Happy Halloween!
            However, it wasn't Halloween at school today.  No celebrating in public education.  I always try to get away with as much as possible without getting in trouble...

                                                            

      

      

      

      Today we wrote and shared SPOOKY STORIES! ....accompanied with a little scary background music, some light effects, and suspense filled faces...we were ready!  Another fun day in 4th grade.  Energy was running high!

At home... a different story!  The lil' one woke up and said, "Mom, I am NOT wearing that to school today!"  Over my dead body was my reply!  A little bit of struggle, and finally, off to candy corn day!

                   

Then, before trick-or-treating came- candy corn fruit cups and jack-o-lantern pizza!

                                                

Then, we ended the night with the best dessert of all...breakfast!  Something we've never had before...

      

            

      

      

       

            Halloween pancakes with chocolate syrup.  What a great day!      

      

peaCe-Out!

      P.S.  Oh Yeah, I forgot... I was going to show off my Intern's great Halloween legs....spiders!!

AHHH!  Crawling out of her hair too!

                                                      

       

       

                  

 

Tuesday. Test. Teach. Trip. Tempentuous. Trunk or Treat.  Touch base.

Trim. Toast. Task. Tailor. Trance. Tomorrow.

                                    

All in a day's work: 

Test class for another round of WKCE.  Teach the rest of the morning.  

Trip parent chaperone

for my 4 year old's first field trip ever in the afternoon (with tempentuous weather!)

                                    

Then it's Trunk-or-treat time at my other child's school.

      

            

 

As he tries to "touch base" with his friends & find ways not to leave.

Next up, Trim the pumpkins- or is carve a better choice of words?  My least favorite thing to do!

            

                        

      

 

The husband handled that job, as well as gathered the seeds for a nice Toast!

I prepared the next Task...

 creating Halloween crafts to send in the mail to the grandparents.

            

 

Finally, I was able to Tailor a candy corn costume for my lil' guy for school. 

It's not Halloween...it's Candy Corn Day at pre-school.

Now, I'm in a Trance.

Tomorrow is another day.

 

Mrs. Allen’s class rocked it out again!  We are the top performing class in our school for the online based mathematics program First in Math.  In addition, our school is ranked 5^th in the entire state of Wisconsin!  Go Stars!

First in Math is an online mathematics program that offers math content-ranging from single—step addition to complex algebra—in an engaging format. Each student progresses at their own pace.  From what I observe with this program, it is encouraging, motivating, and lends itself to solving more difficult problems than may be covered in class.  It also sparks discussion and sharing of strategies for solving the problems with classmates.  So far so good!                                                              PeaCe-oUt!

Have you seen the popular game show called, A Minute to Win It?

Today during Friday FUN we played a variety of different versions of the games you see on T.V.  It was hilarious!  The kids had so much fun and were so appreciative of the silly fun-time after a long week of state testing.                                                                                                                                              pEace-oUt!

 

                                                            

Oh PBIS!  What does that acronym stand for? 

Positive Behavioral Intervention & Support

I’m posting this today because I think this is a great idea for all of those schools out there who would like to develop a school-wide community building initiative for PBIS!  It is an event that took place at our school at the end of last year.  However, I’m sharing it now so that if you are brave enough…maybe you could try it out at your site this year!

I headed up a PBIS initiative for every single student in our building.  I decided that it would be awesome if our entire student population did a FLASH MOB at our end of the year family picnic day. 

Have you heard the popular song “Party Rock” by LMFAO (everyday I’m shufflin’)

Well, the kids just love the song.  I created lyrics to go along with the instrumental version that matched our school efforts toward high student achievement.

I met with small groups of students whom I taught the special lyrics to, as well as taught choreography that went along with the lyrics.  Of course, we all had to learn the “shuffle” that goes along with this particular song.  Once the entire student body memorized the new song & new moves…we were ready for the largest flash mob this town has ever seen! 

It was something special to see.  In true flash mob fashion, all of the parents were surprised and no one knew it was coming…until the music started to play!

Think about doing this for your school!  I do have video if you're interested in seeing it- just leave a comment (too big of file for drop box to load here)

See the link below for the special school safe lyrics for great PBIS community building!

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Emily-Allen-5365

PeaCe-ouT!

It just wouldn’t be a successful test window, without covering test-taker strategies!  Here is a pic of a bulletin board I have out in the hallway for all to see.  We teach these test-taker strategies and model them ofcourse!  You can find the attached test-taking strategy documents on www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Ms-Rothering .

My fabulous intern created them!                                      Peace-OUT!

Front page of the local paper today, the Beloit Daily News shows the school district’s report card publicly.  This report comes directly from D.P.I, the Department of Public Instruction for the state of Wisconsin. 

Morgan is the only school exceeding expectations…and only 1% away from significantly exceeding expectations!  Woot! Woot!

             
It’s that time of year already!  Test, test, test. (BOO!)

October 22^nd marks the first day of our Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam!  Today it was my job to SCARE my class into doing their best thinking on this big & important test.  Not only did I do a little scaring, I also cast a spell on the entire group… a spell of smarts!

See the link below for the “spell” that I cast upon our class...

www.teacherspayteachers.com   

peacE-Out!

What a beautiful fall day!  We spent our weekend outside.  The Pumpkin Patch, roasting marshmallows on an open fire, raking and jumping in leaves, & playing some football.  Precious times!

 



Fun Friday…nothing like a dance party to end the week!

Students receive Friday fun if they return all of their homework assignments, complete and on-time, for the entire week.  Each week the event for Fun Friday changes.  Today we listened to Pandora on the Kids-Bop station and rocked it out for a dance party!  (The disco light was really purchased for the love of the dance party at home- The Allen’s House Club- All night dancing venue). 

 

It's the weekend...time to party it up & dance the night away! 

 peAce-ouT!



Love this!  This is a fabulous way to give some non-verbal praise and do a little behavior modification right in the middle of your instruction (another pinterest find) without losing a beat!

 

I tried to think of an easy way to store the cards, so that I wasn’t interrupting my instruction by shuffling/looking through the cards to use them…which by the way, defeats the entire purpose of the cards’ use.  So, I used velcro and adhered them onto a cookie sheet.  I just have the cookie sheet leaning up against my whiteboard in a spot that is easily accessible.

WALLAH…behavior modification at it’s finest!  The kids love receiving them.  If they get a positive praise card, once direct instruction is over, they are able to get up and go change their stick to purple (highest/best behavior- on our behavior scale). 

 

PeAcE-oUt! 

Daily during part of our math timeframe, we’ve been doing some preparing for our Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exams that are soon approaching.  Our particular school is in the “exceeding expectations” range for this state test, even with the new NAEP correlation- 30% increase in expectations/standards!  As a team, we’ve looked at our curriculum voids and have developed/put in place a great pacing preparation guide for WKCE.  Some of our noted voids, or areas that we score poorly in are; constructed response (ofcourseJ), geometry (2D & 3D), algebraic relationships (missing addends)…shall I go on?...

 
 Today we were working on 2D shapes and symmetry in our interactive math journals, with puzzles, with pattern blocks, smartboard, computers, and 2 teacher led groups.

 

PeaCe-OUT!