Catching up!

Wow..what a great start to our school year so far! We have been so busy and I feel like I finally have some time to catch up on here! As most of you know, I got married 2 weeks ago, so I have been pretty busy with that and didn't have much extra time to blog! But.... now that the wedding is over, I can resume my life as a teacher blogger :) We had an amazing wedding on a boat and I couldn't be any happier to be Mrs. Timmer!!

Now onto the new year! To be honest, I have been so busy teaching that I haven't been very good at taking pictures to post. I promise to get better though! I have such a sweet class this year and they are doing a great job! We laugh and have fun all day long. They truly are a special group. I am so proud of how quickly they are learning our routines and how independent they have become in just a few weeks. We have really been working hard on our reading stations and I did have a chance to take a few pictures of  a few stations the other day.

 "Carpet" station- some days we have book baskets and some days we have white boards to practice writing letters and words.

 "Seat Work" station- students always have an assignment to complete at their seat. We are starting to use our journals more everyday as seat work to use to respond to stories we read.

"Learning Table" station- this station is very hands on. Students get to use play-doh, stamps, markers and more! In this picture you can see students using our letter bags to find and write letters.

We also have a Computer station. The boys and girls rotate computers everyday. If it is not their day to be on the computer, they will go to the tub/puzzle station. Now that I have parent helpers coming in pretty much everyday (amazing) the students who are not on computers will be working with those parents on special projects and games.
Students go to every station everyday. They spend about 15 minutes at a station. During this time I pull my small groups for guided reading. I will post a picture soon of the wheel I use that shows who goes to which station.
I did my reading stations this way last year and it worked really well. The students know what to expect each day and although the stations activities change, they know what to do which makes things run smoothly! They truly get excited when it is time for our reading stations which makes me smile :)

Well, I think that is all for now. Check back soon for more updates on our year so far! Have a great week!

-Mrs. Timmer