Friday, September 13, 2013

Friday!

Our first full week is over and I survived, horray!

I've had both a few reminders why I LOVE teaching and a few reminders why teaching is a REALLY DIFFICULT JOB!!!

As long as it's worth it at the end of the week, then I say it's the right place for me!

Anywho, I'm linking up with Five for Friday on Doodle Bugs Teaching this week...



Here are my 5 (random) things from this week...

#1 REAL Silent Reading... on Tuesday we had our first day with actual SILENT reading... aka I didn't have to stop them 36-hundred times and ask what silent reading should look like, hooray!



They're so cute with the giant pillows and reading buddies and they are still in love with my new lovely purple carpet!



#2 Number line patterns! The kiddos had to decide on a pattern and have their partner figure out what it was. A few students went nuts with this... counting by 1000s, counting by 10s but starting on a random number, etc. I was very impressed!






#3 They all finally finished their hopes and dreams rocket and they are decorating our back wall on what was a very boring bulletin board before! Some of their hopes and dreams were simply adorable :)





#4 Communities with a focus on our town and rural vs. urban is a second grade SS strand, so today we discussed what communities we belong to and made this cute craftivity! Will be posting a copy soon on TPT so check back soon.






#5 Finally, we have kicked off writer's workshop. Here are some of the strategies we came up with a class for when we don't know what we should write about!


Ready to re-coop this weekend, get some sleep and enjoy my fiancee and puppy!

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Saturday, September 7, 2013

Week 2, check!

I can't believe how quickly the past 2 weeks have gone by! I'm actually looking forward to a full 5 days in a row with the kiddos, I love to be in a routine almost as much as the kiddos benefit from being in one. A 3 day week followed by a 4 day week leaves me feeling a little unorganized, however, the past 2 weeks have been pretty great!

First of all, I want to share the fabulous "Looking Back on Summer" craftivity and self portrait activities we did during week 1 while we were getting to know each other...

Loved how these Looking Back on Summer Sunglasses craftivities came out!!! The did such a good job and a lot of my kiddos really impressed me with their writing! I wished I had used the worksheets without sentence frames for some of my kiddos but it was too soon in the year to be familiar with their writing abilities. Get your copy by clicking the picture above!

I combined this craftivity with my favorite beginning of the year activity from last year... hands and feet self portrait. I have the kiddos trace their hands and feet and then draw their body in between. Some of the portraits came out fabulously!

 I combined their sunglasses craftivity and self portraits for a really fun and bright hallway display that I'm hoping my kiddos parents will love on back to school night!



As for week 2, the 2nd grade team dove into the curriculum. I loved having my promethean board to help in math! I was able to save a flipchart to use as tens and ones base ten blocks. The kiddos can come up to the board and move the tens and ones blocks to create given numbers. Not super skillful with the board yet, but I was proud of that achievement!

I also signed my kiddos up for Xtramath which one of my wonderful collegues introduced me to last year. If you've never heard of it, check it out... free for teachers and the kiddos can use it at home. It's math fact practice that is adaptable based on how the kids do. They can even see a chart of how they're doing on each math fact. Teachers also get reports each week sharing each students' progress.
If you are a 1st through 5th grade teacher this is a fabulous FREE resource to use in your classroom. Not only does this program have addition and subtraction facts but also multiplication and division.

Now a little on writing...my new district's writing curriculum is all about WRITER'S WORKSHOP... and ironically I am taking "The Writing Process" class as the first class of my grad program on reading and language. We haven't actually started the real meat of writer's workshop, our first unit mostly introduces writer's workshop with mentor texts and anchor charts but I am SO excited (and a little overwhelmed) to begin writer's workshop. For those of you who are starting writer's workshop or are interested in writer's workshop I'd HIGHLY recommend reading Writing Workshop The Essential Guide by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi. It is helping me to have a better idea of how writer's workshop will look in my class.


Finally, a little WBT... I learned on Thursday that I am not the only whole brainer in my building! One of the 5th grade teachers is starting to use WBT this year and I am SO excited to pow wow with her soon! My kiddos are getting really good at everything that is WBT, especially "Teach, Okay" they quickly turn to their partner and discuss the question, etc. The only thing we need to work on more is the volume level when they turn to teach. They tend to get pretty excited and are VERY loud with that excitement. I'm not worried though with it only being week 2 :)

Alrighty, can't wait to catch in next week. Might not be until the weekend again though because with the new curriculum (for me) and grad school oh and the wedding 5 weeks away!!!... life is very crazy right now :)

Until next time...
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

First Week!

Ooof, I'm a little behind in my posting...

So last week we had kiddos in our rooms for 3 days... I got to introduce WAY more WBT than I had planned... by Friday I had introduced all our rules, Teach/Okay, Class/Yes, Hands & Eyes & scoreboard!

I really didn't think I'd be able to introduce the scoreboard, but happily, I was able to. We are working towards 10 smile face days to earn a class celebration.

Day 1: As planned I started off by having the kiddos work on an about me sheet while waiting for everyone to arrive. We then talked about the routine they should follow when arriving to school (backpacks, coats, lunchboxes, etc.). Immediately after that, I called the kiddos to the rug and I taught my kiddos class, yes. They responded really well and were experts at class/yes by the end of the day! In the afternoon I taught my kiddos "hands and eyes" to help us focus. I would say (and am still saying) "I'm looking for still hands and beautiful eyes" and I then scan the students to make sure everyone is focused. They have been becoming really good at this too!

On day 1 I also introduced rules. I didn't introduce them as early as I hoped because we had a morning special that snuck up on us! I introduced each rule and showed the gestures and had the kiddos practice multiple times. I used this opportunity to teach teach/okay and they turned and taught their neighbor about each rule. This was a little chaotic as far as choosing which neighbor, I fixed this promptly on the following day.

Day 2: We practiced class/yes, hands and eyes while they were doing morning work, and my kiddos even got a chance to share with their classmate who had been sick on the first day of school and missed what we had learned about our classroom procedures.

We practiced our rules during morning meeting and I gave the kiddos assigned spots and partners on the floor. I will change these if I notice kiddos having trouble with their partner whether it be no one will start the teaching or if there is any goofies happening frequently.

Day 3: Continued to practiced class/yes, hands and eyes as well as our rules. I also introduced our scoreboard. I need to get better at using the scoreboard! I am thinking I should make a portable scoreboard so I can keep up with the smiles and frownies... work in progress!!!

Alrighty that's all for now, I'll keep you posted and put up some pics of our fabulous first week activities ASAP :)

Teach Run photo ScreenShot2013-07-29at32149PM_zps10463e60.png
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