Sunday, October 14, 2012

Halloween Craft Ideas

How do you celebrate Halloween in your classroom?  We are one of the lucky schools where we are still allowed to celebrate this fun holiday with the kids!  We have a school wide parade around the neighborhood with the kids all dressed up in their costumes! I also have great parent volunteers that typically run a craft day in my classroom!  Of course, like many of you, I get most of my classroom craft ideas from Pinterest!  Here's a few cute ones I found:


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Classroom Set-Up

It's that time of year again! BACK TO SCHOOL! I've been in my classroom this week getting things ready to go for another fun and exciting school year! These photos aren't that great because I took them with my Ipad!

Classroom view from the door.  Our meeting area is over by the whiteboard, I just haven't gotten around to unraveling the rug.



Calendar Math! I add in the various components of Calendar Math as we go along. I don't want to overwhelm the kids right off the bat! In a few weeks I add in the time and place value parts, then later in the year I will add in more.

Who doesn't love a Dr. Seuss quote?!

Really cool gear clock from Kikkerland.  You can watch all of the gears in the clock move around.

Classroom library...still need to organize some of the books!

Mailboxes and writing area.  I decided to color code the mailboxes a few years ago by girls and boys.  We were always getting stuff from the office about camps, etc for girls and boys so I found this way easier.

Math resource area. 

Word Wall Board. This is where kids put their individualized spelling lists.  The area that has the chart paper is where I write the weekly word study principle.  For a more detailed description of how I teach spelling please see earlier word study post.

Today's Number!

Today's Number I am trying to think of ways to have the kids do more meaningful morning work. I think I am going to make little booklets of these to use as morning work when the kids arrive and then I will incorporate the number of the day into my morning message / calendar math. This way the kids can try it on their own first and then as a class we can go over the answers during morning meeting.



Freebie Fridays

Sunday, August 12, 2012

One Lovely Blog Award

While enjoying summer vacation, I came back to see that I was nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award from two different people! :o) A huge thank you goes out to Ashley at Inspire, Dream, & Create and Laura at Oh, How Pintearesting!.

For this award, here are the rules:  
1. Follow the person who gave me the award. 

2. Link back to the person that gave me the award.

3. Pass to 15 new bloggers and then let them know they have received the award. 
Here are the awesome blogs I'm passing this award on to:
  Finding 15 blogs that don't already have this award are a bit tough...but here is what I have so far!



Friday, July 27, 2012

Newbie Blog Hop!



Janis at Grade Three is the Place for Me! is hosting a Newbie Blog Hop! Since I still consider myself as a newbie... I have joined!! I would love new followers! Here are the questions and my answers:

 1. What state you are in-
New Hampshire

2. Your current teaching position
Second Grade

3. Your teaching experience
This will be my 6th year!

4. When you started blogging
I started blogging a last September, so less than a year but I still feel like such a newbie!

5. Share a blogging tip / blogging resource
Make sure you reply to comments / questions people leave on your blog!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

What Teachers Make

Back To School Read Alouds!


With the new school year less than a month away I have started to think about some of my favorite back to school read alouds.  What are some of your favorites?

This is a great book to teach kids how to deal with peers and maybe even turn an "enemy" into a great friend!

 
I usually read this book when we are practicing recess behavior and going over school rules.  The kids can always relate to this story!

My first author study of the year is always Kevin Henkes.  His books are great and the kids can relate to the situations his characters go through in his books.

      


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Author Visit!


Author visit!!!! The talented Chris Van Dusen, visited our school this week!  He was great with the kids! So engaging, creative and inspiring!  He related to the kids and even took the time to autograph every book for the kids!  Many of you may know him as the illustrator for the Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo or perhaps his own Mr. Magee series.  He has also written and illustrated many other great books: If I Built A Car, The Circus Ship, Randy Riley's Really Big Hit and King Hugo's Huge Ego. To find out how to have Chris Van Dusen visit your school or just to learn more about him, visit his website: http://www.chrisvandusen.com/ 



Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Computer Lab

 
Sometimes it's the little things that count! I came back to the classroom to find this note laying on my desk.  One of my students used their free choice computer lab time to type me a note, using the information I had taught them about Microsoft Word.  She was so proud that she remembered how to insert an image into the note!
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Kamishibai Stories (Paper Theater)

 

Kamishibai (Paper Theater) is a form of storytelling that originated in Japan and was most popular from the 1920's -1950.  The Kamishibai storyteller would ride into town on their bicycle, gather the children by banging two sticks together (as seen in the first image), sell homemade candy to make a bit of money, then tell a story using the Kamishibai theater attached to their bicycle.  These stories typically had a lesson to teach / moral. After learning about awesome form of writing / storytelling, we wrote these Kamishibai stories with our fourth grade writing buddies and illustrated all of the pictures to accompany the story.  This activity is always a favorite of my students and one they remember for many years. To learn more about Kamishibai visit http://www.kamishibai.com/
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Read Across America!


For Read Across America Week, every student in our school will be creating posters of their favorite books! We will be hanging these around the school during the month of March to encourage literacy and the enjoyment of reading! These are a sampling of my students' posters!
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Word Study Watercolors!




I was feeling like word study was getting a bit repetitive so last week I thought I would change it up a bit! The kids really enjoyed painting their spelling words! It also turned out to be a good spacial awareness lesson, trying to fit all of the painted words on the piece of paper!
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Wonder Tubes


I found these I SPY Wonder Tubes at a local store a few weeks ago. My students really enjoy I SPY books so I thought these would be a fun addition to the classroom. Each tube is wrapped with a riddle of different items to find, similar to the books but in this case, the items are floating in the wonder tubes! I put these out at one of my centers and the kids loved them!
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