Celebrate Good Times and 200 Followers!

It's time to celebrate... I've hit 200 followers!! This is so exciting and such an honor.  Thanks to everyone out there who reads my blog and comments.  I really do love reading the comments...BEST part!

Well, I'm pretty sure that the last ten or so followers found me because of some other wonderful blogs. The following blogs nominated little ole me for the Liebster Award.  Thank you, thank you!

Third Grade in the First State
Fabulous in Fourth
Think Share Teach
First Class with Mrs. Mac

Here are the rules: This award is for new blog, and its goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. If you earn the award, you must:

• copy and paste the award on your blog.
• thank the giver and link back to them
• choose YOUR five top picks and leave a comment on their blogs letting them know
• hope your followers will share the love with them.

Here are my Top 5 picks:
Fun in Fourth Grade!
iDream iPlan iTeach
Jasztalville
Life is Better Messy Anyway
Oceans of Teaching Ideas

P.S.  Look for a giveaway soon to celebrate the big 2-0-0!

Right Now...

Oh' Boy 4th Grade is having another Currently linky party and I just had to join the fun.  Farley is celebrating over 1,000 followers! Can you believe it?  Dang...you go girl! Congratulations.

Here's my list...

A New Year Means *New* Classroom Rules

Happy 2012 everyone!

Wasn't winter break amazing?  I really needed some time to recuperate and relax. It was just too easy to get used to sleeping in late, lounging around the house in sweatpants, and spending my afternoons getting caught up on movies and TV.  Ha! I was such a bum and I loved every minute of it.

Well, we headed back to school on last Tuesday *sniff, sniff* and it has been a whirlwind.  My class is getting back into the groove and learning all my new tricks and classroom rules. That's right... we didn't review rules and reboot the old... we started ALL NEW RULES. With a new year, comes a new approach for me and handling the sometimes wild, outrageous, and definitely annoying challenging behaviors that occasionally occur in my classroom.

Now, I know I am a bit late hopping on the bandwagon, but Whole Brain Teaching is a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I love the 5 new classroom rules.  They are simple and effective.  Be sure to check out their website to learn more.  Rule #5 is my favorite...Keep your dear teacher happy!  Ha! No loopholes!

Basically, Whole Brain Teaching as classroom management is a highly interactive way to run your classroom and it was really easy to implement.  I started using a few teaching strategies before winter break, like the Teach-Ok and Mirror.  The students really enjoyed the incorporation of these strategies and were quick to catch on.  With the beginning of the new year, I have started using the essential 7, plus a few others I have picked up from watching video footage. Check out the video below to learn a bit more if you, like me, are just now learning about this stuff. Awesome! :)

Teaching Author's Purpose? Iguanas Can Help!

 Why was the book written?  

Was it to persuade? Was it inform? Was it to entertain?

I always teach author's purpose with iguanas in three easy steps. By using books all on the same topic, kids are easily able to distinguish between the 3 distinct purposes, plus the stories are great!

1) Introduce PIE (persuade, inform, entertain) and identify characteristics of each

2) Read the following books:

To persuade

To entertain

To explain

3) Have students match the book to it's purpose & create anchor chart. Easy as 1-2-3!