Daily Cafe Conference in Chicago!

We had so much fun in Chicago last weekend attending the Daily Cafe conference!  I haven't had a chance to post yet so here's our weekend in pictures...with some funny details along the way.  

I was in shock when I got into our Toyota Yaris rental car and saw the dashboard empty behind the steering wheel!  The speedometer was in the middle of the dashboard.  That was so strange!  And about 20 minutes into the trip I realized there was no cruise control.  I was very sad about that considering I had a 7 hour drive each way!  

STOPE HOUP
I thought this was a different language and then realized it was really just store hours with some missing letters!! 

 

The 2 Sisters were going to be in this room!  This was the night before the conference started.  We were so excited just to see the sign on the door so we had to take pictures.  
They are famous after all!  :)  

  

Me hanging out in front of the School of Rock!  My kiddos are Rock Stars this year so I had to pose in front of this shop.  

Hinsdale was an adorable town. We caught the train here into the city.  It was such a cute little town.  And the weather was beautiful!

Chicago...one of my favorite cities!  

This is my teaching friend Christina posing in front of The Bean in Millenium Park.  It is so much fun to take pictures here! 

Me at Millenium Park.  I had absolutely no trouble sitting up there either!  :)

Our deep dish pizza experience!  It was yummy, but we both decided we like our hometown Ohio pizza better!!

We had to get Best Friend bracelets to commemorate our special weekend!  We had told our kiddos that we were tight and BFF's now so the bracelet was a necessity!  

Chicago at night.  

This is Christina and I posing after the conference with The 2 Sisters!!  We got our picture taken with them and their autographs!  I told them they were like Rock Stars in the teaching world!  I'm sure they already knew that though.  The conference was great and was totally worth being exhausted this past week after lots of driving and not much sleep.  :)

For attending the conference we got a year long subscription to The 2 Sister's website here.  I would highly recommend purchasing this if you are able to.  It is definitely worth it for all of the resources available.  

Something The Sisters highly recommend is one on one conferencing during their reading block.  Christina and I chatted all the way home about how to make this work in our classrooms.  While at the conference they shared their newest creation called Pensieve.  

This program is amazing!  I use my iPad while I read with each student one on one for about 5 minutes.  It's been an eye opening experience to see how beneficial it is to meet with students individually even for a short time.  My kiddos who have a hard time staying on task for any length of time in a reading group are really benefiting from this.  

The Sisters shared that research has shown that kiddos can only stay on task with higher level learning for however many minutes they are old.  So if a kiddo is 6 years old they will be able to attend to higher level learning for about 5-8 minutes at most.  

Last week I began meeting with my reading groups for the first 8-10 minutes of a Daily Five round and then I met with students individually for the next 10 minutes.  The Pensieve program allows you to set up your meetings whether they are one on one or small groups and then you can type notes and give your kiddos a rating for how they're doing.  

I am totally in love with it!  :)  

This was the biggest thing I learned from the conference.  Overall, the Daily Cafe conference was great.  So was our shopping time in downtown Chicago!  It's always exciting to be around so many teachers.  And it was so cool to meet The 2 Sisters!  :)

I highly recommend the opportunity if ever get the chance!  

Fantabulous Friday Freebie and Daily Five Conference

Happy Fantabulous Friday!  I'm actually posting my Friday Freebie on Friday.  Woohoo!  

I have such a great weekend planned...I'm headed to *Chicago* in the morning with my friend Christina to attend the Daily Five Conference!! I've also got my winner for my 300 follower giveaway!  

CHICAGO!!  I love Chicago and I love Daily Five so this weekend is going to be amazing.  I'm sooooo excited!  Are any of you headed to the Daily Five Conference?  It's going to be 4 days.  Daily Five on Sunday, Cafe on Monday, Daily Five on Tuesday, and Cafe on Wednesday.  We're just going to the Cafe part on Monday.  We've both used Daily Five for a few years, but want to learn more about Cafe.  Maybe we could have a mini blogger meet-up??

We both told our students that we were going to be traveling to Chicago this weekend together.  I told my kiddos that Mrs. Wagers and I are really tight...they thought that was so funny!  I also told them she's going to sing our phonics poems to me to keep me awake for the long drive!!  

I have several wonderful freebies this week.  I like to share quality freebies that I find through Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers for my Fantabulous Friday Freebies.  Teaching is a very collaborative field so I want to share some of my great finds. 

We have been learning about Cause and Effect during reading this week.  To help with that we have read Laura Numeroff's series If You Give a...  We started with If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, but read lots of others including the original If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  Here is what we used this week:

Katie at Teach Love Laugh created these two activities to go with If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.  They are quick, easy, and fun to do.  Click the picture to go download it.  

Heather at Second Grade Perks created this adorable poster which I used as part of my anchor chart for cause and effect.  Click the picture to go download.  

Mrs. Patmore created this great Cause and Effect Detectives pack.   We used this pack this week too as we became detectives.  My kiddos loved it.  Click the picture to download.  

Enjoy these freebies!  Make sure you come back and visit every Friday for my Fantabulous Freebies!  Also, if you download one of these wonderful freebies, please let the creator know!  It's always nice to hear that other teachers are using your materials and appreciate your hard work!  

Congratulations to Heather Nance for winning my 300 Follower Giveaway!  I will be emailing you soon Heather so I can give you your prizes!  

I'm off to go pack for Chicago.  I have some laundry to finish up and then packing!  So excited to meet The 2 Sisters!  I'm sure I'll be blogging about it once we get back.  If you know of anyone else going, I'd love to know!