Spring Cleaning Sale

Hello Spring Break!  I have waited such a long, long time!  My little family is packing up and getting ready to go to Myrtle Beach.  I absolutely love vacationing there.  I am trying to plan a last minute itenerary of all of the places we need to check out.  The hubby's top request is that we eat at the German restaurant there.  He grew up in Germany and gets these strange cravings for german food and candy often.  I must admit  that after trying out the food for the first time about 5 years ago I have a little craving for it too.  My favorite is german fried potatoes minus the carbs.  Ha! 

My only request is to check out some dainty boutique shops and to put my toes in the sand.  Though, I have been checking out the forecast and it is isn't going to be very warm.  The indoor pool may have to be a substitute instead.  We shall see!

Anyway, lots of bloggy friends are having a Spring Cleaning Sale and so am I!  Enjoy 10 % off at my TPT or Teacher's Notebook store March 30 & 31.

Pysanky Eggs and Patricia Polacco

Say that three time fast!  My students are loving our author study on Patricia Polacco.  One of the favorite books we've been studying is Rechenka's Eggs.  We read aloud and made predictions throughout the story.  I was able to integrate Social Studies (Ukrain) and Mathematics (Symmetry & Patterns) into this lesson.  Then, we did a little bit of writing about what they thought the baby goose at the end of the story would do next.

 Here are some of the fabulous symmetrical and patterned eggs.

This little guy did an amazing job and I just had to post this!

 He is one of those kids that is always up and seems to rarely pay attention, so I knew this activity had him fully engaged.  Makes my heart smile!

This is a website where I showed student examples and we discussed symbols and color meanings.

http://www.papereggs.com/pysanky.htm

Click on the free template below to make your own!!!

Only 3 more workdays left until Spring Break for me!  

I sure hope the weather gets warmer between now and then!  

Wacky Wednesday

This had to be the Wackiest Wednesday I have had in a loooong time.  For one, the weather has been super wacky.  The wind has been blowing at 50+ mph ALL DAY!  Good thing my grade level had planned on having a "Wacky Wednesday" and I had prepared on my hair to be all out of sorts.

My teammate and I planned a "Wacky Wednesday" for our grade level.  We sent home notes yesterday and explained that we were learning about Dr. Seuss this week and all students were encouraged to participate by wearing mismatched socks/shoes, crazy hair, inside out or backwards shirts, etc.  OH.MY. you should have seen how cute my kiddos looked.  From curly wigs to crazy socks...we were all decked out.

This is what my teammate and I looked like at the end of the day {exhausted}. 

 She used a bottle to get her hair that high.  I used pipe cleaners braided into my hair.

Too cool!

My teammate got a snapshot of me while she was trying to explain to a student how to take a pic.

Here is a pic of our cool, outta-sight socks!

Even with all of the "wackiness" learning took place.  We choral read the book "Wacky Wednesday", talked about words that rhymed and created a mad lib of rhyming words using nouns, verbs and adjectives.  The students filled out a Wacky Wednesday printable for writing too.  You can get it free by clicking the pic below.

Was your Wednesday as WACKY as ours?

QR Addition- Technology Integration

As a teacher we are being pushed (and pulled) to use technology in the classroom, not just by the teacher, but by the students as well.  So, I've been reflecting on my classroom technology usage.  I have to admit that while I feel very confident about teaching with it, sometimes I just can't let go.  You see, our school got iPads this year.  Each classroom has 2 and then we have 2 carts that have 30 each.  We haven't been able to use those yet, so I am just using my two.  Two for 23 students has been quite challenging and I've been doing some research and training on ways for multiple students to use 1 iPad at the same time.

Strategy 1:  QR Codes
An amazing 4th grade teacher at our school shared these with me on Friday.  I have seen them, but never became completely interested until I learned how it can help my kids and help me at the same time.  She has her students work on various math problems that contain QR Codes.  Then, she lets the kids use the iPads to check their work (evaluate and problem solve). 

I've decided that I am going to try this out this week.  I created my own printable with a 2nd grade concept that the kids have been working on since January, Two-Digit Addition with Regrouping (that's a mouthful).  I will let you know later in the week how this turns out.  Grab this freebie by clicking on the pic below.

  Head on over to Classroom Freebies for more free printables and ideas!

Strategy 2:  Math Slide App
I learned about this app at a recent DoDEA Grant Training for my district.  You can have up to 4 players and they have avrious games in adding, subtracting, place value, etc.  I grabbed the teacher to my left and there we were having a blast trying to win the math game.  Let.me.tell.you...it is so much harder than it looks.  My brain was on turtle mode for most of it.  A problem appears and you have to slide one of the answer choices from a group of numbers to the middle of the screen.  So COOL!  This is what it looks like.

Strategy 3:  Group Research Projects
I attempted this last week.  I had my students work in groups of 4 to research blue whales.  I only had 2 iPads so 2 groups were on the iPads, 2 groups were on the classroom computers, 1 group explored on the one iPad I have, and the last group I tossed my iPhone.  Yep, I sure did!  The group work went very well with the exception that my iPhone's screen was so small that only 1-2 kids could see the screen at a time.  Hmmm...I wonder of I can hook it to my projector for next time?  Anyone out there know the answer?  Let me know, please!

Anyway, the kids had to find 5 facts about blue whales and write them down (reading, writing, science) plus they made a small blue whale and took measurements of various body parts (math).  Integration Central in this 2nd grade classroom...WOAH!  But guess what....I have no pictures to show for it.  I do have student work that I will take pics of tomorrow and repost them here.

Fingers crossed I can pull off all of these strategies this week.  I'll let you know how it goes.  I'm off to make some beef stew from none other than The Pioneer Woman.  Her recipes are a-maz-ing!!!  Have a terrific week!

Last Week- Valentine's Day Fun

My week was filled with lots of love, laughter, and teaching, OF COURSE!  I am still recovering from the candy coma from the past few days. This was my week in pictures...

We had a HEART-TO-HEART CONVERSATION about adjectives.  

We created this anchor chart with conversation hearts for Valentine's Day.  

Click HERE for free download to create the anchor chart and adjective necklace (found below).

Then, each student got 4 conversation heart papers.

  They had to think of 4 adjectives to describe themselves. 

 I stressed the importance of using positive, upbeat words about themselves.

On Tuesday, the students made these adorable Love Monster bags created by THE TEACHER WIFE.  The students truly enjoyed making these.  The nicknames they came up with were hilarious.

Look what I woke up to on Valentine's Day!  My little Sydnee Sweetheart!  

Okay, so I didn't actually wake up to this since she is dressed, but this morning smile made my day!

My students went above and beyond to shower me with gifts. 

They also showered each other with goody bags.  

The monster bags in the picture above were falling from the whiteboard they were SOOOOO HEAVY!

Did you get lots of chocolate too? I think I need to invest my money in chocolate! Ha!

  

OI & OY Word Sort Freebie

This week we are studying oi and oy.  I created some pocket chart and word sort cards plus a printable for some word work.  I have a spelling/word work pocket chart that I keep on the board.  I introduce all of the word cards to the students.  I included simple to more difficult multi-syllabic words, this way I am targeting all students.  I love introducing the words because it gives me a chance to hear how students are decoding words.  No matter how many times we said "oi/oy" I still had a sweet student that would segment each sound as in /o//i/.  It gave me a quick sec to review the sound with him until he got it and on we went. YEA!!!

Once I introduce the words, I place them in the word chart and we practice sorting whole group.  Then, I mix them up and {VOILA!} an instant word work center for the week.  I wish I had a picture to show you, but I forgot to take one....so sorry.  Hopefully, I'll post it later this week if I get a chance.  Grab your oi/oy word sort freebie by clicking one of the pics below.

Go and check out more freebies at Classroom Freebies!

We also worked on our cute Valentine Love Monster bags that I picked up from The Teacher Wife's pack on sale through tonight at TPT.  I just {heart} her!  She has some amazingly, cute ideas.  I will share these tomorrow if I am not so worn out.  :)

Biography Boxes Completed!

On Friday, my students completed their biography box projects.  We created them during our Social Studies lessons.  I gathered some famous African-American biographies from the library.  I laid all of the books out and let students choose which African-American they would like to learn more about.  Of course, some students chose the same biographies so I simply grouped them together in groups of no more than 3.  Then, they were off to complete their research.  They not only used the books, but also Wikipedia for some technology integration.  Look how adorable they turned out!

Some of the famous people included- Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Oprah, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Lebron James, Alicia Keys, Thurgood Marshall, Jesse Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson, etc.


I have uploaded this project to TPT.  This project is versatile and can be used for President's Day or any other biography study, as well.  Click on the project preview below to purchase from TPT.

I'm off to grade and get ready for Monday.  :)