Friday, January 31, 2014

Friday Friday Friday


I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Five for Friday!

One of my kiddos turned in his tickets for a "bring a stuffed animal to school" coupon, and it was just too darn cute sitting at his seat when they were at special!


New products in my TPT store. Check out these "solve the room" products. My kiddos LOVE "solve the room" days! They are perfect for extra practice which we needed for subtraction with regrouping! I am working on an addition set too!


One of my kiddos wore this HILARIOUS shirt this week, I couldn't help but share.


My kiddos have been working hard to follow rule #1 follow directions quickly


So I've been timing how fast they can do certain routines in our room. They are so excited when I erase their previous record and put up a new record!



One of the moms in my room is plain awesome! She sent in 2 board games (one wasn't even open! the other was nearly new), 2 chapter books (also brand new) and an amazing magnet story board (unopened)! I couldn't even believe it!!!


And a little bonus.. another Bogey pic... I've been motivating my kids by showing Bogey snow pics at the end of the day when we have more smilies then frownies!


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Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Snow Day TPT Day!

Well when I woke up to a snow day phone call and this outside...



it seemed like a perfect day to finish a few TPT products I've been working on.

As promised in my last post, I'd have my Frog and Bat/Bird mini-units up soon... well, soon is today!!!

I used the frog mini-unit with my kiddos combined with National Geographic Kids gem (which has a bunch of other great animal books perfect for kiddos in 1st and 2nd grade)


Some of my pairs also read this Frogs and Toads book from Reading A-Z it is written at a second grade level (DRA 24, Guided Reading L)
Click the preview below to go to the product page.


We have not done the comparison piece in my class of bats and birds unit, but we have started this mini-unit by researching bats in partners.

First, I read Gail Gibbon's Bats then I paired my students heterogeneously, to support some of my struggling readers, and they partner read Bats Creatures of Night by Joyce Milton. Both of these books are in our curriculum for the nonfiction unit we are currently working on, which is why our grade level team used them, but there are plenty of other great bat books out there!



I haven't decided which book I want to use for birds, and may even have students go on selected sites such as National Geographic for Kids in order to do the bird research and finally compare birds and bats.

Both the preview and cover pages below will link you to my TPT store.



I've also been working on calendar pocket chart sets. I have January, February and March done and will have each month for the rest of the school year done before each month gets here. My hope is to have a year calendar set bundle ready by June, so be on the lookout! Click below to link to the product page for each available month...




Well, off to do some research for my grad class... the history of men in primary education, should be super interesting since my 2 grade level partners are men! Have a wonderful afternoon and rest of the week!

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Saturday, January 18, 2014

Feeling the Stress of the New Year!

It's been a while since I posted. I started a new grad class the first week of the year, and am feeling the stress. My past 2 classes have really integrated our classroom into our work, so it didn't feel like we were doing a ton of "extra work" or it felt like it was benefiting our kiddos so much that the extra work was okay! This class is called "Educational Issues: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives." That being said, it's a lot more about becoming aware of and learning educational issues that affect us as teachers and gaining a better understanding and perspective on them. Well this is all well and good, but the assignment load is feeling unbearable.


The good news is my big research paper and presentation will be on Whole Brain Teaching, so hopefully that means a few WBT posts in the next 8 weeks!

Before I show you what's been happening in my room, here's a great project I took on the day before we went back to school after break. It was super easy, all you need is a glass jar (I re-purposed a pasta sauce jar), stickers and mod podge and if you want to paint the lid, I used acrylics. Oh, and a small notepad to tie to the jar or just have available near the jar. The purpose of the jar is to put happy memories in it during the year so at the end of the year you can open up the jar and read all the happy things that happened over the year :)


Alrighty, here's some of what we've been up to since the new year in my room...

We had one awkward day back (Thursday) pretty much knowing we'd have a snow day on Friday, so we did a lot of New Year themed things. Resolutions was our #1 project for the day...


Each kiddo shared with the group what their "classroom" resolution was. They they could take that resolution (or choose a different one) and tell what they could do to reach their goal...



We also started a non-fiction unit... so we made an anchor chart for text features.


When making the anchor chart we tried to focus on how the features help the reader rather than a "definition" for each. This proved to be a little difficult for some of the text features!

In the theme of non-fiction we've been doing a lot of animal "research" which the kiddos have LOVED. Here is a simple Can/Have/Are activity we did...



The next few are a mini frog and bat research project where the kiddos worked with a partner doing a KWL then doing "research" on frogs/bats by reading a grade level nonfiction text on bats. I plan on posting these in a "mini unit" on TPT soon so be on the lookout!





I differentiated these "by hand" writing in some "hints" for my struggling kiddos and questions like "why did you choose this fact/why is it important" for my high flyers.

Our next step is to read about birds and use our bat research to compare and contrast birds and bats. These will also be included in my upcoming TPT product. Currently I have 2 "levels" with more or less difficult vocabulary.



 Hope you enjoyed the catch up... hopefully I will post before the end of my 8-week class!

Here's a little puppy love to leave you with...



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