Summer Reading 2020

Like I have said in previous posts one of my favorite things to do during the summer is READ! In our house during the summer,  we try and make it a priority to turn the TV off more and read in the evenings. Living in our new house my favorite thing to do is to put the screened in porch lights on and read out there in the evening after the kid have gone to bed.  Here are the books that I have read this summer: 

I started the summer out by reading Standards-Based Learning in Action. Our school has been doing standards based grading for 2 years now, so as a faculty we all have been reading this book to help grow our teaching and grading. This book gave a very comprehensive look at what standards-based grading look like in action, from giving formative assessments to using data to inform instruction to transitioning to a standards-based grading system. It was very insightful and gave me many idea on how to improve in the classroom. 

The next two books I read this summer are part of a 3 part series. The 3rd book does not come out until October and I cannot wait. The stetting of these book is in St. John... how perfect for a summer beach read! The books center around the main character, Irene Steele. In the 1st book Winter in Paradise, Irene rings in the new year one cold and snowy night, everything she thought she knew falls to pieces with a shocking phone call: her husband, who was away on a business trip has been killed in a helicopter crash. She heads right to St. John and discovers that her husband has been living a secret life. 

The 2nd book, Trouble in Paradise picks up a year later. Irene continues to search and find out more about the 2nd life her husband had been living in the beautiful St. John. Now Irene and her two sons go back to St. John to determine the truth about the mysterious life and death of the man they thought they knew. Both of these books were very exciting and hard to close each night. I kept wanting to find out the mystery of the plot. I look forward to the 3rd book coming out in October. 

Another favorite I read this summer, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen, is a surprising tale of possible murder.  For years, rumors of the Marsh Girl have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town in NC. The book starts off when the handsome Chase Andrews is found dead. Everyone in town immediately suspect the Marsh Girl, Kya Clark, is to blame. The book continues with getting to know Kya, who has survived for years alone in the marsh and she calls home, finding friend in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Again this was a page turner to find out who the true killer of Chase Andrews is. 

The last book I have read up until this point, Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. This was a powerful historic novel, based on real life scandals in which Georgia Tann, director of an adoption organization in TN, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country. In this book it goes back and forth from present day to Memphis in the 1930s. In 1930, twelve year old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live aboard their family's boat on the Mississippi River. Their father rushes their mother to the hospital to have a baby and Rill- the oldest sibling is in charge. The children are taken away from their home one night and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage. The children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parent- however they quickly discover that this is a lie. The siblings fight to stay together and alive. 

The book then bounces back and forth to current day in SC to Avery Stafford, who is born into wealth and politics. Avery begins to look into her family's hidden history and leads into some devastating truths about the TN Children's Home orphanage. 

Edit: I have read one more book on our trip to Mobile. This book, The Lies that Bind, was such a good book that I read it in 4 days. In a another wonderful book by Emily Giffin, main character Cecily lives in NYC and is faced with the tragedies of 9-11. Throughout this page turner there is also plenty of love, heartbreak,  family drama, and unexpected twists and turns. This is a must read for anyone who is a big Emily Giffin fan or just looking for a quick easy read. 

Well, these are the books I have picked up this summer so far. Let me know if you have other recommendations. 

Covid-19: Part 3 of 3

As I have chatted with people the last couple of weeks they are blown away that I am teaching my kindergarten students online. I miss my students dearly, but I am also SO proud of how much they are still learning online.

Each morning we have a live Google Meet morning meeting from 9-9:30am. Here is what our morning meeting routine looks like each day:

Each week during morning we assign jobs for the students to take responsibility with. Here is a list of their jobs for each week: 

Also, each Friday we have a "Fun Friday" morning meeting. So far our "Fun Friday" meetings have been: show-and-tell, crazy hair day, show your pet day, and favorite Halloween costume.

We love this time together!! Then after we have our morning meeting I stay on to teach a live small group with 2-4 children for about 30 minutes. Then my assistant comes on and teaches a small group of 3 children. For small group teaching I am still using Google Meet. I am also using a free platform called Explain Everything. With Google Meet I am able to share my screen so I just share with the kids my Explain Everything tab. With this platform I am able to put books for the students to read aloud to me and each other and math practice activities. I am so proud of all they are doing. 

Each week in Kindergarten we are having a "theme of the week". Each day we talk about the theme in our morning meeting. We also post optional activities each day to go along with the theme. Our themes so far have been: spring, butterflies, Easter, frog, and Earth Day. 

Each day after morning meeting and small groups students work on their learning for the day. We are using Google Classroom to publish assignments each day. Assignments are broken down by subject: phonics, reading, writing, math, optional special class assignments, and optional weekly theme activities. For each subject there is a typically a pre-recorded video by one of the kindergarten teachers and then an assignment for them to do at home and post on seesaw. We are then checking seesaw and giving feedback each day. 

Here is an example of one of our daily lesson plans: 

I am so incredibly proud of each one of my students! I feel so fortunate that we have the technology that we do to get to see our students each day. It makes my teacher heart so happy to see that even though we are not together in the classroom that they are all still learning and growing each day. I cannot wait till this summer when I can see them again. 

Covid- Part 2 of 3

Okay, as many of you know I currently have 2 preschoolers. A almost 5 year old and almost 3 year old. During this quarantine at home as a family I knew early on that I needed to keep my kiddos busy and learning, and that we have been doing. Each week I pick a theme and run with it. Each day we do one theme activity. Then Ansleigh, my almost kindergartner, does a reading/writing activity and a math activity each day. I am able to choose these activities of things I want her to know well before coming up to kindergarten in the fall. Cooper, my energetic 2 year old, typically has one activity that involves fine motor skills or a age-appropriate learning skill. These activities I choose based on things I think he is ready to start learning. In addition to learning with me, both children get to live chat with their class via Google Meet every day. Ansleigh gets to meet with her class twice a day, which she looks forward to every day, and Cooper chats with his once a day. Here is a picture of each of them engaging with their classes: 

Our first week of at-home learning our theme was Spring. Here were our lesson plans: Spring Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week: 

 spring science experiment 

 painting pots to plant seeds

 painting spring pictures with water colors 

 putting numbers in order with LEGO's 0-20

 making butterflies with paper plates, construction paper, and dot markers 

 rainbow writing her sight words for this week (a favorite activity of Ansleigh) 

 matching teen number cards with dots

 making towers that are the same color and then counting how many blocks are in each tower

 putting Cheerios on spaghetti noodles stuck in play doh

 making her number line 0-20

sorting bears by color

Our second week of at-home learning our theme was Butterflies. Here were our lesson plans: Butterfly Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week: 

 New sight words= new rainbow write

 shape graphing 

 oval book 

 butterfly life cycle book and circle book 

 we do a sight word hunt each week to find new sight words 

 making shapes out of toothpicks and marshmallows 

 writing lowercase letters in a bowl of salt

 writing random teen numbers out of order

 square book 

 yummy caterpillar treat that they ask me to make now each week

our Friday science experiment 

Our third week of at-home learning our theme was Easter. Here were our lesson plans: Easter Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week: 

 sorting jelly beans by color

 weekly sight word hunt with new sight words

 E is for Egg

Easter maze with teen numbers 

 dying eggs and making an emergent reader Easter book 

 Friday jelly bean science experiment 

 weekly rainbow write of sight words 

 B is for Bunny

counting by 10s 

Our fourth week of at-home learning our theme was Frogs. Here were our lesson plans: Frog Lesson plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week:

 fine motor practice

 roll and hop game... what number comes next

 sight word hunt

 name practice

life cycle of a frog

name practice

 CVC word game

 roll 2 dice, count, and dot the number

 fine motor practice

 frog cookies

frog sandwiches

 F is for Frog

name practice

frog puppets 

Our fifth week of at-home learning our theme was Earth Day. Here were our lesson plans: Earth Week Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week:

Our sixth week of at-home learning our theme was Ocean Here were our lesson plans: Ocean Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week:

Our seventh week of at-home learning our theme was Cinco de Mayo and Mothers Day.  Here were our lesson plans: Cinco de Mayo and Mothers Day Lesson Plans

Here are a few of the pictures of the activities we completed through this week:

Our eight week and final week of at-home learning was all about the Ocean. Here are the lesson plans: Ocean Lesson Plans

Here are some of our pictures of activities from the week:

Homeschooling my children during quarantine was not always easy however I loved doing it (most) days. It was fun to see them learn alongside of me and see both of their growth that they demonstrated within the 8 weeks. If you made it this far I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post about my journey of homeschooling my preschool aged children.