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! :-)

Dollar Store

So the dollar store is probably my favorite place ever. I was going online to look for storage bins and such to match my new theme. I am going to do a bird theme in my room with lime green, yellow, brown with white polka dots, and baby blue. Of course I found this idea on pinterest from School Girl Style. Also, my portable is so bland that I really need to jazz it up. But going on, I went into the Dollar Tree and found several organizers and baskets for books, pencils, and caddies for table supplies. Guess what color they were? You're right! Baby blue, lime green, and yellow. I mean seriously? And a DOLLAR! I bought so many. So just remember instead of buying seriously expensive items online or at walmart/target, check your dollar store my friends!

Dollar Store Find:

Yay! It matches my theme. I really wasn't planning on using group supplies but I would way rather do that now. I'm sick of hearing "I can't find my scissors!"

Writing- My Favorite!

So what did I find to be my favorite subject this year??? WRITING! Holy moley was it the best experience ever. I had several gifted writers and I did many fun lessons with them...check out some of their stuff!

Haiku at the beginning of the year. The students could not tell what holiday they were and had to stay with the 5, 7, 5 pattern. Then they did straw blow painting with three colors of their choice. It is a little draining to straw paint but I had a parent help.

This was the end of the year. They were SO into concrete poems! And I was LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Check this one out....second grade...CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??

I Am...Poems! Listen up, if you expect something from kids they totally rise to the occasion. Biggest lesson of the year for me!

Crafts

Stay posted...I am new at this! All year I have been accumulating SO much in terms of documents and such and really creating much myself. I will be adding several things and if there is anything you want let me know!

Mother's Day Gifts....I know kind of late Kristina! However these were so cute and I just had to share! We put hand prints around a mason jar and added rocks. Then we put floral tape around flowers and pens so that mom's had beautiful flower pens to use at home! Add some ribbon and you have a cute Mother's Day gift!

Blogging

Okay well I have been meaning to get onto blogging all year. I have been quite tired with teaching in my first year but I am so excited to start fresh in the 2012-2013 school year. I'm sure many of you feel the same way if you are a teac her. I hope to have some followers and post several things that I have done with my kiddos this past year. Look for updates, updates, updates!!!!!