Back to School 2017

I am so excited to show you my second grade classroom.  I am moving from the upstairs in fourth grade to a downstairs classroom in second grade.  I am very excited - what a perfect age!

I love incorporating the Daily 5 in my literacy block.  Here is my Daily 5 and CAFE posters that you can find on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Click HERE to check out the cutest CAFE headers and strategy cards.

Oriental Trading has a new addition to their website - Learning365 for all of your teaching supplies and other great educational resources. 

[[Disclaimer: Oriental Trading sent me products in exchange for a blog post, but all opinions in this post are mine.]]

The photo below is my calendar area.  I love me some Georgia Grown Kiddos xo her calendar set are the best out there on TPT! Equally just as awesome, Good Enough Teacher has the best calendar pieces that fit perfectly in my calendar pocket chart.

To the right of my calendar area is my "I Can" learning objectives chart.  I LOVE this... there is actually more sections but I pinned it off to only have 3 sections.  It twists to hang perfectly straight and I can't wait to use my I can statements here.  You can use dry erase or cards!

[If you are looking for 3rd grade I can statements, check mine out HERE]

Looking for a little gift for your students? Mine are going to love these second grade pencils!  I love whenever it's personalized by grade level.

These magnetic dry erase owls are on SALE (under $5 for a dozen!) and they can work for table numbers, groups, reminders, or just cute BTS decor.  I have these located right now in my math area and I hope to find new ideas throughout the year to use them.  I already got a few compliments ;)

I also love these posters from Sneaking into Second.  So cute!

Magnetic alphabet squares are a must for me working in a primary classroom.  It's such a fun way to add practice to spelling and word work.  Incorporating the Daily 5 into my classroom I always try to find new ways for learning.

Something else that is perfect for my literacy groups are these highlighting reading strips.  For the primary grades sometimes it's tricky for kiddos to keep track of where they are with reading, especially when the print gets smaller and smaller with the more difficult books.  My sweeties will love using these during reading :) 

A fun, exciting part of second grade is learning about life cycles.  At my school, we will hatch chicks and monarch butterflies.  This 4 poster life cycle set is only $6.49.  You cannot find a better price for these quality posters!  This is one of the best deals for high quality posters I have seen out there. A MUST HAVE for a second grade teacher!

The last photo I'll end my blog post with is my cookie bulletin board.  While I was browsing through

Pinterest and TPT, I decided to create my own with cute clipart and personalize them with my kids names.  I used counting cookies from Classroom Chitchat.

I hope you all have the best school year.  Thinking of you all - for the ones that already have your routine down and for those of you just starting out and getting your classroom as ready as you can before back to school... Never forget - you are wonderful and we all make mistakes and learn from them.

Have a fantastic year! xo

Second grade starts my new journey.

Back to School Sale

I am so excited for the Back to School Sale.. what about you?  What is on your wish list?
All of my products will be on sale for 20% off August 1st-3rd.  On August 1st and 2nd, if you use the code BESTYEAR it will be a total of 28% off... WAHOO!
Here's to the best year ever... that's how I feel each and every year and that keeps me going and keeps me happy.

Here are some of my products that I have loved using in my classroom and some "best sellers" in my store :) Click on the pictures to view the descriptions! :)

 

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I wanted to share some great anchor charts I created for my students, inspired by Lucy Calkins - many parts of her readers and writers workshop have helped me become a better teacher this past year.  These two posters were used for early learners and ENL learners to help learn the process of reading comprehension and strategies like "Turn and Talk."

 I love this Anchor Chart I pinned on Pinterest from The Brown Bag Teacher on Small Moments... Her post on Narrative Writing is a must read :) Personal narratives is a great unit in Lucy Calkins Writer's Workshop.

After connecting with this post, it got me thinking about creative writing and what I do in my classroom... small moments.  What if I could find some photos that are "small moments" that children can turn into something "bigger?" Details, creativity, and imagination..

I just finished a product for grades 1-3 - Creative writing with photographs.  I have used these a lot with my first graders last year, and this type of activity helps children more about themselves as a writer while using their imagination and digging deeper with descriptive words.

I hope you enjoy and you are enjoying getting ready for Back to School.  Happy Shopping! XO

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter :] I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and spent it with loved ones.  I just finished my Spring Break so I am a bit tired from going back to school today.  I missed the kids though and my set schedule [now I can try to eat healthier!]

 

Cute bunny picture found on www.cutenessoverflow.com 

 

I want to share first that right before my spring break, we had such a special visitor at our school.  Sweet Hudson [the Railroad Puppy] who was in an "accident" with his sweet brother and sister.  Hudson has a prosthetic leg and will live with that for the rest of his life.  To read more about his story, please visit his facebook page, as I do not know who my audience is and I do not want to reveal any information that is too much for children :]

 

Hudson and his daddy Mr. Nash make visits all over the area and all he asks is for donations to our local Mohawk Humane Society.  Look at all the donations that my wonderful school provided.  And they kept pouring in! I love animals so much and to be able to share that love and show our children how wonderful of a dog Hudson is meant the world to us.  It teaches children about disabilities and I love that they were so accepting with lots of caring questions to ask Hudson!  

 

My students are developing so much in their reading and writing.  I am so proud of them!  Here are their sneaky E puppets that they made before break too :] We are going to start working on a lot of sneaky E words to reinforce the short vs. long vowel sounds!

If you haven't checked it out, you HAVE to look into Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills' Writing Units for Kindergarten... very worth money, and can be used year after year for your students.  Here is an anchor chart that the students still love referring to with how to writings. :] I love to see themselves as young writers and writing about what interests them!

 I also have to share our bulletin board with our Rainforest animals... this freebie can be found HERE and there are so many different ways you can use it! I decided to have each student focus on one part of the rainforest and research it.  They all went by the type of animals that lived there, and LOVED it!

Enjoy your week :] I hope to have a BIG giveaway sometime soon... follow me here and on my facebook page to stay updated!

Unifix Cube Writing

Hi all! I am so excited to link up for the month of April with my bright idea... so many amazing bloggers and ideas that I can't wait to shuffle through and see how I can become a better and more efficient teacher.  Bright ideas rock! Thank you to Shelley Gray who has made this monthly blog hop possible!

 

I learned about this bright idea about 4 years ago when I was a reading teacher, and a woman had her first graders use unifix cubes to demonstrate where they were in the writing process.

This helps to keep your classroom more organized and less disruptive.  You are able to meet with individual students and not have all of your kids coming up to you at once with questions.  It's a great check in process that I know can be used for any grade level!

  All you need for each student is a green, yellow, and red unifix cube.  It's kind of like a "traffic" tool! : ) Feel free to make it your own and use any colors that will best fit your classroom.  

Below shows the different colors and what they mean:

 

If you enjoyed my bright idea, please consider following my blog, facebook, and my TPT store : ) I also have a Pinterest!! (Got to love social media!)

For more bright ideas from 150 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you! Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

Science, math, and more!

It has been SO long since I have last blogged it seems... I have been very, very busy with state testing and planning fun activities for my kids the rest of the year.  Since I teach 4th grade, I still have science left, but I am still doing lots of review with that!
My science test prep cards have been a big seller (which I am SO happy with and the kind feedback!) Click HERE to check them out!

I have also been busily working on a 4th grade matter unit! I tried to be as detailed as possible in the TPT and TN descriptions but it is basically a unit introducing matter and vocabulary like weight, buoyancy, density, mass, area, volume, solids, liquids, gases, the metric system, and more!  It can be found on TPT and TN! :) Hope you can check it out!

I also wanted to share a few things that have been happening in my classroom.  We definitely did a lot of review and fun math games for the math state tests... one of my kids favorite activities was "Math Jeopardy" and practicing math on the white boards!

We also did fun projects with fractions... like this adorable freebie from Felisa Williams!  She has wonderful math products that my kids and I thoroughly enjoy!

 

I am looking for more ideas for writing projects... writing is something I want to definitely keep up with my kids throughout the remainder of the year.  I was in touch with my second grade teacher (and also my piano teacher) and she told me about an assignment I believe I did when I was in second grade... I asked for writing suggestions and the wonderful lady she is (following my facebook page and all!) she came up with this:

"Idea: Have the kids trace each other's feet on paper....then write a story about where their feet took them at one special time!!!"

 

So that is exactly what we did! With my own little spin on it... I think for next time I can even do two feet, and have them do a picture in the middle or something.  But they had fun doing this and were excited to tell me about where their feet took them!

 

Thank you so much for reading my post.. all of you are amazing and I appreciate every bit of advice, compliment, everything! For reading the entire post, I shall do a giveaway ;] Who would like to win my 4th Grade Matter Unit?? I will choose the first THREE (and the first three only so try to be quick!) lovely people that comment with their e-mail address on this blog post! Thank you!!!

 

TRAVEL Binder

Hello! It's Tuesday, so I am linking up with my best buddy Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper with her Tried it Tuesday linky!



The topic for today is something that I "tried" last year... my inspiration comes from my lovely friend Tara from K-2 is Splendid.  She introduced me to the "BEE Binder" which stands for "Bring Everything Everyday."  You have to check out her post here on all of her organization techniques.  It's wonderful and she is one of the most talented teachers I know!
This post and picture below are from 2010 but still by far one of my favorite blog posts ever!

 

So with the help of Mrs. Leander and all of her creativity, I came up with my own type of binder.... a T.R.A.V.E.L. binder! - Total Requirements And Very Effective Learning (spells TRAVEL!)

Here are some of the things that my kiddos keep in their TRAVEL binders :) And again, so many of the ideas came from my lovely friend... so I can't take all the credit... just for coming up with my own resources (except the Clip Chart that you can find HERE for FREE on TPT from Tara's store!)

 I also got the idea for writing prompts and speller's choice from Tara, but I created my own :) Maybe sometime I can post them on TPT/TN if there is enough interest for them! Basically every Wednesday my kiddos choose a writing prompt to complete in their homework notebooks, and they choose a speller's choice every Thursday to do in their homework notebooks (because spelling tests are every Friday.) 

 In each child's TRAVEL binder, there is also our class schedule, school calendar, homework guidelines, and clip chart.  This keeps parent's updated daily and keeps communication strong.

 You will notice that my student's homework notebook is full of stickers! That is because every time a student is on "Outstanding" on the clip chart, they receive a sticker.  10 stickers = a prize, 15 stickers = a private lunch, and 20 stickers = lunch with the principal.  This is not something the entire school does, this is something I made up for my classroom :)

 

I had to share this with you that I saw outside... the first flower :] It is Spring!!

You are probably wondering why I posted a picture of a bunch of Crunch bars... well, I went to my local Walgreens and was asked to donate to the troops overseas.  Of course I would, but then they tell me I need to buy some yummy CANDY and all the money will go to them.. and they were about 40 cents each!! So of course I got a bar for each of my kiddos, and even one for myself (the skinny cow chocolate!) So if you can, check out your local Walgreens, buy a candy bar, and give back to our wonderful troops! :]

 

 Don't forget to check out my 400 Follower Giveaway! Going on now until Sunday :]

 

My friend Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars is having an amazing 5 day giveaway!! Become a follower of her blog and make sure you enter each day :] I am so happy for her blogiversary and over 500 followers!!