Happy Monday!

Happy Monday to all of you! I hope your day went better than mine! Meetings about definitely-abled students are always touchy, aren't they?? Goodness...I haven't cried so much about school in my life.

Today I think I will share with you our Writing Connection Notebooks. One of my 1st grade besties (the teacher next door) has been doing these notebooks for awhile. This is totally not my idea, I give her all the credit!

We just take a plain jane folder and put a label in the upper right corner. Fancy, huh?

On the inside, are about 40 pages of handwriting paper in a letter format.

 Each Friday, we summarize our week and the kids write a letter to their family about what we learned that week. Over the weekend, the parents right a letter back to their child on the reverse side. This continues all school year. I LOVE the conversation that takes place about their learning with their parents. Last year I had parents write the sweetest comments back to their child. These smartypants parents would also write facts about what we were learning about, so we shared that with the whole class. It's like each child is blogging with their parents and practicing handwriting at the same time. GENIUS!!!

Then, every Monday morning, the kids are so excited to show them to us because it's a letter back from their parents about something we learned. I train my buzzers to bring their Writing Connection Notebook to their desk and I walk around during their journaling time and check out everyone's letter. Nosy? I'd say so, but I love reading the sweet comments back and forth. If they keep one thing from their 1st grade year, I hope and pray that this Connection Notebook is it!

Well, I'm off...this has been one long and stressful day. I'd say a Diet Dr. Pepper is in my near future! Have a great night!!!

Marcy

Pencils!!! Help!!!!

Hey y'all!

How in the world do you manage pencils???

I never had a problem with pencils in kindergarten, mainly because I had tables and I kept the big fat kind of pencils in a basket in the middle of the table. I loved those big fat pencils because they only had to sharpened once a year month or so.
This past year in 1st grade, the kids had desks and brought their own cutesy dutesy pencils and I feel my educational assistant or I were sharpening all the time. I can't do that again, especially with 27 little buzzers or more that are currently on my list!

So, help a sista out and tell me how to run my pencil system this year and every year after!!

Thank you!!!
Marcy