My Website

I created my own website as my "online portfolio".  It's so easy, anyone can do it!

Here's my link:  http://amygillespie.weebly.com/

My website contains my resume, letters of reference, student teaching bits, and favorite resources.  I pulled the best anchor charts and photos I could find to show my potential employers. 

Psst...it's also completely free!  Gotta love free!!!

Summer School

My first official job began:  summer school!  I was trained the end of May and began on June 4th.  I am teaching intensive phonics (the Spaulding method) and math for 4 weeks.  It may turn into a full time job this fall (fingers crossed).....the kids are sweet and we are filling their brains with awesome reading tools.  :)   

I still have not heard from any other schools(for the fall)  and I feel a little anxious...I'm the type of person who likes to have all of her ducks lined up nice and neat in a row...!!!  If I do not get a full time job, I'll reapply with the dozen or so districts as a substitute.  I've heard that's the way to go if you can't get on full time.....

Grateful for the part time job and afternoons off.....Hmmmm, this would be great year round!

Poetry

We've been digging into poetry and have had loads of fun reading them.  After writing our own rhyming poems, we decided to give 2 other poetry forms a try.  The first one is a limerick.  Here is our class limerick poem:

Candy Shop

There once was a girl named Mandy.

And sometimes she ate too much candy.

It was a real treat,

To have something so sweet.

The candy store sure was handy!

The rules are as follows:  5 lines; lines 1, 2, and 5 all rhyme; lines 3 and 4 also rhyme.  They loved this!

Here is our class alphabet poem:

Our Class

All

Busy

Classmates

Do

Everything

Forever

Notice the rule?  You begin with any letter of the alphabet and create one word per line with the next letter.  Oh, and it needs to "tell a story" or make sense.  Fun times!



The President's

We've been learning about the Presidents and writing about them.  The kids learned a song and like to sing it rather loudly!  :)  You'll find the song in the post below.  Anyhow, here's the anchor chart I made for them:

The end of the song goes like this:  "Thank you God for our 43 presidents; it's for them we pray".  I hope you practice it at home!  Yes, the song will stick in your head, but that's a GOOD thing! 

President's Song

Here is our class singing the President's Song. The recording is not great, but it's the best we could do at this point!
Voice Recorder >>

The White House

We've been studying the White House and our Presidents.  The kiddos are researching some of our Presidents and we are reading about them together.  We took a trip through the White House courtesy of the Google Art Project.  Click  White House Tour  and you can go with us!  Once you are "in", you can zoom in on art and see the origin, name, and other facts.  The site also has multiple famous art museums.  Who needs vacations anymore?  Just kidding.  Enjoy!

Measurement and ME

Our class is taking a wonderfullly refreshing break from regular math.  I can still hear the cheers from the students.  We are embarking on a measurement journey and enjoying ourselves immensely!  On day one, students wandered about the room with their partner, a measuring worksheet, a ruler, and a pencil.  They had the freedom to measure anything they wanted except for the area around the teacher's desks (I had visions of computers flying, papers scattering, and general chaos!).  The students were fabulously behaved and their feedback was very positive.  Hands on activities are so neat, aren't they?

Anyhow, here are the anchor charts I created for our unit.  We refer to them every day!

Gallon Man is very effective.  We can easily tell how many cups are in a pint or quart, how many quarts are in a gallon, and we are even talking about how many pints are in a half gallon!  Thank you, Gallon Man!  I got this idea from Pinterest and simply tweaked it to fit our needs.

We are also memorizing this information!  Up next: metric measurement!  This topic has always confused me, so you can be sure an anchor chart will be made to help cement our knowledge!