:) I Love Second Grade! (:

I have several sweeties who like to draw pictures for me when they should be working finish their work. Today I took a sick day to drive my dad to Emory for his annual aneurysm repair check. My mom hates the drive and is very nervous after an almost fatal car accident in October 2001. So...to keep her calm I brought cards my students had made for her, thanking her for crocheting tobbogans for them. She crocheted a tobbogan for each of my students (and my teamie's) this year as well as the two previous ones. I also had a few of these notes & drawings from my students for her to see and wanted to share them with you. I even sent a copy of the first one to my principal with this in the text:

This is the reason I do what I do...including staying late and spending evenings and weekends getting "stuff" ready! :D Please check out the attached photo and smile! I really needed this right about now, too! ;)

She replied that she loves second grade, too! ;)

Here's a smile for you today! I hope your children love whatever grade you teach. Isn't that why we do this anyway? :D

"Dear Mrs. stapler, do you mind if i help you tech (teach) when i grow up and i don't have school" Do ya think having a student teacher prompted this idea?

I think the top two pictures are the work of the same student. The third one is done by my "artist." Notice the angle of the top/skirt? Someone told me a loooonnnggg time ago that I have a "high butt" whatever that means...and I often have to pull my top down at the back because it gathers around my waist when I sit. How crazy is it that that comment was the first thing I thought of when I saw the skirt picture? :D

The cake is from my teamie's birthday back in December... :D We celebrated allllll month!!

†~Melly~†

Still on place value, adding money to the mix...

We are using the "Pick Up Sticks" place value game (jumbo tongue depressors with 1 dot on one side and 10 dots on the other) to practice counting tens and ones. I also added some with a star instead of a dot. The stars represent hundreds, so the children can practice place value through hundreds. 

 Another thing we've done is copy 100s (from the base ten pages in our workbook) on different colors for our children to cut apart and use to create pictures.

We have wipe-off white 100s charts that came with a previous Math series. Leah calls out a number like 5 tens and 3 ones and has her students cover the number with transparent counters. I got some transparent counters today so my students can practice the same.

I gave directions to "find 5 tens and 8 ones. Now find that number less one ten. Find 9 tens and 5 ones. Now find the number 40 less." Most of my students did well with this one...it's ready to be an independent station! Yipee!!