Five for Friday - June 7

It's a WET Friday, but we only have 5 more school days! I'm linking up with Kacey again to talk about my week so far. Now that testing is finally over, it was actually a more interesting week!

Monday was a personal day for me since we went to Chattanooga for my college roommate's wedding. It was so much fun! I had my camera, but I didn't end up getting any pictures during the wedding because Keagan was quite the handful. We also got to spend a little bit of time in Knoxville visiting Steven's brother and his family. I snapped this picture before we got on the road. These kids are SO sweet, and I wish we could see them more often! Marissa was my flower girl almost 7 years ago, and I can't believe she's about to be in middle school (5th grade for her school), and Jacob was born about a month after Steven and I got engaged. They've grown so much!

When I got back on Tuesday, it was time to get in full swing for running records. My para and I worked on these all day Tuesday and Wednesday, and we're trying to finish helping some more teachers today. Hopefully we'll be done by the end of the day because I want to focus on end of the year packets and progress reports next week.

Wednesday morning right at the end of first lunch, the fire alarm went off. The strange part was that we had had a fire drill the morning before. I figured it was popcorn burning again (isn't that almost always the culprit?), and it turns out I was right!

For some reason, though, the alarm didn't trigger and call the fire department, and there was some confusion with the SRO as to whether it was a drill or an actual incident. The fire department didn't get there until later because of this, and we ended up being outside for about 30 minutes. When I walked back in, they were still in the teacher's lounge with huge fans trying to blow out the smoke/smell. Since this is not the first time we've had this happen (burnt popcorn, that is), these flyers were placed in our boxes and by every microwave in the building that afternoon.

Oops!! Guess I'm not doing a popcorn party anytime soon!

Yesterday was Field Day #1 (for K-2), and I was in charge of running the Sponge Relay. It was the perfect day for a field day! Overcast and warm with a slight breeze. The kids had a blast getting completely soaked!

Today was supposed to be Field Day #2, but...

I should have taken a picture of where I was standing for bus duty. I chose to wear flip flops instead of dealing with my rain boots (regret that decision), so just walking out to bus duty was disgusting. I stood on the sidewalk where the water had already reached the bottom of my feet (it's the lower part of the parking lot) to keep the kids from walking through it. By the time they had passed, only a few minutes later, it was almost to my ankles. I had to quickly roll up my pants to keep them from getting soaked.

We're supposed to go out with our small group tonight to celebrate my birthday (next Thursday) and one of the other guys' birthday, but it's in "the bottom". I really hope it's not flooded down there because I REALLY want some Bottom's Up pizza!

Try to stay dry this weekend if you're in Andrea's path. And for those of you who are already out (and I'm aware that number's growing), I'll be joining your ranks NEXT Friday!!

Tell me something good linky

I'm back! This week has been crazy. Tuesday night was Back to School Night, so I was at school until 8:00. Then during school I have begun giving running records to any students who failed the SOLs (Standards of Learning) or were below grade level on their word lists. I've given the first running record to all of 3rd and 4th grade, and today I need to start 5th. Then I have to go back and retest the students who were at frustrational. Thank God that Fountas & Pinnell assessments are pretty short!

So far, I've identified 9 kids in 3rd grade and way too many in 4th. This stresses me out because my numbers should get smaller as the kids get older. Right now, my 4th grade list could easily be 14 kids...craziness!! Oh, and did I mention their levels range from G to Q (Q's failed the SOLs, so I have to pull them until they show improvement)? Today the focus is on 5th grade.

Okay, enough focus on the stresses. I think it's perfect timing for this linky party that Jennifer from Rowdy in First Grade is hosting.

My Something Good From School: 

I have almost finished giving at least one running record to all of my "at-risk" kids! Now I'm just going back and giving another one to students who were at a frustrational level. One of the reasons this has gone so smoothly is because my wonderful parapro has been helping me. I trained her on giving running records (and taking lots of notes), and she's pulling half of the kids. Then all I have to do is grade it!

Also, we have started fully implementing Daily 5 and CAFE, and from walking around the school, I have seen a lot of great instruction and practicing!

My Something Good From Home:  

My sweet little boy, Keagan, can now sit himself up, pull up, and get around very well. He's still not officially crawling, but he sometimes army crawls. His preferred method is still the rolling pin, but I think he will be crawling any day now! Oh, and we lowered his bed this week to stay safe!

Another big plus is that we get to go to the beach this weekend! It's going to be a little cooler, but it will be nice to get away and relax for a little while.

Go link up!

Word lists

I mentioned yesterday that our school has begun using Fountas and Pinnell for our running records this year. In the past, many teachers just knew if their kids were high, medium, or low, but most of us didn't actually know what level our kids should be reading books from. Yes, I said "we". Guilty. :::lowers head in shame:::

I knew about running records and the importance of them, but I never considered the importance of knowing each child's level. Thank God that our other reading specialist is AMAZING and helped push for this to be implemented! And also thank God for my master's program that taught me the importance of this and the best way to go about it.

So we ended the school year by giving all students running records. Each grade level used the level that students should be at for the end of the year. For instance, all fourth graders were given a level R. The only problem is that if students were higher or lower, we didn't know how much higher or lower.

In my program, we talked about using word lists to help decide where to start when giving running records. Most of these assessment kits come with word lists and give instruction as to what running record to start with. So starting today, I began pulling all of the students (grades 3-5) to give them a word list and see what level we should begin on. I started with 4th since I know all of the teachers so well (I love my former teammates!) and we had already talked about using the word lists.

The only thing to be aware of when giving word lists is that this is not necessarily the level they will be reading at independently. Many students can "call" words but have NO IDEA what they are reading. If they read it fluently but don't have comprehension, they need to go back a level. It does students no good to be placed in a level where they have no understanding.

I have more word lists tomorrow, and I start training teachers on administering the running records. Should be a busy, but fun day!