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.

The small things

I have come to realize that it is the small things that matter in teaching. This past Friday was the Christmas of small things for me. First my biggest trouble maker was out. You may think I'm being mean, but y'all know what a big difference that makes. Second, one of my struggling readers made a 93 on his reading test. We really celebrated this. Third, one of my special needs students who struggles with communicating his feelings had two huge breakthroughs. Twice during the day things happened that upset him and would normally send him over the edge. He was able to communicate his feelings and work through the issue. These three things truly made my day. When my kiddos succeed I succeed.

Cyber Monday Sale

10% off all itmes through tomorrow. HAPPY CYBER MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Georgia-Peach-Teacher

A teacher's dream

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a job fair for a charter school that will be opening in my county next year. What kind of school will this be you ask? A teacher's dream school! The founders of this school believe that it should be a place where teachers teach and students learn. There will be no tolerance for behavior issues. It is basically the 3 strikes and you're out principle. Reading will be taught in grades K-8. Memorization of basic facts, rules, and principles will be necessary in the lower grades. I am so excited that I may be chosen to be a part of this amazing venture. The beauty of it is that because it is a charter school and not a private school children of all income levels will be able to attend.

Noun Projects

My students have been working on nouns for over a month now. I got an idea from a co-worker to do the ABCs of nouns. I am lucky enough to have exactly 26 students. First I have each student a piece of construction paper with a letter of the alphabet. Next, I told each student to list 5 nouns on their sheet. They had to write the plural of each noun. They then had to tell if their noun was common or proper. Here is an example of one: M milk - milks - common mom - moms - common Mike - Mikes - proper moose - moose - common man - men - common I displayed their projects on the wall outside our classroom. I decided that we are going to make a wall full of projects. I am calling it the ABCs of Parts of Speech. Once we cover verbs we will make pages of verbs. I plan to include adjectives also. Then, as a culminating project I will have my students take their papers down. They will then make as many sentences as possible from their parts of speech. I can't wait to see the final finished project.

Breast Cancer Research

I am helping my friend Lisa Stephens Rahn raise money for Breast Cancer Research. She is participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For the Cure. Every dollar spent in my teachers pay teachers store for the entire month of October will be donated to this worthy cause. Please visit my store and share this with all of your teacher friends! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Georgia-Peach-Teacher

Co-Teaching

In my district Special Education students are in the regular education classroom as much as possible. I have had the inclusion class room for six of the seven years I have been teaching. This year is the first year that I have had a full day co-teacher. My co-teacher is certified in special education and she handles all of the accommodations for our special education students. Over the six years I have had special ed students I have learned so much about the special education world. I have had one course in special education. I feel that one course is not sufficient. I think that teachers who have the inclusion classroom need to have more instruction in the area of special education. In my opinion, the best way to do this is through professional learning in my district. As I say all the time I'm just a teacher so what do I know. The big question in my mind is Why in the world have the administrators in my district not thought of this yet? Being the inclusion teacher I am with special education students all day long. Doesn't it just make sense for me to have extra training in this area? Please tell me if I am in left field here. This year I have 3 autistic students, a student who was diagnosed developmentally delayed (I suspect she is actually MOID) and a student with a specific learning disability in reading. How do I know and understand each of their diagnoses and how to properly accommodate them? I have taken it upon myself to learn. I ask lots of questions and do research on my own time. I imagine that not all inclusion teachers do this so how do they serve these students effectively? I'm sure that the answer is that they don't. It is time for school districts to wake up and provide, even require this training of its co-teachers. Comments/Questions? Please let me know :)

Staying current

As I'm sure most of you do I have been working in my classroom this week. As I begin to set up the furniture and organize my materials I realized that I am such a dork! I just love having the opportunity to start fresh each year. A new set of students, a new classroom set up, new lessons, etc. As I thought back I realized that this is my 3rd year in this classroom. I have rearranged my classroom every year. I started to wonder if I am the only one who does this. I know teachers at my school who keep their room exactly the same every year. There is nothing wrong with this. If you find something that works for you don't change it! For me it is not just about the way the room looks it is also about how you prepare for the school year. I truly examine everything from the previous year. Some things I keep and do exactly the same. Others I don't reuse EVER. Most of my lessons and ideas are tweaked from year to year after careful reflection. It is my hope that all teachers, whether they keep their room the same year to year, or never have it the same way twice, are always updating and tweaking their lessons and activities. This is truly the only way to stay current and reach the needs of our students. I hope all of you have a stress free time setting up your classrooms, and enjoy the last little sliver of summer!

The Writing Process

When I was hired at my first school the principal told me she was placing me in 3rd grade because of how I described teaching writing. She explained that 3rd grade is the grade where writing begins to really be monitored. Back then I mostly focused on creative writing. I would tear out magazine pages, have students choose one and list adjectives to describe the picture. They would then write a descriptive piece about their picture. After moving to 2nd grade I began to realize that that I should spend more time focusing on the process of writing. Many of my students could produce a descriptive or narrative piece, but they really had no concept of the steps of writing. The new Reading series that my school is using provides teachers with fabulous resources and suggestions for teaching the writing process. At the beginning of this past school year my students were required to complete a writing assessment for the district. Most of my students did not go through all of the writing steps. Instead they drew a picture and then wrote a "final draft." After viewing the results of the assessments I decided to spend quite a bit of time modeling the process with my students. I found that having a document camera and projector was a real benefit. I started with a narrative piece because I believe that narratives are the easiest genre for students. I started with a list of possible writing topics, moved to an idea web, wrote my rough draft (intentional errors included), edited, revised and then published my piece. I spent one day on each step. Wehn I completed each step my students then worked on that same step. At first it was a huge struggle for them and for me. I would end my writing time feeling like I needed a vacation. Gradually I began to see marked improvement in their writing. As the year progressed most of my students began to enjoy writing. Out of 23 students I had about 6 or 7 who became so proficient at the process that they became student teachers to their classmates who needed help. When my students were required to take the writing assessment again in the Spring I was pleased that almost all of them went through the steps correctly. Next year my goal is to be much more deliberate with the skills we focus on during the revising process. Below I included a link to my Teachs Pay Teachers product: week long lesson plan on writing a personal narrative using the process described above. This product will be free through June 25, 2013 for those of you who would like to download it. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-a-Personal-Narrative-5-steps-of-the-writing-process-579027 I have also included a link to my writing prompts product. It includes 150 writing topics geared towards 2nd and 3rd graders. Prompts have students writing letters, narratives, informational pieces, opinion pieces and persuasive pieces. This product is listed at $2.00. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Prompts-Journal-writing-topics-150-prompts-2nd-and-3rd-Grade-CCSS-674698 I would appreciate any feedback (positive or negative) on these products.