday Math series, we did lots of graphs, which I think is perfect for young ones, as they are generally very visual at that age. Here is the one we did for "Type of Pets." I had a graph for the Smartboard that I had previously made for other classes. This group had SO MANY pets, not to mention so many different kinds, that we had to change it constantly as we were going!

One of the science units I had to teach was Oviparous Animals. If you are like me, you have never heard the word "oviparous" in your life. Just for fun, as I was introducing the unit, I held up the word and asked if any of the kids could read it (not imagining any of them could, of course.) Immediately a hand shot up. He not only read the word, but could also tell me that it meant an animal that lays eggs. He told me he learned it in preschool-- I want to send my future kids to that preschool! This is the same student who wrote a book about amoebas, and told me that the elephant bird from "Horton Hatches an Egg" happened because it had elephant DNA and bird DNA.

Anyway, as part of that unit, we had to hatch eggs in our classroom. When I first found that out, I pretty much freaked out. I don't really do well with animals, unless it's a cat... and I enjoy looking at them on TV and at the zoo :-)  Well, it didn't turn out to be too bad, and the kids were OBSESSED with them. All they wanted to do was go look at the chicks once they hatched. Who can blame them? Look how cute they are (the matted looking one hatched a day after the rest of them):

 

I could go on and on about how much fun I had and how many ideas I got for my future classroom, but I will just leave you with my parting gift from the class, by way of my assistant :-)

Thank you Ashley!