This is goodbye for now

While I hate saying goodbye, I am going to say goodbye for now!  My friends over at The Learning Highway have asked me to join their blog and I have ecstatically said yes!!! I simply cannot keep up with 2 blogs at once and my TPT store right now.   I am so happy to be joining such amazing women.  I will posting on the blog on the 14th of every month.  Please come check out our blog and facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/TheLearningHighway?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

http://thelearninghighway.blogspot.com/

Pre-Writing made easy

     Right before the school year ended I had my students do some opinion writing.  We write in our writer's notebooks every day.  This past year we only published about once a month.  The class I had this year needed lots of scaffolding and guided writing to get them going.  Some of my kiddos had a very hard time with organization. 

Any time we start a piece I like to have students brainstorm topics and list them on chart paper. 











Once we made our list I got a new sheet of chart paper and drew three large boxes.  I put my topic a the top of the paper and the students helped me come up with my three supporting details, which went in the boxes.  Students used three sticky notes to put their supporting details on.




I was pleasantly surprised to see that this method helped my students organize their thoughts.  Overall their writing was much more organized and they stayed on topic.  I am hopeful that using this method at the beginning of next year will help my kids be even better writers!

HUGE TPT GIVEAWAY - $1000 WORTH OF PRODUCTS!!!

Tabitha Math Centers over at The Learning Highway is hosting an enormous giveaway.  $1000.00 in prodcuts from TPT.  I am honored to be a part of this giveaway.  Click below to enter:

http://www.thelearninghighway.blogspot.com/2014/06/1000-tpt-fans-celebration.html

I'm Moving

After 5 amazing years in 2nd grade I am being moved. It is bittersweet.  I absolutely love 2nd grade and I would be happy teaching it forever, but sometimes it is good to try new things.  My principal still hasn't told me if I am moving to 4th or 5th yet, but hopefully I hear something soon.

Any suggestions or words of wisdom for upper grades will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!!!!!

Sale

20% off everything in my store!!!!!

Guest Blogger

I have been selected to be a guest blogger at the learning highway. Please click the link below to check it out: http://www.thelearninghighway.blogspot.com/

Liebster award winner

I am so honored! I have received the liebster award! My nominee, Rachel k tutoring has given me these 11 questions to answer, so here goes. 1.What do you love about teaching? I love the feeling that I am making a difference. I love the look on a child's face when they finally understand something they have been struggling with. I love the unconditional love that my students give me. 2.When and why did you start blogging? Istarted blogging about a year ago. I initially started to help my TPT business. I have continued to blog because it is a way to help me reflect on my teaching and become a better teacher. 3.What is your favorite food? So hard to choose! I would say Mexican and Italian 4.What do you like to do in your free time? I spend most of my free time with my husband and 4 year old son. We love to hang out with our family. We spend a lot of time outdoors. 5.Share a funny moment from teaching. So many to choose from. I think some of the funniest for my kids are when I trip or drop things. I am very clumsy. 6.How long have you been teaching? 7 years. 2 years in 3rd grade and 5 in 2nd grade. 7.What is one of your pet peeves? My biggest pet peeve is lying. 8.If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Italy, Greece, Australia. 9.Where do you find inspiration? When it comes to teaching my students and other teachers inspire me most. 10.What are you currently reading? I just finished Divergent and I so ready to see the movie! 11.What is your favorite day of the week? Friday. It holds all the promise of the weekend :) Please go check out Rachel's blog. She is the blogger who nominated me. http://rachelktutoring.com/blog/the-liebster-blog-award/

Huge Spring Giveaway!

I sold my 200th item today - woooohoooo! I thought I would celebrate this accomplishment by hosting a giveaway. Some of my fellow sellers over at teacherspayteachers.com have offered their products to make this giveaway extra special. Details below: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Show me the money!

This week we began learning money. We started off very simply, name the coin and its value. Some of my students got confused when they saw the state quarters that did not have the eagle on the back. I was honestly amazed at how many of my 2nd graders did not know the value of the coins. From the values we moved on to adding coins. Several students recognized that they were skip counting while counting money. Today in small group I brought in actual coins from home. I think the kiddos were excited to work with actual money. I had the students put their coins on a math mat. I then called out various amounts and them make that amount. With my on grade level, and above grade level groups I had them make the amount using two different combinations of coins. I was amazed and pleased when one of my student said "If 10 nickels makes 2 quarters then you need 20 nickels to make a dollar." I think the kids and I all realized how important it is to be able to skip count and add when working with money.

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Making the most of snow days!

Our district has had 7 snow/ice days in the past month and a half. This is very rare in Georgia. The last time we had snow/ice days was 2010. Naturally the students came back to school very excited. Both times students returned to school on a Friday. We rolled our lesson plans to the next week and filled those two Fridays with snow related lessons. We gave each student a large piece of blue construction paper, a sheet of notebook paper and a piece of chalk. Students drew a snow picture with the chalk and then wrote about their picture. The other assignment was for them to make a "name snowman." They had to put each letter of their name on a white circle and glue it onto the paper and decorate. This assignment didn't cover any of our standards, but it was fun and allowed the students to show their creativity.

Sometimes you have to back track.

We are currently doing a unit on adjectives. Last week we did an intensive study of adjectives. During center time students did an independent activity on adjectives, had a mini lesson on adjectives with me, and had a full lesson on adjectives with my co-teacher. Our reading test included 4 questions on adjectives and most of my students did well. Friday we did acrostic poems of our names using adjectives - Smart athletic magnificent Today we began talking about adjectives that go with the 5 senses. I made a chart of the senses and I listed one adjective that went with each sense - Taste Touch Smell Sight Hearing Salty Rough Stinky Big Loud I asked students to give more examples. One of my brightest students raised her hand first. Her response, flower. Needless to say, I was floored. After all that instruction they still did not understand. I decided to go back and scale down today's lesson. I put the following on the board - Taste Touch Noun Adjective Noun Adjective 1. apple juicy 1. rock smooth 2. pickle salty 2. water cool I figured that by providing a noun it would help students come up with an adjective. Students copied the chart with the 2 examples above and had to provide 3 more sets of nouns and adjectives for taste and touch. I walked around to check their work, and they seemed to finally get it. Hopefully when we move on to the three other senses tomorrow they won't offer nouns as adjectives.