Daily 5 Update and OLW *Freebies for Both*

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

Wow.

I'm tired.  My legs are tired.  My brain is tired. 

My kids WEREN'T tired.  I thought they would be, but they weren't.  They entered Room 8 rarin' and ready to go.  I quickly aborted my word study plans and went over our class rules and expectations instead.  We read our class pledge and then on a whim {because you know that's how I roll} I pulled out my Mimio and typed in the middle "I will do my best" and had each kid come up and write their name {for practice - it was the first time any of them had worked with an interactive whiteboard}. I wish I could say the rest of our day was blissfully calm....

They were just so darn excited about their trips to Grandma's, playing with cousins, opening up a 3D Nintendo DS...how could I hold it against them?

Tomorrow?  The bear is comin' out of the cave...

Daily 5 is still going really well.  I love how I'm managing it and thank my friend....{can you guess?}...Barb and her colleagues for helping me out with this.  Not sure if you remember, but I don't ring bells or keep track of time {Other than what time we start and what time we end}. I really have taught my kids to listen to their "body signals" and when they get ansty, start fidgeting, "pretending to read" it's time to make a different choice.  I don't know if all groups of first graders could handle this or if it's because this group is so awesome they really take ownership and do such an amazing job switching when their body tells them to. 

One "bump" in the road I encountered was that, while I released some of my "inner-control-freak" by letting them make choices at will, I still found myself wondering where they have been and what they've done on a particular day. 

Thank goodness for colleagues because those girlies {Barb's teamies} created a handy-dandy graph {that I tweaked} to have the kids use to record what they've done in Daily 5 for one week.  Each day, I have the kids pull out their graphs before making a Daily 5 choice day.  We talked about making sure our graph is "balanced" so if we have already done one of the activities one day, the next day we'll want to find something different. 

You'll notice that this graph does not have read-to-someone on it.  I wrote about that {HERE} in case you're interested in knowing why.

Pick up your copy of the graph by clicking on the picture below...

Clipart:  Scrappin Doodles

Helllllllooooo......I'm way down here!!!  I tried putting two graphs on one page and for some reason I could not make that happen.  Strange.  Word was being all glitchy {or maybe it was me and my tired self}.  Sorry!

On a different note...

OLW went so well today!!!!!  I'm pleased as punch to read your comments about it!!!!  My firsties got into it and one girl knew her word right away and almost gasped when it came to her.  So darn powerful!!! 

Barb {I think you probably feel like you "know" her by now} is doing this activity with her first graders too and did her own bit of tweaking of my desk tags and plans on sending the extras home. I loved that she's not only going to have them put them on their desks, but by their coat hooks out in the hallway too {So it's one of the first things they see each morning - clever!!!!!}. 

Okay, I did get awarded the Versatile Blogger Award by Lisa over at A Teacher's Bag of Tricks, which makes me one happy blogger-girl, but I'm going to have to fulfill those duties attached to getting such a prestigious award another day.  I'm barely hangin' on and I've GOT to get to reading just a few more chapters so I can head over to The Best Endings to blog about that!

Oh good golly I just noticed that I have 250 followers!!!!!!  Which means....it's time for another giveaway {as promised}.  Darn, how the heck am I going to sleep tonight - my wheels are going to be turning trying to think of what to do.  Will have to get back to you on that one...hang tight!

Over and out...

10-4 Good Buddy...

Peace!

Oh, one more thing {shoot} if you leave a comment, you'll notice that the pesky "word verifier" is gone...poof!  Thanks to Rachelle over at What the Teacher Wants.  Click {HERE} if you'd like to get rid of yours.  She promises  thinks it will get more friends to comment on your blog.  Let's see if it works...

Holly