A great weekend and planning ahead as a Mom... {Monday Markdown a little early!}

Friday was our class field trip to the Fort Whyte Center.  We do navigation, GPS, and ecological surveys.  We usually go in the spring but this year we chose to go in the fall.  It was beautiful there! And my group - for the most part - was awesome and camera hungry LOL! I had a lot of fun taking scenery shots - with no filters it was so amazing. My group did a jump shot with the colored leaves, they were pretty stinkin' creative.

On another note, I live in Winnipeg.  It looks like this:

9 months of the year.  So when my husband suggested that we go camping one more time to take advantage of the great weather I jumped on board without asking where or when.  Literally. My kids were asking questions like "Where are we going?" and "When are we going to be back?" when I told them and I had zero answers for them until I went back to ask for the details.

I volunteer with NURV on Friday nights (my churches amazing youth program) so after I was done at 10:45p.m. we started the over three hour drive to Fairford River. My oldest daughters words; "YES!  Road trip buddies!" She drove for les than an hour when we had to stop for a pee break.  The Northern Lights were AMAZING and we were both very sad that you cannot take a picture of them.
Anyways, back to my story... she hops in the passenger seat and proceeds to go to sleep.  ABANDONER!!  I drove the next 2 hours and 45 minutes by myself.  At least I had headphones and  some great music - I played my YouTube acoustic playlist which includes The 1975, Black Veil Brides, Robert Pattinson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Passenger - and a bunch of other acoustic covers.  It was a great road trip buddy.

We spent the next day and half fishing, sun bathing, camp firing, and taking more scenery shots.

We caught 12 fish - one carp, one cat fish and the rest were pickerel and tasted pretty darn good. Today it was SO COLD and raining so we headed home.  Thank you Gramma and Grandpa for an amazing time.

Looking ahead ay my week: 3 volley ball practices, 3 staff meetings, some professional development, a lot of assessment completions on basic skills in math, organizing science packs for labs until Christmas, a few grade level meetings, and two new products to finish up.

My Monday Markdown items this week are my Ah-Mazing Guided Reading Tubs or Centers - reg $5.50 on sale for $2.25 this week only.  It was one of my favorite activities to use in my grade one literacy block.

Dr. Alphabetical Order: put the words into alphabetical order and record your work on the recording sheet. This works not only on alphabetical order but also on fluency as they read through the words and record them.

Sentence Superhero: there are 36 sentences that all need the help of a sentence superhero! Correct the sentences by adding capitals and punctuation and recording your work on the recording sheet. This helps reinforce the idea between an asking sentence, a questioning sentences, and an exciting sentence.

Ch-ch-chunking Champion: Use a variety of word maps and alpha tiles to create as many words as you can to be the chunking champion. Beyond working on creating words through stretching and chunking this activity helps reinforce proper letter formation of letters with “tails” and “necks” on recording sheets with practice lines.

Blend/Digraph Memory Monster: Match a “blend/digraph” card to a picture that has a word that starts with that blend or digraph. Can be one large game or three smaller games to shorten game play for 15 minute rotations.

Sentence Chef: Our little sentence chefs will be using three ingredients {provided on three color coded spinners} to cook up some good sentences – nouns, adjectives and verbs. Recording sheets are also color coded to affirm independence of students who are still not completely confident with the parts of speech. There is also a “draw me” box that allows them to illustrate their silly sentence to confirm comprehension.

What’s Next Ninja: Our little ninjas will sequence the events of a story by arranging story strips in the right order. There are five different stories they can practice on and each story uses a different form of understanding; ordinal numbers {first, second etc.}, before and after, large, medium and smaller etc., in a variety of real life experiences such as making a bed, making a sandwich, making a snowman, sequence of a day and so on. Recording sheets allow students to draw a comic strip to show their understanding.
For my fellow Middle Years teachers may be interested in my Dynamic Earth Unit.
It is regular price $6.00 on sale this week for $3.00. A unit on the forces that build and shape the earth: from Faults and Plates to Mountains, Volcanoes, and Earthquakes

28 PAGE TEACHER RESOURCE INCLUDES:
 All applicable answer keys
 All links included for videos
 Links to images, resources, websites that will support your Lessons inserted where you will need them for convenience.
Posters for Sandwich squish lab
 Handouts for group activities – types of volcanoes, types of folds and faults
 Teaching suggestions for lessons
 Lab instructions including dialogue

 22 PAGE STUDENT BOOKLET INCLUDES:
 Rubric page
 Questions for Plate tectonic video on YouTube
 Plate tectonic activity page
 Types of faults info and room for diagrams
 Earthquake handouts and information on body and surface waves
 Mountain information handout and cut and paste
 Mapping Mountains Activity (requires an atlas) along with map
 Mountain review questions and extension activity
 Crossword to complete with Pacific Ring of Fire video from YouTube
 Volcano information handout
 Parts of a volcano definitions and hand drawn diagram to label
 Types of volcanoes group activity and worksheet
 Volcanic Eruptions Lab handout
 Sandwich squish lab pages and rubrics

 Unit project – Volcano Research Journal (including mapping activity, diagram, creative elements and a rubric to follow).  Includes Scientific Process and extension activities using Nelson Science and Technology Grade 7 text. The extension work is just that – an extension. It is not required to use the booklet or teacher resources.  Also included are the unit test, adapted test and a key for both.

Looking ahead as Mom I am excited about a new product that came out today.  My son is in Grade 1 and we need to work n his reading fluency and comprehension.  I bought these FLUENCY STRIPS SET ONE  by the Moffat Girls and LOVED them for my daughter.  Now SET 2 is up!!  Check them out here - they should be in every Early Years teacher arsenal and every parents "help at home" kit!!  No kidding!