Evaluation Help From Abby and Cara

I haven't met Abby. But The Inspired Apple's help for my latest evaluation was a God SEND!!! I think one of the most the most difficult part of the evaluation process is actually deciding what to do. I mean we all KNOW that we teach every day with WONDERFUL and ENGAGING lessons. Right? HMMMM.

(I think my best lessons just kind of happen during the flow of the day. One thing leads to another with a connection, etc.)

But...any...how--I knew my unannounced visit would be a math of language arts lesson during a week. Lucky me--it was narrowed down to two days since it was this week and we only had school for two days! And..another lucky part was that we share our assistant principal with another school. So...it had to be on Monday.

In Math we were working on plane shapes. The lesson was symmetry. So, I pulled out Cara's lesson with the assessment being the turkey using plane shapes.  If I had it to do again I would make the turkey bodies smaller! Some of the turkeys looked naked after covering up their symmetry.  :)

Actually math is in the afternoon and my evaluation was OVER so we could relax a bit with this fantastic lesson. You can find her original post here.

The reading was the lesson that was the unannounced visit. We have been working on making predictions and inferring. I had used Abby's Snow Day Case Files last year. I hope she doesn't mind but I "recreated" it to be a Fall Day. The lesson went well (according to THE evaluator principal). I created a powerpoint to make sure that I named my objectives several times throughout the lesson. What I did forget. gulp. was Abby's powerpoint that contained the posters as a modeling of the inferring strategy. I got off track. Why is it when we are being stared at, listened to, critiqued, that we would forget?

Below is the powerpoint I used. You can find Abby's great plan here.
Fall Break Case Files

With the Cyber sale on Monday you can probably pick up some great ideas! Isn't TPT wonderful????

Character Analysis

We've been working with characters and learning trying to analyze their personalities. But my little firsties have struggled with this. They want to tell what happened and when it happened. But to try to get them to understand the feelings of the characters and why --well that is another story.

We've tried writing from our point of view. And sharing. And talking. And talking some more.

But when Cara over at The First Grade Parade shared a book and what she had done I quickly grabbed her idea and ...I think they understand now. All because of a little pumpkin that no one would pick. We could now think of how the pumpkin felt. What the pumpkin thought. How s.a.d that pumpkin was! Thank you Cara!

And a highlight from another blog. If you need a smile--just step over to A Teeny Tiny Teacher's blog. Oh-my-word! She should be an author! Her post last night was so, so funny! Just what we need some most days in the life of a classroom teacher.

Now, I have one more day off! We had a little fall break this weekend! Four days! I think I'll curl up and relax tonight.