Flamingo crazy

I may have gone a little flamingo crazy this year. It all started when I found this flamingo tablecloth at Joann's for 70% off and then I couldn't back away!

I got a few of the tablecloths and hung them for a display in my classroom to hang work.

 

I couldn't stop with the puns or the flamingos... so I didn't.  I embraced the theme this year! Of course, I haven't taken any other photos of my classroom... but I do have a couple of little flamingo freebies that I wanted to share. First up, some flamingo hall passes. I got these lanyards for my kids to wear when they need to go somewhere. The only passes that are not included are bathroom passes. I use hand sanitizer bottles for bathroom passes, so I just needed passes for other possible places students may be traveling. In the past I haven't used passes because our kids had agendas that we would sign, but this year we have been asked to have passes.

 

These are perfectly sized for the ID badges I got from Amazon. They have simple black lanyards that attach. 

If you would like to download this freebie, click on the picture below:

Last year I grouped my kids according to seating chart and they collaborated most frequently with shoulder partners at their tables. In an effort to use different collaboration strategies, I also made some flamingo Kagan Strategy tags for desks. They fit perfectly in the Target clear adhesive pockets from the dollar spot. Of course... I don't have a photo of these tags in action, but I do have the file available for you to download for free! Just click any photo below to be directed to the download.

I hope the kids embrace this flamingo obsession this year too!

teaching math

It's been a while since I've posted... a long while! oops!! Been a little busy.... teaching....moving....teaching...moving again..... working on my doctorate! It's time to start back blogging though!

So, this year more big changes are about to happen as I take on my biggest challenge as an educator.... leaving second grade and taking a job teaching 6th grade math! I am excited to start something new and challenging, but I am also full of anxiety--- I literally have no idea what to expect! So many differences between elementary and middle!

One awesome difference has been how much less money I've spent this summer on my classroom. Turns out a lot of middle school teachers don't actually decorate. I've done a little decorating though:

 

Ok... so not the best pics... it's a start though!

So, now that I'll be in math I have grand plans to have my students embrace the growth mindset this year. One of the other math teachers across the hall found this bulletin board:

 

Since I am out of bulletin board space... I turned this great idea into a poster! Now, it can be hung anywhere ;)

Click the picture to download.

My school has a poster printer! Whoop whoop.... so I'm gonna print this and hang it after we have our initial growth mindset lessons. I'm also going to shrink it and print it small enough to glue it into interactive notebooks too...There will be no forgetting it!

I've uploaded this freebie to my TPT shop! I hope I will be adding much much more for math teachers this school year!

challenge time

So, it's been a while. A loooonnnggg while! This TPT Seller Challenge is going to be my motivation to get back into the swing of things. Here I am starting out this challenge:

I haven't been paying much attention to my numbers... and that is probably because I haven't been paying much attention to:

1. Blogging
2. Instragramming (for teacher purposes)
3. Don't even have the twitter app on my phone or ipad! 
4. Have not posted anything new to TPT in a few months! 

I have, however, been pinning up a storm... which is a whole other story! 

This morning I accepted the TPT Seller Challenge, and I've completed the first challenge: Makeover Madness!

This was my first freebie to get started on TPT and it looked super BORING! I have a few products (that are from the beginning) that look like they need an update. This morning, though, I realized why it might be a few weeks before that update occurs. My computer is super sssslllllooowww. It took me at least an hour and a half to get through this 8 page update. Granted the original was made in Word, so I had to start from scratch, but it took forever! I need to seriously clean up my Mac (or possibly, get a new one!!).

Anyway, I would love for you to download this updated version and let me know what you think... It's FREE! You can download it here. While you are checking it out, I would love for you to follow me on TPT. Over the next few weeks I am going to be adding to my shop with some exciting games and I seriously plan on keeping you posted. :)

Have a great Tuesday!

rule breaker

I don't know about you but I have trouble following the reading series straight through. I mean sometimes there are stories in Journeys that I could use at different times because they go well with science and/or social studies. Of course I want to try and plan cross-curricularly as much as possible, so I am kind of skipping around in Journeys.

Not drastically... just skipping a story here or there. I can always go back to those stories, and we will for sure cover the skills, but we just swap the stories up. No harm done!

So, this week (after a little shifting) we are reading a realistic fiction and a biography. We started working on biographies the past week and a half with Helen Keller. It seems like perfect timing with MLK now, next we will jump right into Black History Month early.

The story we are reading this week is Luke Goes to Bat with a companion story about Jackie Robinson. I am trying include a close reading component at least once a week to practice finding information in the text. So, I used the companion story (Jackie Robinson) and made up a little directed close read for it. Copy it front and back and use it small group, whole group, or let students do it by themselves.

Click the picture above to download the freebie. 

We are learning about MLK this week, and we started our mini-unit with a little activity I like to call:

Drink and Draw

You may have been to something called Sips n' Strokes- which is basically like a painting class with wine (can't go wrong there!). Well, I changed the name and threw in a juice box and now we have Drink and Draw. We use a directed drawing (like this one) and have a good ol' time.

It is really fun!

Off to bed... ready for the 4 day week! :)

Did you know? (with LOTS of FREEBIES)

Did you know that January is National Braille Literacy month?

I didn't either... until I started doing some research on Helen Keller. We are studying her in our reading series and shockingly the kids are super into it. We have done a lot of non-fiction this year, but we haven't focused on specific people for past research so I am excited to start reading biographies and autobiographies.

So, as we are learning more and more about Helen Keller it seems obvious to expose my second graders to Braille and give them a little taste of reading with Braille. I found a wonderful kid-friendly site about Braille called Braille Bug. This site includes info about Braille (Louis Braille, history and games) and also links to the Helen Keller Kids Museum Online (which has some awesome pics and descriptions of her life).

I am definitely about to print out some Braille names for all my kiddos. Here's mine:

Click the picture above to do your name!

You've more than likely seen a few other posts I've made on Pebble Go. Well, Pebble Go just happens to have a great biography section (that I will be all over during Black History Month!!) and there is a section on Helen Keller. So, I've made a guided Web Quest for my kids to do during some tech time. If you don't have time for tech (or access to it) I also made a Text Reference page on Helen Keller. My kids are tackling Text Referencing as much as possible.

You can click the pictures above to get your free copies of these activities. (If you are in Journeys, like me, I am hoping these will be helpful to you!)

During our research on Helen Keller we are building a timeline of her life and learning what makes an event in some one's life significant. Because of the significant interest in this topic we are extending our unit on biographies and autobiographies and we are going to write our own autobiographies. We are starting with a bio-poem. If you haven't heard of a bio-poem before, it is a great way to get the kids thinking about their life.

Above are the guidelines for a bio-poem. Click the picture and you can download this for your kiddos. So, we are going to start with this poem and then in our writing journals we are going to write about different things in our life. I made up some labels to help the kids organize their pre-writing in their journals. 

Each child will receive all these labels and we will work on filling out their writing journals in an organized way! You can download these by clicking the picture above (compatible with Avery 5160 label). 

I hope to post more this week about how much progress we make in this and other topics!

 Have a great week!

autumn review

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a 2 week fall break!

You read that right.. 2 weeks! I am so relieved that I will get this break, but this past week was ROUGH! Everyday I had to drag myself out of bed and I wished for Friday. I hate feeling like that... not only am I dragging but I don't feel like I am all there for my kids.

These 2 weeks to recharge should help a lot!

So, to keep us busy learning before fall break, we learned all about Autumn. We read informational texts about fall, animals in fall, and how plants change. We kept a circle map going all week, where we continually added post its to our map and schema. On Friday we took all the things we learned and discussed and created AUTUMN acrostic poems.

This one is my favorite! 

We also made origami leaves to hang with our poems in the hall. **Note: We probably should have done some other origami before this to get them use to the folding. It was a definite process, but the leaves turned out pretty good!

Click here to download the Autumn Acrostic!

You might be wondering what those long strips of paper that are hanging... 

We have been studying measurement with inches, feet, and yards. I think the best way to learn about this concept is by working with measurement tools, so that is what we have been doing all week. 

First, we measured each other with yarn and then used rulers to measure the yard we cut:

They had to measure in feet and inches. I think they really enjoyed this!

Closer to the end of the week we did something called Measurement by the Yard. Basically you cut yard-length pieces of register tape and students follow directions to measure and draw pictures at specific heights. 

I adapted my Measurement by the Yard to be Fall by the Yard:

Here is one more picture to leave you with:

As I was taking my pictures, my son insisted I take a picture of his work too! He is such a smart boy! 

Well.... I'm sure you will hear from me later this week :)

Do you webquest?

I love finding new ways for my kids to get on the computer and research! I don't want them to only think that the computer is a gaming tool!

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about a website that my kids LOVE. It is called pebblego. Check out my post: (click!)

So, we use pebblego for lots of different lessons.. whole group, small groups, cooperative learning! Anyway, we have started using it for some webquests! We go to the computer lab, clipboards in hand, and get to reading and searching for new info!! 

We have done one webquest on Soils, thanks to my awesome teammate (who just happens to be my son's 2nd grade teacher)! In fact, I just found out that she has been posting some of her stuff on TPT--- so I must give her a shout out! Check out some of her webquests and other helpful tools here at VandyPenguins! 

She recently made one for maps (which we just started studying) but I wanted something a little bit different so I made my own! I made them for different types of maps. I am planning on having my kids split into groups and study political, physical, and road maps. After we complete the webquests, we are going to do a jigsaw and teach each other about the different maps. **sidenote... I have never done a jigsaw with my students before. I've participated in lots of jigsaws but I never really thought kids could really do a good job of teaching each other! Here's to hoping I am soooo wrong! 

Anyway, I am sharing my webquests with you. Unfortunatly, you need to have access to pebblego to utilize. 

(Click on the images to be connected to my dropbox!)

Physical Maps

 Political Maps

Road Maps

I had something else to share today but I forgot to take pics! So, hopefully you will hear from me tomorrow!

diary of a teacher

ha! I wish I had enough stamina to keep a diary... this is as good as it gets!

We are reading Diary of a Spider this week and my 2nd graders LOVE it! Every time we read (even at the 6th time!) they are laughing out loud. I wish every story we read could be this engaging!

We have worked on a couple skills this week, but one of the main skills was Cause and Effect. So after compiling a l-o-n-g class list of causes and effects within the story we made some adorable spiders.

This was our first craftivity of the year and I thought it turned out awesome! Of course, I am a horrible judge of time for a craftivity.... It ALWAYS takes longer than it should! But, at least they really really know cause and effect now {I hope!}

Here is how we did it:

Each child needs: 8 skinny strips of black construction paper

1 colored background paper

half a piece of black construction paper (for body)

a copy of the printable for the labels------ link to my dropbox

1. Kids filled out the cause/effect labels

2. We bent our legs into zigzags

3. We made our bodies. 

4. We glued the labels on one side of the legs, then glued the legs to the back of the spider. 

5. We glued the whole thing to the colored construction paper. 

6. We added details to our spiders (which had to include some googly eyes- at their request). A few opted out of the googly eyes. 

7. Most of us put a dab of glue on the bottom of the labels and glued them to the construction paper so our spiders look 3D. 

We had lots of fun and the kids were impressed with their work!

Speaking of being impressed... I was bored with our usual dinner options so I put together a little something tonight that was delish!! 

It was sooo easy and I will for sure be making it again next week...

White Bean Chicken Cornbread Yumminess!

2-3 Chicken breasts

1 can of white beans

1/2 can of crushed tomatoes

1 box of jiffy

a pinch of basil

a pinch of onion powder

a pinch of garlic salt

I put everything in a casserole dish (except the jiffy) and baked @ 400 for 30 minutes. I made the jiffy mix and baked it at the same time for 20 minutes. 

If you make this, please let me know if you liked it. 

Being the not so great cook I am, this is probably not a unique recipe but I couldn't find anything quick and easy on pinterest with white beans and chicken so this seemed to fit the bill. 

So happy tomorrow is Friday!