Kidblog.org

So, I've started up a kid blog for my class. SO COOL! Go to http://kidblog.org. My students love it. Yes, it has taken some time to set up but it is really neat and I have been posting questions for students to respond to. I am also having them do some of our whole group lessons in the iPads and blog. VERY COOL!

Morning Work for 2012-2013

I've been making morning work for 2012-2013. This is mainly for 2nd grade. See if you like it or not. I'm focusing on January morning work to the end of the year having more informational text in it and response to questions with complete sentences. I will upload all other months previous later. Math is not included as it is copied on by my team teacher.

I will be uploading February with all Black History Month work on it.

January Morning Work

Common Core....A Whole New Way?

Okay so we are implementing Common Core this year and changing up a lot of things at my school. Well we are "trying out" Common Core on 2nd grade. However, from what I am understanding, Common Core is going to bring about a different style of teaching. I'm thinking I have gone back to college :-).

Last year I did Daily 5 and Cafe. I'm thinking that won't happen exactly the same this year. Back to unit planning and incorporating different subject areas into reading and writing. Which I LOVE to do. I'm just a little nervous that everything I did last year I can't do this year. Anyone else having these thoughts or concerns? They aren't necessarily bad but they are just nerve racking!

I need your input!!!!!!!!!

So what are you doing to implement common core in your reading time? How are your lessons plans? How are they changing?

I made these common core standards for my classroom. I will print them out and add them to my objective wall when we are studying them. They are for second grade and cover reading and writing only.

Standards for Reading and Writing

I also made a common core correlation to reading and writing standards for second grade. I know that we won't necessarily be teaching the same way and they don't want some huge correlation to what we are doing now to what we will be doing in the future but I NEED SOME CORRELATION! LOL! This is just to help me out. It is definitely aligned to Okaloosa County Schools Curriculum Guide for 2nd grade but can be adapted for anyone in the state of Florida that teaches second grade.

Reading and Writing Correlation to Common Core

CRAFT

My headers for my CRAFT board instead of CAFE or FACE. I liked the idea of response to text! I will make individual parts for it later.

CRAFT Headers

My Classroom

So I came to school today. I was thinking "whoa!" Looks like a crazy mess. They just finished cleaning my floors. The nice thing was that I can now start arranging my room and put things up a little at a time. I know that it is summer but I mean really, I don't want to be the panicked crazy woman the week before school starts. Especially after the fact that I was hired 3 days before school last year and it was a race to get things done. Seriously, I didn't get things done until school was at the end. So this year I am going to be totally prepared. I am following this bird theme that I found on www.schoolgirlstyle.com . It is SO cute. I found a bunch of my color schemes at the dollar store so it must be meant to be!

The beginning.....

My VOICES menu for Language Arts. Here is a PDF that shows what will be under each heading. I changed it so that it doesn't have FL standards on it.

Just like in CAFE (which I am switching to CRAFT- Comprehension, Repsonse to Text, Accuracy, Fluency, and Text Structure) you teach a minilesson on each one. I will also use Awakening Brillance by Lisa Morris as a supplementary resource for teaching my minilessons. I liked how she did short minilessons with the Writer's Notebook on important writing skills. So I will begin using this format, along with her teaching method, and some of my own stuff and projects to start my writing off this year. Last year I really just flew by the seat of my pants. :-)

Also, I will post on the "A'tive Family". They are very interesting!

Common Core Math and Reading

So our school district isn't moving to common core for second grade just yet but we will be soon. K and 1 are on track and we will be implementing it before you know it. I figure I will get familiar with looking at these standards. Here are two documents I made that arrange common core standards for 2nd grade. One is birds and one is American flag themed. On it you will find the strands and organization. Also a place where you can write when you explicity introduced the standard.

America Themed Common Core Curriculum Guide

Bird Themed Common Core Standards Curriculum Guide

Morning Work

So I came across a blog maybe in my 3rd 9 weeks of teaching my first year. The blog had morning work for each week. I was thinking, dang why haven't I done this yet? My mom is a teacher and I remember being in her 4th grade class (yes it was nice but she was HARD) and we had a morning work everyday that basically reviewed facts that we were learning. It was hard at first and daunting but once we all got the hang of it, it was second nature. So I started putting together morning work. Some weeks are missing I think due to what was going on that week but I LOVE using the morning work sheet. I even got to put some sudoku in there for my 2nd graders and once they started learning it they LOVED it.

In the morning work I do two language arts DOL. I hate grammar. I really HATE grammar. I LOATHE grammar. So I put it in my morning work :-). Then I put some math questions that align with what they are learning in their book. I put a social studies and a science question. You will see a lot of "what is your address?" questions. Our kids had a hard time with learning it so I put it there like every other day! Then I put a journal question on the back. It may be a fact about something that happened that day in history or a question about their weekend. I'm sure it will change in the future, as everything that I do does, but it works for me now so I figured I'd share. I will tell you it was hard for my kids at first. But I saw a lot of conversation about their morning work and I was able to reinforce simple skills with my students.

Just a preview before you open it:

Morning Work Week 21
Morning Work Week 22
Morning Work Week 23
Morning Work Week 24
Morning Work Week 25
Morning Work Week 26

I will add more when I can! :-)