Meet the Teacher Night 2014

Meet the Teacher Night is in the books!

I survived.

I met {almost} all my kids.

And, I only forgot to prepare ONE thing!

I'd say that's pretty good, wouldn't you?!

I even managed to get changed into my Meet the Teacher outfit on time without sweating through it. Usually I scramble to get 954 more things done after changing, but not this time. That's a first! Ha! {And it's probably because I totally forgot to set out my Extra Supplies baggies...oops!}

Sorry for the poor-quality picture. It was taken with my 1st grade team, but I cut them out because they probably don't want their picture all over my blog! :) I had a pretty comfy outfit for the night though. I love me some linen pants and loose fitting shirts! 

This year is the first year that I didn't have Meet the Teacher the night before school starts. Our first day of school is Monday, August 25 and we had Meet the Teacher on Thursday, August 21.

Over all, the night went really well. My little guys and girls are so, so cute and I'm looking forward to all the fun we'll have together this year!

As the students came in with their families, I asked them to find their desk where I had neatly outlined my expectations for the night. In one pile, I put all of the information they were to take home and in another pile I put all of the information that they needed to complete before leaving.

It worked out so well and allowed me to have the freedom of going from desk to desk to meet my sweet babies and their families, instead of being stuck answering endless questions. So nice!

I also made a little take home gift for each of my students and I tried to make a REALLY big deal of it. It was Back to School MAGIC Confetti I put all the magic I could find {mostly in the form of glitter and sequins from WalMart - less than $2 total - and cut up colored paper} into that little bag with a sweet poem that I found via Primarily Speaking.

I used the poem she listed on her blog and designed it to match my classroom theme - blue and green {some theme, huh?!}.

If you looked at that picture carefully, you may have noticed that I told my students it was "Back to School Magic GLITTER," not confetti. Leave it to ME to mistakenly type glitter instead of confetti. Oh well, my kids were TOTALLY buying it!!!

If you would like a FREE copy of this poem for your students, click HERE!

Coming up next will be my classroom pictures, but first I have to finish my room! :) Soon...I'm *this close* to being done! Have a great weekend!

Author's Purpose PIE Poster - Free Download

This week in my class we are discussing Author's Purpose.

We are using the PIE acronym to help us remember the different reasons that authors write various texts. I broke down each purpose into one day.

So far, I feel like this has worked out really, really well for me & my students. Monday we didn't have school, but below I'm listing a breakdown of how I taught Author's Purpose this week.

Tuesday - To Persuade

We read Earrings By: Judith Viorst & discussed how the character in this story desperately tried to persuade her parents to let her get pierced ears. The students were even able to make text-to-self connections as they admitted they knew exactly how to persuade their parents!

I had one student say, "I know if I can't persuade my mom to get me something, I can talk to my grandma!"

It was really too funny!!!





Wednesday - To Inform

We read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World By: Marjorie Priceman.

We discussed how some texts are written to teach us how to do things, or to share information & knowledge with us (even though sometimes we already know about the topic the author has written about).

This book talks about someone going through so much trouble just to make an apple pie.

One of my students said, "You mean she did ALL that for an apple pie?!"




Note: With both of the above stories, I helped my students identify that the author's purpose wasn't to persuade or inform; it was actually to entertain. We talked in depth about how each story taught us about a process (persuasion & informing) so that we understood what those things were in order to identify the author's purpose in other text, however!

Thursday - To Entertain

On Thursday we read a story that my students were very familiar with, Click Clack Moo Cows that Type By: Doreen Cronin.

Last year, my kids saw this play at a theatre as second graders. :)

As we read this story, we discussed how its sole purpose was to entertain us.

The cows in the story were trying to persuade the farmer, but the author originally wrote this story to make us, as readers, laugh.

{Click here to download this FREE Author's Purpose PIE Poster.}

Because we've been talking about this in depth, I also decided to make this FREE Author's Purpose PIE Poster for you to download. This is EXACTLY how I've taught my kids to identify the author's purpose. Of course, I've even made NEW Author's Purpose Anchor Charts that I'll have to post at a later date. Darn...still haven't gotten in the habit of taking my camera to school!