Reflections of 2015 {Linky Party}

I can't believe that 2015 is almost over. Probably because this year really has flown by, but it could also be that it has been unseasonably warm here in North Carolina. It definitely does not feel like the very end of December.

A lot of exciting things happened this year, and I'm linking up with Kristin, Traci and Hadar to talk about some of my favorite things that happened in 2015! 

{ONE}

I got married! On July 18th, my now husband, Joe, and I got married in northern Michigan. It was a perfect day spent with all of the people we love! 

{TWO}

I got my Master's degree! Earlier this month, I graduated with my Master's in Special Education. It took a lot of work (and made for a lot of busy weekends), but I am so happy to be done! 

{THREE} & {FOUR} 

We went on our honeymoon! We waited until December to go since we got married in such a beautiful place and spent a week there after the wedding anyway. For the first part of the trip, we went on a cruise that stopped in Key West and Cozumel. Instead of spending the day in Cozumel, we decided to take an excursion to the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza. It was so worth it! It was an amazing experience! We loved our cruise and are interested in taking another one in the future!

On the second leg of the trip, we spent two days at Disney World. We spent a day at Epcot and a day at Magic Kingdom and had a blast! 

{FIVE}

When we got back from our honeymoon, we picked up the newest member of our family, Barry! 

{SIX}

This summer, the Rolling Stones came to Raleigh and I was able to snag tickets to see them! They were at the top of my concert wish list and they were worth every single penny I paid for the tickets. It's amazing that they are still able to put on such a mind-blowing show after all of these years!

2015 was a pretty fantastic year and I cannot wait to see what 2016 brings. Happy New Year, everyone!

Building Automaticity with Letter Combination Sounds

I gave my students a phonics assessment in the beginning of the school year. You know what I found? My students had some major gaps in their knowledge of the sound(s) that a combination of letters makes. For example, many of them couldn't tell me that ph sounds like /f/. I realized that I needed to address this issue ASAP, in order to improve my students' decoding skills. 

One way I've decided to tackle this problem is with flashcards. These flashcards that you can download for free below include various letter combinations (blends, digraphs, vowel pairs, ets). I use them in a small group or when working one-on-one with a child. It only takes a couple minutes and really builds that automaticity they need for successful decoding. It also makes a great time filler when you finish a lesson a few minutes early!

When we get to a card where the children hesitate to answer or answer incorrectly, I stop and quickly teach the sound(s) and give one or two examples. This has been really helpful for my kiddos! 

Click here to download the cards. 

Currently {October}

It's OCTOBER, which means it's time to link up with Farley for this month's Currently!

Listening: I feel like, in the fall, football is always on the TV. Since I'm not a big football fan, this is a perfect time for me to get some work done!

Loving: We are finally seeing some cool fall weather in NC and I love it! It is so hot in NC for so long that I am so grateful when it gets cooler.

Thinking: Yesterday, I attended EdCampWake in Raleigh. If you've never been to an EdCamp before, they are an amazing professional development opportunity. I'm planning a blog post soon to share some of my reflections. 

Wanting: It has been raining for over a week in NC. I love rain, but I have had enough. I am ready to see some sun!

Needing: I need to finish this week's homework for my grad school class. This is my last class and I am so excited to be so close to the end!

Boo-tiful: Fall is my favorite and I love when the leaves change. We don't have any change in leaves yet, but I am ready for it to start!

IEP Input Form {FREEBIE}

One of my goals for this school year is to increase communication--with gen ed teachers, parents, administrators, etc. 

One way I'm doing this is by getting more structured feedback from gen ed teachers about a child when I'm preparing rough drafts of IEPs. Previously, I had gotten my information through emails or discussions, but I didn't have a specific form that I used to collect teacher input. 

To ensure that I had information in all of the areas I needed, I created my own form. I will hand these out to a child's gen ed teacher a few weeks before the IEP meeting, so they have plenty of time to fill it out and then I will use their information when writing the IEP. It will be very helpful in getting more detailed information about a child's behavior and performance in the general education classroom during this school year!

Click below to get a free copy of the form!

Five for Friday {September 11}

Happy Friday! Although this has been a short week, it's been pretty exhausting! Short weeks always feel the longest to me!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to talk about what's been going on this week!

I've mentioned before that I'm using Reading Mastery in my classroom with my 4th graders this year. We are loving it! They are staying engaged, feeling confident, and are learning! 

One important component of Reading Mastery is the teacher-student game. Essentially, I give points when my students are following the rules and working hard. Before we started the game, I had the group agree on their reward when they received 100 points. One group is getting so close and they are so excited! 

My third graders have been working on arrays. To make it more fun, I found online flash cards so my students could tap the iPad to get their next multiplication sentence. Sometimes small tweaks, like using online flash cards instead of writing down new equations, really makes it more engaging for them! 

We also used Legos to make arrays! They really loved this! 

I'm trying to get my students to think more about their learning, so I created this anchor chart (inspiration from Lacquer, Teach, Repeat) to get them thinking. 

Even though I worked with almost all of my students last year, we did a few get to know you activities just to get back into the swing of things. Here's one activity from my Back to School Icebreaker pack that they absolutely loved!

My youngest kiddos forgot some of their letter names and sounds over the summer, so we are spending lots of time refreshing these skills. My First Sound Fluency Pack has been really helpful for this!

Have a great weekend!

Teacher Week--Five Things About Me!

It's Teacher Week over at Blog Hoppin', so today I'm linking up to share five fun facts about me! 

I got married on July 18th! Not to sound cliche, but it really was the best day ever! All of our family and friends were in the same place and I married my best friend. This past month and a half of marriage has been fantastic, and we are looking forward to spending the rest of forever together!

This semester is my last semester of graduate school! I will graduate in September with my Master's in Special Education. It's been such a fantastic experience over the past two years and I am so excited to get my diploma in three months!

Ernie is my furbaby! He is a year and a half old and has so much personality. He really brings such joy to my life and I'm so glad he's a part of the family!

I love to travel anywhere and everywhere! My next big trip is my honeymoon to Key West and Cozumel in December. I am so excited to visit these places! If anyone has recommendations or travel tips, please share!

My undergrad degree is from Michigan State. It was a fantastic four years and I feel so lucky to have had such a great college experience. Go Green!

Classroom Reveal {2015-2016}

This year I moved from my teeny tiny old classroom into a kindergarten classroom that wasn't being used. I have at least four times as much space! I tried to fill up the room as much as I could but still leave it open and spacious. 

This is the view from my teacher desk in the corner. Behind me is a whole wall of cabinets! They are filled with tons of stuff, since my room had been used as storage for the past few years. Hopefully they will get organized little by little throughout the year! 

This is my word wall board. I'm going to put all of the words on rings so that students can take them off and utilize them more than if they were just stapled to the board. 

The bulletin board to the left is blank now, but I will fill it with anchor charts as soon as we get started. Also, how cute is this alphabet from Doodlebugs Teaching? This is my second year using it and I love it so much! 

Last year, I didn't have a pencil system so this year I have a sharpened and unsharpened bin. I'm hoping this works a lot better. I'm prepared with a lot of sharpened pencils already! 

This year we have an ocean theme at our school, so I decided to fit that in with my beginning of the year bulletin board. I tried to make a sailboat to add more to the board, but failed miserably! I'm excited about how this turned out though! 

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone has a great start to the school year!!