Apples Pie Cupcakes... SAY WHAT?

Be warned... I was baking.

Don't get too excited. If I can make these, ANYONE can make these!

Our school does a "treat day" each month for the teachers, and of course this month is apple treats. My friend Carly (thanks Carly!!) taught me how to make these super simple apple pie cupcakes...

But seriously, these are the easiest things in the world and they're SO good.

All you need is:
*one box of yellow cake mix
*one can of apple pie filling
*one jar of buttercream icing

Bake the cupcakes as directed. Once they're cool, use a butter knife to slice the top off of the cupcakes. It helps if you slice down a little, too, to create a small "bowl" in the cupcake. Before you go piling apple pie filling onto the top, it helps to use a really sharp knife to CAREFULLY slice the apples up in the jar, as the slices will be too large for the cupcakes. Put about a spoon full of filling on each cupcake. Put the icing in a ziploc baggie (if you're a baker and you have one of those fancy-pants icing things, use that) and pipe lines across the top, then pipe some more icing all around the edge.

That's it. SO good. HIGHLY recommend.

Daily 5 - check!

SO. I did it. I let them go. We ran Daily 5 in its entirety today... Overall, I couldn't be happier for our first go!

Here's what went down. I did NOT run reading groups today. I wanted to be available to assist with transitions and with Listen To Reading (since we have had very little practice with that).  I decided to call each stop a "Round," so my kids know what they need to do for "Round 1" or "Round 2" etc... Now, let me explain a little. When I say they KNOW what they need to do, what I mean is the schedule would say something like this...

Green Group
Round 1 - Meet with Mr. V
Round 2 - Daily 5 Choice
Round 3 - Daily 5 Choice
Round 4 - Meet with Aide
Round 5 - Daily 5 Choice

Today, like I said, I did NOT meet with them. I have an extra card that says "Daily 5 Choice" that I put in front of each "Meet with Mr. V" card. I highly recommend this. It was SO nice to be able to worry about where they were going, and not about the kids at my table. I will run groups tomorrow, so the kids will just get one less choice. They've got a checklist to make sure they hit all 5 choices on a regular basis, but they know they won't get all 5 every day.

I was SO impressed with their choices. Of course they were excited about the CD player and RAZ Kids on the computer, but I had kids that wanted to go to Work On Writing FIRST, and that made my heart smile... They're also getting VERY good at choosing partners for Read To Someone. I went around the room and asked the kids where they were going for each round. "Billy, where ya going? Read To Someone? Who are you going to read with? Ok cool!" type of thing... They were picking people they knew they would be quiet with, and they were picking people well above or below their own reading level. It's great to see my higher kids be such wonderful teachers for my lower readers... Here's 2 of my little angels who read quietly the entire time and didn't bother a soul. Ignore the dirty guinea pig cage.

I also LOVED this scribble story. My kids know that I'm tired of reading scribble stories that have been turned into roller coasters or mountains. This little guy took his scribble and turned it into a monster! It took him a bit of time to decide what it was going to be, so he didn't quite get to finish writing. They all have "Work On Writing" folders that they keep in their desk, so next time they can finish old writing.

Are you venturing into Daily 5 land? Have you set your kids free yet? OMG, it's wonderful... Love how it holds the kids (and myself) accountable for so many aspects of literacy, AND that it was WAY less prep than traditional centers!!

Daily 5 - Work on Writing

Heyo! I finally remembered to take some pictures today, so I wanted to share a little more about my journey into the land of the Daily 5!

My kids are independent on Read To Self. It took many hours of model/practice/repeat, but we got there. I only took them as high as 20 minutes because my reading groups are never longer than that. Today, I told each reading group where I wanted them to go. Since I have 4 groups, I had one with me, one with my aide, one at Read To Self, and one group trying their first attempt at an all-out Word Work extravaganza. I've been gradually introducing each activity at my Word Work center. Right now, I'm keeping it simple with: magnetic letters, letter tiles, wiki stix, and letter stamps. They knew to choose one and keep it the whole time. With the exception of 2 little cherubs who were at the back of the room spelling their names with magnetic letters, everyone handled this remarkable well for their first attempt.

This afternoon, I tried 20 minutes of Work on Writing. I've been slowly introducing various activities they can do during this time. I use Lori Rosenberg's I Can Write A...Writing Menu, which I highly recommend if you're setting up a writing center! It's filled with gazillions of options for your kiddos to write. Right now, I've only introduced: letter, postcard, how-to, list, sticker story, and scribble story, which is a huge hit. However... If I read one more scribble story where they turn the scribble into a roller coaster or a mountain, I'll scream.

Anywho, here's what my Work on Writing station has shaped up to be. I got the cart from Big Lots on sale for $25 well spent. Basically, I made a drawer for each option they can choose. They know they can choose ONE of these during each Work On Writing, then they must journal. Some chose to only journal, which made my heart smile.

I decided that the top drawer was going to be their spot to turn in finished writing. There's also a mailbox (which I forgot to take a picture of) that they can mail letters and postcards to friends in the room. In order to turn in work, the students must highlight their name on their paper, mostly because some of the worksheets don't have spaces for names, so they always forget to squeeze it in.

Here's a peek at my writing focus board. The posters about what they can write all came in the writing menu pack. I also plopped up a few of my "I Can" Statements for things we're focusing on in writer's workshop.

I also put our anchor chart that we created about things to write about. The pencil about what do writers write came from The Teacher Wife.

Tomorrow, we're going to start discussing Listen To Reading behaviors by listening to the story from our anthology as a group... we'll see how that goes!! Cross your fingers.

Grad School = Lame School

Long time, no update... Grad school is kicking my butt. Luckily, the course I'm taking is actually pretty interesting right now, but still, I'd much rather be blogging than writing a paper about the negative consequences that come along with standardized testing, especially since my little first graders don't even take any standardized tests.

Stay tuned for a new post tomorrow about how Daily 5 has been going in my room, as well as how I've developed my Work on Writing area! It's really starting to come together!!

*Sidenote*
*Proud teacher moment*

The kids at my reading table were re-reading the story silently in their heads. One reading group was silently creating word search puzzles for one another. One reading group was silently practicing their Read To Self. The other reading group was sitting on the floor with our aide, exchanging books. I heard one whisper in the room. ONE WHISPER... It went a little like this:

(Whispered to our aide, who was helping them exchange books)
"Oh wow! I can't wait to read this book about tigers!!"

I was literally on the verge of tears. Part of me wanted to let them be... The proud teacher in me wanted to stop everyone and let them know how proud I was. I couldn't help it. I told them all to stop and listen. I explained that never have I ever noticed a group as hard working as they were at this moment. I told them I felt like crying happy tears, and then I added the biggest handful of warm-fuzzies to the jar.

Here's hoping they'll do it again this week!!

Also, I'm so happy it's fall... this pumpkin spice latte has really hit the spot :-)

Congrats!

First of all, thanks to everyone who entered my little giveaway!! I'm so happy to announce that the winner is.....

a Rafflecopter giveaway Congrats, Christin!! Check your email... I need a little info from you, and then the sharpener will be on its way!!

I hope you're all enjoying the beautiful weather this weekend! I was at the Penn State game with my family yesterday. Other than a little sunburn, the weather was PERFECT for football!! And today the weather is even better for.... CUTTING THE GRASS!! Womp womp.

Jeans Day (and a pencil sharpener!)

Ah. Am I the only one who falls asleep a little better knowing that tomorrow is going to be a JEANS DAY?! It's really kind of sad, but it is such a nice treat at the end of the week.

Anywho, sorry for no posts recently! Have been super busy at school with all the beginning of the year assessments and such. Yesterday was DIBELS DAY! I can't stand don't mind administering the DIBELS tests at all. Luckily, the beginning of the year tests for first grade aren't too bad.

We did a super fun craftivity that I hung up in the hall and forgot to take a picture of. DOH. Will take a picture tomorrow. If I remember. Probably not.

I'm still plugging away with Daily 5. I just started deviating from the suggested routine, but not really. I am using my whole group language arts time before reading groups to squeeze in our read to self practice, and tomorrow we will introduce choosing just right books with the "I PICK" method. The only thing I'm changing as of now is the pace at which writing is introduced. I am lucky enough to have a solid half-hour in my schedule that is being devoted to writing, and I'm using that time to begin squeezing in the Work On Writing component of Daily 5. Today we brainstormed a list of topics to write about, and I turned it into a poster.

*Sidenote* The chart paper I used to make the poster was wider than the lamination film. Rather than chop my paper in half, one of our amazing aides suggested running the poster through twice. The first time, have one side of the poster hang off the edge, the second time have the other side of the poster hang off the edge. When it's all said and done you can't even tell that it went through twice. GENIUS.

Tomorrow we will brainstorm a list of types of writing, and I will start to model one or two each day, then give them a chance to do it on their own. My hope is to have them ready to roll for 20 minutes of Read To Self (we did 14 today! I'm so freaking proud of how excited they are by this!!) so that I can start to run reading groups with an "Almost Daily 5" until the rest of the components are in place. They'll theoretically meet with me, meet with my aide, Work on Writing, and Read To Self, until the rest of the components are in place and I can start to let them choose. Right now they're doing lots of seat work (and they're being real troopers about it) but since I really hate am not a huge fan of seat work, I'm struggling to come up with meaningful activities for them to do while I run reading groups.

In other news, we had our digital projectors mounted from our ceilings last year. We do not have smart boards, but the projectors are angled at the whiteboard. We use EnVision math, which comes with an awesome online component that includes the entire student book, which can therefore be projected onto the whiteboard, which means the students can come up and write their answers right onto the board. Since it's a cross between a whiteboard and a smartboard, I refer to it as the "Dumb Board." Only in my head, though, but it still makes me chuckle. Look at how darling they are filling in the answers on the board!!

In other news, it's not too late to enter my Classroom Friendly Supplies pencil sharpener giveaway!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway