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!

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

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

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!

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!

SRA Imagine It Resources

Hello again...

I'm feeling so accomplished right now as I watch the season finale of Pretty Little Liars (AKA, total guilty pleasure).

In my school, we use a program called SRA Imagine It! and this year I've decided to make some resources to go along with it.

First, word wall cards!

This is just a sample of the Unit 2 vocabulary word cards that are available at Teacher's Notebook and TeachersPayTeachers. I also have the Unit 1 cards up as well.
Also, I am creating study guides similar to my Comprehension Tri-folds for each of the weekly stories. So far, all I have done is Unit 1, but I will be making Units 2-6 as well. You can find the Study Guides on TeachersPayTeachers here. I unfortunately am still trying to figure out why TeachersPayTeachers won't let me get pictures of the products up anymore. (Anyone having this problem as well?)

The stories in the Unit 1 Study Guides file are Because of You, For the Love of Our Earth, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Mouse and the Lion, and Corduroy. If you would like any of those study guides alone, please contact me and I'll make it possible to do so ASAP.

Till next time :-)

Brain Breaks

Here's my version of the Brain Breaks that are so popular right now. You can purchase these on TeachersPayTeachers or Teacher's Notebook. They come with descriptions of each activity. I plan on laminating them and using a binder ring to keep them all together and that way we can choose from them at a moment's notice after a lesson or before a test, etc. I hope they are useful for you all.

Here's just a few of the brain breaks I found and altered to use in my classroom, along with my title.



Here are some of the instructions/ directions for the Brain Breaks. Every single break is included.

Sharing Sunday

Hey all,

Hope everyone is staying safe from TS Issac... I've been busy uploading files to TPT and TN since there's no school for me tomorrow.

Also, I wanted to share some of the things I have been doing in my classroom. Check it out:

The "Facebook Wall" is in full effect. I took a class picture and made an 8x10 for the profile pic. It worked perfect!

We have been changing our "status" about once a week. Right now, it's about addition. I've used it as an exit ticket. Each child had to write and solve a math fact. Hello, differentiated instruction!

Each child has writen their favorite books and added it to the "What are We Reading" Wall

We are Bubbly About Math Facts!
An idea I found on Pinterest. Each child decorated a gum ball machine and when they pass a math facts quiz, they get a "gum sticker," which is just a circle color-coding label with the number on it. I will be doing this for a long time, so easy to track and maintain.

The wall is great, very easy to change and no staples to remove. We did trees for the branches of goverment last week.

I hate throwing away crayons, so the kids have been trained that if we find crayons on the floor, they get sorted so we can still use them in the future. Love it!

Alright, that's all for right now. More to come soon...

Hint, Hint, SRA!