Feel the Love

Danielle from Twirlybird Teaching.made my day! She gave me my very first blog award! I feel like giving all of my kids stickers tomorrow on everything, even if they didn't really earn them.

What it's all about...

The Liebster Award is awarded to blogs with less than 200 followers. The award is passed along from blogger to blogger and highlights up and coming blogs. Liebe is the word for love in Germany, which is where the award originated.

Guidelines to accepting the award:

Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog. Present the Liebster Blog Award to blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog.

I am pretty new to this, and Danielle didn't even have a button to grab from me. Maybe that problem is solved?? When I look at the established blogs, I get the impression that bloggers are growing up in classes, and I am part of a new class of bloggers. When I figure something out, I am so proud of myself. Every improvement I make increases the chance that what I've experienced in the classroom might be seen by someone who can use my knowledge to improve the lives of their students.
I am part of a growing community that isn't just content teaching our own classroom of learners. Thanks for letting me share with you and offering your knowledge.
I'm off to look for new bloggers to love!

And I'm finally back!

Trisha is a first grade teacher here in Maryland!



http://firstgradefrosting.blogspot.com/


Brittany K.

http://secondgradesweets.blogspot.com/

Grabbable Button

Can you see my button? Can you grab it? Right now all I see is the red x. I'm sad. Please make my day and let me know it is working.
We had to take my son back up for an MRI at Hopkins. The pediatric department work their butts off. They make cool, not lame, jokes, talk about the child's interests, have the reovery team look up the condition so they are knoweledgable, and offer a gazillion flavors of LipSmackers for the breathing masks. My son wasn't having any of it. He walked back on his own, but woudn't let us touch him. He was going to get the mask instead of an IV but decided that his Lip Smacker smelled disgusting. In the end my husband and I helped hold him down. The anesthesia doctor tracked us down at lunch and gave us his personal e-mail so that if we have more procedures they can give him pre-meds. No more kicking and screaming sounds WONDERFUL. Before we left he had a popsicle and a brand new full sized Monopoly game.
I should go to school and set up my room for tomorrow. I should go to school and set up for next week, since that is what I do on Thursdays. My back is so tight, and everything is fine and I knew it would be fine. Good thing I have planning period first on Fridays.

Grams and Kilograms

We are working with measurements, and today the kids tried to estimate a bag of potatoes. Well, they have apparently only held a big bag of potato chips because everyone said a pound. Oh boy. The other day I asked them if I had two containers and one was filled to the top, and I poured it into the second contatiner and had water left inside, which would be bigger. Oh boy. That took about 20 minutes. People, there were visuals.Think time. Partner time and whole group sharing. Then I demonstrated again. In other words my kids need H-E-L-P with measurement concepts. This freebie hopefully contains real items they have really held in their hands or have seen in real life.
Grams and Kilograms

Passing out the gift cards

So far I have four students that have completed their two chapter books and choosy readers form in a little over a week. The media teacher could really see the difference in what they were checking out. Today was a perfect day to bring in the gift cards because tonight we had a CFA night. Tomorrow is a Pizza Hut night to support fifth grade. My daughter is a fith grader, and we've been to EVERY other CFA night. I hope a few of the kids got to go for free tonight.
Today was Tuesday which means I had my special classroom helper. Last year he filled up a massive quantity of film canisters with small items that we used for non-standard weight measurement, and we used them again today. See what he does really does save us time over multiple years. I think I might post the worksheet and details tomorrow.  He also got to help with Mel D.'s Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprint craft. He sponge painted the white and blue for the hair, then they wiped with dry paper towels and then used the same hand for the red before washing up at the sink. We pinned them up to dry for about 30 min. then they came back to glue on eyes and cut out the belly circles. We're also doing readers theater in small group to work on fluency. I asked my high flyers to do Fox in Socks. HA! They sound like slow robots so they won't mess up. I'm sure it will get better by the end of the week. Green Eggs and Ham is great for the low guys, especially with the prepositions. "On" and "in" start many of the phrases, so they have to look. My middle group is doing Cat and Comes Bback with great expression. I might let them make up some headbands, we'll see.
I don't know about you, but I've loaded up my cart for the sale tomorrow for the Leap Day Sale at TpT. I cybershop as bad as I do in real life. I'm sure that right before I checkout, I'll talk myself out of a few things. But I found some really neat stuff. I'll find out tomorrow.

Leap Day Sale & Another Seuss Game

I just joined the Leap Day Sale at TpT. ALL of my products will be 20% from me, or 80% original price. Then with the promo code for another 10% off, it works out to 28% off-EVERYTHING. If there was something you wanted, it's a great day to get it at a really good price. Please pass the word.

I also just finished a Dr. Seuss themed trivia game for 2nd-3rd graders.  I have SO much to laminate and cut out tomorrow morning! This week is going to be so much fun! Have a great night.

Tammy

Eventually when I join something, I will look carefully and type carefully and not feel like an idiot when I see that I spell my name or store wrong:)

New Seuss Centers

I just posted a set of 2 Seuss Centers, one for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and the other is for open and closed syllables (our big spelling push for the next entire unit). Both go with The Bippolo Seed, but you don't have to have the book or read it to be able to use the centers. Vocab definitely for bigger kids so your principal can't fuss too much! Cute and hopefully very easy to cut out and assemble before small group time on Monday! After looking around, I think I have about 10 Seuss stations for my students during small group time, read alouds by reading level, Seuss crafts, and snacks. It's going to be a wild week!

Choosy Readers Choose Chapters

I have a lot of books, really great books, organized and leveled and ready to read. BUT my second graders were still mostly picking picture books. Don't get me wrong, I know picture books can have strong vocabularies, wonderful messages, help kids explore topics they might not ordinarily pick up, etc. BUT they were changing books ALL THE TIME. Chapter books make kids feel like big readers. Instead of saying "I'm on the page with the picture of" whatever, they can say "I'm on page 6 of chapter four". How cool is that?
To encourage their reading of chapter books, I decided to give them a bulletin board and a chance to show off their chapter books.When they are done reading two chapter books by the same author (just to prove they can read more than one chapter book) (and to become classroom experts on the author), they will complete the sheet with their picture for the board and in my classroom receive a $5 gift card to a place with some good chicken nuggets.
I haven't mentioned yet that I have a classroom angel twice a week. He is a retired member of my church that loves kids and has coached for years. I convinced him last year that I was going to need help with my little friends who were still working on the ABCs in second grade, and he came back again this year for more torture fun.  He is also very generous financially, supplying goldfish in megaboxes for snacks, $$$ for books through Scholastic, and kick-ins for holiday parties. We've already purchased over 20 books per student to take home on their levels and interests. It was time to do something that would really get them reading those books. So... Choosy Readers Choose Chapters. With gift cards as extra incentive.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?xcn9klqiawaji4q