Manic Monday and A Sparkly, Fancy New Look!

I am so excited about this post!!  How amazing does my blog look??  I truly feel like a professional blogger with this amazing new look!!  Mustaches and neon colors...totally me.  A guy who likes bright colors!  The blue and yellow were actually inspired by a Lady Gaga outfit.  Jena, over at 1st Grade With Miss Snowden is amazing!  She totally took my vague ideas and created the perfect blog.  The blue and yellow from Lady Gaga was totally her call because of my "little monsters!"  Cool huh?  Please make sure to grab my button and update your blog rolls!  And if you need a new blog design, Jena is the way to go!!!


OK, folks.  Manic Monday is an UNDERSTATEMENT.  I am up to 23 children.  2 SEVERE behavior problems (day 3=hit, kicked and choked.  Check!), an ELL student with no English who cries all day and two runners.  I should mention that we are an Enhanced Option school which means we have a cap of 15 students per class.  MMMM HMMM.  Anyways, I feel like I was run over and then backed over and ran over again by an 18 wheeler.  Or six.  Be sure to click on the picture to get your Manic Monday freebie.  These are just some quick monster themed journal covers I threw together for my class.

Today we read Chrysthanmum and played the name game.  See yesterday's post for more on the name game.  We also went on a monster hunt to tour the school.  We never did find that monster, but we did find glue sticks and monster pieces so we were able to make a monster.  This was a great opportunity for learning how to use glue sticks.  Glue sticks=Mr. Greg's arch nemesis.  We spent 30 minutes going over every step and rule and procedure for using glue sticks.  And we modeled.  And practiced.  And guess what?  GLUE STICK DOWN!  We still had a casualty.  GRRRR  ANGRY ARMS!  Overall, they did great with the glue sticks.  Just look at the monsters, how cute are they?  

The monster tour is available in my TPT store!  The monster craftivity is availble in Caitlin's store.  These two are a perfect compliment for each other.  The tour was great but the cherry on top was making the monsters when we returned!  

We also are working on our names.   Let me tell ya, we have our work cut out for us.  We started tracing names today....it did not go well.  But tomorrow is a new day!  And let's be honest, it was only our first full day!  

We are required to use Thinking Maps in our school so today we learned about the Circle Map and used our names to make our circle map!  Thinking Maps are great tools.  If you ever get the chance to attend the training, do it!

That's all for now.  I am going to work on an 80's themed number/ten frame game and a St. Bernard themed game.  And a measurement packet with an Olympic theme!