It's been A LONG TIME!

Moving to a new grade has kicked my tail!  Between the new grade and all of my son's baseball practices I have really left my blog hanging.....  tumbleweeds are rolling across it!

BUT NO MORE!

So I have lots and lots to tell you about.

We are really reading a ton of non-fiction texts in my class this year.  Each morning when the kids come into the room, they are greeted by a special book on their desk picked by ME!  I found a bunch of old leveled readers in a storage room and organized them into sets so I have a huge collection of fiction sets, but not many non-fiction.  So to make sure that everyone gets a chance some of the non-fiction that I only have a few copies of, I have been making our early bird into some quick math review and and then read your special book.  The kids love it!  Plus our AR points are going up!

One of the few non-fiction book sets that I have is on bats.  We worked on this story for three days and they really enjoyed it.  We have been focusing on picking important details out of the text and taking notes, so that we can write good informational paragraphs.  So instead of taking notes on paper we took them on BATS!

I just made tracers out of manila paper and BATS we have!  The kids loved making them and even though our spelling isn't the best (we are working on that one) they look cute on the wall!

We took our bats and shared facts so that we could write paragraphs.  Here is a picture of the display we made for open house.

I wanted the book to also be on display to help my parents see the type of books that they need to be reading with their child.  I just used clear tape and a page protector.  I know it isn't pretty but several parents commented on seeing the book, so it worked!

Here is one of the kid's finished writing.  We have been using a combination of Pow Tide and the Stoplight to learn to write good paragraphs.  After some thought, I have decided to stick to the following formula for every paragraph we write:

Topic sentence, 5-6 detail sentences, and a closing sentence.
I know kind of hard for second grade, but they are doing it!  AND SMILING!

We are doing great on the detail sentences, but are struggling with the topic and closing sentence.  Go figure!  I know they will get it, it is just going to take some time.  I can already see a HUGE improvement already.

We also have completed our first BOOK REPORT!  I was really pleased with how GREAT they came out.  We have been talking about making things VISUALLY APPEALING and they nailed it!  I hated to take them down today, but we needed to get a new project up.  Here are some of the kids projects. You can click on the picture to go to the packet on TPT.  Everything is in it for the kids to make a book report poster at home, all you need to do is making copies.  It even has the a parent direction page already made up!  I am all about working smarter this year!

I wanted to make something cute for their desks for open house that was sort of Halloween, so the day before we made these 3D pumpkin life cycles.  This project is part of a larger science unit and you click the picture to go to the unit.  The kids really enjoyed coloring all of the pumpkin pieces and it gave me 30 minutes of quiet to tidy up the classroom library before the parents came to open house!

Well I have lots more, but it will have to wait until the weekend!

I hope everyone is making each day count with your kiddos!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

We will get this subject and predicate thing mastered!

We have been working and working on subjects and predicates for two weeks!  I had run out of ideas and worksheets, so I asked the kids what would help.

Of course....  A GAME!  It is mostly my boys that are having troubles.  So I created a game for us to play....  Ninja Subject or Ninja Predicate.  We made up some "Ninja Moves" as we practiced and when we finally got to the SCOOT game, it was a HIT!

If you haven't played SCOOT in your class yet, you are missing lots of fun!

Now that they are Ninja Masters, they earned a new bookmark!  They loved them!

Happy Teaching!

Tracy

Intervention.... gave it shot!

Well tonight I am still thinking about my day with the kiddos....

Intervention......

Teachers have been doing intervention forever, but until recently no one mandated the time and the skills that we taught to those small groups of kids.  I spent the weekend trying to decide what to do until we give the IStation test and then have specific things we have to cover during our intervention.

After a lot of thought....  we just need to read.  So that is what I have been doing for the first two days of intervention.  We are just reading, reading, and reading the same text over and over.  After just two days I can certainly see a difference in their fluency, so mission accomplished. I'm making progress! Yesterday I tried to have the rest of the class work on map activity while I did Intervention, but that turned out to be a disaster!  Today I went back to what I know....  simple math centers.  I gave the kids a partner and they played addition bump and guess what everything went fine!  No one needed me to help them or settle a problem, so I'm leaning towards letting the middle kids work on math centers during Intervention.

I'm very excited to be participating in the TPT BOOST sale tomorrow.  It is only a one day sale and you need to use the code BOOST to get up to 28% off your purchases!  Click on the picture to hop on over to TPT.  I know I have filled my cart with a bunch of center games and ELA stuff for my kids!  Can't wait to buy them on SALE tomorrow!

HAPPY TEACHING!
Tracy

A New Year and a New Room Ready to Go!

Hi Everyone!  Well I am officially back in school.  I can't believe that the summer went so fast!  I have to say the best part of the summer was my vacation to Las Vegas.  We saw lots of shows, ate too much food, and stayed in fantastic hotels.  Of course part of the fun was attending the TPT Conference and then spending eight days with my husband and son.  Here is a picture of my boys....

The beautiful Venetian Hotel....  highly recommend this one!  Well worth the money!  

We finally got to do the one MUST DO on my list....  a gondola ride!  It was so fun.  This is my son Jackson....  only this kid at 12 years old could have a blast in Vegas!

So it might have taken me four days of moving and arranging things over and over, but finally my room came together.  Here are some pictures of my room so far.  It is truly going to be a work in progress this year, but I got enough done that I could welcome my new little ones.

One of my first projects was to make a safari print clock....  couldn't buy one so I turned my old one into one.  I took a regular clock and covered the outside with printed cheetah duct tape and BAM I had a fantastic clock.  One of my grade level partners loved it so much she brought me her clock and owl duct tape....  it looked adorable!  I highly recommend picking up duct tape when it is on sale...  it dresses up everything!

This is a finished project....  FINALLY!  I hate trying to find things fast, so I bought a bunch of tubs and everything from extra pencils, to math centers are organized into bins with labels on them.  I LOVE it and I can't believe how many parents commented how nice it was to see such organization.  If they could only see my closet at home....  HA HA!

This is a picture of my teacher book center.  All of the tradebooks are organized in the green bins by subject and the chapter books are divided by series.  My kids know that these are my special books and they have to ask to read them.

This is one of my book shelves in my student reading area.  It isn't finished yet, but I had to show you the repurposed old shelves.  I couldn't stand all of the old discolored shelves.  I was going to use duct tape, but I knew that would take forever, so I found safari print contact paper.  This was a two person job, but in the end they look fantastic!  I've covered almost all of the shelves.  It really has made the room into the safari theme that I was going for.  The only thing left is to create the giant forest of trees in the reading center.  I'm saving that for the next teacher workday!

This is my conduct chart area.  I was going to make my rules and chart, but I decided to look and see what was already on TPT....  Hotdog!  Not only already made for my theme, but they were FREEBIES!

This is my attempt at solving the NO NAME issue.  I've struggled with this for years.  This year I filled the bucket with highlighters.  After they finish a paper they come to this station and use a highlighter to highlight their name before they turn their work in.  So far so good....  only two no name papers so far!

Well that is the progress I've made so far on my room.

I hope everyone has a wonderful start to the new school year!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy