End of the Year Gift

 I know it's been far too long and its probably going to be a little longer before I post again but I had to share my End of the Year gifts for my students.

Normally I go for Goldfish and a magnet that says: You're O-fish-ally a 2nd grader! Of course I would update it to 3rd grade since I taught 2nd instead of 1st this year. However I had a child not pass and I wanted something new for my new grade ;-)

So this year I saw an End of the Year poem floating around Pinterest. I loved it and if I knew who wrote it, I'd be singing there praise right now!

I'm glad I was your teacher, I've come to love you so.

I can't believe the end is here, I hate to see it go.

Remember all the fun we had, in all the things we did, but most of all remember...

You're a VERY special kid!

I shortened the original poem so that it fit on a shipping label sticker and put them inside of books I got a class set of last year from scholastic that I never did anything with yet.

So each of my kiddos will have 'Werewolves Don't Go to Summer Camp" to read and a cute reminder that they were truly lovely and now will be missed by their 2nd grade teacher :-)

You can find the labels on both TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook. They can be cut on card stock or printed onto Avery labels!

Super Sales the Weekend

On both TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook, I will be having a 20% sale this weekend from Friday to Monday! They will be having extra percentages off on Sunday as well.

Please enjoy the discount and buy whatever you would like. I'm trying to put up a bunch of stuff before them, but it'll be a busy week, so we'll see ;-)

Kids say the darnest things...

Hello all!

I'm really trying to keep this blog updated, I promise :-)

Anyways, I wanted to share the contest my school did this month... Seems like FCAT (our state assessment) is so far away and although it doesn't really effect me or my kiddos with the exception that our schedule gets altered, our administration decided to have "data board contest."

The name is a little misleading... It had to involve showing the students how to prepare for testing and get ready.

I completely admit... I was stumped. I was sure I'd come up with something but I had no idea what that something would be... Maybe animal related, or a game board with funny spaces?

But, I have been doing a Just Dance Club this year after schools and have gotten my students quite Hooke on the game! So I saw a Test Tips board done with an Xbox controller, and I am a Wii girl at heart so I decided to change it up to be more me :-)

Here's my board:

I was quite surprised that I pulled it off so close to the deadline :-) But, happily we won and my kiddos were so excited we got an ice cream party from administration to celebrate!

Your Teacher's Definition...

How many of you are SO tired of telling your kiddos to stop talking only to hear "I'm not talking?" What about "sit on your bottom?"

Yup, me too! I hate it, I feel like I explain this until I'm blue in the face. So here's my solution, at least in theory. I made "Definition Posters" with my definition of both of those two things. I'm going to put them above my door in the classroom and hope for the best.

And because I'm flying high on my lovely quarter last time on TeachersPayTeachers, I'm offering them up here for free! That's right, just download them here and you're good to go with the PDF files.

I hope it works, this is kind of my first time even attempting this, but we'll see :-)

Enjoy!

Tablet for the Teacher

Did you know this contest was going on? Click!

26 Random Acts of Kindness

Just a few short days before I go back to school... so sad.

I miss my kiddos, but I don't miss working.

Anyways, I made this reading card set in honor of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary. Every card is about a random act of kindness. It's free on my TPT and TN. Please enjoy.

There is still good in the world!

Kristen

New Year's Sale

Attention, attention!

I'm throwing a 20% sale over at my TeachersPayTeachers until the 4th for New Year's.

Please enjoy!

Kristen

PS - Thank you to all of you that have purchased products from me, this quarter was my best yet and I'm so excited! It makes me want to make more and more products to help other teachers :-)

Catch-up, not Ketchup

I promised that I would show some of the fun things and "fun" things my class and I have been doing in the classroom this semester. Obviously, I can't post everything, but I'm gonna try to get a little of everything that I have at least thought about taking pics of...

I said that our Character Bottles got displayed in the library, well here they are! Our librarian is fabulous and I'm not just saying that because I had her son two years ago... She displayed these for two months and even found the books to go with some of these little creatures!

Shortly after our "Hurricane Day" we learned about Natural Disasters. Remember that lovely poster I posted a few entries back, well here it is on my bulletin board for Disaster Safety. The kiddos did any disaster they wanted.

Alright, if you don't know Vistaprint, you are missing out! I got this banner, and three others, made and customixed for free to use in my classroom. I also order busniess cards and other things too, more to come on that... I hang it up on my bulletin board for the first month and then move it to the wall outside my room for the remainder of the year. Last year I had Owls, and obviously this year I'm loving dots!

We also made rocks. This is one of my kiddos enjoying making sedimentary rocks with graham crackers and chocolate icing. We also made rocks out of starbursts and chocolate chips.

We did Pumpkin Investigations (the activity is available on my sites for purchase) in groups this year. They needed to get the circumference, the height, the weight, the amount of ribs, and... how many SEEDS! That's the fun and MESSY part. You should see all the pictures I have of my kiddos showing me their orange hands. My recommendation is to have two bowls of water for rinsing their hands and then wet wipes. Of course, I don't have a bathroom in my room, lol.

Now, I can't take credit for this at all, but I just have to post the pic of my kiddos in the Character Parade. We don't "do" Halloween in our school, but this is our excuse to have them dress up as characters from books for the morning... Changing back into the uniforms is a process; I suggest some busy worksheets for the others to do while you wait.

I found this wonderful activity from E is for Explore that had my kiddos sort and count Chex Mix. They even got an introduction to fractions and they loved it. They keep asking me when we can do more food math, lol.

We studied matter and created some awesome foldables that I recreated from a Pinterest post. They have three parts; one for solids, one for liquids, and one for gases. They had to list three facts about each and then glue cheerios in the boxes to show what the "molecules" of each look like. They got to eat the extras which they loved as all. These turned out FABULOUS!

One of the things I wanted to do this year was CANDY Elections. I made my own unit, but it's so unorganized, that I haven't put it on TPT or TN yet. My kiddos narrowed parties to Chewy or Chocolate and we went from all candies to 8, to 2, to 1. It was close and but we used a 270 map (link on my Pinterest under Tech: SS and Science) and had everyone, including some teachers and administration be different states. The winner: Kit Kat! Who can beat chocolate? We had this space to display the progress as it lasted a few weeks. Soon it will be the Flat Stanley board.

I don't know about you, but my kiddos hated Rounding, so I drew this posters and gave them each one to color and use for that particular unit.

For Christmas, we made Snowman Ornaments out of the large water jug tops. All my kids loved that we were recycling. All you need is a ton of water jug tops, hot glue, sharpies, and maybe a drill if you want to hang them from a hook... I drilled the holes to make it easier, but you could just glue ribbon too. I can't take comeplete create for this, because my friend who left elementary found the idea and saved me the caps. THANK YOU!



I glued three together, drilled a hole at the top and
marked their names and the year.



They decorated with colored sharpies.



I'd recommend gluing them all first to dry :-)




I had my kiddos sit at another table, 4 at a time since I didn't have too
many sharpies, to decorate.






Look, how cute!!!

Alright, that's all I got for now :-(

I will be updating more, it's my resolution, as well, as getting healthier, as always.

See you all real soon!

Kristen

Money practice!

Hello all,

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and are still enjoying your well-deserved break. I will be updating a few more times this break to catch up on some things I did with my kiddos first semester.

One of the things my kiddos have had a lot of practice with this year is money. With our curriculum, its something new for my 2nd graders, therefore I've hit it hard to alleviate the problems they could get stuck in.

We've done coins books to introduce the coins because they really had difficulty identifying the coins at first. They are one page foldable books for the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar coins.

I also used my idea for "Slap the Fact" to make "Slap the Value." There are two different presentations, one with coin combinations and one with bill combinations. They must identify the correct value and "slap" it first. My kiddos beg to play this!

I made Toy Store Ad posters that allows the students to design a toy and designate a price. They then have to show that amount two ways. I made this for coins and bills as well. Talk about differing the skill level.

We did Thanksgiving and Holiday shopping as well. They cannot spend over a certain amount, but can buy anything in the "ad." My kiddos loved this as well! Plus, I made a question worksheet so they have to read for information as well, so I'll probably make this for Summer Vacation and maybe Spring Break as well for a homework assignment. Won't my kiddos just love me? lol

               

Last, but not least, we proved we're masters of money skills by completing exit "comments" for our Facebook wall. Thy chose an amount and drew the coins or bills to show it... Again, that worked for any skill level within my class. Then we did Money review on the projector and individual white boards for Unit 4 within FL enVisions Math Curriculum! I make reviews for every unit to give my kiddos a healthy dose of review before the test. They are closely related to the enVisions curriculum, but I identifty the focus skill as well so anyone can use it.

I hope you get some ideas from this, and if you have any for me, let me know! There will be definitely more to come throughout the break :-)

You can buy any of these at my Teacher's Notebook or TeachersPayTeachers!
Kristen

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from me and my pups!!!

Soda Bottle Characters

Hello everybody,
In September, my kiddos had a project to not just do any book report, but a 2-liter bottle character book report.

They had to choose a fiction book and then choose one of its characters to create using a 2-liter soda bottle. They also had to include a short paragraph describing their character.

They turned out FABULOUS!

We even got to display them in the library; talk about excited children...

If you're interested in doing this project, I have the instruction flyer along with a rubric available on TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook.

Check out some of their works of wonderful art!

Got the Lorax, a Mouse, Bella from Beauty and the Beast, Junie B. Jones The Wimpy Kid, Black Beauty, and Mumble from Happy Feet :-)

I have more book reports available on my sites as well!

Reading Routine

I don't know about anyone else but the only reading curriculums I've ever used have had a weekly story that the students are tested on and read throughout the week. While this is good way to teach comprehension importance... It gets dull, especially with the little ones.

So I've gotten into the routine of rereading the story each and everyday of the week but in different ways. We don't get to all of them in a week but my kids have always enjoyed choosing and doing the different ways of reading each week.

Here are the current options my kids have;

Teacher Reading: This is just me reading the story normally. I ask the students questions while I read and model how I read to myself. I always begin a new story with this style of reading so they can hear the words the correct way.

Buddy Readers: The students get paired up and read one page at a time to each other and then switch. While others finish, they talk about what they liked or didn't. Trust me, when it comes to telling them what you expect... Tell them EXACTLY what you want to see the first few times. I also choose their partners by choosing sticks the first time and make the "deal" that should they do it correctly this time, next time they can choose there own partners. Then it becomes a biweekly routine of I pick, you pick.

Computer Reading: I like to incorporate technology in my room as much as possible but its hard and this is an easy way to do just that. Our reading program comes with online software that reads the weekly story aloud but I've also started checking You Tube each week to see if they have a movie of the story as well. I have my kids follow along in their books during this. Especially during the You Tube clips, I go over any possible changes and compare/contrast.

Echo Reading: Beware, this can be a really long one! It's exactly what it sounds like; you say a line from the test and the kids repeat it, then repeat the first two steps until the end of the story. I usually point to myself or them depending on who should be speaking but other than that it's pretty self explanatory.

Scary Story Reading: This is my kids' favorite every year. I turn out all the lights, with the exception of one so I can see as a walk and I carry the book and a flashlight around while my class stays in their seats following along. I read the entire story in a "scary" voice and even get loud for the last word on a page to startle them. When I had a rug in my room I used to gather them there as well. My kids love this one so much we have a two week limit on it. Meaning: after two consecutive weeks of scary reading, we don't have it as an option for a week.

Round the World Reading: Basically this is 'round the room' reading... I walk around the room and if my hand is on their shoulder they are reading, if not they are silent.

Flashlight Reading: Very similar to Round the World and Scary Story; I turn off the lights and use a flashlight. If my light is on your book, you read... If not, you're silent.

Popcorn Reading: I use Popsicle sticks for this. I make it a challenge for my kids. We see how quickly we can move from person to person with a break. I choose sticks at random and call out who reads after each paragraph or sentence.

Feel free to alter these however you would like... We all have our own preferences and they sometimes change with our classes.

Until next time...

Weather, Weather Everywhere

Happy Saturday!

I hope you all out there are doing well and enjoying your classes of children. I would hope everyone is teaching by now considering our class just marked our 17th day in school. We would have been on 18, but we had a hurricane day off on Monday for Issac.

Over the next couple of weeks my class is going to be studying weather in science... so appropriate right?

So I've made a few files that I wanted to share with you all that are available on Teacher's Notebook starting today; The first is a ready-to-make severe weather poster.

It's black and white so that makes copies easy and it lets them summarize what they've learned about any of the severe weather storms. The kids must identify what the storm is, draw what it looks like being destructive, reasons it's dangerous, and tips for staying safe. How cute with this be on a bulletin board ;-)

The other file is severe weather posters.

Here's just 3 of the 8 posters. I have one for hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, earthquakes, and wildfires. They each have pictures and brief descriptions.

I made them specifically for my focus wall.

Till next time!