Five for Friday: Parent Night Edition

Hey everyone! I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for a Parent Night Edition of Five for Friday...

Not only was this week our Open House/Parent Night, but we also started MAP testing, talk about a lot going on! Of course right as we've reached our stamina in almost all of our Daily 5 choices... oh well! So today, I'm going to share some of the fun stuff we did to make Parent Night a success!

I had the kiddos write a letter to their parents to leave at their seats for their parents to see. I encouraged the parents to write back to their kiddo so they'd have a message to read this morning. I wrote back to the kiddos whose parents weren't able to make it.

I found this idea somewhere (probably on pinterest) and just LOVED IT! It went along so well with our "Reaching New Heights" giraffes in the hallway. The kiddos wrote things they've loved so far in 2nd grade or things they're excited to learn about/do in 2nd grade. I think I'm going to leave these up in the room for a while!

We have to give a "presentation" as part of parent night. I worked hard to make mine cutsie this year because I knew it would make me happier and more able to relax while I was giving the presentation. By the 2nd round presentation I felt a lot better plus I had a few kiddos come with their parents and they helped me out with the Whole Brain part of the presentation :)

I was VERY strict with how the kiddos book bins & supply bins needed to look when they left my room yesterday because we wanted to impress our parents... plus I may have a "staying organized" issue haha!

If you haven't watched this video (I originally found it on upworthy), you should! I wanted to play it for the parents before my presentation but with all the issues I had with my videos on my presentation, I didn't even attempt it :(

Well I won't lie, Parent Night isn't something I mind checking off the year's list... I will admit it makes me nervous to talk for 15 minutes straight (x2 because there are 2 sessions offered) in front of adults...

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!

Five for Friday 9.5

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday to share some fun from our 2nd week of school!

We loved making our giraffes "Reaching New Heights in 2nd Grade!" from A Cupcake for the Teacher. Get your copy here.

I wish you could see the serious reading faces I've been seeing the past week and a half when we are practicing D5 Read to Self... too darn cute! We made it to 8 minutes in 5 days of school... hoping for a big breakthough next week because we couldn't reach 8 on day 6!

It's fair time in CT... this is literally RIGHT next door! When the fair sets up our kiddos can't go on the playground or track that they normally are able to go onto during recess!

I neglected to take pictures of my kiddos doing our Whole Brain Teaching Oral Writing (definitely will have to next week) but my kiddos are LOVING using gestures to share with their friends what they're going to write about. We've learned the brainy gestures for capital letter, comma, period, exclamation point, question mark, however/but, and, because and "complete sentence please."

I have a very calm and small class this year and it was nice to see them loud and excited about learning when we were working on this!

New product in the store! I love these for teaching place value to 100. Within this unit in my district the kiddos need to learn word form, expanded form & place value so this creation is a nice culmination for 2-digit numbers.

This product is not available in my store yet, but if you "like" Teacher Will Run for Books on facebook, the post sharing a shortened version of this product for free is pinned to the top of the page!

Five for Friday - Back to School

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs to share my first week back to school!

If you didn't check out this week's Whole Brain Wednesday, be sure to click here to learn about WBT Scoreboard & for 2 WBT freebies!

I also created this fun sign for outside of my room... click it for a copy!

We've been working hard to introduce Daily 5 this week! It will take us about 3 or 4 weeks to be fully launched, but that time will be SO worth it when the rest of our year is smooth sailing. We increased our stamina to 4 and a half minutes on day 2! I was so impressed.

I'm loving how our Looking Back on Summer Sunglasses came out! It's not too late to do this kind of activity... want to make sunglasses next week, grab it in my TPT store here.

We are making our Reaching New Heights Giraffes from A Cupcake for the Teacher today so I'll share them next week for sure!

I love "Find Someone Who" type activities. I think I've used a different one each year. My kiddos had fun with one from Jessica Tobin, you can grab it here.

Loving our tables! The one year of desks taught me that desks are just not for me. We're using our book bins as folder-holders too so their book bin is ALL they ever need to carry around the room. I've also made sure supplies are available for just about every possible work area so kiddos don't even need to carry around supplies. I'm going to try for all our supplies to be shared. I asked families to use any "fun" supplies they bought for the year to be used at home on homework to prevent any arguments over pencils, erasers, etc. I had enough of the "That's MY pencil!" arguments the past 2 years... we'll see how it goes!

Have a fabulous weekend!

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!