The Effects of Blogstalking

My professional life before blogs & Pinterest seems like a long, long ago, dark, desperate time.  I've been thinking a lot recently about how much they've really transformed me and brought me back from the brink of being a very unhappy educator, mired down in the politics and pressures of what has become our profession. So, I think it's only fitting to share some things that I've either seen, found or purchased from my fellow blogger peeps who I may or may not have a little teacher-crush on.

This week I felt like a teacher rockstar and it was due in large part to Abby over at Babbling Abby.  I purchased her Inference Investigators unit and it was super fantastic. Like awesomely amazing fantastic. I had my formal evaluation coming up and I was kind of panicking undecided about what I wanted to do. I was blogstalking and searching around Pinterest, and I came across the unit, which I had actually been thinking about for a while. I read the post again and was convinced it was perfect for what I was looking for.

The funny part is that the highlight of the activity is about a snow day. Well, my little Florida friends knew next to nothing about snow or snow days, so we had fun reading books and watching Reading Rainbow to build up our background knowledge. Love me some LaVar! I didn't think it would look right to take pictures of them during the actual investigation while I was being observed...but I may re-create the scene at a later date to snap a few because it was that.darn.cute!

I added some of my own stuff into and it made for a really terrific week (and observation btw). I felt like I really, truly taught inferencing. We talked about the difference between a prediction and an inference and during my observation I asked one of my kids and she totally nailed it!  I have to say, I was a little goosebumpy. All of the elements of the lesson are still hanging up in my room and I can't bear to take them down, but I suppose all good things must come to an end.  (BTW I'm not really good blog buds with Abby, in fact, I'm not sure she even knows of me. But I just love passing on really great teacher stuff that I stumble upon.)

So...what else. Lemme see...
We made these sweet as can be Heart Maps for our February bulletin board. These came from Cara Carroll, another teacher who's covered in all kind of awesome sauce.

And how cute are these Friendship Hearts from Mrs. Lemons?! I've been a big fan of hers for a long time. She rocks it out pretty regularly.

We also completed our Me on the Map projects from Clutter Free Classroom. I changed it up just a teensy bit. Cute right? The kids really got a great understanding of where they are in the world after this. They still kind of confuse things from time to time, but for the most part they're much better at geography than I was at their age!

That just about brings you up to speed on the happenings in my little corner of the world except for today's Seuss-a-palooza (pix coming soon!)  Right now I need a nap to recover.

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss <--good advice, doc.

P.S. I have an amazing giveaway coming this weekend from Scholastic News(!) so be sure to come by and check it out.